udaism and Hellenism. And because it lies above them it may be united
with either, as it originally unfolded its powers under the ruins of the
Jewish religion. But still more; it not only can enter into union with
them, it must do so if it is otherwise the religion of the living and is
itself living. It has only one aim; that man may find God and have him
as his own God, in order to gain in him humility and patience, peace,
joy and love. How it reaches this goal through the advancing centuries,
whether with the co-efficients of Judaism or Hellenism, of renunciation
of the world or of culture, of mysticism or the doctrine of
predestination, of Gnosticism or Agnosticism, and whatever other
incrustations there may yet be which can defend the kernel, and under
which alone living elements can grow--all that belongs to the centuries.
However each individual Christian may reckon to the treasure itself the
earthly vessel in which he hides his treasure; it is the duty and the
right, not only of the religious, but also of the historical estimate to
distinguish between the vessel and the treasure; for the Gospel did not
enter into the world as a positive statutory religion, and cannot
therefore have its classic manifestation in any form of its intellectual
or social types, not even in the first. It is therefore the duty of the
historian of the first century of the Church, as well as that of those
which follow, not to be content with fixing the changes of the Christian
religion, but to examine how far the new forms were capable of
defending, propagating and impressing the Gospel itself. It would
probably have perished if the forms of primitive Christianity had been
scrupulously maintained in the Church; but now primitive Christianity
has perished in order that the Gospel might be preserved. To study this
progress of the development, and fix the significance of the newly
received forms for the kernel of the matter, is the last and highest
task of the historian who himself lives in his subject. He who
approaches from without must be satisfied with the general view that in
the history of the Church some things have always remained, and other
things have always been changing.

_Literature._--Weiss. Biblical Theology of the New Testament. T. and T.
Clark. Wittichen. Beitr. z. bibl. Theol. 3. Thle. 1864-72.

Schuereer. Die Predigt Jesu in ihrem Verhaltniss z. A.T.u. z. Judenthum,
1882.

Wellhausen. Abriss der Gesch. Israels u. Juda's (