RELATIONS OF OLD TESTAMENT SCIENCE 553 



turies and the millenniums. When the church came into existence, 

 it accepted the books of the synagogue as the one Holy Scripture, to 

 which it added only the person of Jesus Christ as the incarnate ful- 

 fillment and consummation of the Old Covenant. The proof that 

 he was the Saviour rested upon evidences which were believed to 

 stand upon every page of those books. When to the Old Testament 

 there was added in the Gospels and the Epistles a New Testament, 

 which put the person and the teaching of Jesus on an independent 

 basis, and when this biblical teaching was embodied in ecclesiastical 

 dogma, the Old Testament still retained its peculiar value. Inspired 

 of God, it remained for the church, now as before, God's Word, and, 

 as such, each of its words remained true. Nor was it valid for the 

 past alone, to which it had been given; for Christ had built on Old 

 Testament ground, and had let much remain, instead of making 

 substitutions. Moreover, if Christianity was, or included, an author- 

 itative conception of the universe, which, as the heir of the Greek 

 philosophy, it claimed to do, then it greatly needed the Old Testa- 

 ment for the completion of its system over long periods, especially 

 for its teaching on the creation and building of the world, on the 

 primeval state of man, and on the origin and nature of sin. Accord- 

 ingly, the Old Testament continued to remain in honor, in the church 

 of the Reformation not less than before, and down to modern times. 

 Now all this is changed. In the face of searching investigation of the 

 Scriptures, many messianic prophecies had to fall, and the rest re- 

 ceived a new, a merely relative, significance. The theory of inspira- 

 tion, of the absolute and literal divinity, of the language of Holy 

 Scripture has fallen to the ground before historical criticism, and can 

 never rise again. Metaphysics we have put aside, and the investiga- 

 tion of the universe and its development we resign without regret to 

 other sciences, to whose success we give our blessing. The gospel has 

 become for us completely independent, and the person of Jesus 

 Christ the essence of our religion. By all this the Christianity of the 

 nineteenth century grew in concentration and inner strength, and 

 accordingly in legitimate self-consciousness; but in the same degree 

 did the Old Testament retreat into the background and lose value 

 within the theological framework. It was but a natural consequence of 

 this that a party not to be overlooked maintained that the Old Testa- 

 ment was completely and entirely cast aside. Indeed, within the 

 theological faculties themselves doubts now and then arose as to 

 whether the Old Testament should be permitted to retain its position 

 of equality with other departments of the theological course. 



We need not fear that such views will prevail. On the eve of the 

 twentieth century there came a revolution for which we living Old 

 Testament men had for some decades been energetically preparing. 

 Even lay circles now hear that theology is being viewed and treated 



