554 OLD TESTAMENT 



from the standpoint of the history of religion. The name might, 

 however, be better chosen; it is not a matter of the history of religion, 

 but of the comparative study of religion; and this study tends to 

 and aims at a physiology of religion, or, to use the right word, at 

 a biology of religion. 



We have learned to consider everything called religion as forming 

 a distinct department, and an exceptionally large one, of pulsating 

 life within the realm of human existence. All its phenomena enter 

 into the closest mutual relations; none of its almost innumerable 

 manifestations can be separated and isolated from the others. It is 

 a frequent experience that most unexpectedly there appear mysterious 

 relations between apparently the lowest and the very highest forms, 

 which warn us neither to despise nor to neglect even the most insigni- 

 ficant among them. By this Christianity can only win, not lose. In- 

 deed the more we extend the range of observation and the deeper we 

 penetrate into details, the more evident will it become that the reality 

 of religion is incontestable and its vitality indestructible. The more 

 numerous the inner relations running through the whole body, the 

 more certainly will everything be traced back to the one central point, 

 to the living God, who has fanned this spark; and we Christians, 

 notwithstanding all our conscious weaknesses, joyfully accept the 

 test of spirit and power for the fact that Christianity is, among all 

 individual religious organisms, the highest and the most perfect, the 

 aim and the end of the whole process. 



Looked at from this point of view, the Old Testament comes quite 

 of itself to new honor. For however all religions are correlated, 

 and all their phenomena organically connected, Jesus Christ, the 

 founder and essence of our religion, was certainly a Jew of the Jews. 

 However unique and creative the power and efficacy of religious 

 genius manifested in him, the preliminary conditions for this appear- 

 ance are nevertheless furnished by the Old Testament. Just as 

 the genius has his father and mother as well as the most ordinary 

 earthling, so Jesus always and 'unhesitatingly recognized this his 

 relation to the Old Testament; in fact, he made for himself no greater 

 claim than that he was come for its fulfillment. To destroy this 

 relation would be not merely ruthless, it would also be simply impos- 

 sible. Therefore the more the Christian and the theologian cares for 

 an organic conception of his religion, the more has the Old Testament 

 to say to him. 



The relation of the Old Testament to the New is, however, not 

 such a one if supposable as that borne by insignificant parents 

 to their highly gifted son. The Old Testament, on the contrary, is 

 unusually rich in phenomena important for the history of religions. 

 The more clearly research separates the characteristic and important 

 stages of the phenomena of religion from the confusing mass of single 



