absurdities, which several intelligent and very learned German critics
have conspired to heap upon two simple names in the Philippian Epistle,
Euodia and Syntyche; first, Baur suggesting that the pivot of the
Epistle, which has a conciliatory tendency, is the mention of Clement, a
mythical or almost mythical person, who represents the union of the
Petrine and Pauline parties in the Church [24:2]; then Schwegler,
carrying the theory a step further, and declaring that the two names,
Euodia and Syntyche, actually represent these two parties, while the
true yoke-fellow is St Peter himself [24:3]; then Volkmar, improving the
occasion, and showing that this fact is indicated in their very names,
Euodia, or 'Rightway,' and Syntyche or 'Consort,' denoting respectively
the orthodoxy of the one party and the incorporation of the other
[24:4]; lastly, Hitzig lamenting that interpreters of the New Testament
are not more thoroughly imbued with the language and spirit of the Old,
and maintaining that these two names are reproductions of the patriarchs
Asher and Gad--their sex having been changed in the transition from one
language to another--and represent the Greek and Roman elements in the
Church, while the Epistle to the Philippians itself is a plagiarism from
the Agricola of Tacitus [25:1]. When therefore I find our author
supporting some of his more important judgments by the authority of
'Hitzig, Volkmar and others,' or of 'Volkmar and others,' [25:2] I have
my own opinion of the weight which such names should carry with them
[25:3].

It is not however against the eccentricities of individuals except so
far as these can be charged to a vicious atmosphere and training, that I
would rest the chief stress of my complaint. The whole tone and spirit
of the school in its excess of scepticism must, I venture to think, be
fatal to the ends of true criticism. A reviewer of _Supernatural
Religion_ compares the author's handling of the reconstructive efforts