five years, there are only four or five which are of any value, and even of these the value is very small.
Strauss's first idea was to deal with each of his opponents separately, and he published in 1837 three successive Streitschriften.[1] In the preface to the first of these he states that he has kept silence for two years from a rooted objection to anything in the nature of reply or counter-criticism, and because he had little expectation of any good results from such controversy. These essays are able, and are often written with biting scorn, especially that directed against his inveterate enemy, Steudel of Tübingen, the representative of intellectual supernaturalism, and that against Eschenmayer, a pastor, also of Tübingen. To a work of the latter, "The Iscariotism of our Days" (1835), he had referred in the preface to the second volume of his Life of Jesus in the following remark: "This offspring of the legitimate marriage between theological ignorance and religious intolerance, blessed by a sleep-walking philosophy, succeeds in making itself so completely ridiculous that it renders any serious reply unnecessary."
But for all his sarcasm Strauss does not show himself an adroit debater in this controversy, any more than in later times in the Diet.
It is indeed remarkable how unskilled in polemics is this man who had produced a critical work of the first importance with almost playful ease. If his opponents made no effort to understand him rightly - and many of them certainly wrote without having carefully studied the fourteen hundred pages of his two volumes - Strauss on his part seemed to be stricken with a kind of uncertainty, lost himself in a maze of detail, and failed to keep continually re-formulating the main problems which he had set up for discussion, and so compelling his adversaries to face them fairly.
Of these problems there were three. The first was composed of the related questions regarding miracle and myth; the second concerned the connexion of the Christ of faith with the Jesus of
- ↑ For general title see above. First part: "Herr Dr. Steudel, or the Self-deception of the Intellectual Supernaturalism of our Time." 182 pp. Second part: "Die Herren Eschenmayer und Menzel." 247 pp. Third part: "Die evangelische Kirchenzeitung, die Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik und Die theologischen Studien und Kritiken in ihrer Stellung zu meiner Kritik des Lebens Jesu." (The attitude taken up by ... in regard to my critical Life of Jesus.) 179 pp. In the Studien und Kritiken two reviews had appeared: a critical review by Dr. Ullmann (vol. for 1836, pp. 770-816) and that of Müller, written from the standpoint of the "common faith" (vol. for 1836, pp. 816-890). In the Evangelische Kirchenzeitung the articles referred to are the following: Vorwort (Editorial Survey), 1836, pp. 1-6, 9-14, 17-23, 25-31, 33-38, 41-45; "The Future of our Theology" (1836, pp. 281 ff.) ; "Thoughts suggested by Dr. Strauss's essay on 'The Relation of Theological Criticism and Speculation to the Church'" (1836, pp. 382 ff.) ; Strauss's essay had appeared in the Allgemeine Kirchenzeitung for 1836, No. 39. " Die kritische Bearbeitung des Lebens Jesu von D. F. Strauss nach ihrem wissenschaftlichen Werte beleuchtet." (An Inquiry into the Scientific Value of D. F. Strauss's Critical Study of the Life of Jesus.) By Prof. Dr. Harless. Erlangen, 1836.
