Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 3, 2025
It was in his tractate, Das Neue Testament um das Jahr 200, 1889, that he contended for the later date against Zahn, who had urged that the outline of the New Testament was established and the conception of it as Scripture present, by the end of the first century. Harnack argues that the decision practically shaped itself between the time of Justin Martyr, c. A.D. 150, and that of Irenæus, c.
It will suffice to mention the names of Schoemann, of Marquardt and Mommsen, of Gilbert, of Krumbacher, of Harnack, of Möller.
Clement says that Plato wrote 'by inspiration of God'. Augustine, much later, finds that 'only a few words and phrases' need be changed to bring Platonism into complete accord with Christianity. The ethics of contemporary paganism, as Harnack shows, with special reference to Porphyry, are almost identical with those of the Christians of his day.
Although Christianity had become the state religion, it was itself in great danger of yielding to the decay that prevailed. The Empire was, in fact, but nominally Christian. Thousands of ecclesiastical adherents were half pagan in their spirit and practice. Harnack declares, "They were too deeply affected by Christianity to abandon it, but too little to be Christians.
So far as most mystics are concerned the definition of Harnack "Mysticism is rationalism applied to a sphere beyond reason" appears to hit the mark, although how reason can be used in a sphere to which it does not apply is precisely one of those unintelligible statements that so delights those with yearnings after the ineffable.
Christianity did not add to Judaism, it subtracted. Expanding a famous epigram of Wellhausen's, Harnack admits that everything taught in the Gospels 'was also to be found in the Prophets, and even in the Jewish tradition of their time. The Pharisees themselves were in possession of it; but, unfortunately, they were in possession of much else besides.
This brings us to that doctrine which is the greatest challenge to the doubter: "Conceived by the Holy Ghost; born of the Virgin Mary," a doctrine fiercely fought by Harnack and yet by no means to be dismissed as he dismisses it. His teaching on this point seems to me the result of his theory of Christianity. If one seeks to rid Christianity of the supernatural, here is the place to begin.
Thus Professor Harnack, not to mention less distinguished historians, makes the original essence of Christianity coincide what a miracle! with his own Lutheran and Kantian sentiments.
Professor von Harnack, head of the Royal Library in Berlin, is one of the ablest of the German professors. In his speech he gave expression to the feeling that was prevalent in the first days of the war that Germany was defending itself against a Russian invasion which threatened to blot out the German Kultur.
In the pamphlet in which the speeches of Harnack and the over-Burgomaster were published this professor's speech was left out.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking