the

LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST

in its

HISTORICAL CONNEXION AND HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT

by

AUGUSTUS NEANDER

translated from the

Fourth German Edition

by

JOHN M‘CLINTOCK AND CHARLES E. BLUMENTHAL,

professors in dickinson college

LONDON:

HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN

mdccclii

TO MY CHRISTIAN BRETHREN in THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

The present age may be considered an epoch of transition in the development of the kingdom of God; and, as such, it is full of signs. Among the most striking of them, is a greater zeal for the spread of the Gospel and the Bible through all nations, combining many and various agencies for that work; as well as a closer union among all earnest Christians, seekers of salvation and truth, of all lands, however widely separated—a new Catholic Church, which, amid all the diversity of outward ecclesiastical forms, is preparing that unity of the spirit which has Christ for its foundation. Especially is it matter of rejoicing to see a growing spirit of fraternal union between the Christians of the Old World and those of the New—a land in which Christianity (the destined leaven for all the elements of humanity, how various soever) develops its activities under secular relations so entirely novel.

It was, therefore, very gratifying to me to learn that Professors M‘Clintock and Blumenthal had determined to put this volume, the fruit of my earnest inquiries, before the transatlantic Christian public in an English dress. To see a wider sphere of influence opened for views which we ourselves (amid manifold struggles, yet guided, we trust, by the Divine Spirit) have recognized as true, and which, in our opinion, are fitted to make a way right on through the warring contradictions of error, cannot be otherwise than grateful to us. For truth is designed for all men: he who serves the truth, works and strives for all men. The Lord has given to each his own charisma, and with it each must work for all. What is true and good, then, is no man’s own; it comes from the Father of Lights, the Giver of every good gift, who lends it to us to be used for all. And what is true, must prove itself such by bearing the test of the general Christian consciousness.

But the pleasure with which I write these words is not unmingled with anxiety. To write a history of the greatest Life that has been manifested upon earth—that Life in which the Divine glory irradiated earthly existence—is indeed the greatest of human tasks. Yet the attempt is not presumptuous (as I have said in the preface to the German edition), if it be made upon the Gospel basis: every age witnesses new attempts of the kind. It is part of the means by which we are to appropriate to ourselves this highest life; to become more and more intimate with it; to bring it nearer and nearer to ourselves. Every peculiar age will feel itself compelled anew to take this Divine Life to itself through its own study of it, by means of science, animated by the Holy Spirit; to gain a closer living intimacy ...