re exist for it usually no
contemporary authorities, or only such as are of problematical worth.
This earliest period constitutes a problem, the solution of which, so
far as any solution is possible, can be hoped for only through approach
from the side of ascertained facts. We must start from a period which is
historically known. For the history of the Hebrews, this is the time of
the first prophets of whom we have written records, or from whom we have
written prophecies. We get from these, as also from the earliest direct
attempts at history writing, only that conception of Israel's
pre-historic life which was entertained in prophetic circles in the
eighth century. We learn the heroic legends in the interpretation which
the prophets put upon them. We have still to seek to interpret them for
ourselves. We must begin in the middle and work both backward and
forward. Such a view of the history of Israel affords every opportunity
for the connecting of the history and religion of Israel with those of
the other Semite stocks. Some of these have in recent years been
discovered to offer extraordinary parallels to that which the Old
Testament relates.

THE HISTORY OF DOCTRINE

When speaking of Baur's contribution to New Testament criticism, we
alluded to his historical works. He was in a distinct sense a reformer
of the method of the writing of church history. To us the notions of the
historical and of that which is genetic are identical. Of course, naive
religious chronicles do not meet that test. A glance at the histories
produced by the age of rationalism will show that these also fall short
of it. The perception of the relativity of institutions like the papacy
is here wholly wanting. Men and things are brought summarily to the bar
of the wisdom of the author's year of grace. They are approved or
condemned by this criterion. For Baur, all things had come to pass in
the process of the great life of the world. There must have been a
rationale of their becoming. It is for the historian with sympathy and
imagination to find out what their inherent reason was. One other thing
distinguishes Baur as church historian from his predecessors. He
realised that before one can delineate one must investigate. One must go
to the sources. One must estimate the value of those sources. One must
have ground in the sources for every judgment. Baur was himself a great
investigator. Yet the movement for the investigation of the sources of
b