's intuition to realise an event or
period, or make presentation to ourselves of a personality, better than
the scant records acknowledged by the strict historian could ever do.

Our materials for a real biography of Jesus are inadequate. This was the
fact which, by all these biographies of Jesus, was brought home to men's
minds. Keim's book, the most learned of those mentioned, is hardly more
than a vast collection of material for the history of Jesus' age, which
has now been largely superseded by Schuerer's _Geschichte des Judischen
Volkes im Zeitalier Jesu Christi_, 2 Bde., 1886-1890. There have been
again, since the decade of the sixties, periods of approach to the great
problem. Weiss and Beyschlag published at the end of the eighties lives
of Jesus which, especially the former, are noteworthy in their treatment
of the critical material. They do not for a moment face the question of
the person of Christ. The same remark might be made, almost without
exception, as to those lives of Jesus which have appeared in numbers in
England and America. The best books of recent years are Albert Reville's
_Jesus de Nazareth_, 1897, and Oscar Holtzmann's _Leben Jesu_, 1901. So
great are the difficulties and in such disheartening fashion are they
urged from all sides, that one cannot withhold enthusiastic recognition
of the service which Holtzmann particularly has here rendered, in a
calm, objective, and withal deeply devout handling of his theme.
Meantime new questions have arisen, questions of the relation of Jesus
to Messianism, like those touched upon by Wrede in his _Das Messias
Geheimniss in den Evangelien_, 1901, and questions as to the
eschatological trait in Jesus' own teaching. Schweitzer's book, _Von
Reimarus zu Wrede: eine Geschichte der Leben Jesu-Forschung_, 1906, not
merely sets forth this deeply interesting chapter in the history of the
thought of modern men, but has also serious interpretative value in
itself. For English readers Sanday's _Life of Christ in Recent
Research_, 1907, follows the descriptive aspect, at least, of the same
purpose with Schweitzer's book, covering, however, only the last twenty
years.

It is characteristic that Ritschl, notwithstanding his emphasis upon the
historical Jesus, asserted the impossibility of a biography of Jesus.
The understanding of Jesus is through faith. For Wrede, on the other
hand, such a biography is impossible because of the nature of our
sources. Not alone are they