Search This Blog

Wednesday, October 31, 2018

A tiny fragment

Corrected Quotation

Right now this is part of chapter one, vol. 2. Separate Identity. This may change. It may become a chapter of its own. What ever happens, this will give you a taste of our research:


            Russell identified Barbour’s Atonement Doctrine as Unitarian, and it was held by Unitarians. He was not inaccurate. But its origin rests further back in history than the American Unitarian movement. Johann Christian Konrad von Hofmann, a German Lutheran, suggested something similar. In his Der Schriftbeweis, published first between 1852 and 1855, he abandoned traditional Lutheran and Trinity-based Substitution theory, replacing it with a view with which Barbour would have agreed. Claude Welsh, using rather over blown language, describes Hofmann’s theory:

For Hofmann, Christ appeared as man on earth as the historical activation of the eternal inner-divine will of love to restore the fellowship with God broken by sin. He did this not so much by an act of dying as by a human form of being and willing and doing that throughout (and thus also unto death) was characterized by obedience to the divine call. Thus the love and fidelity of Jesus to the father, reflecting the inner-divine love of Son to Father, mediates a new relation of God and man, and those who receive this divine act in faith become participants in the new humanity of which Christ is the head.[1]

            Put in simpler terms, Hofmann saw Christ as redeeming man by example. This is Barbourite doctrine. We have no evidence that Barbour read Hofmann’s work. Hofmann’s ideas came to him through American and British intermediaries. The idea persisted well after the 1870s and 1880s. Horatio Woodburn Southworth [Born 1839], an Anglican layman, published a small book entitled The First Millennial Faith in 1893. It and a predecessor book were meant to “combat the ‘satisfaction theory,’” the belief that mankind and God were reconciled by Christ’s death. He advocated Barbour’s redemption by example theory, though we have no evidence that they read each other’s work. Southworth’s book is primarily a series of quotations from ‘church fathers’ none of which say what he suggests they do.


[1]               C. Welsh: Protestant Thought in the Nineteenth Century¸ Yale University Press, 1972, Volume One, page 225.

5 comments:

jerome said...

One has to be so careful with quotations that they reflect accurately what the original writer meant. How true is the thought behind the example given: "Southworth’s book is primarily a series of quotations from ‘church fathers’ none of which say what he suggests they do." And even if quotations are accurate and in context, you still have to evaluate their validity.

Sha'el, Princess of Pixies said...

I'm not certain I understand your comment. Can you elaborate?

Gary said...

Regret, I cannot understand the grammar of Welsh's quotation, let alone imagine what he is trying to say. Is this a precise quote? If not, can it be corrected please? I'm assuming that the second 'of' in the first sentence should be the word 'to'. I have absolutely no idea how the second sentence should read.

jerome said...

I assume Rachael's question relates to my comment rather than Gary's which requires its own response. I was just agreeing with your mild sideswipe at a writer who quoted sources and then reached conclusions the quotes by themselves didn't necessarily support. When using quotations we have to be very careful that they're not taken out of context, and that our conclusions drawn from them can be justified. Unless the source is reputable and ideally can be further checked, a quote by itself can be useless. Or worse than useless. You might have what you believe is a correct conclusion but if your evidence chain is tainted then you cast doubt on all of it. Certainly when you are not preaching to the already converted. Does that make sense?

Gary said...

Thanks for correcting the quotation Rachael. It makes much better sense now.