religious earnestness to discharge them from intellectual activity, he learned German to read Niebuhr's History of Rome in 1825, and made friends with Bunsen two years later. The influence of these teachers was apparent in the Essay on the right Interpretation and Understanding of the Scriptures (1831), which he regarded even in the last year of his life as the most important thing he had ever written.1 It was founded on the conceptions which his historical studies had rendered familiar to him. Here was no product of a single life, like the Koran, whose parts all claimed equal authority, and were composed at one time. Each character, each act, in the Old Testament, must be considered in the light of its surrounding circumstances, and the moral development which the people of Israel had then attained. If Abraham denied his wife, or Moses slaughtered the Midianites, or Saul massacred the women and children of Amalek, their conduct must be judged under the conditions of their age. From the narratives of miracle he turned to the progress of spiritual truth; suppose the wonders of Exodus disproved, 'the divinity of the Mosaic Dispensation would then rest on its own intrinsic evidence, crowned as it is by Christianity.' A distinction, therefore, arose between the truth of Revelation and the inspiration of the historical record. Objections of a critical and historical kind might affect the inspiration of the narrative books, but their credibility did not depend upon their inspiration. The Bible must be

1 Life (8th ed.), vol. i. p. 231.

interpreted humanly, and questions of history, criticism, and science, must not be confounded with Christian faith. So he affirmed (1840) that the announcement (in Isaiah vii. 14) of the birth of a child who should be called Immanuel, had a manifest historical meaning as applied to the prophet's wife (Letter ccxxii). To another correspondent he wrote from Fox How in the same month (Letter cxix.) :

:

'I have long thought that the greater part of the book of Daniel is most certainly a very late work of the time of the Maccabees; and the pretended prophecy about the Kings of Greece and Persia, and of the North and South, is mere history, like the poetical prophecies in Virgil and elsewhere.'

The principles of historical criticism were thus fully enunciated. Was there any one ready to apply them? How far did the law of the Church permit them to be carried?

III.

The death of Arnold in 1842 was followed by the publication of Stanley's famous biography of his old master in 1844. The book had the significance, if not the intention, of a manifesto. Oxford was then convulsed by the Tractarian movement. Newman had resigned St. Mary's, because, as he said, he thought the Church of Rome the Catholic Church, though he had not yet been received into it, and was living in seclusion at Littlemore. The great controversy had absorbed all energies. Philosophy was ignored; historical study-save of the Fathers-was neglected. Scientific and literary pursuits had been

decried as frivolous and vain. Ecclesiastical politics alone secured attention. Baur had already carried the Pastoral Epistles into the second century; and Strauss had interpreted the Gospels as largely the product of myth. Dim echoes of their critical methods excited extraordinary alarm. The timid felt themselves in danger of being forced to Rome in one direction, or swept away by infidelity in the other. Vague apprehensions weighed on even strong and noble minds, and indisposed them for action, lest misunderstanding by others should endanger their cause.

The

The future, then, as always, lay with the young. Stanley (1815-81) had laid especial stress on the importance attached by Arnold to the critical study of theology. Arnold had even planned a sort of Rugby 'Paul'; and as early as 1836 was at work on the first epistle to the Thessalonians, preferring to bring them out first rather than the Pastoral Epistles. The grounds of this choice were twofold. historian's instinct pleaded, 'the chronological order of the Epistles is undoubtedly the natural one'; while the disputant's adroitness added, 'they will not be thought to have been chosen for purposes of controversy, and yet they may really be made to serve my purpose quite as well' (Letter cxliv.). The purpose of the master was cherished in the mind of the pupil, and suggested the subject of his sermons as Select Preacher to the University, in 1846-7, on the Apostolic age. By that time he had already found a fellow-worker in Benjamin Jowett (1817-93).

Driven by the rain one afternoon into the shelter of
a quarry (1846), the two friends amused themselves
with sketching the outline of a common plan. The
details of the scheme have not been preserved, but
it required first a close study of the Gospels. Jowett
shrank from no intellectual labour, and found a re-
freshing stimulus in the writings of the much dreaded
Baur, whose great work on Paul (1845) he described
as 'the ablest book I ever read on St. Paul's
Epistles; a remarkable combination of Philological
and Metaphysical power, without the intrusion of
Modern Philosophy.'
2 The manifold labours of the
two friends delayed the progress of their enterprise.
But it was at length completed: Stanley dealt with
the letters to the Corinthians, Jowett with those to
the Thessalonians, Galatians, and Romans and the
volumes appeared in March, 1855, on the same day.
Different destinies awaited the two books. Stanley's
came in due course to a second edition, but attracted
comparatively little notice. Jowett's soon aroused
keen dislike and hostility. The actual theologi-
cal standpoint was not very different. The trans-
lation might be fresher, the commentary more
independent; but still more striking was a subtle
difference in depth and method. In his supplemental
Essays Jowett did not disguise his opposition to
current theological ideas, and in his discussion of
the Atonement he stated the moral objections to the
extreme Evangelical conception with even passionate

1 Life and Letters of Jowett, vol. i., p. 100.
2 Life and Letters, vol. i., p. 142.

vehemence. 'There are idols of the temple,' he declared, 'as well as idols of the market-place. These idols consist in human reasonings and definitions which are erected into Articles of Faith. We are willing to adore in silence, but not the inventions. of man. The controversialist naturally thinks that in assailing the doctrine of satisfaction as inconsistent with truth and morality we are fighting not with himself but with God.' Before the leaven of the new book had had time to work, Jowett (who had been repulsed at the election for the Mastership of Balliol the year before) was appointed by Lord Palmerston in June to the Regius Professorship of Greek. In the autumn the new Professor was denounced to the Vice-Chancellor of the University as having denied the Catholic Faith. Jowett was accordingly summoned to appear before him and subscribe the Articles anew. On December 15th he wrote to Stanley the pathetic words, 'You will perhaps have seen in the newspapers that I have taken the meaner part and signed.'1

A few years later a fresh plan was communicated to Stanley. It arose with the Rev. H. B. Wilson, Bampton lecturer in 1851, and vicar of Great Staughton, Huntingdonshire. In a letter from Keswick in August, 1858, Jowett thus unfolded the scheme :

Wilson wishes me to write to you respecting a volume of Theological Essays which he has already mentioned, the object of which, however, he thinks he has not clearly set before you, trusting to my being at Oxford, etc.

1 Life and Letters, vol. i., p. 239.