ttle is at this distance worth the mentioning.
Ullmann, who was far more appreciative than most of his adversaries,
points out the real weakness of Strauss' work. That weakness lay in the
failure to draw any distinction between the historical and the mythical.
He threatened to dissolve the whole history into myth. He had no sense
for the ethical element in the personality and teaching of Jesus nor of
the creative force which this must have exerted. Ullmann says with
cogency that, according to Strauss, the Church created its Christ
virtually out of pure imagination. But we are then left with the query:
What created the Church? To this query Strauss has absolutely no answer
to give. The answer is, says Ullmann, that the ethical personality of
Jesus created the Church. This ethical personality is thus a supreme
historic fact and a sublime historic cause, to which we must endeavour
to penetrate, if need be through the veil of legend. The old
rationalists had made themselves ridiculous by their effort to explain
everything in some natural way. Strauss and his followers often appeared
frivolous, since, according to them, there was little left to be
explained. If a portion of the narrative presented a difficulty, it was
declared mythical. What was needed was such a discrimination between the
legendary and historical elements in the Gospels as could be reached
only by patient, painstaking study of the actual historical quality and
standing of the documents. No adequate study of this kind had ever been
undertaken. Strauss did not undertake it, nor even perceive that it was
to be undertaken. There had been many men of vast learning in textual
and philological criticism. Here, however, a new sort of critique was
applied to a problem which had but just now been revealed in all its
length and breadth. The establishing of the principles of this
historical criticism--the so-called Higher Criticism--was the herculean
task of the generation following Strauss. To the development of that
science another Tuebingen professor, Baur, made permanent contribution.
With Strauss himself, sadder than the ruin of his career, was the
tragedy of the uprooting of his faith. This tragedy followed in many
places in the wake of the recognition of Strauss' fatal half-truth.

BAUR

Baur, Strauss' own teacher in Tuebingen, afterward famous as biblical
critic and church-historian, said of Strauss' book, that through it was
revealed in startling fashion