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APOLOGETICS every form of divine intervention, and accordingly rejected revelation, inspiration, miracles, and prophecy. Together with unbelievers of a still more pronounced type, they assailed the historic value of the Bible, decrying its miraculous narratives as fraud and superstition. The movement started in England, and in the eighteenth century spread to France and Germany. Its baneful influence was deep and far-reaching, for it found zealous exponents in some of the leading philosophers and men of letters—Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Voltaire, Rousseau, d'Alembert, Diderot, Lessing, Herder, and others. But able apologists were not lacking to champion the Christian cause. England produced several that won lasting honour for their scholarly defence of fundamental Christian truths—Lardner, author of the "Credibility of the Gospel History", in twelve volumes (1741–55); Butler, likewise famous for his "Analogy of Religion Natural and Revealed to the Constitution of Nature" (1736); Campbell, who in his "Dissertation on Miracles" (1766) gave a masterly answer to Hume's arguments against miracles; and Paley, whose "Evidences of Christianity" (1794) and "Natural Theology" (1802) are among the classics of English theological literature. On the continent, the work of defence was carried on by such men as Bishop Huet, who published his "Démonstration Evangélique" in 1679; Leibnitz, whose "Théodicée" (1684), with its valuable introduction on the conformity of faith with reason, had a great influence for good; the Benedictine Abbot Gerbert, who gave a comprehensive Christian apology in his "Demonstratio Veræ Religionis Ver que Ecclesiæ Contra Quasvis Falsas" (1760); and the Abbé Bergier, whose "Traité historique et dogmatique de la vraie religion", in twelve volumes (1780), showed ability and erudition.— The Nineteenth Century. In the last century the conflict of Christianity with rationalism was in part lightened and in part complicated by the marvelous development of scientific and historic inquiry. Lost languages, like the Egyptian and the Babylonian, were recovered, and thereby rich and valuable records of the past—many of them unearthed by laborious and costly excavation—were made to tell their story. Much of this bore on the relations of the ancient Hebrew people with the surrounding nations and, while in some instances creating new difficulties, for the most part helped to corroborate the truth of the Bible history. Out of these researches have grown a number of valuable and interesting apologetic studies on Old Testament history: Schrader, "Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testament" (London, 1872); Hengstenberg's "Egypt and the Books of Moses" (London, 1845); Harper, "The Bible and Modern Discoveries" (London, 1891); McCurdy, "History, Prophecy, and the Monuments" (London–New York, 1894–1900); Pinches, "The Old Testament in the Light of the Historic Records of Assyria and Babylonia" (London–New York, 1902); Abbé Gainet, "La bible sans la bible, ou l'histoire de l'ancien testament par les seuls témoignages profanes" (Bar-le-Duc, 1871); Vigouroux, "La bible et les découvertes modernes" (Paris, 1889). On the other hand, Biblical chronology, as then understood, and the literal historic interpretation of the Book of Genesis were thrown into confusion by the advancing sciences—astronomy, with its grand nebular hypothesis; biology, with its even more fruitful theory of evolution; geology, and prehistoric archæology. Rationalists eagerly laid hold of these scientific data, and sought to turn them to the discredit of the Bible and likewise of the Christian religion. But able apologies were forthcoming to essay a conciliation of science and religion. Among them were: Dr. (afterwards Cardinal) Wiseman, "Twelve Lectures on the Connection between Science and Revealed Religion" (London, 1847), which, though antiquated in parts, is still valuable reading; Reusch, "Nature and the Bible" (London, 1876). Others more modern and up to date are: Duilhé de Saint-Projet, "Apologie scientifique de la foi chrétienne" (Paris, 1885); Abbé Guibert, "In the beginning" (New York, 1904), one of the best Catholic treatises on the subject; and more recent still, A. de Lapparent, "Science et apologétique" (Paris, 1905). A more delicate form of scientific inquiry for Christian belief was the application of the principles of historic criticism to the books of Holy Scripture. Not a few Christian scholars looked with grave misgivings on the progress made in this legitimate department of human research, the results of which called for a reconstruction of many traditional views of Scripture. Rationalists found here a congenital field of study, which seemed to promise the undermining of Scripture-authority. Hence it was but natural that the encroachments of Biblical criticism on conservative theology should be disputed inch by inch. On the whole, the outcome of the long and spirited contest has been to the advantage of Christianity. It is true that the Pentateuch, so long attributed to Moses, is now held by the vast majority of non-Catholic, and by an increasing number of Catholic, scholars to be a compilation of four independent sources put together in final shape soon after the Captivity. But the antiquity of much of the contents of these sources has been firmly established, as well as the strong presumption that the kernel of the Pentateuchal legislation is of Mosaic institution. This has been shown by Kirkpatrick in his "Divine Library of the Old Testament" (London–New York, 1901), by Driver in his "Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament" (New York, 1897), and by Abbé Lagrange, in his "Méthode historique de l'Ancien Testament" (Paris, 1903; tr. London, 1905). In the New Testament the results of Biblical criticism are still more assuring. The attempt of the Tübingen school to throw the Gospels far into the second century, and to see in most of the Epistles of St. Paul the work of a much later hand, has been absolutely discredited. The synoptic Gospels are now generally recognized, even by advanced critics, to belong to the years 65-85, resting on still earlier written and oral sources, and the Gospel of St. John is brought with certainty down to at least 110, that is, within a very few years of the death of St. John. The three Epistles of St. John are recognized as genuine, the pastoral letters being now the chief object of dispute. Closely connected with the theory of the Tübingen School, was the attempt of the rationalist Strauss to explain away the miraculous element in the Gospels as the mythical fancies of an age much later than that of Jesus. Strauss's views, embodied in his "Life of Jesus" (1835), were ably refuted, together with the false assertions and inductions of the Tübingen School by such Catholic scholars as Kuhn, Hug, Sepp, Döllinger, and by the Protestant critics, Ewald, Meyer, Wieseler, Tholuck, Luthardt, and others. The outcome of Strauss's "Life of Jesus," and of Renan's vain attempt to improve on it by giving it a legendary form (Vie de Jésus, 1863), has been a number of scholarly biographies of our blessed Lord: by Fouard, "Christ the Son of God" (New York, 1891); Didon, "Jesus Christ" (New York, 1891); Edersheim, "Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah" (New York, 1896), and others.

Another field of study which grew up chiefly in the last century, and has had an influence in shaping the science of apologetics, is the study of religions. The study of the great religious systems of the pagan world, and their comparison with Christianity, furnished material for a number of specious arguments against the independent and supernatural origin of the Christian religion. So, too, the study of the origin of religion in the light of the religious