ISSN 0014-1690 the Ethical Record - Conway Hall · ISSN 0014-1690 the Ethical Record Vol. 99 No. 10 November 1994 TYNDALE AS TRANSLATOR OF THE BIBLE David Daniell 3 WHO KILLED HILDA

ISSN 0014-1690

the Ethical RecordVol. 99 No. 10 November 1994

TYNDALE ASTRANSLATOR OF THEBIBLEDavid Daniell 3

WHO KILLED HILDAMURRELL?Judith Cook 6

ETHICAL THOUGHTAND ETHICALPRINCIPLESJonathan Dancy 11

DAVID FRIEDRICHSTRAUSS AND•THEDISCREDITING OFCHRISTIANITYDaniel O'Hara 14

DAVID FRIEDRICH STRAUSS (1808-1874) LASKI - A LIFE ON THEwrote Leben-Jesu in 1835. In 1842 an English LEFT Reviewed bytranslation, "The Life of Jesus", was published in Dorothy Forsyth 22 London by Henry Hetherington with the aboveengraving as frontispiece. See page 14. VIEWPOINT

Eric Stockton 23EDITORIAL — THE HUMANIST THREAD

FUTURE EVENTS 24Prof David Daniell (page 3), in telling Tyndale's

tragic story, refers to the study of classical texts by

the renaissance humanists, and to Tyndale's use of

the original Greek and Hebrew sources (instead of the 4th century Latin version) when

doing his translation. Daniel O'Hara (page 14) reveals F.D. Strauss as a modern

humanist in his effort to understand the content of the Bible as a human and not a

superhuman production. Both Tyndale and Strauss were attacked and resented by the

religious establishments of their time. There is bound to be a conflict between

disinterested scholarship, the pursuit of novel truths — and The defenders of well-worn

dogma, whether ecclesiastic or secular.

There is an echo of this conflict in the field of moral philosophy — Prof Jonathan

Dancy in his paper Ethical Thought and Ethical Principles (page I I) quotes George Eliot's

diatribe against "the men of maxims". Whereas this particular conflict may be capable of

resolution, I see no possibility of a synthesis between the Christian view of man as

doomed if without faith in supernatural assistance and the humanist conviction that

religion is an invention — we are on our own in the universe.

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The AGM on 2.10.94 reappointed the list of Lecturers: Harold Blackham, T.F. Evans, Peter Heales, Richard Scorer, Barbara Smoker, Harry Stopes-Roe, Nicolas Walter.

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(• Elected at the AGM on 2.10.94) New Members

Ray Dahlitz, Beatrice Feder, John Goodhew, Steven Yeo.

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2 Ethical Record, October, 1994

TYNDALE AS TRANSLATOR OF THE BIBLE

Professor David DaniellUniversil) College London

Lecture to the Ethical Society, 2 October 1994 on the Quincentenary of the birth of William Tyndale

William Tyndale, who was born 500 years ago in 1494, gave us our English Bible. AnOxford scholar, he was the first to translate the New Testament from Greek into English,and print it: and even more remarkably, translate half the Old Testament from Hebrewinto English, and print that. This work was done at a time when to translate the Bible, oreven to read it, in English, had been strictly forbidden by the Church in England for over acentury. He did all his translating and printing in exile on the Continent. His work costhim his life, and after a sixteen-month imprisonment he was strangled and burned outsideBrussels on the morning of 6th October 1536.

Do not Thank God — Thank TyndaleThough he reached and influenced more people than Shakespeare, our debt to him is onlyslowly coming into view. The three panels of divines summoned by King James, between1604 and 1611, nearly a hundred years after Tyndale's first work, to produce a new Bibletranslation (the 'Authorised Version' or 'King-lames Bible') were happy to take, withoutacknowledgement, 90% of Tyndale's work in the New Testament, and not much less inthe Old. 'AV' is acknowledged as one of the glories of what is called England's heritage. Ithas had more influence on English-speaking people than any other document on anypeople in the world. Yet the man who made so much of it has been forgotten, and hisgenius denied him. Until very recently indeed — until the 1990s — it has been customaryto thank God that our first Bible translation was not made with any ingredient of artistry,but simply flowed out of a simple soul (i.e. Tyndale) as God poured it in. That this ispoppycock, and incipiently dangerous, is something I want to show here.

Tyndale's genius was that on top of an expert knowledge of good Latin, and, unusually,Greek — and, quite remarkably, Hebrew — he translated into an English which was notspecialised, but everyday. His translations are not in a literary English, which in the 1520sand 1530s meant heavily Latinised syntax and vocabulary, often with a strong dash ofFrench, nor in some curious philological `translatorese% so 'faithful' to the original that itobstructs understanding. Thus he gives us Jesus in Luke 14 talking of 'the poor, themaimed, the lame and the blind', and not 'the pecuniarily disadvantaged, the physicallyassaulted, the progressionally obstructed with the addition of the visually impaired'—instead of Latin jargon he gives us spoken English monosyllables. Nor does he go for'translatorese': a few lines later, the Jerusalem Bible of 1966 has 'Go to the open roads andthe hedgerows and force people to come in to make sure my house is full.' I find thatrebarbative. Tyndale, in 1526, has 'Go out into the highways and hedges, and compelthem to come, that my house may be filled.' His ear for spoken English rhythms, for theshort units that are, for example, thc legacy of English proverbs, gives his translation at alltimes that precious and unusual quality, clarity: and as a result, timelessness. (TheJerusalem Bible's 'please accept my apologies' in earlier verses in the same chapter isalready dated, where Tyndale's 'I pray thee have me excused', oddly enough, is timeless.)

Humanist Interest in Earliest TextsAfter boyhood in Gloucestershire, in prosperous circumstances, Tyndale spent about 10 years at Magdalen Hall Oxford, and then possibly some time at Cambridge, where the great Erasmus had been teaching Greek. He returned to Gloucestershire to teach the

Ethical Record, November, 1994 3

children of Sir John and Lady Walsh, not a heavy task. There. in Little Sodbury Manor, I

believe he studied Erasmus's ground-breaking Novum instrumentum ol.1516: the first ever

printed Greek New Testament, with Erasmus's own Latin alongside and copious

annotation at the end. With this book, it was now possible to challenge the Vulgate, that

Latin translation of the Bible which the Church had had since the fourth century AD.

Humanist advances just before Tyndale's time had opened up interest in the earliest texts,

though for many in authority in Europe. for someone to attend to the original languages

of the Bible (Greek for the New Testament and Hebrew for the Old) was heretical: the

Church had the Latin version made by Jerome, and the Church could not err. Moreover.

to translate the Greek and Hebrew into the vernacular, and particularly into English, was

damnable: if the common people could have the Scriptures — all the Scriptures — in their

hands, they would undoubtedly interpret them amiss: that is, in ways not sanctioned by

the Church. This is of course what happened, for study of the New Testament by laymen

allowed out the awkward fact that, for example, the doctrine of Purgatory did notappear

there. A major source a Church revenue (at its worst, in the selling of indulgences) was

undercut.

Tyndale had to go to Germany and the Low Countries to work. He printed 3,000 (some

say 6,000) pocket-size copies of an English New Testament in Worms in 1526, and

smuggled them down the Rhine to English seaports. There they were eagerly read at all

levels of society, but hunted down, confiscated and burned in heaps at St. Paul's Cross by

the Bishop of London. Their owners were punished. Only one textually complete copy

survives, now proudly shown in the British Library, which has recently bought it forl

million.

Tyndale learns Hebrew

Tyndale, undeterred but full of grief that his own country could burn the word of God, set

out to learn Hebrew to tackle the Old Testament. Only two people in England knew that

difficult language, neither of them interested in translating. Tyndale may have spent time

at Wittenberg, where Hebrew was studied and translated into German, and may indeed

have met Luther. We do not know. But within two years he had such excellent Hebrew

that he was able to translate the first five books of the Old Testament, and print them in

another small volume, also smuggled across. This was the first time any Hebrew had ever

appeared in English. So good was Tyndale's Hebrew, and his sense of it in English, that

most of what he did has survived until today — a remarkable achievement, considering

the advances since 1530 in Hebrew texts available and knowledge of the language. A

reader in London would have found.

In the beginning God created heaven and earth. The earth was void and empty, and

darkness was upon the deep. and the Spirit of God moved upon the water. Then

God said: let there be light and there was light.

That reader would have been used to Fiat lux ! facia est lux, or, if able to see one of the

hand-written 'Lollard' translations from the Latin of the 1380s. 'Be made is light; and

made is light.' Tyndale's English feels easy, not just because it is familiar. He told us

elsewhere that he found that Hebrew went best into English, far better than into Latin.

Moreover, so good a scholar was he that he made a most important discovery, as he

explained at the start of his Prologue to the revision of his translation made in 1534. This

was that underneath the Greek of the New Testament are quite often Hebrew forms. The

resulting translation was even more accurate, and ahead of its time. Indeed, we now know

Tyndale's New Testament scholarship was well ahead of anyone else in Europe, and

certainly of Luther and Melanchthon and the leading scholars M. Wittenberg.

4 Ethical Record. November, 1991

Tyndale executed but his Work lives onThat work of Tyndale was done in Antwerp, as was the continuation of his Old Testamenttranslation, not printed until after his death. He wrote other small books which arosefrom his Bible work, particularly The Obedience of a Christian Man of 1528, written tocounter the lie being put about that the Reformers, and Tyndale in particular, werepreaching sedition and treason. It was shown by Anne Boleyn to her husband-to-be: KingHenry VIII approved.

Tyndale was tricked into arrest in May 1535, imprisoned in a cell in Vilvoorde Castlenear Brussels for 16 months, tried, condemned, strangled and burned. He was forgotten,apart from the account ofJohn Foxe's Actes and Monumentes ('F oxe's Book of Ma rtyrs').His wOrk, however, lived on in successive 16th century Bibles, and then, through theAuthorised Version, into the world. King James effectively instructed his panels to takeseveral steps back, and in AV there is a wash of Latinity which sometimes obscuresTyndale's directness, as in the difference between AV at the end of Matthew 6, 'Sufficientunto the day is the evil thereof', and Tyndale's Tor the day present hath ever enough ofhis own trouble.' Such proverbial forms are everywhere in Tyndale, and thousands.ofthem have enriched our language — 'the spirit is willing', 'live and move and have ourbeing', 'fight the good fight', 'the scales fell from his eyes', 'the powers that be' (for thelatter, the 1989 Revised English Bible has 'the existing authorities').

Tyndale was at Oxford, where he learned classical rhetoric: his maturity coincided withan uprush of new interest in that discipline led by Erasmus, whose little book known as Decopia (1512) introduced many generations of schoolboys for over a hundred years to thecraft of arranging words, that is, writing. In that book, Erasmus, famously, demonstratedan exercise of saying 'Your letter has delighted me very much' in 150 ways, albeit in Latin.

Tyndale's Whole Being given to the Craft of WritingFurther, Tyndale was a scholar of languages. As a child in Gloucestershire he would havebeen aware of Welsh, and the German and Flemish of merchants in the area for the wooltrade. It is credibly said that, as well as English, he was master of eight languages. This wasa man, like Shakespeare, whose whole being was given to the craft of writing, of whatwords could'clo when spoken, and on the page: and like Shakespeare, his words were onthe page to be spoken. The more his translations are studied, the more apparent it is thathe knew precisely what he was doing, with a technical skill matching that of a designer ofaircraft engines. His sense of cadence, for example, of the way the fall of the voice can stirthe heart, is unique: 'But Mary kept all those sayings, and pondered them in her heart'(Luke 2); 'for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again: and was lost, and is found'(Luke IS); Tor we are saved by hope. But hope that is seen is no hope. For how can a manhope for that which he seeth? But and if we hope for that we see not, then do we withpatience abide for it' (Romans 8); Tor the lamb which is in the midst of the seat shall feedthem, and shall lead them unto fountains of living water, and God shall wipe away alltears from their eyes' (Revelation 7).

A neglected study of Tyndale is of the way that he matches the original. The 66 books ofthe Bible contain more than 66 styles of Hebrew and Greek, from the stark tragi-comedyof the Fall in Genesis 3 to the long novel-like narratives of Joseph (Genesis 37-48) orDavid's court (2 Samuel 16 — 1 Kings 2); from the elemental lucidity of the parables ofJesus in the Gospels to the Hebrew-in-Greek theology of Paul; from the journal at the endof Acts to the surreal hallucinations of Revelation. A bad translator makes it all sound thesame — a fault that can be laid at the door both of the old Latin Vulgate and the verymodern, trendy, 'have-a-nice-day' Bibles. Tyndale is conscious always of the topography


beneath the surface, as it were: of the variety on the sea-bed, with mountain ranges andsteep valleys and great shelves and plains, in the Hebrew as well as the Greek.

Tyndale gave his life for the power of the Greek and Hebrew Testaments in everyperson's hand, whoever they were. Foxe quotes his famous remark that 'even the boy thatdriveth the plough' shall know Scripture. We owe to him our freedom to own Bibles andto interpret their pages in the light of the whole. Above all, to have the Scriptures in anEnglish that speaks directly to the heart. This small, retiring scholar, passionately brave ingiving men and women the Word of God, single-handedly changed the whole course ofour history. It is time to know him better. 0

WHO KILLED FIILDA MURRELL?

Judith Cook Lecture to the Ethical Society, 9 October 1994

On the morning of 24 March 1984 the body of an elderly woman was found in a copse sixmiles outside Shrewsbury. She was half-naked and there were superficial injuries. Theprobable cause of death was hypothermia. After a lengthy investigation, the policeconcluded that the woman's death was the result of a break-in by an opportunist thiefwhich had gone "tragically wrong". They have never deviated from that conclusion.

The Enemy WithinThe woman's name was Hilda Murrell and the murder has become a cause c6lebre,passing into legend as one of the great unsolved mysteries of its decade. It has been thestuff of legends, speculation, fantasy and fierce controversy. Theories abound. On thewild side it has been said she was the victim of some kind of Satanic rite connected with thespring equinox. A strong body of opinion considers that she was a nuclear martyr as shewas about to present a paper on nuclear waste to the Sizewell B Inquiry and that somehowshe had had access to damning information which has never been revealed. While thenuclear issue may certainly have played an indirect part in her death, it seems more likely— in spite of all the attempts to rubbish any but the official version — that her death wasthe result of a train of apparently disconnected events, a cockup rather than a conspiracy.She died because she was the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time.

She was also a victim of the times. The first years of the Thatcher administration weremarked by a climate of paranoia. "Political correctness" has now come to mean jokesabout short people being described as "vertically challenged". Political correctness in1984 was about being "one of us", fears of "the enemy within": a time when legitimate,democratic dissent was regarded as little less than treasonable. This is in no small way dueto the fact that we have no written constitution, no Bill of Rights, no Freedom ofInformation Act and because our security services are accountable to no one.

Many of the facts of the case are now widely known. At the time of her death, HildaMurrell was seventy-nine and had long since retired from the family rose-growingbusiness which she had run somewhat reluctantly having hankered after an academiccareer — she read modern and mediaeval languages at Cambridge. She never married. Inretirement she concentrated on conservation issues 'and felt passionate about nuclearenergy.

6 Ethical Record, November, 1994

Premonitions of the EndWe know that she suffered from growing anxiety, telling some of her friends she felt shewas under some kind of surveillance, culminating in an extraordinary phoneca II toGerard Morgan Grenville of ECOROPA on 25 February 1984 which ended with hersaying: "If they don't get me first I want the world to know that one old woman has seenthrough their lies".

On the 21 March she had arranged to spend the day with friends in Wales. Returningfrom a shopping trip before setting off, she appears to have disturbed the thief or thieves.There was a struggle. after which the assailant drove her out of the town (witnesses sawthe car) and dumped her in the copse. Her body was discovered three days later. Thebreak-in was unusual. The thief had disconnected the telephone. At first the police said ithad been "expertly disconnected", then that the wires had merely been yanked out of thewall and, indeed, a policeman later appeared on television holding some broken wires.The thief then searched her files and papers before leaving with a small amount of cash. Apolice statement that she had been sexually assaulted was later amended to there beingsigns of sexual activity on some clothing.

Controversy over the investigation is also common knowledge: for instance, that herabandoned car was not checked out even though it was reported twice; that the owner ofthe land on which the body was found stated he had walked the area on the Thursday andthere was no corpse there then; that a policeman had searched the house for two hours onthe morning of the 24 March without discovering she was not there. After months ofspeculation, the Inquest was held in December 1984, the Coroner returing a verdict thatshe had been Unlawfully Killed. Detective Ch ief Superintendent David Cole confirmedthe view that she had died at the hands of a random burglar, stating he had evidence in hisincident room which led to that conclusion. That evidence has never been revealed.Following mounting criticism of the conduct of the investigation, the West Mercia forcecalled in their colleagues in Northumberland to undertake an inquiry. Six months later itwas announced that while there were minor criticisms of the way the investigation hadbeen conducted, no real flaws could be found. The full report, like the information in theincident room, has also never been published.

The Murky World of SurveillanceSo to the two main strands. First the nuclear issue. In January 1985, thanks to journalistsassisted by a Gary Murray, a private investigator, it was discovered that Sizewell Bobjectors had indeed been the object of surveillance. The operation on behalf of ananonymous client (consensus opinion being that it was MI5) was put out to ZeusSecurities, who in turn put it out to the Sapphire Investigation Bureau of Acle in Norfolkrun by Barry Peachman. He, in turn, contracted the work out still further to a manvariously known as Vic Norris or Adrian Flampson. Norris/Hampson, a convicted childsex-abuser, was known to have links with the extreme right. Indeed he ran a Nazimemorabilia mail order business from his office in Colchester. There is documentaryevidence of this three-way link.

After their activities came to light, everyone frantically back-pedalled except Peach manwho was totally out of his depth with Sizewell. Three weeks after Flilda's murder, heblasted half his head off with a shotgun. The Inquest heard that Peachman, a marriedman, had been under severe emotional strain due to his involvement with anotherwoman. It was not quite like that. His relationship with his mistress had lasted manyyears; indeed she helped run his agency and they had a nine-year-old son, something thathad long been accepted by his wife and family.


The world of private security firms is a murky one. It is also complicated. Some of those

employed by one might well run another on their own account. All use freelances. Hilda's

name did not appear on any list of those being surveilled but then it didn't need to be as

she was a member of a number of organisations who were listed and, for instance,

telephone taps can be granted for an entire organisation, covering anyone in it.* At its 1993

Press Conference on the Murrell murder it was stated that "the Security Services" had

assured West Mercia police that Hilda Murrell had never appeared on their files or been

the object of scrutiny. This was greeted with scepticism.

A Tremendous Flap in Downing Street

So to the Belgrano connection. Thatcher had been swept to power in the 1983 election on

a tidal wave of patriotic jingoism. The Falklands campaign had been a Godsend; prior to

it, her poll rating stood at the lowest for any Prime Minister since records began. an

achievement now overtaken by John Major. Just why she decided to tell the country,

backed by her Ministers, that the battleship had been stink as it was sailing towards the

British Task Force, not away from it, is unclear. As ex-Defence Minister, Alan Clark, said

in his Diaries, most of the British people couldn't have cared less if it had been sunk while

tied up in port. However, once having decided to prevaricate, her face had to be saved at

all costs. The fly in the ointment was Labour MP Tam Dalyell who worried at the issue

like a terrier with a rat. By December 1983 his questions were getting so near the bone that

a special committee, under Cabinet Secretary Sir Robert Armstrong, was set up to look

into the leaks.

By the 19 March 1984 it was evident that Dalyell had material which was quite specific.

That day there was, says an informed source, "a tremendous flap in Downing Street" and

the order went out that it must be found at all costs, every avenue explored however

remote. Could it be that copies of raw signals concerning the sinking had come intoDalyell's hands? Rumours abounded. Had information come from a Lieutant Sethia, a

junior officer on the submarine Conqueror which had sunk the battleship? There was also

deliberate misinformation. Newspapers were told the Conqueror's log was missing, the

inference being that it had been stolen. In actual fact Conqueror had been acting as a spy

for the USA, monitoring Soviet ships dropping sounding equipment and the Americans

had demanded the Log be sent to Washington after the Falklands campaign.

Back then to the signals traffic. Only one senior officer, Commander Robert Green,

who had played a crucial role in naval intelligence at Northwood during the Falklands

campaign, had since left the service. It can now be said that Dalyell did receive material

based on signals from Conqueror. Sethia was not the only officer who was sickened by the

hypocrisy surrounding the whole affair. The material came into the hands of a London

publisher (now dead) who, after taking advice from a colleague, had it passed on to

Dalyell who probably still does not know its origin.

A Nightmare of HarrassmentI became involved in the affair in the summer of 1984 after being approached by a friend

of Hilda's For a good while I did not get involved as, to be honest, I did not think there

was any real cause for disquiet. It was only after being persuaded to visit the area, then

talking to the nephew (and discovering the Belgrano involvement) that I became

convinced something was badly wrong. The next eight months, leading up to the

publication of the first small book, was a nightmare of harrasment: letters opened, phone

tapped, heavy-handed surveillance when I went anYwhere and, finally, threatening phone

calls in the night.

slEditor's italics]


In 1993 a book appeared called Enemies of the State by the private investigator, GaryMurray. The Murrell murder was one of a number of examples instanced of State powerhaving apparently got out of control. Murray was a maverick, has made powerful enemiesand every effort has been made to dimiss him and what he has to say but there is no doubtwhatsoever that he does have access to a great deal of undercover information.

' Murray's new information had come from a young woman, Triona Guthrie, who hadbeen a friend of Hilda's in Shrewsbury. She had since ta ken up a conservation post inLincolnshire and had also become a Prison Visitor. It was while visiting a prisoner in anorth country jail that she heard the story of a fellow-inmate, a story which she wasrecommended to pass on to Murray. Miss Guthrie swore her information on affidavit. Noone who has spent time with her and questioned her closely can doubt her sincerity orbalance and she cannot be described in any way as an obsessive.

The Break-InAs briefly as possible then: In March 1984 a group of freelances, which had been usedbefore by a shadowy north of England investigation agency which called itself "Ceres"and was the offshoot of a larger, unnamed organisation was brought together for a softtarget operation. The liaison officer, whose name is known and who has openly braggedof his links with MI5 and MI6, called himself "Demeter". The team's task was to searchHilda's house, Ravenscroft, for papers. It was known (thanks to phone taps) that on the21 March she would be out all day. Four people actually went into the house, led by theman described in Murray's book as Team Member 3 and backed up by his girlfriend andtwo other men, one of whom was the source of the story.

Seeing her leave the house and assuming that she would not be back until the end of theafternoon, they had broken in, disconnected the telephone (a drawing of its state on themorning of 24.3.84 has now been published) and begun their search. Team Member 3soon found the deeds to The Shack, Hilda's holiday cottage on the Welsh border notmany miles away and he decided to take his girlfriend and search there first, leaving theother two men to continue going through Ravenscroft. Shortly after he left, the two menwere taken totally by surprise when Hilda returned. There was a brief struggle, she wastied up and dumped on her bed. One of the men, with a taste for violence, then tried tomake Hilda tell him if there were "stolen papers" in the house, roughing her up in theprocess and becoming sufficiently sexually aroused to masturbate. Team Member 3,returning soon after having found no papers at all at The Shack, was appalled. Here thestory becomes somewhat confused, but basically it is that it was decided to remove her,that she was taken first to a deserted airfield known locally as Little America, before beingdumped in the copse on the Friday before she was found. After which the professionalswere called in to clean up the mess.

Needless to say, Murray's book met with a barrage of criticism but, as a result, WestMercia police announced they were re-opening their inquiries. Murray gave no names ofthose involved but it was known that Team Member 3 had later died in Cleveland in 1987after a police chase. It did not therefore take a Sherlock Holmes to trace him. His namewas David Gricewith and he had been wanted in connection with the fatal shooting of apoliceman during an abortive robbery in Leeds in October 1984. He does not seem to havebeen suspected locally of having any criminal activity and indeed lived in the village wherehe had grown up, ran a garage business and seems to have been well-liked. He did lookvery much like the artist's impression published at the time of Hilda's death of a man seenrunning away from her car.


After his death just about every serious violent crime that had occurred in the area inthe previous fourteen years was laid at his door. It must have done wonders for the localclear-up rate. There was nothing to show that he had been such a Napoleon of crime, priorto his violent demise. Other information is, however, more interesting. Gricewith hadknown and long-standing links with the extreme Right both in this country and inEurope. He had carried out undercover work for private security firms on previousoccasions. He had been used as an agent provocateur during the miners' strike, beingresponsible for a particularly violent incident.

People don't Believe the Police TheoryAt a press conference held in Shrewsbury in February 1994, West Mercia policeannounced they could find no "shred of evidence" to support Triona Guthrie'sinformant's story. All the members of the anonymous team (except for "one nowdeceased") had been interviewed and eliminated from inquiries. It had been establishedthat one of the alleged participants, currently serving a long prison sentence, had read an articleabout the Murrell murder in late 1989 and, in an attempt to focus media attention on himselfand what he believed was his wrongful conviction, had made the whole story up, basing it on thearticle. Police had also visited "the Headquarters of the Security Services" (they did not specifywhich one) and "the Services" had co-operated fully. They had no knowledge of Hilda Murrellprior to her death and were not involved in her murder.

Had police had unrestricted access to intelligence files? No, but they had been given access tothe parts of files which would have contained the relevant details had there been any to contain.Criticism was levelled at all those who had sought, since the 1984 investigation, to suggest therewas anything behind the murder other than the panic of an opportunist thief. Answers toquestions from journalists were hampered by any to do with "the Security Services" beingdisallowed on security grounds! The event was best summed up in a question asked by JohnOsmond of HTV, one of the first and most persistent journalists to have covered the Murrellaffair: "Don't you realise", he said, "that the reason there has been so much speculation over theyears is because people just don't believe the police theory of the random walk-in burglar?Because what you say simply isn't credible?" Assistant Chief Constable Thursfield replied thathe did not agree with this view but was prepared to defend Osmond's right to hold it.

No doubt the police are sincere in their beliefs, so why do so many of us remain unconvinced?One reason is the newspaper story on which the prisoner's story was said to have been based. It

, had appeared in the Independent in November 1989. The writer, Amanda Mitchison, wasinterested in the obsessive effect the murder has had on people. One section only dealt with themurder itself To base the "Ceres" scenario on it would take, one feels, the combined talents ofP.D. James and Ruth Rendell. The instigator would also have had to weave in a host of previousassociates and an employee of a security firm who does actually exist. And for what? How couldit help him to focus media attention on his own conviction? If it was proved to be a pack of lies,then he would do his own case no good at all and spend even more time in jail for wasting policetime. If it proved to be true, then he could find himself tried as an accessory to one of the mostnotorious murders of the last decade.

Shortly after I delivered My book, a retired MI5 officer often used as a consultant by themedia was casually asked about the Murrell murder. Freelance operatives had, he said, been sentin and they had panicked when the old lady returned unexpectedly. Their MI5 handler had beenseverely reprimanded.

Judith Cook's book, Unlawful Killing is published by Bloomsbury at f 16.99 A poem by Martin Green entitled "Who killed Hilda Murrell" is available on request. Send a S.A.E. to the Editor.


ETHICAL THOUGHT AND ETHICAL PRINCIPLESProfessor Jonathan Dailey

Unhersity of Eerie

Lecture to the Ethical Society, 16 October 1994

The stated purpose of the South Place Ethical Society is 'the study and dissemination ofethical principles'. This statement manifestly presupposes that ethical thought concernsitself with principles; from which we may infer that practical ethical judgement is theapplication of principle to particular cases. But this presupposition can be challenged,and it is the purpose of this talk to mount such a challenge.

Reasons are Context-sensitiveI start somewhere apparently quite different. In practical ethical thought, as opposed tophilosophical ethical thought, we consider ethical reasons for and against possiblecourses of action. I do not see any hard distinction between ethical reasons and moralreasons. So from now on I will speak more of the moral. How do moral reasons function?There is a received view (received even by the Ethical Society), which is that thoughconsiderations such as the pain I will cause her if I persist are indeed moral reasons, theyare only able to be such reasons if there is a principle into which they are keyed. In thiscase the principle is obvious; it is something like 'It is wrong to cause pain to the innocent'.The fact that I" will be causing her pain is only a reason against continuing because itenables my action to be subsumed under the moral principle — to come under it, as wesay. These principles do not change from case to case; they remain unchanging. And thismeans that the fact that I will be causing someone pain if I continue is always a reasonagainst continuing. It is everywhere the sort of reason it is anywhere.

Not all reasons are like this, however. Reasons for belief function in a different way.For instance, the fact that I seem to be seeing something red before me is normally areason to believe that there really is something red before me. But not always. If I hadrecently been injected with a drug that makes blue things look red, the fact that this looksred to me is now a reason to suppose that it is not red, but blue. So the context can affectwhat is a reason for what. As the present case shows, something can be a reason for acertain belief in one context, and a reason for the opposite belief in another. Reasons forbelief can change their polarity, as we might put it, from case to case.

Should we sUppose that this phenomenon is restricted to reasons for belief, or do wealso find it with reasons for action? An example that I often use concerns pleasure. That itwill give pleasure to admit the public to a spectacle is normally a reason in favour of doingso. If, for instance, we can without too much disruption give free access to our orchestralrehearsal, we should do so; and the reason why we should do so is that they will getpleasure from it. But this is not always so. People would probably get pleasure fromattending a public execution. But this is not a reason for admitting them — for holdingexecutions in public. Rather, it is a reason on the other side, a reason for excluding them.In fact, once one sees this point, one can find lots of examples where the pleasure makesthings worse, not better. If fox-hunting is bad, the enjoyment of the hunters makes itworse, not better. It is not any sort of mitigating consideration.

So it seems as if reasons for action are in general as context-sensitive as are reasons forbelief. The question now is whether moral reasons are different from all the rest. Is it thecase even here that whether something is a reason, and if it is what sort of a reason it is, isheavily dependent on context? My view is that there is no justification for taking moralreasons to be different from other practical reasons in this respect. A consideration can

Ethical Record, November, 1994 I I

count in favour of an action in one case (in moral favour, as it were), against in another,

and be simply indifferent in a third.

There are no Moral PrinciplesNow this might seem quite innocuous. But it has the dramatic consequence that there are

no moral principles at all. For moral principles specify considerations as always counting

the same way. If it is wrong to lie, it is always wrong to lie. If it is right to help others, that is

alsvaysa feature that makes one's action the better, and so on. But if moral reasons are like

other reasons, nothing like this will ever be true. So there will be no general truths

anywhere about what is a reason for what, and so no general truths or rules in ethics.

This is in fact my conclusion. To many it seems horrific — it seems to be the

abandonment of moral thought altogether. But I am not alone in my view. George Eliot

wrote:

All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the men of

maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our

life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of

that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from

growing insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular representa-

tive of the minds that are guided in their moral judgement solely by general rules,

thinking that these will guide them to justice by a ready-made patent method,

without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality — without

any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a

hardly-earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to

have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human.'

Absolute and Pro Tamp PrinciplesNow Eliot appeals here to the complexity of real situations. But that appeal is inadequate

to establish the point. We should distinguish between two conceptions of moral

principles: absolute principles and pro mato principles. Ifwe take the principle 'It is wrong

to lie as. an absolute principle. it tells us (hat whatever the circumstances, a lie is wrong

and should not be told; lying is. as we say, absolutely wrong. If we take is as a pro 'onto

principle, it tells us only that an action that is mendacious is the worse for that; its being a

lie, that is, counts against it, but it remains possible that there are enough other

considerations counting in favour of it that overall it ought to be told. So sometnnes we

should lie, even though lying is wrong — but only if we are dealing here with a pro tunto

rather than an absolute principle.

Using this distinction, we can see that any plausible absolute principle will have to be

very complex.lt is (absohnely) wrong to lie' is just too simple to cope with the rich variety

of cases that it is supposed to be applicable to. Pro tanto principles don't need to be made

more complex in this sort of way. They can cope with complexity without change. For the

complexity of a situation is just the presence ol'ot her relevant lea tures, and these are to be

understood in just the same way as the first. For instance, while we might need to

complicate our absolute principle to read 'Lying that is not to save a life is absolutely

wrong., we can leave ourpro tonto principle alone. For it tells Us only that if you are lying

to save a life, that you are telling a lie makes your action worse than it would otherwise

have been. It may still be so good for being a l&-saver that its goodness outweighs its

badness. leaving it as required of us overall.

'The Mill on the Floss, end of Bk 7, ch.2.


The model here is a sort of kitchen-scales model. The mendacity pulls the scales downon one side; the life-saving pulls it down harder on the other. This is often the sort ofmodel we have in mind when we talk of the balance of reasons, and it is what the idea ofthe pro wow is trying to capture.

Though there is this distinction between two conceptions of moral principles, it is nohelp against my argument that what is a reason in one case may be the opposite reason inanother — that reasons are sensitive to context. For if my argument is sound, there are noabsolute moral principles and nn pro wow ones either. This is because both types ofprinciple try to say something about lying (e.g.) that is supposed to be true independent ofcontext. The absolute principle says that if an action is a lie, it is wrong no matter what.The pro tamo principle says that if an action is a lie, that always counts against it, even ifthere may be more counting on the other side. But neither of these things will be true, if Iam right. There can be no true moral principles.

We must manage without PrinciplesThis leaves us with two possibilities. The first is that since there are no moral principles,there is no such thing as morality. This is a total moral scepticism, which certainly doesn'tattract me. The second is that though there is such a thing as morality, and such things asmoral reasons, such reasons don't need the support of principles. Morality and principledmorality are not the same thing, and the former is much the better. Of course everybodytends to conflate the two. But this is just a mistake, whose explanation is historical. In factthe appeal to principle is evidence of a very unfortunate inflexibility in moral thought,since it will lead one to fail to notice the differences made by changes in the situation. Onewill always be tempted to think This feature made that action wrong; so it must make thisaction wrong. This action was the worse for having that property; so that action, whichhas that property too, must be the worse for it'. If I am right, all such forms of inferenceare unsound. Moral reasoning and moral judgement must manage to do without them.

Though I believe this conclusion to be sound, I find it hard to get people to believe it.There are three main forms of opposition that I want to mention before I close.

The first can be put at its simplest in this way: moral reasons constitute constraints onchoice; constraint means regulation; and regulation means rules. So without moral rules(aka moral principles) there can be no moral reasons at all.

The reply to this is that constraint amounts here to reasons for failing to follow one'sown inclinations. In this sense, it is undeniable that moral reasons constitute constraints.But it is an illusion to suppose that constraints of this sort require rules. Such self-constraints can be self-imposed, and focused entirely on the particular case before one.The fact that this person needs our help is a moral reason for helping them, even if thatmeans missing a pleasant evening with our friends. But its status as a reason is relative tothe case before us. It might not be such a reason in another case. Crucially, it doesn't haveto be that reason elsewhere in order to be that reason here. But if it is that reason here, it isa constraint on our behaviour. Even if the constraint is not sclf-imposed, but external, itdoes not have to come in the form of a general rule. If this action is wrong. its wrongnessmay constitute a constraint on my behaviour because of how others will respond to mydoing it, without that doing anything to show that all such actions are wrong. ft onlymatters for the existence of the constraint that this one should be.

The second form of opposition is the charge that an unprincipled morality is a laxmorality. The person of principle is unbudgeable — she stands by or on her principles.


And this is what we expect of a truly moral agent. So if there arc no principles, therecannot be a truly moral agent, and this destroys the very concept of morality.

, The reply to this is that nothing prevents someone persuaded by my denial of moralprinciples from being of a very firm conviction case by case. Unbudgeability and principleneed not be linked in the way suggested. What is more, are we sure that a person'ofprinciple (George Eliot's man of maxims) will be unbudgeable on the right points oroccasions? The person who is unbudgeably wrong is not a moral hero but a disaster.

The last charge is that without the constraint of principles, there will be too much scopefor special pleading. lt will be always possible to find some dilDrence between this act anda plain duty that we can appeal to in order to weasel off the moral hook.

Good Will and Honesty the Best PolicyThe best reply to this is honesty. There is indeed always a danger of special pleading. But thisdanger needs to be met, not with the panoply of moral principles (which we have already

shown to lack real application) but with a sound sense of what is a reason for what. Someonewho does not have that sense may be beyond our help altogether. But those who do have it,despite a constant tendency to find excuses, can be shown by others or even show themselveswhat they really ought to have done, if they will honestly consider the structure of thesituation before them and the ways in which the various features combine to generate moraldemands on them. There is no substitute for this honest attempt at self-evaluation, but it is apractice that can be effective, and often is. With a good will, the sort of moral reasoning that Ihave been talking about is quite capable of correcting the back-sliding that we are all liable to.We do not need principles for this purpose.

DAVID FRIEDRICH STRAUSS AND THE DISCREDITING OF CHRISTIANITY

Daniel O'Hara Lecture to the Ethical Society, 30 October 1994

It is arguable that the two figures from the 19th Centurywho did most to undermine the credibility of Christianity

were the near contemporaries, David Friedrich Strauss(1808-1874) and Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882).

Though neither was the first in his field in point of time,both provided massive and detailed evidence for viewswhich were to be literally epoch-making. In Darwin's case,the achievement was a comprehensive and completelynaturalistic explanation of how life had developed on thisplanet. This was an explanation which made the hithertowidely accepted beliefs in God as the supernatural creatorand man as the unique pinnacle of creation redundant andindeed untenable.

Daniel O'Hara

Christianity Confuted from Within and WithoutThe German philosopher and theologian, David Friedrich Strauss likewise offered for

the first time a comprehensive and completely naturalistic explanation of how Christianity arose in the ancient Jewish world. This was an explanation which enabled the New


Testament to be understood for the first time largely as a collection of religious myths. Straussshowed that the orthodox beliefs in a decisive divine intervention in human affairs in the personofJesus Christ, and the Gospels as reliable historical records of that intervention, are redundantand indeed untenable.

In a nutshell, we might say that while Darwin, working from the outside, showed that thewhole edifice of natural theology, and in particular the argument from design, was based on afalse or at least a question-begging premise, Strauss, working from the inside, showed that thetraditional, orthodox doctrine of Christianity as a revealed religion could not be sustained.

Both these great thinkers were able to establish their ideas only on a scientific basis ofmeticulous and detailed investigation coupled with an unprecedented boldness in formulatingand testing theories. In Darwin's case this involved the most careful study of the anatomy,physiology and distribution of a wide range of plant and animal species around the world andthrough geologkal time. For Strauss, the achievement was wrought through the meticulousstudy in the original languages of the texts of the Old and New Testaments, inter-testamentalJudaism, the Early Church Fathers and the authors of classical antiquity, together with the workof the most important philosophers and theologians of the intervening centuries, coupled with aboldness of spirit which placed the claims of truth, clarity and honesty above the demands oftradition and conformity to ecclesiastical orthodoxy.

Thus the publication in 1835 of Strauss's 'Life of Jesus Critically Examined', and thepublication in 1859 of Darwin's 'Origin of Species' both marked watersheds in the history ofthought. Just as no natural philosopher after 1859 could write as though Darwin's work did notexist, and even his fiercest critics were forced to come to terms with his theory of evolution bynatural selection, so no religious philosopher after 1835 could ignore Strauss's work. It canindeed be argued that the whole course of theology in Western Christendom throughout the restof the last century and into our own was set by Strauss, with other theologians either acceptinghis views and trying to work out their implications, or else resisting them totally, or at least tryingto insulate faith from historical scepticism.

South Place studies Strauss in 1840Among the first publicly, and positively to discuss Strauss's Life of Jesus and its implications inEngland was, interestingly, an assistant minister at the South Place Chapel* in Finsbury, namedPhilip Harwood. His Six Lectures on Strauss's work published in book form in 1841 under thetitle German Anti-Supernaturalism were based on the third edition of Strauss' Leben-Jesu whichappeared in Germany in 1839. It was in this third edition that Strauss made (as Darwin was to doin later editions of the Origin) concessions to critics of the earlier editions which he later came toregret, and indeed withdrew in the Fourth Edition of 1840 which was substantially in agreementwith the First. These concessions were largely about the Fourth Gospel, which Strauss haddecided was historically worthless, then under pressure he conceded that it might have somehistorical basis, finally reverting to the view that it contained no reliable historical materialwhatsoever.

In Philip HarwoOd's audience at South Place was a young woman named Rufa Brabant, laterthe wife of Charles Hennell. She was shortly to embark on an English translation of Strauss'swork, but gave it up finding the task beyond her. Before long her friend Mary Ann Evans (whowas to win fame a decade later as the novelist, George Eliot) responded quite magnificently tothe hope expressed in the Preface of Harwood's published lectures that "the time may come

.when English Literature will be enriched with a well-executed translation both of the Leben-Jesuthe Streitschnfien." It was from the fourth edition of the Leben-Jesu that Mary Ann Evans, while'The precursor of the South Place Ethical Society


still only 24 years old, started in 1844 upon her epic translation which was published byChapmans in 1846, bringing Strauss to a wide audience in the English-speaking world. For hertwo years of intensive labour she received the sum of 1:20, but her name did not appear anywhere

in the 3-volume publication. Philip Harwood's publicly expressed hope that the StreOsehrifien(three volumes of answers by Strauss to his critics) might also be translated into English remains.incidentally, unfulfilled.

After Strauss's death in 1874, it was another minister of South Place Chapel. the great

Moncure Daniel Conway himself, who published in pamphlet form one of the best shortassessments in English of his life and work. And later still, both J.M. Robertson and G.A. Wellshave been among the prominent British critics of Christianity who have expressed their debt to

Strauss. Who then was this figure who made such a significant contribution to the discrediting of

Christianity?

Strauss's Outstanding Scholastic SuccessDavid Friedrich Strauss (known to his family as 'Fritz') was born on 27 January 1808 in the

Swabian town of Ludwigsburg, north of Stuttgart. His father was a poet of a mystical turn ofmind, and an able scholar, fluent in both classical and modern languages, who gave up the

prospects of an academic career to take over the family mercantile business. His mother was of amore pragmatic and rationalistic temperament. Fritz was their third child, but the first to survive

infancy, and he early showed considerable intellectual ability. At 13Y2, he entered the prestigiousLower Seminary at Blaubetiren, where he was one of an outstanding class, five of whom

graduated with maximum marks, and where one of his teachers was Ferdinand Christian Baur,later a professor at the Evangelische Stift (Protestant Seminary) in Tdbingen where Strauss took

his degree in 1830 as the most oustanding student of his year.

The twenty-two year old Strauss was ordained in the Lutheran Church, and served anine-month curacy in the village of Klein-Ingersheim, before becoming briefly a tutor at the

Maulbronn Seminary where he taught Latin, Hebrew and History to the final year students.While there he obtained his Doctorate in Theology from the University of TObingen, with a

dissertation on the Lucan doctrine of 'The Restoration of All Things'.

Already an enthusiastic student of Hegel's writings. Strauss travelled to Berlin in the Fall of1831 in order to hear Hegel lecture in philosophy. Within a week of his arrival, and after

attending only two of his lectures, Strauss heard from Schleiermacher that Hegel had just died ofcholera. Strauss blurted out his dismay with the words: "But it was for his sake that I came here

to Berlin!" Schleiermacher, who was thc foremost German theologian of his day, took this as

something of a personal insult. He and Hegel had been bitter rivals. In the wake of Kant'sdemolition of neo-seholasticism, Schleiermacher had attempted to re-found the Christian faith

on the psychological basis of the human feeling or sense of absolute dependence (in German:

Das Gefiihl der schlechthinnigen AbhdogigkeiD, to which Hegel had responded that on this

basis, the dog was of all animals the most religious!

Strauss repaired his relationship with Schleiermacher, attended his lectures and

beca me deeply impressed with his exposition of the life of Jesus, at that stage only

available as notes taken at lectures the previous year by several students from which

Stra uss made his own copy. These helped him, albeit temporarily, with his difficultiesover how something might be true dogmatically while doubtful or even false historically.

It was the kind of double-think which has characterised theology down the ages, and

which Strauss was eventually to reject with such far-reaching consequences.

16 Ethical Record, November. 1994

Leben-Jesu renders Strauss UnemployableFinally dissatisfied with Schleiermachcr's approach, Strauss returned to Tfibingen in May 1832to take up a tutorship in theology and philosophy at the Evangelischc Stift, and to start workingwith remarkable industry on his own Life of Jesus, a work of enormous erudition andthoroughness which occupied him for much of the ensuing three years and. when published, ranto nearly 1500 pages of print. It was a spectacular achievement, particularly for a man still in hismid-twenties. The first volume appeared on I June 1835 and the second that October. thoughthe title page carries the date 1836. Both volumes had therefore appeared when Strauss was 27.

Trouble started within weeks of the appearance of the first volume. Its methods as much as itsunorthodox conclusions led to a great hue and cry among the faithful, as a result of whichStrauss was dismissed from his teaching post in Tnbingen, and the Church authorities weresuccessful in ensuring that, other than a brief period as a schoolmaster, he never again obtainedan academic post anywhere. Even though he was appointed to a theological chair in Zdrich bythe radical administration in 1839, his appointment was countermanded following a huge publicoutcry, and he was pensioned off on half-pay without ever taking up his post.

What, precisely, was it that caused such offence? Others before Strauss had cast doubts uponorthodox doctrines without stirring up anything like the furore which greeted the first volume ofhis Lehen-Jesu within weeks of its publication. In his biography of Strauss published in 1973, Dr.Horton Harris correctly identities the cause of the offence:

What shocked the orthodox believer most of all was the frank and open repudiation ofthe historical veracity of the Gospels. What had previously been accepted as irrefutableand invulnerable to attack was now set in doubt. The mighty fortress had now beenundermined and appeared to be about to collapse in ruins. It was not merely that theChristian faith had been repudiated — Voltaire and the French Philosophes had poured

out their vitriolic scorn on Christianity without causing any great theologicalcommotion... Voltaire and his friends had merely denied the traditional doctrines;Strauss had destroyed the foundations on which those doctrines stood: (he)...hadremorselessly exhibited the discrepancies, contradictions and mistakes in the Gospelnarratives, and made the supernatural explanations appear weak and untenable. (p.410

The Human Capacity for Myth-makingWhat Strauss had also achieved was to show up as ridiculous those earlier rationalisticexplanations proffered by such of his predecessors as Paulus, who had explained the feedingmiracles, for example, by supposing that Jesus' willingness to share his paltry rations with hisdisciples had shamed the multitudes into getting out and sharing around the sandwiches theyhad selfishly secreted upon their persons! Paulus likewise explained the resurrection ofJesus onthe basis that he had not really died on the cross, and had later revived and crept from the tomb,much as D.H. Lawrence had later supposed in his noyella, The Man who Died. Strauss suppliedthe coup de grace to the swoon theory.

Horton Harris is wrong, however, to claim that Strauss had dismissed the possibility ofmiracles on apriorist grounds. Several times he levels this charge against him, but George Wellshas argued, in his Religious Postures that Strauss's achievement was to show, not that miraclesare impossible, but that we do not need to resort to the highly problematical idea of miracle toexplain the New Testament. That which may be explained more economically on the basis ofwhat we do know of natural phenomena should not, on principle, be given a supernaturalisticexplanation which must rely, a fortiori, on what we cannot know or understand.

Albert Schweitzer was later to suggest that Strauss had simply left the problem of miracles


unsolved, and succeeded merely in keeping the question off the agenda in the ensuing scientificstudy of the Gospels. But what Strauss had succeeded in demonstrating was that the allegedmiracles in the Gospels are so poorly attested, and so much the more readily understood asmyths based on fanciful theological interpretations of the Old Testament by suggestiblemembers of an enthusiastic Messianic sect in the first century of the common era.

The Occa mist principle is here deployed to great effect. The Gospel miracles are neither to bebelieved nor are they to be explained away: they are to be seen as products of the human capacityfor myth-making and fantasy. In this respect, they are not significantly different from themiracles of other religions and secular antiquity, except where these can be identified asdeliberate deception. We may note in passing that the other school of German anti-supernaturalism, that represented by H. Samuel Reimarus, considered that Jesus was acommon agitator and his followers conscious and deliberate deceivers of the credulous. Asimilar view has been revived in our own time by Morton Smith, though it had been disposed ofas thoroughly by Strauss as the rationalistic anti-supernaturalism of Eichhorn and Paulus.

Sister Anna's VisionsAs a digression, one might point here to a notorious proleptic attempt to circumvent thehistorical scepticism about the life ofJesus which Strauss's approach engendered. In 1834, a yearbefore Strauss's Leben-Jesu appeared, Clemens Brentano published part of a work that had beendictated to him by a catholic nun, Anna Katherina Emmerich, who had died in 1824, describingher visions directly communicated (it was alleged) by God, of the Passion of Christ. This famouswork, The Bitter Sufferings of Our Lord Jesus Christ, added all manner of colourful detail to thebare narrative given in the Gospels. From her we learn that Jesus was precisely 33 years, 17weeks and 6 days old when he died; that Judas Iscariot was the illegitimate son of a dancer and amilitary tribune, that he had black hair and a red beard; that the fish caught with a stater in itsmouth was so big it provided a banquet for the apostles, etc. etc.

One can only wish that Sister Anna had lived a century later, for she might then have beenable to fill in some of the lacun(c so inconsiderately left by Daisy Ashford in the biography of Mr.Salteena. Seriously, though. it is important to note that Brentano was absolutely convinced ofthe veracity of Sister Anna's revelations, which were finally published in full only afterBrentano's death in three volumes between 1858 and 1860, and that The Bitter Sufferings of OurLord Jesus Christ long held an honoured place in Catholic piety. Even Albert Schweitzer wasmoved to deseribe Sister Anna's embellishments of the Gospel as 'rather attractive', adding 'onecannot handle the book without a certain reverence when one thinks amid what pains theserevelations were received.'

But the generality of at least Protcstant theologians were as dismissive of the revelations ofSister Anna as they were enraged by the logical rigour of Dr. Strauss, and it was he whom themany felt the need to answer and neutralise. Even most of the few who were in substantialagreement with Strauss found it prudent to keep quiet, and his erstwhile teacher, F.C. Baur,while sharing his views about the historical unreliability of the Gospels, was at pains to distancehimself from what he called Strauss's 'negative' criticism. Besides prudence, Baur was probablyalso motivated by jealousy that his pupil had won fame before himself He went on to becomethe centre of the radical "Tubingen School" of theology, and though he never felt able to giveStrauss his due, it is clear Baur could not have done his work without Strauss's preparatoryclearing of the ground.

What did Strauss Believe?While the Strauss of the first Leben-Jesu was more or less completely destructive of the historical reliability of the Gospels, he nevertheless retained both his belief that there was an historical


Jesus, and his belief (based on his acceptance of Hegelian philosophy) tharthe spiritualessence of Christianity could survive the shaking of its historical foundations. Over thedecade following its publication, however, he gradually shed all his Hegelian views, andby the time he came to write his "New Life of Jesus for the German People" in 1864, hehad long since emancipated himself from all Hegelian influence.

Some commentators, such as Albert Schweitzer and Karl Barth, who have expressedlavish, if backhanded, praise for the 'First Life' have nevertheless been scathing about the'New Life'. It was, however, the 'New Life' which Strauss himself, shortly before hisdeath, selected for inclusion in the planned twelve-volume collected edition of his"Works". And it is the 'New Life' which, of course, presents us with Strauss's moremature and considered views on the Jesus question. I think it is largely because this workis less vulnerable to some of the criticisms levelled against the earlier work that Christianapologists seek to dismiss it. It is, in my view, still well worth reading.

In his last work, The Old Faith and the New Strauss posed the following questions: Arewe still Christians?, Do we still have a Religion?, What is our conception of the Universe?and What is our rule of life? Strauss's discussion of the last of these questions may nowappear somewhat quaint, and there is no doubt that Karl Barth enjoys poking fun at him.This, for example, is what Barth has to say about Strauss's final thoughts on how civilisedpost-Christians might spend their Sundays:

They do this with political discussions, and then with studies in history and naturalscience, with edification from Hermann and Dorothea (Goethe's highly sentimentalepic poem) and finally with performances of works by Haydn, Mozart andBeethoven. 'A stimulant to mind and spirit, humour and imagination' (Barth ishere quoting Strauss) 'such as leaves nothing to be desired. Thus we live, thus wepass blissfully upon our way.'t

Certainly some of Strauss's political views (such as his espousal of Prussiannationalism, royalty, aristocracy and capital punishment) may be open to question, butnot, I think, his insistence that human civilisation and culture are, with scientificknowledge, worth pursuing for their own sakes. One influential critic, H.R. Mackintosh,claimed that Strauss's 'materialism' was based on a 'wholly erroneous interpretation ofDarwin'. But Strauss was in fact a careful and astute student of Darwin, who keptup-to-date in his reading of the English naturalist. Strauss did not accept that there wasmore than a semantic quibble between 'materialism' and 'idealism': he considered thatboth views taken alone were polarised abstractions. For him the real divide was between'Monism' and 'Dualism'; and here he was an unequivocal Monist.

As for Strauss's impact on theology, we cannot go along with Barth's impudentassertion that 'Proper theology begins just at the point where the difficulties disclosed byStrauss and Feuerbach are seen and then laughed at'. As Professor Wells has pertinentlyobserved, 'Counter-arguments come less easily than laughter', and it is only fair to addthat Strauss's arguments have never been effectively answered. They are, indeed, acceptedeither tacitly or explicitly by most modern liberal theologians, even if some attempt tosmuggle back in by the window what had been so decisively ejected through the door.

Defects in Harris's BiographyAny comprehensive treatment of Strauss would, of course, have to deal with his unfortunate marriage to the famous soprano, Agnese Schebest, his years of intellectual*Strauss must have seen a SITS programme. [Ed]

Ethical Record. November, 1994 19

isolation, his foray into national politics. his literary and philosophical criticism, hisincreasingly reactionary political views and his miscellaneous writings on a range oftopics. But it is his early theological work for which he will always be remembered. andHorton Harris is surely right to say that Strauss's LebenThlesu was 'the most intellectuallyreasoned attack which has ever been mounted against Christianity'.

We must, however, take issue with some of Harris's conclusions in the final chapter ofhis Biography of Strauss, while at the same time applauding his defence of Strauss againstsuch critics as Barth and Schweitzer, who said he was no great thinker. Exactly the samecriticism, we may remember, was made against Darwin, and equally unjustly. Harrisclaims, however, that, for Strauss, 'the deeper philosophical and theological issuesremained like a blind-spot in his eye'. This remark presupposes that there is some genuinedeep knowledge to be gained from philosophy and theology, and Strauss was surely rightto decline to accept such a view.

I have already alluded to Harris's view that Strauss dismissed the possibility of miracleson apriorist grounds, and G.A. Wells' answer to that charge. Harris also refers toStrauss's 'prior presupposition that there is no transcendent personal God', which heattempts to elucidate in a footnote: 'That is. a God possessing personality in himself'.What Harris here overlooks, but what Strauss himself did not overlook, is that the verynotions of 'transcendence', 'personal' (as applied to a hypothetical immaterial entity)and, for that matter, 'God' are by no means clear and self-explanatory.

One of the best elucidations of this confusion is that provided by Patrick Nowell-Smithin a reply to Sir Arnold Lunn. in which he notes that to say any real event is 'inexplicableas a result of natural agents' is already beyond the competence of any scientist, 'and to sayit must be ascribed to supernatural agents is to say something that no one could possiblyhave the right to affirm on the evidence alone'. This is to say that to describe any event as amiracle is already to have smuggled into the equation an indefinable hidden-term that isdependent on faith. It is thus inescapably a begging of the question. The same appliesequally to any assertion including such terms as 'supernatural'. Nowell-Smith tellinglyconcludes his essay with these words: 'The supernatural is either so different from thenatural that we are unable to investigate it at all or it is not. If it is not, then it can hardlyhave the momentous significance that [is claimed] for it; and if it is it cannot be invoked asan explanatioh of the unusual.'

Strauss Forbids Religion at his FuneralIn conclusion, I want to say something about Strauss's last days and his directions for hisfuneral. In the late autumn of 1872, after his last work was published. Strauss decided tomove back to Ludwigsburg, the town of his birth, and it was here that, with his healthdeclining, he lived out the remaining sixteen months of his life. Though under fierceattack bv critics including Nietzsche, he remained serene and sanguine about the lastingvalue of his achievement. On 22 June 1873, he composed his Last Will and Testimonywith re2ard to his burial, which it is worth quoting in full:

The burial must be simple, without any pomp.

In order that this may not be seen as stinginess, but as the conviction that pompis not appropriate for a corpse, 100 florins shall on the day of my burial beplaced at the disposal of the local authorities to be given to the poor of thedistrict.

Most important of all, the Church shall be excluded from all participation in the


burial service. For this decision I am responsible, and my children are

responsible to me for carrying it out; all the less responsibility falls on them

when definite instructions from me stand behind them.

4. So then, no Church bells, no music from the Church Tower, no cross on the pall,

but a simple black covering, or even none at all.

5 But above all, no minister shall take part; there shall be no speech, no prayer,

neither at the grave nor in the house. 1 should most of all prefer complete silence

during the act; yet I was also extremely taken with what I read recently about the

instructions which Sainte-Beuve gave for his own burial: The retinue only of

friends and other participants; then after the coffin had been lowered, one of the

friends stepped up to the grave with the words: 'Adieu Sainte-Beuve, adieu cher

ami.' Following this came a few words of thanks to the retinue. 'Messieurs la

solennite est finic.' Something like that will be necessary so that no unauthorised

person speaks and afterwards gives cause for gossip.

6 Also in regard to the later erection of a gravestone, will my children keep within

the limits of the simplest kind.

Strauss died on 8 February 1874, and was buried on Ilth. 1 am glad to say his last

wishes were respected, except that a brief speech was made by his old friend Gustav

Binder, who, in honouring Strauss, provoked a petition with over 200 signatures calling

for his dismissal as Director of the Board of Education for publicly associating himself

with an avowed atheist.

NIoncure Conway recalls Strauss's Motives

On 22 February 1874, just two weeks after his death, a commemorative service was held

for Strauss at South Place Chapel, during which Moncure Conway gave an address in

which he alluded to their meetings in Germany:

Some years ago, as 1 walked with him by the banks of the Ncckar, he declared to me

that the motives he had in publishing his 'Life of Christ' were hardly less political

than religious. "I felt oppressed" he said "at seeing nearly every nation in Europe

chained down by allied despotism of prince and priest. I studied long the nature of

this oppression, and came to the conclusion that the chain which fettered mankind

was rather inward than outward, and that without this inward thralldom, the

outward would soon rust away. The inward chain I perceive to be superstition, and

the form in which it binds the people of Europe is Christian Supernaturalism. So

long as men will accept religious control not based on reason, they will accept

political control not based on reason. The man who gives up the whole of his [non' l

nature to an unquestioned authority has suffered a paralysis of the mind, and all the

changes of outward circumstances in the world cannot make him a free man. For

this reason, our European revolutions have been, even when successful, merely

transfers from one tyranny to another. 1 believed when I wrote that book that, in

striking at supernaturalism. I was striking at the whole evil tree of polhical and

social degradation." n

Full notes and bibliography available on request. Send S.A.E. to the Editor

See page 24 for details of Daniel O'Hara's 6 week evening course The Bible for Unbelievers

Ethical Reconl, November, 1994 21

BOOK REVIEW

HAROLD LASKI, a Life on the Left, by Isaac Kramnick and Harry Sheerman, published hy Hamish Hamilton at £25 (hardback).

Review by Dorothy Forsyth

This book is a very comprehensive account of the Labour movement and of Laski'sactivities in the USA and in England in the first half of this century. His thinking andwritings are still relevant today.

Laski was born in 1893, to a wealthy orthodox Manchester Jewish family who werepillars of society. He broke with his family when he married a progessive feminist, Frida,and when he spurned his religion. He was a delicate child who spent much of hischildhood ill in bed but reading avidly. He went to Oxford and to Harvard, where hestudied law, science, history and politics. He taught politics and law, and Ile involvedhimself actively in the USA and England in the political scene. He was a passionatesocialist committed to "revolution by consensus". During the war when we had acoalition government, he put a lot of pressure on both Winston Churchill and ClementAtlee to bring in socialist measures, but both of them said they had no mandate to do this.He was Atlec's right hand man, and wrote many of his speeche•; he also wrote theAmerican ambassador's speeches.

He is best known for having taught at the LSE, (The Americans knew LSE as the placewhere Laski taught). Laski was a close friend of Franklin de Roosevelt and Ed Murrow,the American TV journalist. He fought for free speech for lecturers, when there wereattempts by the government to curb his speeches. He was sometimes the preoccupation ofquestion time in the Commons. He taught Nehru and Krishna Menon and helped fight forIndian independence. He influenced people like Michael Foot and James Gallaghan.

He helped shape Labour manifestos in the 1930s, and worked for its victory in 1945. Hewas on the NEC for many years. He was in endless conflict with the Labour Partyleadership who wanted modernisation above all else. He was threatened with expulsionseveral times for activities that the leadership did not approve of, like trying to help theEuropean Jewish refugees. He confronted antisemitism throughout his career, even fromcolleagues on the left. He also contributed to the writing of the UN Declaration of HumanRights.

He was one of the leading British intellectuals of the 20th century. His life abounded indramatic confrontations, reversals and triumphs; his teaching and writing transformedthe landscape of the democratic socialist left in Britain and the USA. He was extremelygregarious and helped refugees and students wherever he could with money he earnedfrom lecturing and writing. He was loved by his students, but he was a thorn in the flesh ofthe Labour Party. He was a founder member of the NCCL and the Left Book Club andwrote for Tribune. He was the Fabian delegate at Labour Party conferences. He wroteand spoke out against the corporate act of worship in schools. Later he became a Zionistwhen he became actively involved in the plight of Jews in Europe. He wrote about 25books.

In 1937 he felt that Britain wanted to fight Germany in order to maintain herimperialist policies. He wrote "weapons would be used in support of Fascism and anImperialist war of reaction and of colonial suppression". Later he approved of the war


effort, when he saw what an evil regime the Nazis had. He tried to unite the left, but couldnot get Labour to work with the Communists.

Laski's DownfallIn 1945 Laski was accused by three newspapers, including the Evening Standard, ofhaving advocated, at a campaign speech, socialism by violent means. He sued the papers,and had a most unfair case directed against him by counsel Sir Patrick Hasting, who readout complicated extracts from his books and asked him to answer "yes" or "no". He lostthe case, and he was a broken man. The costs were enormous. He felt that all he stood forhad been diminished by this accusation. But the Labour Party set up a fund: people in theUSA including Einstein and Linus Pauling, and in England, raised the money to pay thedamages, and sent messages of support.

He was never the same again, the fire having gone out of him. He had always sufferedfrom ill health; he had bronchitis every winter. Although he cut down his activities andresponsibilities, no longer standing for the NEC, he died at the age of 56 in 1950 after ashort illness.

The book is a monument to a monument of a man. I have only been able to mentionsome of the content in a book of nearly 600 pages. My criticism of the book is that ithighlights nothing, and gives too much detail, but is well worth reading. ID

VIEWPOINTAre Ultimate Questions Silly?Following Richard Scorer's example (ER July/August 1994) I have mused on 'ultimatequestions' in general. Suppose someone poses what, it is claimed, is an ultimate questionthen there are two possible outcomes (supposing the question to be intelligible):

One is that it can never be answered (except formally) in which case it is not worth asking;it is thus a silly question.

The other is that it can be answered meaningfully, in which case the answer is bound toprompt further questions, in which case, the original question ceases to be ultimate, itbecomes merely an 'ordinary' question — one that is an intermediate link in a chain ofquestions.

There are many silly questions that nobody holds to be ultimate but have I notdemonstrated that truly ultimate questions are silly questions and, consequently, thatpeople who make weighty delphic pronouncements about them are merely wasting theirtime and ours? Eric Stockton — Orkney

South Place Ethical Society 69th CONWAY MEMORIAL LECTURE

SHOULD WE BE HIERARCHIC DEMOCRATS?Ted Honderich

Grote Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic, University College London 7.00 pm Thursday 8 December 1994 Admission Free — All Welcome

Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, Holborn, WCI

The views expressed in this journal are not necessarily those of the Society


PROGRAMME OF EVENTS AT THE ETHICAL SOCIETY The Library, Conway Hall Humanist Centre,

25 Red Lion Square, Holborn, WC1Tel: 071-831 7723

NOVEMBER 1994Tuesday 86.30 pm THE BIBLE FOR UNBELIEVERS: What is the Bible and how did it come to us?

No I of 6-week evening course. Tutor Daniel O'Hara. Fee El per evening includes tea.

Sunday I 311.00 am THE NEMESIS OF FAITH BY J.A. FROUD E. Elinor Shaffer discusses the

influence on Anglicans such as J.A. Froude of George Eliot's translation ofStrauss's Life of Jesus.

3.00 pm ESTHER ON 'PSYCHIC FORESIGHT Video SeminarTuesday 156.30 pm No 2 The Rise and Critical Study of the Bible: Tutor Daniel O'Hara.

Sunday 2011.00 am FREEDOM FROM FAITH - THE LIMITS OF SCIENTIFIC TRUTH

Prof Richard Scorer.

3.00 pm The Origins of Christianity - a humanist explanation A talk by member Richard Soole.Tuesday 226.30 pm No 3. The Old Testament: Law, Prophets and Writings. Tutor Daniel O'Hara.

Sunday 2711.00 am DARWIN AMONGST THE ULTRAS. James Moore previews his forth-coming

book on the legend of Charles Darwin's "death-bed conversion". In life, Darwinplayed safe, but atheists and fundamentalists have held their own postmortems.

3.00 pm Montaigne, the first modem humanist. A talk by member Len SmithTuesday 296.30 pm No 4 The New Testament Context, Text and Canon. Tutor: Daniel O'Hara.DECEMBERSunday 411.00 am WHATEVER HAPPENED TO HUMAN NATURE? Robert Young, founder of Free

Association Books, discusses his forthcoming book based on lectures given recentlyat Winnipeg.

3.00 pm Herbert Spencer and the biological basis of moral behaviour. A talk by member DavidWedgwood.

Tuesday 66.30 pm No 5. The Gospeit Do they give us reliable information about Jesus? Tutor Daniel

O'Hara.Thursday 87.00 pm SHOULD WE BE HIERARCHIC DEMOCRATS? Prof Ted Honderich.Sunday 1111.00 am THE IMMORALIST IN THE MORAL MAZE. David Starkey of the BBC's Moral

Maze (Radio 4 and TV) offers an historian's perspective.

SOUTH PLACE SUNDAY CONCERTS — 6.00 pm. Tickets 83.00

Nov 13 BEETHOVEN STRING TRIO and JOHN YORK (piano). Beethoven: String Trio in D Op.9 No 2. Gideon Klein: String Trio (Compased in Theresienstadt concentrationcamp). 1944. Brahms: Piano Quartet in C minor No 3 Op.60.

Nov 20 PIERS LANE - PIANO. Beethoven: 6 Bagatelles Op.126. Chopin Sonata No 2 in B flatminor Op.35. Beethoven: Sonata Op.106 The 'Hammerk1avief.

Nov 27 LYRIC STRING QUARTET. Haydn: String Quartet in B flat Op.76 No 4. RossEdwards: String Quartet 'Maninya IP. Sibelius: String Quartet Op.56 in D minor'Voices intimae'.

Dec 4 BRITTEN STRING QUARTET and ROGER CHASE (viola). Brahms: Quintet in FOp.88. Hindemith: Suing Quartet No 2 in C Op.16. Brahms: Quintet in G Op.111.

Dec II MUSICIANS of the ROYAL EXCHANGE Beethoven: String Trio in C minor Op.9 No 3. Schuman- Carnaval for solo piano Op.9. Dvorak: Piano Quartet in E flat Op.87.

Published by the South Place Ethical Society, Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC IR 4RL

Printed by 1G. Bryson (Printer) Ltd., 156-162 High Road, London N2 9AS

Documents

ISSN 0014-1690 the Ethical Record - Conway Hall · ISSN 0014-1690 the Ethical Record Vol. 99 No. 10 November 1994 TYNDALE AS TRANSLATOR OF THE BIBLE David Daniell 3 WHO KILLED HILDA