(!tnurnr~iu UJqrnlngirul flnutlJly Continuing LEHRE UND VVEHRE MAGAZIN FUER EV.-LuTH. HOMILETlK THEOLOGICAL QU A.RTERL Y -THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY Vo1. IV May, 1933 No.5 CONTENTS FUERBRINGER, L.: Die pel'soenliche Weisheit Got tes ... . l'aa:e 321 I GRAEBNER, THEODORE: Buchmanism ... . . . .... . 329V'i WOHLFEIL, L. T.: What is Meant by ".All Fulness." Col. 1, 19? 339 HEERBOTH. L. Aug.: Exodus 6, 3 h. W as God Kll O W ll to the Plltriarchs as Jehovnh~ ... . ... . . . . . . . . .. . 345 KRETZMANN, P. E.: Das Commll Iohanneum. 1 Joh. 5.7 349 XRETZMANN. P. E.: Die H nuptschriften L uthers in cbro- nologischer Reihenfolge .................. ...... ...... 354 FRITZ, J. H. C.: The Theme of the Sermon. . . . . . . . . .. . ... 355 Dispositionen ueber die altkirchliche Epistelreihe . . '" . . 361 Miscellanea. . . ... .......................... . .. .. . ....... 369 Theologicnl Observer. - Kirchlich-Zeitgeschichtliches ..... , 374 Book Review. - Literatur 389 £ 111 .Prf'di~er mU<:: 3 n icht allt!in welden.. r .. b t hE'in Din;.:. dQ.'· die L1..Ut4~ meh r 11 It ..1;1' t'r li ll Schafe wlI c""wpi,t'>. wit: 1ft'! del' Ki rehe Iwlt.wIt d l III tl il ~\lt, it! r. ,t'ht e Ch~ j- t t>n oIleli ·jll , somiern Pn . 1i:.{t. - .Jpo(f)!1ip . .. 4rt . ~~ . !'Oil· Ilil S C,' I;lte niC!itt .mgl~it '].I UIld ll1it I I t ll< I r 1111V· t Kh t ,I Tl unc·,rhin llmd. t~h('t.(>r L ·hr- ll'rfuehrlln und l rrtllll! eill· wilt) ,.:h:.Jl\ ph.'pan,' hilll ... elf tr) the battle;- til( hr,,". - -1 If 1 Cor. l~. S. Published for the Ev. Luth. Syn od of liIi.:i80tlri, Ohio, alld Ol-her States CONC ORDIA PUBLISHING HOUSE, St. Louis. M o. I Miscellanea. 369 Miscellanea. "Unity." This word is applied to a comparatively new church organization which has its headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri, in the Unity Schoo~ of Ohristianity. It seems to be related to Christian Science and, in part / at least, identical with Divine Science. It is very much concerned witht#c' healing, prayer, and other points of a similar nature. Among the book- lets issued, also by a certain Charles Fillmore, are: A Talk on Ohristian Hea~ing, PrayeT, The Teaching of the SC1-iptu1"CS Oonce1'ning Eterna~ Life. There is also a pamphlet on Flesh-eating Metaphysically OonsideTed. One of its leaflets contains the following "Illumination Thought": "The Christ light clears my inner vision, and I behold the good Omnipotent"; also a "Prosperity Thought": "In my mind's eye I behold divine substance sup- plying my every need, and I now manifest prosperity." The school issues quite a number of periodicals, its monthly magazine Unity being a hundred- page publication, teaching Christian healing and Christian metaphysicsc The following excerpts are taken from a pamphlet What Practical Oh1-1stianity Stands Fm-: "vVe may talk about God forever and describe Him by all the telulS fitting to His character, and yet no one cen know Him without coming into touch with Him through the realization that He is the original spiritual Being and that man has being in God's being. So it is helpful to dwell upon, and to enter into, a definite acknowledg- ment such as this: God is Spirit. God is Being. God is Mind. God is omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent. Besides Him there is none else. In Him I live and moyo and have my being." "Man exists in God's mind as a perfect idea of man, just as the in- ventor makes and holds in his mind the perfect image of his invention before it is formed in the outer. The inner is the real invention, the real creation. The outward form is secondary; it depends for its merit upon the faithfulness with which the one who forms it builds it like the idea or pattern ill the mind of the inventor, assuming, of course, that the pat- tern is perfect. So man exists in Gael in perfection, and Gael exists in man in perfection. Man is there£01'e far more than a reflection of God. Every man is potEntially all that God is, because he is the offspring of God, made in the diville image ::md likeness. As the oak is ill the acorn, so Gael is in man." "The understanding of man in his relation to God leads to the con- sideration of a third great fundamental in the teaching of Practical Chris- tiallity: the atonement. 'J'o atone is to make at one, 'to bring' in or to a state of agreement or l·econciliation.' The atonement is the union of man with God the Father in Christ. Stating it in terms of mind, we would say that the atonement is the at-one-ment, or agreement, or recon- ciliation, of man's mind with Divine Mind through the superconscious- ness, or Christ mind. The very foundation of the Christian religion is the atonement of Jesus Christ; but the results of past teaching show that there has been a misconception of the nature and scope and object 24 370 Miscellanea. of the atonement, else the race would not now be suffering from the re- sults of the Fall. Jesus came to redeem men from sin, and salvation through Him is complete. He saves 'to the uttermost.' Ignorance and sin, with all their effects - sickness, sorrow, pain, and death - will be removed and known no more when men understand the atonement and accept Jesus Christ as their Savior." "'The Church' is first an inner consciousness of the Christ and then a body of individuals in whom the Christ-consciousness is quickened and formed." "Redemption means the unification and spiritualization of soul- and body-consciousness in Spirit. The soul cannot be saved or lifted up apart from the body because soul and body are inseparably connected in Being; one is manifestation and the other is expression." "In the dim understanding of the centuries immediately following Jesus of Nazareth the first steps in regeneration were supposed to con- stitute all of the new birth; but in the fuller understanding that has come in these latter days spiritual rebirth is recognized as having to do with the whole man, even to the extent of changing the corruptible, mortal flesh into incorruption and immortality. .All this of course calls for changes in the manner of living. Our reason readily grasps the truth that a man's life, after being born of Spirit, differs greatly from what it was while he was following the desires of the flesh." "The question of authority always comes up when truth is being con- sidered. Practical Christianity has for its authority the Holy Spirit. No other is sufficient or safe. 'When He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He shall guide you into all the truth.' There are hundreds of sects, all sure of their Bible authority. This is umnistakable evidence that we must have something more than a book and the understanding and judgment of man to guide us into truth; so we gladly accept the words of Jesus, showing that all authority and guidance are in the Spirit of Truth." "The absolute truth is that there is one supreme, all-wise, all-powerful, infinite Being of love, who is the Cause and Source of all that exists in reality. Man is the image and likeness of this Perfect One, whom we call God, and is made to be the living expression of divine perfection. God is therefore not a person, but omnipresent mind, principle, and law, un- changing and unchangeable, and man in his true estate is God's offspring." The reader will readily draw his own conclusions. P. E. K. The Needs of Higher Education. Since all of us are thiiikiiig along the lines of higher education in our own Synod to-day, it may be of some benefit to us to consider what a president of a large State university presented to the people of his State in'-his annual message. The application of his words to our own needs should not cause much difficulty. He writes: - "If the history of .American life and tradition teaches any lesson, it is that the decision will be made in terms of the kind of education she pro- vides for training in citizenship and for economic growth and develop- ment. England is making the same decision. Her distress has been Miscellanea. 371 greater than ours. It is reported by the press that England has not reduced her appropriations for higher education; on the contrary, she has increased them in a number of cases. She is holding fast and with grim determination to the thought that a competently trained intellec- tual leadership was never more necessary than now. She is paying the duty to intelligence that any nation must pay if it is not to be submerged by its own ignorance. "Few would venture the assertion that the problems of America are not as difficult as those of England and that those that lie ahead will not be of increasing importance to us. Shall we wait for time and cir- cumstance and such temporary adjustments as we are able to make to point the way to their solution? Shall we sap the sources of intellectual strength when the struggle for existence is being intensified? "The stabilization of the programs of State universities during the present crisis is of the highest importance. If their incomes and pro- grams are to fluctuate up and down with every political wind that blows, thcn both public welfare and the economic life of the commonwealths they are maintained to serve will suffer. Reference has already been made to the fact that England has been protecting and supporting her universities ill the present crisis as no other nation has done. Not one single dollar of State funds has been withdrawn by the English Parliament or English treasury from the support of her universities. England, with her vast experience, her knowledge of human nature, her recognition of the need and importance of a highly adequate leadership, has set herself in these days of distress the task of providing thc best possible conditions for the training of such leaders. History l"ecords the fact that, whenever nations diminish their interest in, and- the support of, their universities, they soon become second-rate nations. "How unfortunate it is that there is no man in America to-day who is raising his voice, who is calTying on a courageous and active campaign, with a view to influencing public opinion with respect to the necessity of retaining the universities with nndiminished strength! To be sure, as I have already stated in another part of this report, the university should not spcncl more than it reasonably can in the interest of public welfare, nor should it ask for more than an adequate program for the education of such leaders properly demands. A university should be regarded as the most important agency within the State in solving the problems of the State. The strength of a university is never determined by the ex- tent of the pnblic relations that is has. It is detcl'mined by the strength of its staff and the competency of its instruction, the qnality of its re- search, thc distinction of its leadership in the various fields of human thought." (Coffman, Undc1'.stamding the University, pp. 7.9. 10.) P. E. K. Recent Archeological Discoveries. As reported in Art and Al'cheology (No.1, 1933), Dr. Ephraim A. Spei- ser, director of the joint Assyrian Expedition of the University Mnseum of Philadelphia and the American School of Oriental Research, discovered a clay seal at Tepe Gawra, Mesopotamia, which is believed to date from 372 Miscellanea. 4000 B. C. It shows the figures of a man and a woman, somewhat dejected in appearance, and a vigorously depicted serpent with an outthrust tongue. This is clearly an attempt to picture the temptation and the fall of man, and if the age of the seal is correctly estimated, the record is contcmpora- neous with Adam. - From Palestine comes the news, as given in the All- gemeine Ev.-Luth. Ki1-chenzeitung, that the ruins of a three-aisled basilica have been found on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, between Tiberias and Capernaum. The walls have been preserved in part to a height of two meters. Under the main altar is a peculiar unhewn stone, a meter long and one half meter wide. Behind the altar is a mosaic floor representing a basket with four loaves of bread laid crosswise and two fishes. This seems to show that the basilica was one built in commemoration of the feerling'..2£ the five thousand, the erection taking place in the fourth cen- turJ. The stone under th: altar is said to be the very one on which Jesus placed the loaves and the fishes before He caused them to be distributed_ The mosaic floor of the nave shows many interesting figures, plants, trees, and birds, all of a rather high degree of beauty. The church was destroyed by the Mohammedans in the seventh century. Although later rebuilt after a fashion, it finally was yuined by an earthquake. - Near the village of Boghaz-Keui, in the province of Angora, 150 miles south of Sinope, are the ruins of Yasili-Kaya, now known to have been one of the chief sanc- tuaries of the Hittites. The locality is noted for its great sculptured relief of a procession of gods. The individual gods are designated by Hittite hieroglyphics. Some of these have been deciphered, such as that of a moun- tain god. Some heaclway has also been made in establishing the syllable value of certain pictographs. In order to make more systematic work in this field possible, Dr. H. T. Bossert of Berlin is planning a corpus of Hit- tite pictorial inscriptions, not only those of Yasili-Kaya, but also of Nischan- Tasch and Karakuyu, as well as the inscription of Emil' Ghazi. P. E. K. Recent Archeological Finds. - Among the archeological endeavors of to-day those that are put forth in ancient Chaldea are perhaps the most interesting. Dr. Kyle, in Bibliotheea Sacra, speaks of the lowest stratum at Mugheir reaching "at least to the latter part of the fourth millennium B. C.," ancl he points out that the state of civilization discovered there was by no means primitive, but higher than that found afterwards in that country. In Northern Iraq, so he informs U8, a still earlier civiliz[L- tion has been found "preceding the age of copper by at least five hundred years." Here, too, we meet with a high stage of civilization. "Though their tools and weapons were of flint and of stone, they laid out, and built, an orderly city, presenting unique and attractive architecture, and em- ployed the arch, which not so long ago was regarded as one of the achieve- ments much nearer to the modern world. The ceramic remains are also of good material and workmanship. ThousallCls of bits were found testi- fying to the attention given to adornment, and artistically engraved seals equally testify to the refinements of life." The name of the town is Tepe Gawne. Whatever the significance of these finds may be, they at least help to annihilate the view that primitive man was an apelike being and that only by a process of evolution did he reach the civilization which we now are enjoying. A. Miscellanea. 373 The Use of Extemporaneous Prayer. On this topic the interesting book by Gwynne Prirnit';ve W O1"ship and the Praye1'-book has the following remarks: "There is indeed a place and a real use for extemporaneous prayer as there was in the early days of the Church, before liturgies assumed their definite form, and also for that silent prayer which pours itself out to God without articulate words. But in public worship the non-use of a book has had exactly the same effect in modern days as that of an unknown tongue in medieval days, leaving the service almost entirely to the minister, just as once it left it to the priest." (P. 4. ) "Our first reason, then, for using a liturgy, or form of prayer, instead of extemporaneous devotions is that the highest and best experience in every age, Jewish as well as Christian, has proved it a neces- sity for unity of worship. Public prayer differs from private in that it must be common prayer, that is, prayer in which every member of the congregation can intelligently join, by voice sometimes, by heart and mind always. This is clearly impossible where the prayers are composed anew for each separate occasion and sometimes composed on the spur of the moment. Extemporaneous prayer is of course most necessary for private use, though even there not exclusively so. But when we come to public ','!orship, whatever else such extempOHmeous prayer may be, no matter how earnest and heartfelt, it cannot be said to be common or united prayer. It does not even escape being a form of prayer. It is necessarily a form made for the people to adopt as their own, but not knowing it beforehand, they cannot be said to make it their own and send it up to the Throne of Grace as the solemn united intercession of God's Ohurch." (P.9.) "When we come to inquire what was the actual custom of the Church concerning t,11is central act of Christian worship in the days immediately succeeding that of the apostles, it is not surprising to find everywhere one rule, and one only, namely, that of a liturgical form, though doubtless with some freedom as to extemporaneous prayer." (P. 4G.) To this is added a foot- note from Dr. Frere: "As time went on, the liberty of using extempore forms was curtailed, till it was restricted to special orders of the min- istry, such as the 'prophets' or the episcopate; and finally to all intents and purposes it disappeared." P. E. K. National Lutheran Council Jurisdiction in Externis Only. Our a t,tention has been called to a slight inaccuracy in the article entitlecl "Foreword" in the present volume of the CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY. Not the National Luthe!l"an Cou11cil as such, as stated on pp. 5 and 10, but membC1"S of the ~ational Lutheran Council. that is, me'll who were present at a meeting of that, body and afterwanls remainecl as indi- viduals to discuss doctrinal matters, were the one's who drew up the propo- sitions to which reference is made. The National Lutheran COUllcil does not make inierna its jurisdiction, but confines its work strictly to externa. P.RK.