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tinguish facts from fictions, and how far is the conjecture valid.* Let me take 
an example which will show that historical conjecture is valid within certain 
limits. Whoever has read the first epistle of Clement knows that it 
contains an obscure passage referring to the death of Peter and Paul, and 
ascribing it to envy. I candidly confess that I never could conceive what 
the writer referred to. But Eenan has gone over the ground, and I think 
he has dispelled the doubt as to what was meant : there was an enormous 
amount of Jewish influence at the court of Nero ; the empress was a 
Jewess, and many others at the court were Jews. He has shown the 
danger which the Christians were under of being accused of seeking to 
overturn the established worship ; but he points out that those charges 
would have fallen with equal weight upon the Jews. Why, then, did Nero 
persecute the Christians and not the Jews % Renan has solved that question 
by showing that the Jewish influence at the court caused the accusations to 
fall only on the Christians,, and that the Jews were actuated by feelings of 
envy. I think that is a very fair instance of what may be called legitimate 
historical reconstruction. There are many other cases to be found in 
Renan’s book, but I cannot deny that that principle of historical recon- 
struction is also employed to establish several points which are of the 
greatest danger to us. All this is done by Renan with the greatest degree 
of plausibility, and I should have been glad had Mr. Forsyth done some- 
thing to aid us in judging as to when we may rely upon these historical con- 
jectures, and under what circumstances we must reject them. — It is astonishing 
to find what a large amount of history is sometimes reconstructed from a very 
small quantity of isolated facts. — On one point, howeyer, it is satisfactory to 
find that Renan has set himself in opposition to the German critics, by 
denying that it is possible to write history on a priori principles. This is a 
most important point, because, as you are aware, all the great German 
critics construct history upon a priori principles, and it is a very satis- 
factory thing to see that Renan emphatically denounces this method. He 
admits that eight of the epistles of St. Paul were written by him ; two more 
he is in doubt about, but the others are authentic, and were certainly 
written before the year 70. This is a great concession from such a writer as 
Renan, who, while he fully admits that it is impossible to reconstruct 
history on a priori principles, and that the Germans who have attempted 
it have only reproduced the subjective creations of their own minds, 
I regret has not carried that principle out throughout his own work. It 
is of great importance to get some light on this point, namely, as to 
how far in the dark periods of history one may be entitled to go upon 
historical conjecture, and how far historical conjecture is valid. Many 
modern historians have dealt largely with that principle in applying it to 
secular history ; but in writing ecclesiastical history it is enormously 
prevalent, and we are much in the dark as to what was the real nature of 
* In the Annual Address for 1874, Dr. Thornton has commented upon 
this mode of dealing with history. — E d. 
