in accordance with the _analogia fidei_, that is, in
accordance with the conviction that this Jesus of Nazareth is the
Christ, was therewith given. Whatever sources of comfort and strength
Christianity, even in its New Testament, has possessed or does possess
up to the present, is for the most part taken from the Old Testament,
viewed from a Christian stand-point, in virtue of the impression of the
person of Jesus. Even its dross was changed into gold; its hidden
treasures were brought forth, and while the earthly and transitory were
recognised as symbols of the heavenly and eternal, there rose up a world
of blessings, of holy ordinances, and of sure grace prepared by God from
eternity. One could joyfully make oneself at home in it; for its long
history guaranteed a sure future and a blessed close, while it offered
comfort and certainty in all the changes of life to every individual
heart that would only raise itself to God. From the positive position
which Jesus took up towards the Old Testament, that is, towards the
religious traditions of his people, his Gospel gained a footing which,
later on, preserved it from dissolving in the glow of enthusiasm, or
melting away in the ensnaring dream of antiquity, that dream of the
indestructible Divine nature of the human spirit, and the nothingness
and baseness of all material things.[46] But from the positive attitude
of Jesus to the Jewish tradition, there followed also, for a generation
that had long been accustomed to grope after the Divine active in the
world, the summons to think out a theory of the media of revelation, and
so put an end to the uncertainty with which speculation had hitherto
been afflicted. This, like every theory of religion, concealed in itself
the danger of crippling the power of faith; for men are ever prone to
compound with religion itself by a religious theory.

3. The result of the preaching of Jesus, however, in the case of the
believing Jews, was not only the illumination of the Old Testament by
the Gospel and the confirmation of the Gospel by the Old Testament, but
not less, though indirectly, the detachment of believers from the
religious community of the Jews from the Jewish Church. How this came
about cannot be discussed here: we may satisfy ourselves with the fact
that it was essentially accomplished in the first two generations of
believers. The Gospel was a message for humanity even where there was no
break with Judaism: but it seemed impos