the world through him by means of the complete unfolding of the kingdom of God in the fellowship of love. Whatever goes beyond this in the fourth gospel, its Johannine authenticity not being otherwise contested, as well as in Paul’s epistles and in the Epistle to the Hebrews, resulted from the necessity felt by their writers for assigning a sufficient reason for the assumption of such incomparable glory on the part of Christ. As the archetype of humanity destined for the kingdom of God, Christ is the original object of the divine love, so that the love of God to the members of his kingdom comes to them only through him. And as the earthly founding, so also the heavenly completion, of the kingdom of God is assigned to Christ, and hence after his resurrection all power was given to him, of the transcendent exercise of which, however, we can know nothing. The universality of human sin is admitted by Ritschl as a fact of experience, but he despairs of reaching any dogmatic statement as to the origin of sin through the temptation of a superhuman evil power. But that sin is inherited and as original guilt is under the condemnation of God, is not taught or pre-supposed by the teaching either of Christ or of the apostles. Redemption (reconciliation and justification) consists in the forgiveness of sins, by which the guilt that estranges from God is removed and the sinner is restored into the fellowship of the kingdom of God. Forgiveness, however, is not given on condition of the vicarious penal sufferings of Christ, whose sufferings and death are of significance rather because his life and works were a complete fulfilment of his calling, and witnessed to as such by God’s raising him from the dead. Justification secures the reception of the penitent sinner into the fellowship of the kingdom of God, preached and perfectly developed by Christ, and the sonship enjoyed in its membership, prefigured in Christ himself, which contains in itself the desire as well as the capacity to do good works out of love to God.--The school of Ritschl is represented in Göttingen by its founder and by =Schultz= and =Wendt=, in Marburg by =Herrmann=, in Bonn by =Bender=, in Giessen by =Gottschick= and =Kattenbusch=, in Strassburg by =Lobstein=, in Basel by =Kaftan=, formerly of Berlin.[537]