170 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



52. 

 F. C. Baur. 



results to support or refute which would take a long 

 period of research and much sifting of material which 

 had hardly yet been brought together, the correct thing 

 seemed to be to postpone the verdict on the many 

 cardinal questions which he had raised and to pursue 

 patiently the work of historical criticism ; subjecting the 

 books of the New Testament to the same methodical 

 examination as had been practised for some time al- 

 ready with reference to the books of the Old Testament, 

 and still more in the philological treatment of the 

 profane classics. For a considerable time this work was 

 carried on in the "Tubingen School," at the head of 

 which stood Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792-1860), 

 who, after the death of Schleiermacher in 1834, may be 

 regarded as the most prominent leader in German 

 theological science. His publications had already begun 

 ten years before Strauss's work appeared. In the same 

 year with the latter, Baur published a work on Christian 

 Philosophy of Eeligion. 1 This work may be considered, 

 as much as that of Strauss, to be an outcome of Hegel 

 and Schleiermacher's combined speculations. Like 

 Strauss in his ' Life of Jesus,' Baur, in this work, 

 professes to continue and to carry out, more consistently, 

 views which had been prepared by his predecessors, 2 



1 ' Die Christliche Gnosis oder 

 die Christliche Religions - Philo- 

 sophic in ihrer Geschichtlichen 

 Entwickelung," Tubingen, 1835. 



2 Among these he mentions three: 

 Rene Massuet, a Benedictine Monk 

 (1668-1716), the editor of the Works 

 of St Irenaeus and St Bernard ; J. 

 L. von Mosheim (1694-1755), one of 

 the celebrated early professors of 

 the University of Gottingen, author, 



among other writings, of a ' History 

 of Heresy' (2 vols., 1746-48), and 

 J. A. W. Neander (1789-1850), the 

 well-known historian of the Christ- 

 ian Religion and Church. It is 

 especially in connection with the 

 early sects of the Gnostics and their 

 position to the orthodox doctrine of 

 the Church, that Baur develops 

 his wider conception, that a com- 

 prehension of the Gnostic view can 



