Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T12:18:41.205Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Strauss's English Propagandists and the Politics of Unitarianism, 1841–1845

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Valerie A. Dodd
Affiliation:
Ms. Dodd is tutor of English in Saint Clare's Hall, Oxford, England.

Extract

In 1856 Ralph Waldo Emerson stated boldly that the English “cannot interpret the German mind.” 1Although German higher criticism did not “merely attack the Scriptures” but rather “studied them in a new spirit,” it was to be censured, feared, ignored, or misunderstood in the early decades of the nineteenth century in England.2 Such was not the case in the country which gave birth to the school of which David Friedrich Strauss is perhaps the most notorious and most distinguished representative. Eduard Zeller asserted that, in his own country, Strauss's work “had … a decided effect upon the philosophy and the general culture of our own day.”3

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1981

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Emerson, Ralph W., English Traits (London, 1856), p. 144.Google Scholar

2. Cragg, Gerald R., The Church and the Age of Reason, 1648–1789 (London, 1960), p. 248.Google Scholar

3. Zeller, Eduard, David Friedrich Strauss in His Life and Writings (London, 1874), p. 2.Google Scholar

4. Harris, Horton, David Friedrich Strauss and His Theology (Cambridge, 1973), p.274.Google Scholar

5. Ibid., p. 275.

6. Quoted from Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe, 1. 2. 532, in Owen Chadwick, The Secularization of the European Mind in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 1975), p. 70.Google Scholar

7. Zeller, p. 108.

8. Ibid., pp. 115–116.

9. Voltaire, , Dictionnaire philosophique, ed. Naves, Raymond (Paris, 1967), pp. 109113, 172.Google Scholar

10. Ibid., pp. [376]-384.

11. Saint-Simon, Claude Henri de, Social Organisation, The Science of Man and Other Writings, ed. and trans. Markham, Felix (New York, 1964), p. 97.Google Scholar

12. Harris, pp. 75–76; Mackay, R.W., The Tübingen School and Its Antecedents (London, 1863), p. x.Google Scholar

13. Chadwick, , Secularization, pp. 146149.Google Scholar

14. Mackay, p. 147; Zeller, p. 33.

15. Chadwick, Owen, The Victorian Church, 2 vols., vol. 1 (London, 1966), vol. 2, 2d ed. rev. (London, 1972), 1:532533.Google Scholar

16. [Palmer, William], “On Tendencies Towards the Subversion of the Faith,” The English Review 10 (12 1848): 416.Google Scholar

17. Ibid., 436.

18. “Coleridge as Theologian,” The British Quarterly Review 19 (01 1854): 114115.Google Scholar

19. Coleridge, Samuel, Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit (London, 1913), pp. 305, 326.Google Scholar

20. Crowther, Margaret Ann, Church Embattled (Newton Abbot, Eng., 1970), p. 31.Google Scholar

21. Chadwick, , The Victorian Church, 2: 66.Google Scholar

22. Ibid., 2: 69.

23. Ibid., 2: 99–100.

24. Tomalin, Claire, The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft (Harmondsworth, 1977), pp. 5152.Google Scholar

25. Ibid., p. 91.

26. Ibid., pp. 148–149.

27. MrsWard, Humphry, Robert Elsmere (London, 1888),Google Scholar chap. 24.

28. Ibid., chaps. 4, 33.

29. Ibid., chap. 25.

30. MrsWard, Humphry, The History of David Grieve, 10th ed. (London, 1893), p. 454.Google Scholar

31. Quoted in Mackay, p. 157.

32. Chadwick, , The Victorian Church, 1: 532.Google Scholar

33. See below, pp. 433–434.

34. Harris, p. ix; compare Chadwick, , The Victorian Church, 1: 530.Google Scholar

35. Zeller, pp. 50–68; Schweitzer, Albert, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, trans. Montgomery, W. (London, 1910), pp. 7172.Google Scholar

36. Eliot, George, The George Eliot Letters, ed. Haight, Gordon S., 9 vols. (New Haven, 19541978), 2: 137, 152.Google Scholar

37. Conway, Moncure D., History of the South Place Society (London, 1894), pp. 8384.Google Scholar

38. Cragg, p. 171.

39. A Report on the State of the Warrington Academy, by the Trustees at their Annual Meeting (np., 1764), pp. 2–3; Warrington Report c (n.p., 1787), p. 4; ibid., p. 1; Hackney New College Report 'c (London, 1787), p. [1].Google Scholar

40. Warrington Report, p. 5. Compare Hackney Report (London, 1786), p. 7;Google Scholaribid. (1787), p. 4; ibid. (1790), p. 49.

41. Ibid. (1787), p. 2; compare Gow, Henry, The Unitarians (London, 1928), pp. 7677.Google Scholar

42. Hackney Report (1790), p. 51.Google Scholar

43. Quoted in Halévy, Elie, The Age of Peel and Cobden, trans. Watkin, E.I (London, 1947), pp. 331332.Google Scholar

44. Chadwick, , The Victorian Church, 1: 396.Google Scholar

45. Edinburgh University: A Sketch of its Life for 300 Years (Edinburgh, 1884), p. 83.Google Scholar

46. I would like to thank the Reverend Andrew Hill for giving me this information from his own research.

47. Basil Short, “R.E.B. Maclellan and the Dissenters' Chapels.” I would like to thank the Reverend Short for his permission to use this unpublished lecture and also his lecture “The Radicals: T.C. Colfox, Philip Harwood et al”

48. Quoted in Short, “The Radicals.”

49. Ibid.

50. Ibid.

51. Ibid.

52. This information is from Andrew Hill.

53. Quoted in Short, “The Radicals.”

54. This information is in a letter to me from Andrew Hill. He quotes from papers at Saint Mark's Chapel, Edinburgh. Compare Strauss's views as explained by Hodgson, Peter C., ed., The Life of Jesus Critically Examined (Philadelphia, 1973), p. xx.Google Scholar

55. This information is from Andrew Hill.

56. Ibid.

57. See above, pp. 420–421; Garnett, Richard, The Life of W.J. Fox (New York, 1910), pp. 204206.Google Scholar

58. Mineka, Francis E., The Dissidence of Dissent (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1944), p. 197.Google Scholar

59. Conway, pp. 82–83.

60. The Christian Teacher, n.s. 3 (1841): 242. Ibid., n.s. 4 (1842): 255.

61. Garnett, p. 217. Conway, p. 83.

62. Harris, p. 176.

63. Zeller, pp. 90–94.

64. Holt, H.V., The Untiarian Contribution to Social Progress (London, 1938), p. 199.Google Scholar

65. Halévy, p. 8.

66. Conway, p. 23.

67. Ibid., p. 39.

68. Conway, pp. 57–58.

69. Garnett, p. 204.

70. Conway, p. 75.

71. Ibid., pp. 128–129.

72. Ibid., p. 40.

73. Ibid., p. 59; compare The Christian Teacher, n.s. 6(1844): 212.

74. Conway, pp. 83–84. This account is disputed by Hodgson, pp. xlvi-xlix. The lectures are also mentioned by the explorer and scientist Alfred Russel Wallace in My Life, 2 vols. (London, 1905), 1: 227228.Google Scholar

75. Harwood, Philip, German Anti-Supernaturalism (London, 1841), pp. [v]–vi.Google Scholar

76. Haight, Gordon S., George Eliot (Oxford, 1968), p. 47.Google Scholar

77. Ibid., p. 53. Hodgson, p. xlvii.

78. Conway, pp. 83–84.

79. Fox was a visitor at Rosehill, Charles Bray's house in Coventry, and George Eliot met him there in the 1840s (Haight, , George Eliot, p. 46).Google Scholar

80. Garnett, p. 215. Martineau was reviewing the theological tendencies of the day for Channing's benefit.

81. Strauss, David, The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined by Dr. David Friedrich Strauss. Translated from the Fourth German Edition, trans. Eliot, George, 3 vols. (London, 1846), 1: vii.Google Scholar

82. Garnett, p. 215; Haight, , George Eliot, p. 37.Google Scholar

83. Mineka, pp. 130–134.

84. Quoted in ibid., p. 103.

85. Ibid., pp. 130, 132.

86. Ibid., pp. 144–145.

87. Crowther, p. 16.

88. Chadwick, , The Victorian Church, 1: 530.Google Scholar

89. Carlyle, Thomas, “The Life of John Sterling,” in Works, 30 vols. (London, 1897), 11: 187, 210.Google Scholar See also Engels, Frederick, The Condition of the Working Class in England (St. Alban, Eng., 1969), p. 265.Google Scholar

90. There is, at this point in my discussion, a bibliographical problem. The copy in the Bodleian Library is in four volumes and might be either a bound collection of numbers or a simultaneous reprint in book form from the type of the numbers edition. Crowther, pp. 47–48, suggests two distinct editions: one published in Birmingham and one published by Hetherington. I discuss the dual imprint of the Bodleian copy in the text of this article. However, if Crowther's hypothesis is correct, the publishers may have joined forces at some point for mutual protection. I have been unable to trace any reference to Joseph Taylor's publishing business.

91. See Engels, p. 265.

92. On this topic, see Harrison, Stanley, Poor Man's Guardians (London, 1975);Google ScholarHollis, Patricia, The Pauper Press (Oxford, 1970);Google ScholarWiener, Joel H., The War of the Unstamped (Ithaca, N.Y., 1969).Google Scholar

93. Barker, Ambrose, Henry Hetherington (London, [1938]), p. 7.Google Scholar

94. Ibid., pp. 23–26.

95. Ibid., pp. 9–10.

96. Ibid., p. 5.

97. Ibid., pp. 23–26.

98. On Macerone's colorful career, see Dictionary of National Biography, 1967–1968 ed., s.v. “Macerone, Francis, 1788–1846.”

99. Hollis, p. 41. Thompson, Edward P., The Making of the English Working Class, rev. ed. (Harmondsworth, 1968), p. 898.Google Scholar

100. Maccrone, Francis, Defensive Instructions for the People. (London, n.d.), p. [3].Google Scholar

101. Bellamy, James M. and Saville, John, Dictionary of Labour Biography (London, 1972- ), 1: 171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

102. Strauss, David, The Life of Jesus, or a Critical Examination of His History by Dr. David Friedrich Strauss: Translated from the German, 4 vols. (London and Birmingham, [1842]-1844), 1: vi.Google Scholar The italics are in the original.

103. Chadwick, , The Victorian Church, 1: 532.Google Scholar Hetherington's fear was not an idle one; see below, p. 431. The law of blaspheny still remains on the statute books in England; in the late 1970s a private prosecution was brought against Gay News for publishing a poem which was said to defame the image of Christ.

104. Hetherington, Henry, Cheap Salvation, 2d ed. (London, 1843).Google Scholar

105. Wiener, pp. 157–158.

106. Briggs, Asa, Victorian Cities (Harmondsworth, 1968), p. 123;Google ScholarHaight, , George Eliot, p. 41.Google Scholar

107. See Briggs, p. 123; Gérin, Winifred, Elizabeth Gaskell (Oxford, 1976);Google Scholar Thompson, p. 79.

108. He is not noted by any of the historians of the working class press cited in n. 92. His name does not figure in any of the Birmingham trade directories and guides for the period.

109. Barker, p. 57.

110. Bellamy and Saville, 1: 167; Barker, p. 4.

111. The Christian Teacher, n.s. 3(1841): 357.

112. Ibid., 353.

113. Mineka, p. 103.

114. The Christian Teacher, n.s. 3(1841): 354.

115. Ibid., p. 355.

116. Barker, p. 59; Conway, p. 23.

117. The account which follows incorporates information from Douglas, J.D., ed., New International Dictionary of the Christian Church (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1978),Google Scholar hereafter cited as NIDCC, and the section on Universalism by Eddy, Richard in The American Church History Series, 13 vols. (New York, 1894), 10: 251493.Google Scholar

118. Eddy, p. 417.

119. Ibid.

120. NIDCC, s.v. “Universalism.”

121. Chadwick, Owen, The Reformation, rev. ed. (Harmondsworth, 1973), pp. 192194.Google Scholar See also Chadwick, , Secularization, p. 75.Google Scholar When he was in England from 1842–1844, Engels made a study of groups of “Christian Communists” and wrote an essay on them in the winter of 1844–1845. Chadwick comments that these were small, puritanical, and often eccentric groups, whose existence stems from the Anabaptist groups of the Reformation.

122. See both Eddy and Gordon.

123. NIDCC, s.v. “Universalism.”

124. Eddy, p. 414.

125. Ibid., p. 353.

126. NIDCC, s.v. “Ballou, Hosea.”

127. Eddy, p. 466.

128. Ibid., p. 467.

129. Ideas and Beliefs of the Victorians (London, 1949), p. 150.Google Scholar

130. Taine, Hippolyte, Notes on England, trans. Hyams, Edward (London, 1957), p. 235;Google Scholar [Conybeare, W.J.], “Church PartiesThe Edinburgh Review 98 (10 1853): 342;Google Scholar Thompson, p. 31.

131. Wiener, pp. 234–235. For a similar situation in the careers of Bradlaugh and Holyoake, see Chadwick, , Secularization, p. 90.Google Scholar

132. Barker, pp. 29–36; and see n. 104 above.

133. Ibid., pp. 47–48. George Henry Lewes learned about Spinoza from a watchmaker in the 1830s (Kitchel, Anna T., George Lewes and George Eliot, [New York, 1933], pp. 910).Google Scholar

134. Garnett, p. 214.

135. Wiener, p. 30.

136. Conway, p. 104, n. 1.

137. Wiener, pp. 53, 103.

138. Conway, pp. 40–41.

139. Garnett, p. 41.

140. Haight, Gordon S., George Eliot and John Chapman (New Haven, 1940), p. 4.Google Scholar

141. Ibid., p. [3].

142. Ibid., p. 9.

143. Ibid., p. 7, quoting from Rusk, R.L., ed. The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 6 vols., (New York, 1939), 3: 287,Google Scholar n. 30.

144. Ibid., pp. 6–7.

145. The Christian Teacher, n.s. 3 (1841): 226–254.

146. Ibid., pp. [265]-284.

147. Ibid., n.s. 4 (1842): 197–203.

148. Ibid., pp. 354–377.

149. Hallische Jahrbücher 1 (1838). See Harris, p. 288; Hodgson, p. xx.

150. Haight, , George Eliot and John Chapman, pp. 67.Google Scholar

151. The Prospective Review (1845): 1948.Google Scholar

152. Gow, p. 178.

153. Haight, , George Eliot and John Ghapman, pp. 5253.Google Scholar

154. Gaskell, Elizabeth, The Works of Mrs. Gaskell, 8 vols., (London, 1906), 3:150.Google Scholar

155. Bray, Charles, Phases of Opinion and Experience during a Long Life: An Autobiography (London, [1885]), p. 10.Google Scholar

156. Webb, R.K., Harriet Martineau (London, 1960), pp. 6566.Google Scholar

157. Pattison, Mark, Memoirs, ed. Manton, Jo (Fontwell Sussex, 1969), pp. 312313.Google Scholar

158. [Palmer, William], “On Tendencies towards the Subversion of the Faith,” The English Review 10 (12 1848): 415.Google Scholar

159. Halévy, p. 349; Houghton, Walter E., The Victorian Frame of Mind (New Haven, 1957), p. 82.Google Scholar

160. Quoted in Taine, p. 193.

161. Garnett, p. 170.

162. Pattison, Mark, Essays, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1889), 1: 417, 450;Google Scholar 2: 211. Reardon, B.M.G., From Coleridge to Gore (London, 1971), p. 57.Google Scholar See above, p.417.

163. Eliot, George, Middlemarch, 2 vols. (London, n.d.), 1: 318;Google ScholarKingsley, Charles, The Life and Works of Charles Kingsley, 19 vols., (London, 1902) 13: 154.Google Scholar

164. Mackay, pp. x., 363.

165. Quoted in Gow, Henry, Life of Channing, 2 vols. (London, n.d.), 2: 392.Google Scholar

166. Haight, , The George Eliot Letters, 1: 218.Google Scholar