PROBLEMS OF NEW TESTAMENT STUDY 587 



ment student is now or ever will be chiefly interested in them. To 

 him they are incomparably more important as the sources for history 

 a history of events and ideas. In this history literature indeed 

 has a place, but only as the record and reflection of a tremendously 

 important religious movement, namely, the rise of Christianity; 

 and the rise of Christianity was not a literary event, and can never 

 be adequately viewed from the point of view of a history of liter- 

 ature. 



It is quite another question, however, whether New Testament 

 study is to be merged in early church history. The rise of Christ- 

 ianity certainly belongs to the history of Christianity, and it is a 

 question fairly open to debate whether it is scientific to recognize 

 a New Testament department, the limits of which are defined in 

 advance by the limits of the canon adopted by the church, and 

 whether this field of study should not rather be turned over to the 

 church historian, who in dealing with the early period will, as in every 

 other period, use whatever sources are at his command. Nor when it 

 is once granted that the New Testament student is properly an his- 

 torian, dealing with the history of literature, events, and ideas, can 

 it well be denied that they are right, in principle at least, who maintain 

 that the New Testament department must be transformed into the 

 history of the rise of Christianity? The student of the life of Jesus 

 or of the life of Paul can never be debarred from using any trust- 

 worthy source for these chapters of history because the church of 

 the second or of the fourth century failed to include it in the sacred 

 collection. In fact, this principle is already practically conceded. 

 The transformation of the New Testament department from an 

 interpretative and semi-systematic discipline into a distinctly his- 

 torical study is already well advanced, and lacks little but a change 

 of name to complete it. Granted the correctness of Oscar Holtz- 

 mann's critical judgment respecting the historical character of the 

 Gospel according to the Hebrews and the Gospel according to John, 

 who would deny that he is right in his attitude toward these books 

 as sources of the life of Jesus? Yet, on the other hand, it still remains 

 true and, so far as there is now any basis for forecast, is likely to 

 remain true that the books included in the canon furnish the 

 incomparably most important of all the direct sources for the history 

 of the rise of Christianity. So predominant, indeed, are the books of 

 the canon among these sources that little would be gained from 

 any point of view by a change of name. The principle that whatever 

 other literature furnishes contributory information, either respect- 

 ing the general historical situation or more directly concerning the 

 origin of Christianity itself, is and must be used by the New Testa- 

 ment student, is so generally conceded, alike by those who would 

 change the name of the discipline and by those who would oppose 



