Founding the Fathers. Elizabeth A. Clark
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into ideas, its God-man into a vague moral hero.” The contest against Infidelity in Biblical studies looms large, as does the contest against Romanism.148
In print venues as well, Smith endorsed conservative principles of biblical criticism. In 1874, reviewing Strauss’s The Old Faith and the New, Smith downplayed the importance of the author’s earlier Leben Jesu (in any case, superseded by Tübingen School criticism). Strauss in this new book, composed in his old age, mocks American democratic institutions with his promonarchy and anti-republican views.149 Yet Strauss’s book presents readers with a stark choice, an either/or: they must choose between Atheism and Christianity, or, what here seems the same to Smith, between Darwin and God.150 Strauss’s “unhistoric” account, Smith claimed, is refuted by Christianity’s foundation on historic facts. In the last analysis, Strauss’s theory combines the theses of Feuerbach (religion is derived from human wishes) and Schleiermacher (religion amounts to a mere “feeling of dependence on the Universe”). Strauss’s views only further encourage the materialistic greed of American culture. If they prevail, nothing will remain sacred: institutions of church and state will be, if not destroyed, at least reshaped; and among the masses will emerge “a fierce struggle for wealth and power and pleasure, with the survival of the strongest.” Yet because religion is an essential element of human nature, it cannot ultimately be obliterated.151
Smith sharply critiqued Tübingen scholars’ claim that the church precedes the Bible and that New Testament books represent conflicting “tendencies” in Christianity’s development. Such Pantheistically inspired critics deny that “the higher” can stand first, not merely evolve through a process of development. Although Smith conceded that the Tübingen School had stimulated closer study of primitive Christian history, its influence, he assured readers, is declining.152
Moreover, Tübingen scholars’ ascription of pseudonymous authorship and late dating to various New Testament books, and their emphasis on partisan strife (“Tendenz”) within early Christianity, were disturbing to the evangelical Smith. Ministers who endorse the views of Hegel and the “infidel” Baur, Smith claimed, should be relieved of their pulpits.153 Smith’s earlier plea for a spirit of charity toward German scholarship appears to have vanished.
Infidelity also had marked French spiritual life, with Renan the villain. In his “Theological Intelligence” column, Smith noted whenever Renan’s Life of Jesus received “a good criticism”154 and emphasized Renan’s antidemocratic, elitist theories.155 He reported (with seeming pleasure) that although Renan had been nominated for a professorship at the Colle`ge de France, his lectures were suspended when he allegedly expressed skepticism regarding Jesus’ divinity.156 In the classroom as well, Smith faulted Baur, Strauss, and Renan: the first two evince Pantheism, and Renan’s system, “as far as he has any,” is similarly derived from Hegel.157
In January 1864, Smith reviewed Renan’s Life of Jesus, the seventh French edition of which had been translated in 1863. Renan, Smith charged, makes Jesus into a Romantic hero. Placing Renan’s book among the Apocryphal Gospels—as Smith first suggested—rates it too highly: at least the authors of those Gospels believed in God! Indulging in a “poetic pantheism,” Renan treats the “records of our faith” as if naturalism does not differ from supernaturalism, as if nothing changed when God became incarnate in history. If Christ’s life can be understood “on the basis of naturalism, … then the battle of infidelity is substantially gained,” Smith alleged.158
Only “the low estate of Biblical criticism” in France, Smith charged, allowed Renan’s book to achieve such success there. A quarter-century behind, Renan exhibits no knowledge of German scholarship of the last thirty years.159 Catholic clergy denounce the work, but have not the means to counter it. Renan’s approach, Smith concluded, makes the central event in human history “a mockery and a delusion,” offering only a “theology of despair.”160
Smith on the New Testament and Earliest Christianity. In response to more radical European critics, Smith defended the authenticity and “genuineness” of the New Testament books—“genuine,” if written by those whose names they bear.161 As Christ’s “companions,” the Apostles had “ample opportunities to know the facts of his life.” The “common copies” we have of the New Testament, Smith insisted, contain “what was originally written.”162 He appears to register only two categories of assessment: the New Testament books are either “genuine” or “forgeries.”
Here, Smith’s view of the utility of patristic literature comes to the fore: the Church Fathers authenticate the “genuineness” of the New Testament books. Yet, even if we were to grant that the Fathers were inspired (which Smith did not), we would concede only that they offer “inspired testimony.” Appealing to the Fathers as “witnesses” who show which books were then received as carrying “divine warrant” differs from according them authority.163 The Fathers may be considered a “sign-post” showing the way to a city, but are not the city itself.164
What reliance, then, should Protestants place in the testimony of these uninspired Church Fathers? Smith’s answer: only so far as they give “credible witness” to which books Christ and the Apostles recognized, received, and issued as having divine authority.165 The best Fathers (for example, Tertullian and Irenaeus) always made Scripture the final appeal; Polycarp, too, calls it the rule of faith.166 The integrity of the New Testament sources is reinforced by the Fathers’ citation of the Scriptures as “genuine.”167 The writings of Barnabas and Clement [of Rome168], Smith claimed, “fellowlaborers with the Apostle Paul,” repeatedly refer to and quote from the Gospels as Scripture.169 Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria refer to the Four Gospels, Acts, thirteen Pauline Epistles (including the Pastorals), I Peter, I John, and Revelation as “genuine.” (Although Revelation’s “genuineness” was contested, the book was received by Papias and Justin.) Some early Christian writers expanded the New Testament canon: Clement of Alexandria and Origen, for example, cite the Epistle of Barnabas, I Clement, and the Shepherd of Hermas as Scripture—but these works were later deemed not “genuine” (Smith referred students to Eusebius, Church History 3.12).170 Tertullian’s writings, Smith posited, “probably contain more and longer quotations from the N[ew] Testament” than all the citations from Cicero in later classical sources. Smith told his audience,
In the third century we find numerous authors commenting upon the Scriptures; and still more in the fourth century, with catalogues of the number of Scripture books, translations made of them, harmonies, and commentaries published. So numerous were the citations, that from the Christian literature of that period, the whole, or nearly so of the N[ew] Testament could be recomposed from it.… Why then doubt the truth of God’s word?171
Moving to a later period, Smith cited Augustine’s statement that he would not have believed the Scriptures without the authority of the church. What did Augustine mean? Not that “the church gave authority to the Scriptures, but [rather] gave to Augustine his authority for receiving them.”172 This convoluted interpretation diminishes the role of the church’s authority in the matter and allows the Scriptures to stand on their own authority. For Smith, that the New Testament canon was largely agreed upon and its books abundantly cited by the Church Fathers guaranteed the truth of its contents.
Another source of verification for the Scriptures’ “genuineness” to which Smith alludes rests with pagan authors of the era: ancient historians (Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny) “confirm the fact of the genuineness of the Scriptures.” Even
the early enemies of Christianity, Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian, acknowledge the existence, and the genuineness of the Christian Scriptures; adverting to them in their writings, and quoting them for the purpose of controversy and ridicule. No person in his right mind has any doubt of Homer’s or Virgil’s works being theirs; by reason of the constant testimony of Greeks concerning the one, and of Latins concerning the other.173
Our confidence in the “genuineness” of works