{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_45422/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_45422","id":"gutenberg_45422","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45422","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Religious","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Jesus Christ -- Biography -- History and criticism","Jesus Christ -- Historicity"],"text":"The Quest of the Historical Jesus\n\n         A Critical Study of its Progress From Reimarus to Wrede\n\n                                    By\n\n                            Albert Schweitzer\n\n  Privatdocent in New Testament Studies in the University of Strassburg\n\n                              Translated By\n\n                        W. Montgomery, B.A., B.D.\n\n                            With a Preface by\n\n                        F. C. Burkitt, M.A., D.D.\n\n      Norrisian Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge\n\n                          Second English Edition\n\n                                  London\n\n                          Adam and Charles Black\n\n                                   1911\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nPreface\nI. The Problem\nII. Hermann Samuel Reimarus\nIII. The Lives Of Jesus Of The Earlier Rationalism\nIV. The Earliest Fictitious Lives Of Jesus\nV. Fully Developed Rationalism\u2014Paulus\nVI. The Last Phase Of Rationalism\u2014Hase And Schleiermacher\nVII. David Friedrich Strauss\u2014The Man And His Fate\nVIII. Strauss\u2019s First \u201cLife Of Jesus\u201d\nIX. Strauss\u2019s Opponents And Supporters\nX. The Marcan Hypothesis\nXI. Bruno Bauer. The First Sceptical Life Of Jesus\nXII. Further Imaginative Lives Of Jesus\nXIII. Renan\nXIV. The \u201cLiberal\u201d Lives Of Jesus\nXV. The Eschatological Question\nXVI. The Struggle Against Eschatology\nXVII. Questions Regarding The Aramaic Language, Rabbinic Parallels, And\nBuddhistic Influence\nXVIII. The Position Of The Subject At The Close Of The Nineteenth Century\nXIX. Thoroughgoing Scepticism And Thoroughgoing Eschatology\nXX. Results\nIndex Of Authors And Works\nFootnotes\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                               [Cover Art]\n\n\n\n\n\n_First Edition published March 1910_\n\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\n_The book here translated is offered to the English\u2010speaking public in the\nbelief that it sets before them, as no other book has ever done, the\nhistory of the struggle which the best\u2010equipped intellects of the modern\nworld have gone through in endeavouring to realise for themselves the\nhistorical personality of our Lord._\n\n_Every one nowadays is aware that traditional Christian doctrine about\nJesus Christ is encompassed with difficulties, and that many of the\nstatements in the Gospels appear incredible in the light of modern views\nof history and nature. But when the alternative of __\u201c__Jesus or\nChrist__\u201d__ is put forward, as it has been in a recent publication, or\nwhen we are bidden to choose between the Jesus of history and the Christ\nof dogma, few except professed students know what a protean and\nkaleidoscopic figure the __\u201c__Jesus of history__\u201d__ is. Like the Christ in\nthe Apocryphal Acts of John, He has appeared in different forms to\ndifferent minds. __\u201c__We know Him right well,__\u201d__ says Professor\nWeinel._(_1_)_ What a claim!_\n\n_Among the many bold paradoxes enunciated in this history of the Quest,\nthere is one that meets us at the outset, about which a few words may be\nsaid here, if only to encourage those to persevere to the end who might\notherwise be repelled halfway\u2014the paradox that the greatest attempts to\nwrite a Life of Jesus have been written with hate._(_2_)_ It is in full\naccordance with this faith that Dr. Schweitzer gives, in paragraph after\nparagraph, the undiluted expression of the views of men who agree only in\ntheir unflinching desire to attain historical truth. We are not accustomed\nto be so ruthless in England. We sometimes tend to forget that the Gospel\nhas moved the world, and we think our faith and devotion to it so tender\nand delicate a thing that it will break, if it be not handled with the\nutmost circumspection. So we become dominated __ by phrases and afraid of\nthem. Dr. Schweitzer is not afraid of phrases, if only they have been\nbeaten out by real contact with facts. And those who read to the end will\nsee that the crude sarcasm of Reimarus and the unflinching scepticism of\nBruno Bauer are not introduced merely to shock and by way of contrast.\nEach in his own way made a real contribution to our understanding of the\ngreatest historical problem in the history of our race. We see now that\nthe object of attack was not the historical Jesus after all, but a\ntemporary idea of Him, inadequate because it did not truly represent Him\nor the world in which He lived. And by hearing the writers\u2019 characteristic\nphrases, uncompromising as they may be, by looking at things for a moment\nfrom their own point of view, different as it may be from ours, we are\nable to be more just, not only to these men of a past age, but also to the\ngreat Problem that occupied them, as it also occupies us._\n\n_For, as Father Tyrrell has been pointing out in his last most impressive\nmessage to us all, Christianity is at the Cross Roads. If the Figure of\nour Lord is to mean anything for us we must realise it for ourselves. Most\nEnglish readers of the New Testament have been too long content with the\nrough and ready Harmony of the Four Gospels that they unconsciously\nconstruct. This kind of __\u201c__Harmony__\u201d__ is not a very convincing picture\nwhen looked into, if only because it almost always conflicts with\ninconvenient statements of the Gospels themselves, statements that have\nbeen omitted from the __\u201c__Harmony__\u201d__, not on any reasoned theory, but\nsimply from inadvertence or the difficulty of fitting them in. We treat\nthe Life of our Lord too much as it is treated in the Liturgical\n__\u201c__Gospels__\u201d__, as a simple series of disconnected anecdotes._\n\n_Dr. Schweitzer\u2019s book does not pretend to be an impartial survey. He has\nhis own solution of the problems, and it is not to be expected that\nEnglish students will endorse the whole of his view of the Gospel History,\nany more than his German fellow\u2010workers have done. But valuable and\nsuggestive as I believe his constructive work to be in its main outlines,\nI venture to think his grasp of the nature and complexity of the great\nQuest is even more remarkable, and his exposition of it cannot fail to\nstimulate us in England. Whatever we may think of Dr. Schweitzer\u2019s\nsolution or that of his opponents, we too have to reckon with the Son of\nMan who was expected to come before the apostles had gone over the cities\nof Israel, the Son of Man who would come in His Kingdom before some that\nheard our Lord speak should taste death, the Son of Man who came to give\nHis life a ransom for many, whom __ they would see hereafter coming with\nthe clouds of heaven. __\u201c__Who is this Son of Man?__\u201d__ Dr. Schweitzer\u2019s\nbook is an attempt to give the full historical value and the true\nhistorical setting to these fundamental words of the Gospel of Jesus._\n\n_Our first duty, with the Gospel as with every other ancient document, is\nto interpret it with reference to its own time. The true view of the\nGospel will be that which explains the course of events in the first\ncentury and the second century, rather than that which seems to have\nspiritual and imaginative value for the twentieth century. Yet I cannot\nrefrain from pointing out here one feature of the theory of thoroughgoing\neschatology, which may appeal to those who are accustomed to the venerable\nforms of ancient Christian aspiration and worship. It may well be that\nabsolute truth cannot be embodied in human thought and that its expression\nmust always be clothed in symbols. It may be that we have to translate the\nhopes and fears of our spiritual ancestors into the language of our new\nworld. We have to learn, as the Church in the second century had to learn,\nthat the End is not yet, that New Jerusalem, like all other objects of\nsense, is an image of the truth rather than the truth itself. But at least\nwe are beginning to see that the apocalyptic vision, the New Age which God\nis to bring in, is no mere embroidery of Christianity, but the heart of\nits enthusiasm. And therefore the expectations of vindication and judgment\nto come, the imagery of the Messianic Feast, the __\u201c__other\u2010\nworldliness__\u201d__ against which so many eloquent words were said in the\nnineteenth century, are not to be regarded as regrettable accretions\nfoisted on by superstition to the pure morality of the original Gospel.\nThese ideas are the Christian Hope, to be allegorised and\n__\u201c__spiritualised__\u201d__ by us for our own use whenever necessary, but not\nto be given up so long as we remain Christians at all. Books which teach\nus boldly to trust the evidence of our documents, and to accept the\neschatology of the Christian Gospel as being historically the eschatology\nof Jesus, help us at the same time to retain a real meaning and use for\nthe ancient phrases of the Te Deum, and for the mediaeval strain of\n__\u201c__Jerusalem the Golden.__\u201d_\n\n_F. C. Burkitt._\n\n_Cambridge, 1910._\n\n\n\n\n\nI. THE PROBLEM\n\n\nWhen, at some future day, our period of civilisation shall lie, closed and\ncompleted, before the eyes of later generations, German theology will\nstand out as a great, a unique phenomenon in the mental and spiritual life\nof our time. For nowhere save in the German temperament can there be found\nin the same perfection the living complex of conditions and factors\u2014of\nphilosophic thought, critical acumen, historical insight, and religious\nfeeling\u2014without which no deep theology is possible.\n\nAnd the greatest achievement of German theology is the critical\ninvestigation of the life of Jesus. What it has accomplished here has laid\ndown the conditions and determined the course of the religious thinking of\nthe future.\n\nIn the history of doctrine its work has been negative; it has, so to\nspeak, cleared the site for a new edifice of religious thought. In\ndescribing how the ideas of Jesus were taken possession of by the Greek\nspirit, it was tracing the growth of that which must necessarily become\nstrange to us, and, as a matter of fact, has become strange to us.\n\nOf its efforts to create a new dogmatic we scarcely need to have the\nhistory written; it is alive within us. It is no doubt interesting to\ntrace how modern thoughts have found their way into the ancient dogmatic\nsystem, there to combine with eternal ideas to form new constructions; it\nis interesting to penetrate into the mind of the thinker in which this\nprocess is at work; but the real truth of that which here meets us as\nhistory we experience within ourselves. As in the monad of Leibnitz the\nwhole universe is reflected, so we intuitively experience within us, even\napart from any clear historical knowledge, the successive stages of the\nprogress of modern dogma, from rationalism to Ritschl. This experience is\ntrue knowledge, all the truer because we are conscious of the whole as\nsomething indefinite, a slow and difficult movement towards a goal which\nis still shrouded in obscurity. We have not yet arrived at any\nreconciliation between history and modern thought\u2014only between half\u2010way\nhistory and half\u2010way thought. What the ultimate goal towards which we are\nmoving will be, what this something is which shall bring new life and new\nregulative principles to coming centuries, we do not know. We can only\ndimly divine that it will be the mighty deed of some mighty original\ngenius, whose truth and rightness will be proved by the fact that we,\nworking at our poor half thing, will oppose him might and main\u2014we who\nimagine we long for nothing more eagerly than a genius powerful enough to\nopen up with authority a new path for the world, seeing that we cannot\nsucceed in moving it forward along the track which we have so laboriously\nprepared.\n\nFor this reason the history of the critical study of the life of Jesus is\nof higher intrinsic value than the history of the study of ancient dogma\nor of the attempts to create a new one. It has to describe the most\ntremendous thing which the religious consciousness has ever dared and\ndone. In the study of the history of dogma German theology settled its\naccount with the past; in its attempt to create a new dogmatic, it was\nendeavouring to keep a place for the religious life in the thought of the\npresent; in the study of the life of Jesus it was working for the\nfuture\u2014in pure faith in the truth, not seeing whereunto it wrought.\n\nMoreover, we are here dealing with the most vital thing in the world\u2019s\nhistory. There came a Man to rule over the world; He ruled it for good and\nfor ill, as history testifies; He destroyed the world into which He was\nborn; the spiritual life of our own time seems like to perish at His\nhands, for He leads to battle against our thought a host of dead ideas, a\nghostly army upon which death has no power, and Himself destroys again the\ntruth and goodness which His Spirit creates in us, so that it cannot rule\nthe world. That He continues, notwithstanding, to reign as the alone Great\nand alone True in a world of which He denied the continuance, is the prime\nexample of that antithesis between spiritual and natural truth which\nunderlies all life and all events, and in Him emerges into the field of\nhistory.\n\nIt is only at first sight that the absolute indifference of early\nChristianity towards the life of the historical Jesus is disconcerting.\nWhen Paul, representing those who recognise the signs of the times, did\nnot desire to know Christ after the flesh, that was the first expression\nof the impulse of self\u2010preservation by which Christianity continued to be\nguided for centuries. It felt that with the introduction of the historic\nJesus into its faith, there would arise something new, something which had\nnot been foreseen in the thoughts of the Master Himself, and that thereby\na contradiction would be brought to light, the solution of which would\nconstitute one of the great problems of the world.\n\nPrimitive Christianity was therefore right to live wholly in the future\nwith the Christ who was to come, and to preserve of the historic Jesus\nonly detached sayings, a few miracles, His death and resurrection. By\nabolishing both the world and the historical Jesus it escaped the inner\ndivision described above, and remained consistent in its point of view.\nWe, on our part, have reason to be grateful to the early Christians that,\nin consequence of this attitude they have handed down to us, not\nbiographies of Jesus but only Gospels, and that therefore we possess the\nIdea and the Person with the minimum of historical and contemporary\nlimitations.\n\nBut the world continued to exist, and its continuance brought this one\u2010\nsided view to an end. The supra\u2010mundane Christ and the historical Jesus of\nNazareth had to be brought together into a single personality at once\nhistorical and raised above time. That was accomplished by Gnosticism and\nthe Logos Christology. Both, from opposite standpoints, because they were\nseeking the same goal, agreed in sublimating the historical Jesus into the\nsupra\u2010mundane Idea. The result of this development, which followed on the\ndiscrediting of eschatology, was that the historical Jesus was again\nintroduced into the field of view of Christianity, but in such a way that\nall justification for, and interest in, the investigation of His life and\nhistorical personality were done away with.\n\nGreek theology was as indifferent in regard to the historical Jesus who\nlives concealed in the Gospels as was the early eschatological theology.\nMore than that, it was dangerous to Him; for it created a new\nsupernatural\u2010historical Gospel, and we may consider it fortunate that the\nSynoptics were already so firmly established that the Fourth Gospel could\nnot oust them; instead, the Church, as though from the inner necessity of\nthe antitheses which now began to be a constructive element in her\nthought, was obliged to set up two antithetic Gospels alongside of one\nanother.\n\nWhen at Chalcedon the West overcame the East, its doctrine of the two\nnatures dissolved the unity of the Person, and thereby cut off the last\npossibility of a return to the historical Jesus. The self\u2010contradiction\nwas elevated into a law. But the Manhood was so far admitted as to\npreserve, in appearance, the rights of history. Thus by a deception the\nformula kept the Life prisoner and prevented the leading spirits of the\nReformation from grasping the idea of a return to the historical Jesus.\n\nThis dogma had first to be shattered before men could once more go out in\nquest of the historical Jesus, before they could even grasp the thought of\nHis existence. That the historic Jesus is something different from the\nJesus Christ of the doctrine of the Two Natures seems to us now self\u2010\nevident. We can, at the present day, scarcely imagine the long agony in\nwhich the historical view of the life of Jesus came to birth. And even\nwhen He was once more recalled to life, He was still, like Lazarus of old,\nbound hand and foot with grave\u2010clothes\u2014the grave\u2010clothes of the dogma of\nthe Dual Nature. Hase relates, in the preface to his first Life of Jesus\n(1829), that a worthy old gentleman, hearing of his project, advised him\nto treat in the first part of the human, in the second of the divine\nNature. There was a fine simplicity about that. But does not the\nsimplicity cover a presentiment of the revolution of thought for which the\nhistorical method of study was preparing the way\u2014a presentiment which\nthose who were engaged in the work did not share in the same measure? It\nwas fortunate that they did not; for otherwise how could they have had the\ncourage to go on?\n\nThe historical investigation of the life of Jesus did not take its rise\nfrom a purely historical interest; it turned to the Jesus of history as an\nally in the struggle against the tyranny of dogma. Afterwards when it was\nfreed from this \u03c0\u03ac\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2 it sought to present the historic Jesus in a form\nintelligible to its own time. For Bahrdt and Venturini He was the tool of\na secret order. They wrote under the impression of the immense influence\nexercised by the Order of the Illuminati(3) at the end of the eighteenth\ncentury. For Reinhard, Hess, Paulus, and the rest of the rationalistic\nwriters He is the admirable revealer of true virtue, which is coincident\nwith right reason. Thus each successive epoch of theology found its own\nthoughts in Jesus; that was, indeed, the only way in which it could make\nHim live.\n\nBut it was not only each epoch that found its reflection in Jesus; each\nindividual created Him in accordance with his own character. There is no\nhistorical task which so reveals a man\u2019s true self as the writing of a\nLife of Jesus. No vital force comes into the figure unless a man breathes\ninto it all the hate or all the love of which he is capable. The stronger\nthe love, or the stronger the hate, the more life\u2010like is the figure which\nis produced. For hate as well as love can write a Life of Jesus, and the\ngreatest of them are written with hate: that of Reimarus, the Wolfenb\u00fcttel\nFragmentist, and that of David Friedrich Strauss. It was not so much hate\nof the Person of Jesus as of the supernatural nimbus with which it was so\neasy to surround Him, and with which He had in fact been surrounded. They\nwere eager to picture Him as truly and purely human, to strip from Him the\nrobes of splendour with which He had been apparelled, and clothe Him once\nmore with the coarse garments in which He had walked in Galilee.\n\nAnd their hate sharpened their historical insight. They advanced the study\nof the subject more than all the others put together. But for the offence\nwhich they gave, the science of historical theology would not have stood\nwhere it does to\u2010day. \u201cIt must needs be that offences come; but woe to\nthat man by whom the offence cometh.\u201d Reimarus evaded that woe by keeping\nthe offence to himself and preserving silence during his lifetime\u2014his\nwork, \u201cThe Aims of Jesus and His Disciples,\u201d was only published after his\ndeath, by Lessing. But in the case of Strauss, who, as a young man of\ntwenty\u2010seven, cast the offence openly in the face of the world, the woe\nfulfilled itself. His \u201cLife of Jesus\u201d was his ruin. But he did not cease\nto be proud of it in spite of all the misfortune that it brought him. \u201cI\nmight well bear a grudge against my book,\u201d he writes twenty\u2010five years\nlater in the preface to the \u201cConversations of Ulrich von Hutten,\u201d(4) \u201cfor\nit has done me much evil (\u2018And rightly so!\u2019 the pious will exclaim). It\nhas excluded me from public teaching in which I took pleasure and for\nwhich I had perhaps some talent; it has torn me from natural relationships\nand driven me into unnatural ones; it has made my life a lonely one. And\nyet when I consider what it would have meant if I had refused to utter the\nword which lay upon my soul, if I had suppressed the doubts which were at\nwork in my mind\u2014then I bless the book which has doubtless done me grievous\nharm outwardly, but which preserved the inward health of my mind and\nheart, and, I doubt not, has done the same for many others also.\u201d\n\nBefore him, Bahrdt had his career broken in consequence of revealing his\nbeliefs concerning the Life of Jesus; and after him, Bruno Bauer.\n\nIt was easy for them, resolved as they were to open the way even with\nseeming blasphemy. But the others, those who tried to bring Jesus to life\nat the call of love, found it a cruel task to be honest. The critical\nstudy of the life of Jesus has been for theology a school of honesty. The\nworld had never seen before, and will never see again, a struggle for\ntruth so full of pain and renunciation as that of which the Lives of Jesus\nof the last hundred years contain the cryptic record. One must read the\nsuccessive Lives of Jesus with which Hase followed the course of the study\nfrom the \u2019twenties to the \u2019seventies of the nineteenth century to get an\ninkling of what it must have cost the men who lived through that decisive\nperiod really to maintain that \u201ccourageous freedom of investigation\u201d which\nthe great Jena professor, in the preface to his first Life of Jesus,\nclaims for his researches. One sees in him the marks of the struggle with\nwhich he gives up, bit by bit, things which, when he wrote that preface,\nhe never dreamed he would have to surrender. It was fortunate for these\nmen that their sympathies sometimes obscured their critical vision, so\nthat, without becoming insincere, they were able to take white clouds for\ndistant mountains. That was the kindly fate of Hase and Beyschlag.\n\nThe personal character of the study is not only due, however, to the fact\nthat a personality can only be awakened to life by the touch of a\npersonality; it lies in the essential nature of the problem itself. For\nthe problem of the life of Jesus has no analogue in the field of history.\nNo historical school has ever laid down canons for the investigation of\nthis problem, no professional historian has ever lent his aid to theology\nin dealing with it. Every ordinary method of historical investigation\nproves inadequate to the complexity of the conditions. The standards of\nordinary historical science are here inadequate, its methods not\nimmediately applicable. The historical study of the life of Jesus has had\nto create its own methods for itself. In the constant succession of\nunsuccessful attempts, five or six problems have emerged side by side\nwhich together constitute the fundamental problem. There is, however, no\ndirect method of solving the problem in its complexity; all that can be\ndone is to experiment continuously, starting from definite assumptions;\nand in this experimentation the guiding principle must ultimately rest\nupon historical intuition.\n\nThe cause of this lies in the nature of the sources of the life of Jesus,\nand in the character of our knowledge of the contemporary religious world\nof thought. It is not that the sources are in themselves bad. When we have\nonce made up our minds that we have not the materials for a complete Life\nof Jesus, but only for a picture of His public ministry, it must be\nadmitted that there are few characters of antiquity about whom we possess\nso much indubitably historical information, of whom we have so many\nauthentic discourses. The position is much more favourable, for instance,\nthan in the case of Socrates; for he is pictured to us by literary men who\nexercised their creative ability upon the portrait. Jesus stands much more\nimmediately before us, because He was depicted by simple Christians\nwithout literary gift.\n\nBut at this point there arises a twofold difficulty. There is first the\nfact that what has just been said applies only to the first three Gospels,\nwhile the fourth, as regards its character, historical data, and discourse\nmaterial, forms a world of its own. It is written from the Greek\nstandpoint, while the first three are written from the Jewish. And even if\none could get over this, and regard, as has often been done, the Synoptics\nand the Fourth Gospel as standing in something of the same relation to one\nanother as Xenophon does to Plato as sources for the life of Socrates, yet\nthe complete irreconcilability of the historical data would compel the\ncritical investigator to decide from the first in favour of one source or\nthe other. Once more it is found true that \u201cNo man can serve two masters.\u201d\nThis stringent dilemma was not recognised from the beginning; its\nemergence is one of the results of the whole course of experiment.\n\nThe second difficulty regarding the sources is the want of any thread of\nconnexion in the material which they offer us. While the Synoptics are\nonly collections of anecdotes (in the best, historical sense of the word),\nthe Gospel of John\u2014as stands on record in its closing words\u2014only professes\nto give a selection of the events and discourses.\n\nFrom these materials we can only get a Life of Jesus with yawning gaps.\nHow are these gaps to be filled? At the worst with phrases, at the best\nwith historical imagination. There is really no other means of arriving at\nthe order and inner connexion of the facts of the life of Jesus than the\nmaking and testing of hypotheses. If the tradition preserved by the\nSynoptists really includes all that happened during the time that Jesus\nwas with His disciples, the attempt to discover the connexion must succeed\nsooner or later. It becomes more and more clear that this presupposition\nis indispensable to the investigation. If it is merely a fortuitous series\nof episodes that the Evangelists have handed down to us, we may give up\nthe attempt to arrive at a critical reconstruction of the life of Jesus as\nhopeless.\n\nBut it is not only the events which lack historical connexion; we are\nwithout any indication of a thread of connexion in the actions and\ndiscourses of Jesus, because the sources give no hint of the character of\nHis self\u2010consciousness. They confine themselves to outward facts. We only\nbegin to understand these historically when we can mentally place them in\nan intelligible connexion and conceive them as the acts of a clearly\ndefined personality. All that we know of the development of Jesus and of\nHis Messianic self\u2010consciousness has been arrived at by a series of\nworking hypotheses. Our conclusions can only be considered valid so long\nas they are not found incompatible with the recorded facts as a whole.\n\nIt may be maintained by the aid of arguments drawn from the sources that\nthe self\u2010consciousness of Jesus underwent a development during the course\nof His public ministry; it may, with equally good grounds, be denied. For\nin both cases the arguments are based upon little details in the narrative\nin regard to which we do not know whether they are purely accidental, or\nwhether they belong to the essence of the facts. In each case, moreover,\nthe experimental working out of the hypothesis leads to a conclusion which\ncompels the rejection of some of the actual data of the sources. Each view\nequally involves a violent treatment of the text.\n\nFurthermore, the sources exhibit, each within itself, a striking\ncontradiction. They assert that Jesus felt Himself to be the Messiah; and\nyet from their presentation of His life it does not appear that He ever\npublicly claimed to be so. They attribute to Him, that is, an attitude\nwhich has absolutely no connexion with the consciousness which they assume\nthat He possessed. But once admit that the outward acts are not the\nnatural expression of the self\u2010consciousness and all exact historical\nknowledge is at an end; we have to do with an isolated fact which is not\nreferable to any law.\n\nThis being so, the only way of arriving at a conclusion of any value is to\nexperiment, to test, by working them out, the two hypotheses\u2014that Jesus\nfelt Himself to be the Messiah, as the sources assert, or that He did not\nfeel Himself to be so, as His conduct implies; or else to try to\nconjecture what kind of Messianic consciousness His must have been, if it\nleft His conduct and His discourses unaffected. For one thing is certain:\nthe whole account of the last days at Jerusalem would be unintelligible,\nif we had to suppose that the mass of the people had a shadow of a\nsuspicion that Jesus held Himself to be the Messiah.\n\nAgain, whereas in general a personality is to some extent defined by the\nworld of thought which it shares with its contemporaries, in the case of\nJesus this source of information is as unsatisfactory as the documents.\n\nWhat was the nature of the contemporary Jewish world of thought? To that\nquestion no clear answer can be given. We do not know whether the\nexpectation of the Messiah was generally current or whether it was the\nfaith of a mere sect. With the Mosaic religion as such it had nothing to\ndo. There was no organic connexion between the religion of legal\nobservance and the future hope. Further, if the eschatological hope was\ngenerally current, was it the prophetic or the apocalyptic form of that\nhope? We know the Messianic expectations of the prophets; we know the\napocalyptic picture as drawn by Daniel, and, following him, by Enoch and\nthe Psalms of Solomon before the coming of Jesus, and by the Apocalypses\nof Ezra and Baruch about the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. But we\ndo not know which was the popular form; nor, supposing that both were\ncombined into one picture, what this picture really looked like. We know\nonly the form of eschatology which meets us in the Gospels and in the\nPauline epistles; that is to say, the form which it took in the Christian\ncommunity in consequence of the coming of Jesus. And to combine these\nthree\u2014the prophetic, the Late\u2010Jewish apocalyptic, and the Christian\u2014has\nnot proved possible.\n\nEven supposing we could obtain more exact information regarding the\npopular Messianic expectations at the time of Jesus, we should still not\nknow what form they assumed in the self\u2010consciousness of One who knew\nHimself to be the Messiah but held that the time was not yet come for Him\nto reveal Himself as such. We only know their aspect from without, as a\nwaiting for the Messiah and the Messianic Age; we have no clue to their\naspect from within as factors in the Messianic self\u2010consciousness. We\npossess no psychology of the Messiah. The Evangelists have nothing to tell\nus about it, because Jesus told them nothing about it; the sources for the\ncontemporary spiritual life inform us only concerning the eschatological\nexpectation. For the form of the Messianic self\u2010consciousness of Jesus we\nhave to fall back upon conjecture.\n\nSuch is the character of the problem, and, as a consequence, historical\nexperiment must here take the place of historical research. That being so,\nit is easy to understand that to take a survey of the study of the life of\nJesus is to be confronted, at first sight, with a scene of the most\nboundless confusion. A series of experiments are repeated with constantly\nvarying modifications suggested by the results furnished by the subsidiary\nsciences. Most of the writers, however, have no suspicion that they are\nmerely repeating an experiment which has often been made before. Some of\nthem discover this in the course of their work to their own great\nastonishment\u2014it is so, for instance, with Wrede, who recognises that he is\nworking out, though doubtless with a clearer consciousness of his aim, an\nidea of Bruno Bauer\u2019s.(5) If old Reimarus were to come back again, he\nmight confidently give himself out to be the latest of the moderns, for\nhis work rests upon a recognition of the exclusive importance of\neschatology, such as only recurs again in Johannes Weiss.\n\nProgress, too, is curiously fitful, with long intervals of marking time\nbetween the advances. From Strauss down to the \u2019nineties there was no real\nprogress, if one takes into consideration only the complete Lives of Jesus\nwhich appeared. But a number of separate problems took a more clearly\ndefined form, so that in the end the general problem suddenly moved\nforward, as it seemed, with a jerk.\n\nThere is really no common standard by which to judge the works with which\nwe have to do. It is not the most orderly narratives, those which weave in\nconscientiously every detail of the text, which have advanced the study of\nthe subject, but precisely the eccentric ones, those that take the\ngreatest liberties with the text. It is not by the mass of facts that a\nwriter sets down alongside of one another as possible\u2014because he writes\neasily and there is no one there to contradict him, and because facts on\npaper do not come into collision so sharply as they do in reality\u2014it is\nnot in that way that he shows his power of reconstructing history, but by\nthat which he recognises as impossible. The constructions of Reimarus and\nBruno Bauer have no solidity; they are mere products of the imagination.\nBut there is much more historical power in their clear grasp of a single\ndefinite problem, which has blinded them to all else, than there is in the\ncircumstantial works of Beyschlag and Bernard Weiss.\n\nBut once one has accustomed oneself to look for certain definite landmarks\namid this apparent welter of confusion one begins at last to discover in\nvague outline the course followed, and the progress made, by the critical\nstudy of the life of Jesus.\n\nIt falls, immediately, into two periods, that before Strauss and that\nafter Strauss. The dominant interest in the first is the question of\nmiracle. What terms are possible between a historical treatment and the\nacceptance of supernatural events? With the advent of Strauss this problem\nfound a solution, viz., that these events have no rightful place in the\nhistory, but are simply mythical elements in the sources. The way was thus\nthrown open. Meanwhile, alongside of the problem of the supernatural,\nother problems had been dimly apprehended. Reimarus had drawn attention to\nthe contemporary eschatological views; Hase, in his first Life of Jesus\n(1829), had sought to trace a development in the self\u2010consciousness of\nJesus.\n\nBut on this point a clear view was impossible, because all the students of\nthe subject were still basing their operations upon the harmony of the\nSynoptics and the Fourth Gospel; which means that they had not so far felt\nthe need of a historically intelligible outline of the life of Jesus.\nHere, too, Strauss was the light\u2010bringer. But the transient illumination\nwas destined to be obscured by the Marcan hypothesis,(6) which now came to\nthe front. The necessity of choosing between John and the Synoptists was\nfirst fully established by the T\u00fcbingen school; and the right relation of\nthis question to the Marcan hypothesis was subsequently shown by\nHoltzmann.\n\nWhile these discussions of the preliminary literary questions were in\nprogress the main historical problem of the life of Jesus was slowly\nrising into view. The question began to be mooted: what was the\nsignificance of eschatology for the mind of Jesus? With this problem was\nassociated, in virtue of an inner connexion which was not at first\nsuspected, the problem of the self\u2010consciousness of Jesus. At the\nbeginning of the \u2019nineties it was generally felt that, in the solution\ngiven to this dual problem, an in some measure assured knowledge of the\noutward and inward course of the life of Jesus had been reached. At this\npoint Johannes Weiss revived the comprehensive claim of Reimarus on behalf\nof eschatology; and scarcely had criticism adjusted its attitude to this\nquestion when Wrede renewed the attempt of Bauer and Volkmar to eliminate\naltogether the Messianic element from the life of Jesus.\n\nWe are now once more in the midst of a period of great activity in the\nstudy of the subject. On the one side we are offered a historical\nsolution, on the other a literary. The question at issue is: Is it\npossible to explain the contradiction between the Messianic consciousness\nof Jesus and His non\u2010Messianic discourses and actions by means of a\nconception of His Messianic consciousness which will make it appear that\nHe could not have acted otherwise than as the Evangelists describe; or\nmust we endeavour to explain the contradiction by taking the non\u2010Messianic\ndiscourses and actions as our fixed point, denying the reality of His\nMessianic self\u2010consciousness and regarding it as a later interpolation of\nthe beliefs of the Christian community into the life of Jesus? In the\nlatter case the Evangelists are supposed to have attributed these\nMessianic claims to Jesus because the early Church held Him to be the\nMessiah, but to have contradicted themselves by describing His life as it\nactually was, viz., as the life of a prophet, not of one who held Himself\nto be the Messiah. To put it briefly: Does the difficulty of explaining\nthe historical personality of Jesus lie in the history itself, or only in\nthe way in which it is represented in the sources?\n\nThis alternative will be discussed in all the critical studies of the next\nfew years. Once clearly posed it compels a decision. But no one can really\nunderstand the problem who has not a clear notion of the way in which it\nhas shaped itself in the course of the investigation; no one can justly\ncriticise, or appraise the value of, new contributions to the study of\nthis subject unless he knows in what forms they have been presented\nbefore.\n\nThe history of the study of the life of Jesus has hitherto received\nsurprisingly little attention. Hase, in his Life of Jesus of 1829, briefly\nrecords the previous attempts to deal with the subject. Friedrich von\nAmmon, himself one of the most distinguished students in this department,\nin his \u201cProgress of Christianity,\u201d(7) gives some information \u201cregarding\nthe most notable biographies of Jesus of the last fifty years.\u201d In the\nyear 1865 Uhlhorn treated together the Lives of Jesus of Renan, Schenkel,\nand Strauss; in 1876 Hase, in his \u201cHistory of Jesus,\u201d gave the only\ncomplete literary history of the subject;(8) in 1892 Uhlhorn extended his\nformer lecture to include the works of Keim, Delff, Beyschlag, and\nWeiss;(9) in 1898 Frantzen described, in a short essay, the progress of\nthe study since Strauss;(10) in 1899 and 1900 Baldensperger gave, in the\n_Theologische Rundschau_, a survey of the most recent publications;(11)\nWeinel\u2019s book, \u201cJesus in the Nineteenth Century,\u201d naturally only gives an\nanalysis of a few classical works; Otto Schmiedel\u2019s lecture on the \u201cMain\nProblems of the Critical Study of the Life of Jesus\u201d (1902) merely\nsketches the history of the subject in broad outline.(12)\n\nApart from scattered notices in histories of theology this is practically\nall the literature of the subject. There is room for an attempt to bring\norder into the chaos of the Lives of Jesus. Hase made ingenious\ncomparisons between them, but he was unable to group them according to\ninner principles, or to judge them justly. Weisse is for him a feebler\ndescendant of Strauss, Bruno Bauer is the victim of a fantastic\nimagination. It would indeed have been difficult for Hase to discover in\nthe works of his time any principle of division. But now, when the\nliterary and eschatological methods of solution have led to complementary\nresults, when the post\u2010Straussian period of investigation seems to have\nreached a provisional close, and the goal to which it has been tending has\nbecome clear, the time seems ripe for the attempt to trace genetically in\nthe successive works the shaping of the problem as it now confronts us,\nand to give a systematic historical account of the critical study of the\nlife of Jesus. Our endeavour will be to furnish a graphic description of\nall the attempts to deal with the subject; and not to dismiss them with\nstock phrases or traditional labels, but to show clearly what they really\ndid to advance the formulation of the problem, whether their\ncontemporaries recognised it or not. In accordance with this principle\nmany famous Lives of Jesus which have prolonged an honoured existence\nthrough many successive editions, will make but a poor figure, while\nothers, which have received scant notice, will appear great. Behind\nSuccess comes Truth, and her reward is with her.\n\n\n\n\n\nII. HERMANN SAMUEL REIMARUS\n\n\n    \u201cVon dem Zwecke Jesu und seiner J\u00fcnger.\u201d Noch ein Fragment des\n    Wolfenb\u00fcttelschen Ungenannten. Herausgegeben von Gotthold Ephraim\n    Lessing. Braunschweig, 1778, 276 pp. (The Aims of Jesus and His\n    Disciples. A further Instalment of the anonymous Wolfenb\u00fcttel\n    Fragments. Published by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Brunswick,\n    1778.)\n\n    _Johann Salomo Semler._ Beantwortung der Fragmente eines\n    Ungenannten insbesondere vom Zwecke Jesu und seiner J\u00fcnger. (Reply\n    to the anonymous Fragments, especially to that entitled \u201cThe Aims\n    of Jesus and His Disciples.\u201d) Halle, 1779, 432 pp.\n\n\nBefore Reimarus, no one had attempted to form a historical conception of\nthe life of Jesus. Luther had not so much as felt that he cared to gain a\nclear idea of the order of the recorded events. Speaking of the chronology\nof the cleansing of the Temple, which in John falls at the beginning, in\nthe Synoptists near the close, of Jesus\u2019 public life, he remarks: \u201cThe\nGospels follow no order in recording the acts and miracles of Jesus, and\nthe matter is not, after all, of much importance. If a difficulty arises\nin regard to the Holy Scripture and we cannot solve it, we must just let\nit alone.\u201d When the Lutheran theologians began to consider the question of\nharmonising the events, things were still worse. Osiander (1498\u20101552), in\nhis \u201cHarmony of the Gospels,\u201d maintained the principle that if an event is\nrecorded more than once in the Gospels, in different connexions, it\nhappened more than once and in different connexions. The daughter of\nJairus was therefore raised from the dead several times; on one occasion\nJesus allowed the devils whom He cast out of a single demoniac to enter\ninto a herd of swine, on another occasion, those whom He cast out of two\ndemoniacs; there were two cleansings of the Temple, and so forth.(13) The\ncorrect view of the Synoptic Gospels as being interdependent was first\nformulated by Griesbach.\n\nThe only Life of Jesus written prior to the time of Reimarus which has any\ninterest for us, was composed by a Jesuit in the Persian language. The\nauthor was the Indian missionary Hieronymus Xavier, nephew of Francis\nXavier, and it was designed for the use of Akbar, the Moghul Emperor, who,\nin the latter part of the sixteenth century, had become the most powerful\npotentate in Hindustan. In the seventeenth century the Persian text was\nbrought to Europe by a merchant, and was translated into Latin by Louis de\nDieu, a theologian of the Reformed Church, whose intention in publishing\nit was to discredit Catholicism.(14) It is a skilful falsification of the\nlife of Jesus in which the omissions, and the additions taken from the\nApocrypha, are inspired by the sole purpose of presenting to the open\u2010\nminded ruler a glorious Jesus, in whom there should be nothing to offend\nhim.\n\nThus there had been nothing to prepare the world for a work of such power\nas that of Reimarus. It is true, there had appeared earlier, in 1768, a\nLife of Jesus by Johann Jakob Hess(15) (1741\u20101828), written from the\nstandpoint of the older rationalism, but it retains so much\nsupernaturalism and follows so much the lines of a paraphrase of the\nGospels, that there was nothing to indicate to the world what a master\u2010\nstroke the spirit of the time was preparing.\n\nNot much is known about Reimarus. For his contemporaries he had no\nexistence, and it was Strauss who first made his name known in\nliterature.(16) He was born in Hamburg on the 22nd of December, 1694, and\nspent his life there as a professor of Oriental Languages. He died in\n1768. Several of his writings appeared during his lifetime, all of them\nasserting the claims of rational religion as against the faith of the\nChurch; one of them, for example, being an essay on \u201cThe Leading Truths of\nNatural Religion.\u201d His _magnum opus_, however, which laid the historic\nbasis of his attacks, was only circulated, during his lifetime, among his\nacquaintances, as an anonymous manuscript. In 1774 Lessing began to\npublish the most important portions of it, and up to 1778 had published\nseven fragments, thereby involving himself in a quarrel with Goetze, the\nChief Pastor of Hamburg. The manuscript of the whole, which runs to 4000\npages, is preserved in the Hamburg municipal library.\n\nThe following are the titles of Fragments which he published:\n\nThe Toleration of the Deists.\n\nThe Decrying of Reason in the Pulpit.\n\nThe impossibility of a Revelation which all men should have good grounds\nfor believing.\n\nThe Passing of the Israelites through the Red Sea.\n\nShowing that the books of the Old Testament were not written to reveal a\nReligion.\n\nConcerning the story of the Resurrection.\n\nThe Aims of Jesus and His disciples.\n\nThe monograph on the passing of the Israelites through the Red Sea is one\nof the ablest, wittiest, and most acute which has ever been written. It\nexposes all the impossibilities of the narrative in the Priestly Codex,\nand all the inconsistencies which arise from the combination of various\nsources; although Reimarus has not the slightest inkling that the\nseparation of these sources would afford the real solution of the problem.\n\nTo say that the fragment on \u201cThe Aims of Jesus and His Disciples\u201d is a\nmagnificent piece of work is barely to do it justice. This essay is not\nonly one of the greatest events in the history of criticism, it is also a\nmasterpiece of general literature. The language is as a rule crisp and\nterse, pointed and epigrammatic\u2014the language of a man who is not \u201cengaged\nin literary composition\u201d but is wholly concerned with the facts. At times,\nhowever, it rises to heights of passionate feeling, and then it is as\nthough the fires of a volcano were painting lurid pictures upon dark\nclouds. Seldom has there been a hate so eloquent, so lofty a scorn; but\nthen it is seldom that a work has been written in the just consciousness\nof so absolute a superiority to contemporary opinion. And withal, there is\ndignity and serious purpose; Reimarus\u2019s work is no pamphlet.\n\nLessing could not, of course, accept its standpoint. His idea of\nrevelation, and his conception of the Person of Jesus, were much deeper\nthan those of the Fragmentist. He was a thinker; Reimarus only a\nhistorian. But this was the first time that a really historical mind,\nthoroughly conversant with the sources, had undertaken the criticism of\nthe tradition. It was Lessing\u2019s greatness that he grasped the significance\nof this criticism, and felt that it must lead either to the destruction or\nto the re\u2010casting of the idea of revelation. He recognised that the\nintroduction of the historical element would transform and deepen\nrationalism. Convinced that the fateful moment had arrived, he disregarded\nthe scruples of Reimarus\u2019s family and the objections of Nicolai and\nMendelssohn, and, though inwardly trembling for that which he himself held\nsacred, he flung the torch with his own hand.\n\nSemler, at the close of his refutation of the fragment, ridicules its\neditor in the following apologue. \u201cA prisoner was once brought before the\nLord Mayor of London on a charge of arson. He had been seen coming down\nfrom the upper story of the burning house. \u2018Yesterday,\u2019 so ran his\ndefence, \u2018about four o\u2019clock I went into my neighbour\u2019s store\u2010room and saw\nthere a burning candle which the servants had carelessly forgotten. In the\ncourse of the night it would have burned down, and set fire to the stairs.\nTo make sure that the fire should break out in the day\u2010time, I threw some\nstraw upon it. The flames burst out at the sky\u2010light, the fire\u2010engines\ncame hurrying up, and the fire, which in the night might have been\ndangerous, was promptly extinguished.\u2019 \u2018Why did you not yourself pick up\nthe candle and put it out?\u2019 asked the Lord Mayor. \u2018If I had put out the\ncandle the servants would not have learned to be more careful; now that\nthere has been such a fuss about it, they will not be so careless in\nfuture.\u2019 \u2018Odd, very odd,\u2019 said the Lord Mayor, \u2018he is not a criminal, only\na little weak in the head.\u2019 So he had him shut up in the mad\u2010house, and\nthere he lies to this day.\u201d\n\nThe story is extraordinarily apposite\u2014only that Lessing was not mad; he\nknew quite well what he was doing. His object was to show how an unseen\nenemy had pushed his parallels up to the very walls, and to summon to the\ndefence \u201csome one who should be as nearly the ideal defender of religion\nas the Fragmentist was the ideal assailant.\u201d Once, with prophetic insight\ninto the future, he says: \u201cThe Christian traditions must be explained by\nthe inner truth of Christianity, and no written traditions can give it\nthat inner truth, if it does not itself possess it.\u201d\n\nReimarus takes as his starting\u2010point the question regarding the content of\nthe preaching of Jesus. \u201cWe are justified,\u201d he says, \u201cin drawing an\nabsolute distinction between the teaching of the Apostles in their\nwritings and what Jesus Himself in His own lifetime proclaimed and\ntaught.\u201d What belongs to the preaching of Jesus is clearly to be\nrecognised. It is contained in two phrases of identical meaning, \u201cRepent,\nand believe the Gospel,\u201d or, as it is put elsewhere, \u201cRepent, for the\nKingdom of Heaven is at hand.\u201d\n\nThe Kingdom of Heaven must however be understood \u201caccording to Jewish ways\nof thought.\u201d Neither Jesus nor the Baptist ever explain this expression;\ntherefore they must have been content to have it understood in its known\nand customary sense. That means that Jesus took His stand within the\nJewish religion, and accepted its Messianic expectations without in any\nway correcting them. If He gives a new development to this religion it is\nonly in so far that He proclaims as near at hand the realisation of ideals\nand hopes which were alive in thousands of hearts.\n\nThere was thus no need for detailed instruction regarding the nature of\nthe Kingdom of Heaven; the catechism and confession of the Church at its\ncommencement consisted of a single phrase. Belief was not difficult: \u201cthey\nneed only believe the Gospel, namely that Jesus was about to bring in the\nKingdom of God.\u201d(17)\n\nAs there were many among the Jews who were already waiting for the Kingdom\nof God, it was no wonder that in a few days, nay in a few hours, some\nthousands believed, although they had been told only that Jesus was the\npromised prophet.\n\nThis was the sum total of what the disciples knew about the Kingdom of God\nwhen they were sent out by their Master to proclaim its coming. Their\nhearers would naturally think of the customary meaning of the term and the\nhopes which attached themselves to it. \u201cThe purpose of sending out such\npropagandists could only be that the Jews who groaned under the Roman yoke\nand had long cherished the hope of deliverance should be stirred up all\nover Judaea and assemble themselves in their thousands.\u201d\n\nJesus must have known, too, that if the people believed His messengers\nthey would look about for an earthly deliverer and turn to Him for this\npurpose. The Gospel, therefore, meant nothing more or less to all who\nheard it than that, under the leadership of Jesus, the Kingdom of Messiah\nwas about to be brought in. For them there was no difficulty in accepting\nthe belief that He was the Messiah, the Son of God, for this belief did\nnot involve anything metaphysical. The nation was the Son of God; the\nkings of the covenant\u2010people were Sons of God; the Messiah was in a pre\u2010\neminent sense the Son of God. Thus even in His Messianic claims Jesus\nremained \u201cwithin the limits of humanity.\u201d\n\nThe fact that He did not need to explain to His contemporaries what He\nmeant by the Kingdom of God constitutes a difficulty for us. The parables\ndo not enlighten us, for they presuppose a knowledge of the conception.\n\u201cIf we could not gather from the writings of the Jews some further\ninformation as to what was understood at that time by the Messiah and the\nKingdom of God, these points of primary importance would be very obscure\nand incomprehensible.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf, therefore, we desire to gain a historical understanding of Jesus\u2019\nteaching, we must leave behind what we learned in our catechism regarding\nthe metaphysical Divine Sonship, the Trinity, and similar dogmatic\nconceptions, and go out into a wholly Jewish world of thought. Only those\nwho carry the teachings of the catechism back into the preaching of the\nJewish Messiah will arrive at the idea that He was the founder of a new\nreligion. To all unprejudiced persons it is manifest that Jesus had not\nthe slightest intention of doing away with the Jewish religion and putting\nanother in its place.\u201d\n\nFrom Matt. v. 18 it is evident that Jesus did not break with the Law, but\ntook His stand upon it unreservedly. If there was anything at all new in\nHis preaching, it was the righteousness which was requisite for the\nKingdom of God. The righteousness of the Law will no longer suffice in the\ntime of the coming Kingdom; a new and deeper morality must come into\nbeing. This demand is the only point in which the preaching of Jesus went\nbeyond the ideas of His contemporaries. But this new morality does not do\naway with the Law, for He explains it as a fulfilment of the old\ncommandments. His followers, no doubt, broke with the Law later on. They\ndid so, however, not in pursuance of a command of Jesus, but under the\npressure of circumstances, at the time when they were forced out of\nJudaism and obliged to found a new religion.\n\nJesus shared the Jewish racial exclusiveness wholly and unreservedly.\nAccording to Matt. x. 5 He forbade His disciples to declare to the\nGentiles the coming of the Kingdom of God. Evidently, therefore, His\npurpose did not embrace them. Had it been otherwise, the hesitation of\nPeter in Acts x. and xi., and the necessity of justifying the conversion\nof Cornelius, would be incomprehensible.\n\nBaptism and the Lord\u2019s Supper are no evidence that Jesus intended to found\na new religion. In the first place the genuineness of the command to\nbaptize in Matt. xxviii. 19 is questionable, not only as a saying ascribed\nto the risen Jesus, but also because it is universalistic in outlook, and\nbecause it implies the doctrine of the Trinity and, consequently, the\nmetaphysical Divine Sonship of Jesus. In this it is inconsistent with the\nearliest traditions regarding the practice of baptism in the Christian\ncommunity, for in the earliest times, as we learn from the Acts and from\nPaul, it was the custom to baptize, not in the name of the Trinity, but in\nthe name of Jesus, the Messiah.\n\nBut, furthermore, it is questionable whether Baptism really goes back to\nJesus at all. He Himself baptized no one in His own lifetime, and never\ncommanded any of His converts to be baptized. So we cannot be sure about\nthe origin of Baptism, though we can be sure of its meaning. Baptism in\nthe name of Jesus signified only that Jesus was the Messiah. \u201cFor the only\nchange which the teaching of Jesus made in their religion was that whereas\nthey had formerly believed in a Deliverer of Israel who was to come in the\nfuture, they now believed in a Deliverer who was already present.\u201d\n\nThe \u201cLord\u2019s Supper,\u201d again, was no new institution, but merely an episode\nat the last Paschal Meal of the Kingdom which was passing away, and was\nintended \u201cas an anticipatory celebration of the Passover of the New\nKingdom.\u201d A Lord\u2019s Supper in our sense, \u201ccut loose from the Passover,\u201d\nwould have been inconceivable to Jesus, and not less so to His disciples.\n\nIt is useless to appeal to the miracles, any more than to the\n\u201cSacraments,\u201d as evidence for the founding of a new religion. In the first\nplace, we have to remember what happens in the case of miracles handed\ndown by tradition. That Jesus effected cures, which in the eyes of His\ncontemporaries were miraculous, is not to be denied. Their purpose was to\nprove Him to be the Messiah. He forbade these miracles to be made known,\neven in cases where they could not possibly be kept hidden, \u201cwith the sole\npurpose of making people more eager to talk of them.\u201d Other miracles,\nhowever, have no basis in fact, but owe their place in the narrative to\nthe feeling that the miracle\u2010stories of the Old Testament must be repeated\nin the case of Jesus, but on a grander scale. He did no really miraculous\nworks; otherwise, the demands for a sign would be incomprehensible. In\nJerusalem when all the people were looking eagerly for an overwhelming\nmanifestation of His Messiahship, what a tremendous effect a miracle would\nhave produced! If only a single miracle had been publicly, convincingly,\nundeniably, performed by Jesus before all the people on one of the great\ndays of the Feast, such is human nature that all the people would at once\nhave flocked to His standard.\n\nFor this popular uprising, however, He waited in vain. Twice He believed\nthat it was near at hand. The first time was when He was sending out the\ndisciples and said to them: \u201cYe shall not have gone over the cities of\nIsrael before the Son of Man comes\u201d (Matt. x. 23). He thought that, at the\npreaching of the disciples, the people would flock to Him from every\nquarter and immediately proclaim Him Messiah; but His expectation was\ndisappointed.\n\nThe second time, He thought to bring about the decisive issue in\nJerusalem. He made His entry riding on an ass\u2019s colt, that the Messianic\nprophecy of Zechariah might be fulfilled. And the people actually did cry\n\u201cHosanna to the Son of David!\u201d Relying on the support of His followers He\nmight now, He thought, bid defiance to the authorities. In the temple He\narrogates to Himself supreme power, and in glowing words calls for an open\nrevolt against the Sanhedrin and the Pharisees, on the ground that they\nhave shut the doors of the Kingdom of Heaven and forbidden others to go\nin. There is no doubt, now, that He will carry the people with Him!\nConfident in the success of His cause, He closes the great incendiary\nharangue in Matt. xxiii. with the words \u201cTruly from henceforth ye shall\nnot see me again until ye shall say Blessed is he that cometh in the name\nof the Lord\u201d; that is, until they should hail Him as Messiah.\n\nBut the people in Jerusalem refused to rise, as the Galilaeans had refused\nat the time when the disciples were sent out to rouse them. The Council\nprepared for vigorous action. The voluntary concealment by which Jesus had\nthought to whet the eagerness of the people became involuntary. Before His\narrest He was overwhelmed with dread, and on the cross He closed His life\nwith the words \u201cMy God! my God! why hast Thou forsaken me?\u201d \u201cThis avowal\ncannot, without violence, be interpreted otherwise than as meaning that\nGod had not aided Him in His aim and purpose as He had hoped. That shows\nthat it had not been His purpose to suffer and die, but to establish an\nearthly kingdom and deliver the Jews from political oppression\u2014and in that\nGod\u2019s help had failed Him.\u201d\n\nFor the disciples this turn of affairs meant the destruction of all the\ndreams for the sake of which they had followed Jesus. For if they had\ngiven up anything on His account, it was only in order to receive it again\nan hundredfold when they should openly take their places in the eyes of\nall the world as the friends and ministers of the Messiah, as the rulers\nof the twelve tribes of Israel. Jesus never disabused them of this\nsensuous hope, but, on the contrary, confirmed them in it. When He put an\nend to the quarrel about pre\u2010eminence, and when He answered the request of\nthe sons of Zebedee, He did not attack the assumption that there were to\nbe thrones and power, but only addressed Himself to the question how men\nwere in the present to establish their claims to that position of\nauthority.\n\nAll this implies that the time of the fulfilment of these hopes was not\nthought of by Jesus and His disciples as at all remote. In Matt. xvi. 28,\nfor example, He says: \u201cTruly I say unto you there are some standing here\nwho shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his\nkingdom.\u201d There is no justification for twisting this about or explaining\nit away. It simply means that Jesus promises the fulfilment of all\nMessianic hopes before the end of the existing generation.\n\nThus the disciples were prepared for anything rather than that which\nactually happened. Jesus had never said a word to them about His dying and\nrising again, otherwise they would not have so played the coward at His\ndeath, nor have been so astonished at His \u201cresurrection.\u201d The three or\nfour sayings referring to these events must therefore have been put into\nHis mouth later, in order to make it appear that He had foreseen these\nevents in His original plan.\n\nHow, then, did they get over this apparently annihilating blow? By falling\nback upon the second form of the Jewish Messianic hope. Hitherto their\nthoughts, like those of their Master, had been dominated by the political\nideal of the prophets\u2014the scion of David\u2019s line who should appear as the\npolitical deliverer of the nation. But alongside of that there existed\nanother Messianic expectation which transferred everything to the\nsupernatural sphere. Appearing first in Daniel, this expectation can still\nbe traced in the Apocalypses, in Justin\u2019s \u201cDialogue with Trypho,\u201d and in\ncertain Rabbinic sayings. According to these\u2014Reimarus makes use especially\nof the statements of Trypho\u2014the Messiah is to appear twice; once in human\nlowliness, the second time upon the clouds of heaven. When the first\n_systema_, as Reimarus calls it, was annihilated by the death of Jesus,\nthe disciples brought forward the second, and gathered followers who\nshared their expectation of a second coming of Jesus the Messiah. In order\nto get rid of the difficulty of the death of Jesus, they gave it the\nsignificance of a spiritual redemption\u2014which had not previously entered\ntheir field of vision or that of Jesus Himself.\n\nBut this spiritual interpretation of His death would not have helped them\nif they had not also invented the resurrection. Immediately after the\ndeath of Jesus, indeed, such an idea was far from their thoughts. They\nwere in deadly fear and kept close within doors. \u201cSoon, however, one and\nanother ventures to slip out. They learn that no judicial search is being\nmade for them.\u201d Then they consider what is to be done. They did not take\nkindly to the idea of returning to their old haunts; on their journeyings\nthe companions of the Messiah had forgotten how to work. They had seen\nthat the preaching of the Kingdom of God will keep a man. Even when they\nhad been sent out without wallet or money they had not lacked. The women\nwho are mentioned in Luke viii. 2, 3, had made it their business to make\ngood provision for the Messiah and His future ministers.\n\nWhy not, then, continue this mode of life? They would surely find a\nsufficient number of faithful souls who would join them in directing their\nhopes towards a second coming of the Messiah, and while awaiting the\nfuture glory, would share their possessions with them. So they stole the\nbody of Jesus and hid it, and proclaimed to all the world that He would\nsoon return. They prudently waited, however, for fifty days before making\nthis announcement, in order that the body, if it should be found, might be\nunrecognisable.\n\nWhat was much in their favour was the complete disorganisation of the\nJewish state. Had there been an efficient police administration the\ndisciples would not have been able to plan this fraud and organise their\ncommunistic fellowship. But, as it was, the new society was not even\nsubjected to any annoyance in consequence of the remarkable death of a\nmarried couple who were buried from the apostles\u2019 house, and the\nbrotherhood was even allowed to confiscate their property to its own uses.\n\nIt appears, then, that the hope of the Parousia was the fundamental thing\nin primitive Christianity, which was a product of that hope much more than\nof the teaching of Jesus. Accordingly, the main problem of primitive\ndogmatics was the delay of the Parousia. Already in Paul\u2019s time the\nproblem was pressing, and he had to set to work in 2 Thessalonians to\ndiscover all possible and impossible reasons why the Second Coming should\nbe delayed. Reimarus mercilessly exposes the position of the apostle, who\nwas obliged to fob people off somehow or other. The author of 2 Peter has\na much clearer notion of what he would be at, and undertakes to restore\nthe confidence of Christendom once for all with the sophism of the\nthousand years which are in the sight of God as one day, ignoring the fact\nthat in the promise the reckoning was by man\u2019s years, not by God\u2019s.\n\u201cNevertheless it served the turn of the Apostles so well with those simple\nearly Christians, that after the first believers had been bemused with it,\nand the period originally fixed had elapsed, the Christians of later\ngenerations, including Fathers of the Church, could continue ever after to\nfeed themselves with empty hopes.\u201d The saying of Christ about the\ngeneration which should not die out before His return clearly fixes this\nevent at no very distant date. But since Jesus has not yet appeared upon\nthe clouds of heaven \u201cthese words must be strained into meaning, not that\ngeneration, but the Jewish people. Thus by exegetical art they are saved\nfor ever, for the Jewish race will never die out.\u201d\n\nIn general, however, \u201cthe theologians of the present day skim lightly over\nthe eschatological material in the Gospels because it does not chime in\nwith their views, and assign to the coming of Christ upon the clouds quite\na different purpose from that which it bears in the teaching of Christ and\nHis apostles.\u201d Inasmuch as the non\u2010fulfilment of its eschatology is not\nadmitted, our Christianity rests upon a fraud. In view of this fact, what\nis the evidential value of any miracle, even if it could be held to be\nauthentic? \u201cNo miracle would prove that two and two make five, or that a\ncircle has four angles; and no miracles, however numerous, could remove a\ncontradiction which lies on the surface of the teachings and records of\nChristianity.\u201d Nor is there any weight in the appeal to the fulfilment of\nprophecy, for the cases in which Matthew countersigns it with the words\n\u201cthat the Scripture might be fulfilled\u201d are all artificial and unreal; and\nfor many incidents the stage was set by Jesus, or His disciples, or the\nEvangelists, with the deliberate purpose of presenting to the people a\nscene from the fulfilment of prophecy.\n\nThe sole argument which could save the credit of Christianity would be a\nproof that the Parousia had really taken place at the time for which it\nwas announced; and obviously no such proof can be produced.\n\nSuch is Reimarus\u2019 reconstruction of the history. We can well understand\nthat his work must have given offence when it appeared, for it is a\npolemic, not an objective historical study. But we have no right simply to\ndismiss it in a word, as a Deistic production, as Otto Schmiedel, for\nexample, does;(18) it is time that Reimarus came to his own, and that we\nshould recognise a historical performance of no mean order in this piece\nof Deistic polemics. His work is perhaps the most splendid achievement in\nthe whole course of the historical investigation of the life of Jesus, for\nhe was the first to grasp the fact that the world of thought in which\nJesus moved was essentially eschatological. There is some justification\nfor the animosity which flames up in his writing. This historical truth\nhad taken possession of his mind with such overwhelming force that he\ncould no longer understand his contemporaries, and could not away with\ntheir profession that their beliefs were, as they professed to be,\ndirectly derived from the preaching of Jesus.\n\nWhat added to the offence was that he saw the eschatology in a wrong\nperspective. He held that the Messianic ideal which dominated the\npreaching of Jesus was that of the political ruler, the son of David. All\nhis other mistakes are the consequence of this fundamental error. It was,\nof course, a mere makeshift hypothesis to derive the beginnings of\nChristianity from an imposture. Historical science was not at that time\nsufficiently advanced to lead even the man who had divined the\nfundamentally eschatological character of the preaching of Jesus onward to\nthe historical solution of the problem; it needed more than a hundred and\ntwenty years to fill in the chasm which Reimarus had been forced to bridge\nwith that makeshift hypothesis of his.\n\nIn the light of the clear perception of the elements of the problem which\nReimarus had attained, the whole movement of theology, down to Johannes\nWeiss, appears retrograde. In all its work the thesis is ignored or\nobscured that Jesus, as a historical personality, is to be regarded, not\nas the founder of a new religion, but as the final product of the\neschatological and apocalyptic thought of Late Judaism. Every sentence of\nJohannes Weiss\u2019s _Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes_ (1892) is a\nvindication, a rehabilitation, of Reimarus as a historical thinker.\n\nEven so the traveller on the plain sees from afar the distant range of\nmountains. Then he loses sight of them again. His way winds slowly upwards\nthrough the valleys, drawing ever nearer to the peaks, until at last, at a\nturn of the path, they stand before him, not in the shapes which they had\nseemed to take from the distant plain, but in their actual forms. Reimarus\nwas the first, after eighteen centuries of misconception, to have an\ninkling of what eschatology really was. Then theology lost sight of it\nagain, and it was not until after the lapse of more than a hundred years\nthat it came in view of eschatology once more, now in its true form, so\nfar as that can be historically determined, and only after it had been led\nastray, almost to the last, in all its historical researches by the sole\nmistake of Reimarus\u2014the assumption that the eschatology was earthly and\npolitical in character. Thus theology shared at least the error of the man\nwhom it knew only as a Deist, not as an historian, and whose true\ngreatness was not recognised even by Strauss, though he raised a literary\nmonument to him.\n\nThe solution offered by Reimarus may be wrong; the data of observation\nfrom which he starts out are, beyond question, right, because the primary\ndatum of all is genuinely historical. He recognised that two systems of\nMessianic expectation were present side by side in Late Judaism. He\nendeavoured to bring them into mutual relations in order to represent the\nactual movement of the history. In so doing he made the mistake of placing\nthem in consecutive order, ascribing to Jesus the political Son\u2010of\u2010David\nconception, and to the Apostles, after His death, the apocalyptic system\nbased on Daniel, instead of superimposing one upon the other in such a way\nthat the Messianic King might coincide with the Son of Man, and the\nancient prophetic conception might be inscribed within the circumference\nof the Daniel\u2010descended apocalyptic, and raised along with it to the\nsupersensuous plane. But what matters the mistake in comparison with the\nfact that the problem was really grasped?\n\nReimarus felt that the absence in the preaching of Jesus of any definition\nof the principal term (the Kingdom of God), in conjunction with the great\nand rapid success of His preaching constituted a problem, and he\nformulated the conception that Jesus was not a religious founder and\nteacher, but purely a preacher.\n\nHe brought the Synoptic and Johannine narratives into harmony by\npractically leaving the latter out of account. The attitude of Jesus\ntowards the law, and the process by which the disciples came to take up a\nfreer attitude, was grasped and explained by him so accurately that modern\nhistorical science does not need to add a word, but would be well pleased\nif at least half the theologians of the present day had got as far.\n\nFurther, he recognised that primitive Christianity was not something which\ngrew, so to speak, out of the teaching of Jesus, but that it came into\nbeing as a new creation, in consequence of events and circumstances which\nadded something to that preaching which it did not previously contain; and\nthat Baptism and the Lord\u2019s Supper, in the historical sense of these\nterms, were not instituted by Jesus, but created by the early Church on\nthe basis of certain historical assumptions.\n\nAgain, Reimarus felt that the fact that the \u201cevent of Easter\u201d was first\nproclaimed at Pentecost constituted a problem, and he sought a solution\nfor it. He recognised, further, that the solution of the problem of the\nlife of Jesus calls for a combination of the methods of historical and\nliterary criticism. He felt that merely to emphasise the part played by\neschatology would not suffice, but that it was necessary to assume a\ncreative element in the tradition, to which he ascribed the miracles, the\nstories which turn on the fulfilment of Messianic prophecy, the\nuniversalistic traits and the predictions of the passion and the\nresurrection. Like Wrede, too, he feels that the prescription of silence\nin the case of miracles of healing and of certain communications to the\ndisciples constitutes a problem which demands solution.\n\nStill more remarkable is his eye for exegetical detail. He has an\nunfailing instinct for pregnant passages like Matt. x. 23, xvi. 28, which\nare crucial for the interpretation of large masses of the history. The\nfact is there are some who are historians by the grace of God, who from\ntheir mother\u2019s womb have an instinctive feeling for the real. They follow\nthrough all the intricacy and confusion of reported fact the pathway of\nreality, like a stream which, despite the rocks that encumber its course\nand the windings of its valley, finds its way inevitably to the sea. No\nerudition can supply the place of this historical instinct, but erudition\nsometimes serves a useful purpose, inasmuch as it produces in its\npossessors the pleasing belief that they are historians, and thus secures\ntheir services for the cause of history. In truth they are at best merely\ndoing the preliminary spade\u2010work of history, collecting for a future\nhistorian the dry bones of fact, from which, with the aid of his natural\ngift, he can recall the past to life. More often, however, the way in\nwhich erudition seeks to serve history is by suppressing historical\ndiscoveries as long as possible, and leading out into the field to oppose\nthe one true view an army of possibilities. By arraying these in support\nof one another it finally imagines that it has created out of\npossibilities a living reality.\n\nThis obstructive erudition is the special prerogative of theology, in\nwhich, even at the present day, a truly marvellous scholarship often\nserves only to blind the eyes to elementary truths, and to cause the\nartificial to be preferred to the natural. And this happens not only with\nthose who deliberately shut their minds against new impressions, but also\nwith those whose purpose is to go forward, and to whom their\ncontemporaries look up as leaders. It was a typical illustration of this\nfact when Semler rose up and slew Reimarus in the name of scientific\ntheology.(19)\n\nReimarus had discredited progressive theology. Students\u2014so Semler tells us\nin his preface\u2014became unsettled and sought other callings. The great Halle\ntheologian\u2014born in 1725\u2014the pioneer of the historical view of the Canon,\nthe precursor of Baur in the reconstruction of primitive Christianity, was\nurged to do away with the offence. As Origen of yore with Celsus, so\nSemler takes Reimarus sentence by sentence, in such a way that if his work\nwere lost it could be recovered from the refutation. The fact was that\nSemler had nothing in the nature of a complete or well\u2010articulated\nargument to oppose to him; therefore he inaugurated in his reply the \u201cYes,\nbut\u201d theology, which thereafter, for more than three generations, while it\ntook, itself, the most various modifications, imagined that it had finally\ngot rid of Reimarus and his discovery.\n\nReimarus\u2014so ran the watchword of the guerrilla warfare which Semler waged\nagainst him\u2014cannot be right, for he is one\u2010sided. Jesus and His disciples\nemployed two methods of teaching: one sensuous, pictorial, drawn from the\nsphere of Jewish ideas, by which they adapted their meaning to the\nunderstanding of the multitude, and endeavoured to raise them to a higher\nway of thinking; and alongside of that a purely spiritual teaching which\nwas independent of that kind of imagery. Both methods of teaching\ncontinued to be used side by side, because there were always contemporary\nrepresentatives of the two degrees of capability and the two kinds of\ntemperament. \u201cThis is historically so certain that the Fragmentist\u2019s\nattack must inevitably be defeated at this point, because he takes account\nonly of the sensuous representation.\u201d But his attack was not defeated.\nWhat happened was that, owing to the respect in which Semler was held, and\nthe absolute incapacity of contemporary theology to overtake the long\nstride forward made by Reimarus, his work was neglected, and the stimulus\nwhich it was capable of imparting failed to take effect. He had no\npredecessors; neither had he any disciples. His work is one of those\nsupremely great works which pass and leave no trace, because they are\nbefore their time; to which later generations pay a just tribute of\nadmiration, but owe no gratitude. Indeed it would be truer to say that\nReimarus hung a mill\u2010stone about the neck of the rising theological\nscience of his time. He avenged himself on Semler by shaking his faith in\nhistorical theology and even in the freedom of science in general. By the\nend of the eighth decade of the century the Halle professor was beginning\nto retrace his steps, was becoming more and more disloyal to the cause\nwhich he had formerly served; and he finally went so far as to give his\napproval to W\u00f6llner\u2019s edict for the regulation of religion (1788). His\nfriends attributed this change of front to senility\u2014he died 1791.\n\nThus the magnificent overture in which are announced all the _motifs_ of\nthe future historical treatment of the life of Jesus breaks off with a\nsudden discord, remains isolated and incomplete, and leads to nothing\nfurther.\n\n\n\n\n\nIII. THE LIVES OF JESUS OF THE EARLIER RATIONALISM\n\n\n    _Johann Jakob Hess._ Geschichte der drei letzten Lebensjahre Jesu.\n    (History of the Last Three Years of the Life of Jesus.) 3 vols.,\n    1400 pp. Leipzig\u2010Zurich, 1768\u20101772; 3rd ed., 1774 ff.; 7th ed.,\n    1823 ff.\n\n    _Franz Volkmar Reinhard._ Versuch \u00fcber den Plan, welchen der\n    Stifter der christlichen Religion zum Besten der Menschheit\n    entwarf. (Essay upon the Plan which the Founder of the Christian\n    Religion adopted for the Benefit of Mankind.) 500 pp. 1781; 4th\n    ed., 1798; 5th ed., 1830. Our account is based on the 4th ed. The\n    5th contains supplementary matter by Heubner.\n\n    _Ernst August Opitz._ Preacher at Zscheppelin. Geschichte und\n    Characterz\u00fcge Jesu. (History of Jesus, with a Delineation of His\n    Character.) Jena and Leipzig, 1812. 488 pp.\n\n    _Johann Adolph Jakobi._ Superintendent at Waltershausen. Die\n    Geschichte Jesu f\u00fcr denkende und gem\u00fctvolle Leser, 1816. (The\n    History of Jesus for thoughtful and sympathetic readers.) A second\n    volume, containing the history of the apostolic age, followed in\n    1818.\n\n    _Johann Gottfried Herder._ Vom Erl\u00f6ser der Menschen. Nach unsern\n    drei ersten Evangelien. (The Redeemer of men, as portrayed in our\n    first three Gospels.) 1796. Von Gottes Sohn, der Welt Heiland.\n    Nach Johannes Evangelium. (The Son of God, the Saviour of the\n    World, as portrayed by John\u2019s Gospel.) Accompanied by a rule for\n    the harmonisation of our Gospels on the basis of their origin and\n    order. Riga, published by Hartknoch, 1797. See Herder\u2019s complete\n    works, ed. Suphan, vol. xix.\n\n\nThat thorough\u2010going theological rationalism which accepts only so much of\nreligion as can justify itself at the bar of reason, and which conceives\nand represents the origin of religion in accordance with this principle,\nwas preceded by a rationalism less complete, as yet not wholly dissociated\nfrom a simple\u2010minded supernaturalism. Its point of view is one at which it\nis almost impossible for the modern man to place himself. Here, in a\nsingle consciousness, orthodoxy and rationalism lie stratified in\nsuccessive layers. Here, to change the metaphor, rationalism surrounds\nreligion without touching it, and, like a lake surrounding some ancient\ncastle, mirrors its image with curious refractions.\n\nThis half\u2010developed rationalism was conscious of an impulse\u2014it is the\nfirst time in the history of theology that this impulse manifests\nitself\u2014to write the Life of Jesus; at first without any suspicion whither\nthis undertaking would lead it. No rude hands were to be laid upon the\ndoctrinal conception of Jesus; at least these writers had no intention of\nlaying hands upon it. Their purpose was simply to gain a clearer view of\nthe course of our Lord\u2019s earthly and human life. The theologians who\nundertook this task thought of themselves as merely writing an historical\nsupplement to the life of the God\u2010Man Jesus. These \u201cLives\u201d are, therefore,\ncomposed according to the prescription of the \u201cgood old gentleman\u201d who in\n1829 advised the young Hase to treat first of the divine, and then of the\nhuman side of the life of Jesus.\n\nThe battle about miracle had not yet begun. But miracle no longer plays a\npart of any importance; it is a firmly established principle that the\nteaching of Jesus, and religion in general, hold their place solely in\nvirtue of their inner reasonableness, not by the support of outward\nevidence.\n\nThe only thing that is really rationalistic in these older works is the\ntreatment of the teaching of Jesus. Even those that retain the largest\nshare of supernaturalism are as completely undogmatic as the more advanced\nin their reproduction of the discourses of the Great Teacher. All of them\nmake it a principle to lose no opportunity of reducing the number of\nmiracles; where they can explain a miracle by natural causes, they do not\nhesitate for a moment. But the deliberate rejection of all miracles, the\nelimination of everything supernatural which intrudes itself into the life\nof Jesus, is still to seek. That principle was first consistently carried\nthrough by Paulus. With these earlier writers it depends on the degree of\nenlightenment of the individual whether the irreducible minimum of the\nsupernatural is larger or smaller.\n\nMoreover, the period of this older rationalism, like every period when\nhuman thought has been strong and vigorous, is wholly unhistorical. What\nit is looking for is not the past, but itself in the past. For it, the\nproblem of the life of Jesus is solved the moment it succeeds in bringing\nJesus near to its own time, in portraying Him as the great teacher of\nvirtue, and showing that His teaching is identical with the intellectual\ntruth which rationalism deifies.\n\nThe temporal limits of this half\u2010and\u2010half rationalism are difficult to\ndefine. For the historical study of the life of Jesus the first landmark\nwhich it offers is the work of Hess, which appeared in 1768. But it held\nits ground for a long time side by side with rationalism proper, which\nfailed to drive it from the field. A seventh edition of Hess\u2019s Life of\nJesus appeared as late as 1823; while a fifth edition of Reinhard\u2019s work\nsaw the light in 1830. And when Strauss struck the death\u2010blow of out\u2010and\u2010\nout rationalism, the half\u2010and\u2010half rationalism did not perish with it, but\nallied itself with the neo\u2010supernaturalism which Strauss\u2019s treatment of\nthe life of Jesus had called into being; and it still prolongs an obscure\nexistence in a certain section of conservative literature, though it has\nlost its best characteristics, its simple\u2010mindedness and honesty.\n\nThese older rationalistic Lives of Jesus are, from the aesthetic point of\nview, among the least pleasing of all theological productions. The\nsentimentality of the portraiture is boundless. Boundless, also, and still\nmore objectionable, is the want of respect for the language of Jesus. He\nmust speak in a rational and modern fashion, and accordingly all His\nutterances are reproduced in a style of the most polite modernity. None of\nthe speeches are allowed to stand as they were spoken; they are taken to\npieces, paraphrased, and expanded, and sometimes, with the view of making\nthem really lively, they are recast in the mould of a freely invented\ndialogue. In all these Lives of Jesus, not a single one of His sayings\nretains its authentic form.\n\nAnd yet we must not be unjust to these writers. What they aimed at was to\nbring Jesus near to their own time, and in so doing they became the\npioneers of the historical study of His life. The defects of their work in\nregard to aesthetic feeling and historical grasp are outweighed by the\nattractiveness of the purposeful, unprejudiced thinking which here\nawakens, stretches itself, and begins to move with freedom.\n\nJohann Jakob Hess was born in 1741 and died in 1828. After working as a\ncurate for seventeen years he became one of the assistant clergy at the\nFrauminster at Zurich, and later \u201cAntistes,\u201d president, of the cantonal\nsynod. In this capacity he guided the destinies of the Church in Zurich\nsafely through the troublous times of the Revolution. He was not a deep\nthinker, but was well read and not without ability. As a man, he did\nsplendid work.\n\nHis Life of Jesus still keeps largely to the lines of a paraphrase of the\nGospels; indeed, he calls it a paraphrasing history. It is based upon a\nharmonizing combination of the four Gospels. The matter of the Synoptic\nnarratives is, as in all the Lives of Jesus prior to Strauss\u2014with the sole\nexception of Herder\u2019s\u2014fitted more or less arbitrarily into the intervals\nbetween the Passovers in the fourth Gospel.\n\nIn regard to miracles, he admits that these are a stumbling\u2010block. But\nthey are essential to the Gospel narrative and to revelation; had Jesus\nbeen only a moral teacher and not the Son of God they would not have been\nnecessary. We must be careful, however, not to prize miracles for their\nown sake, but to look primarily to their ethical teaching. It was, he\nremarks, the mistake of the Jews to regard all the acts of Jesus solely\nfrom the point of view of their strange and miraculous character, and to\nforget their moral teaching; whereas we, from distaste for miracle as\nsuch, run the risk of excluding from the Gospel history events which are\nbound up with the Gospel revelation.\n\nAbove all, we must retain the supernatural birth and the bodily\nresurrection, because on the former depends the sinlessness of Jesus, on\nthe latter the certainty of the general resurrection of the dead. The\ntemptation of Jesus in the wilderness was a stratagem of Satan by which he\nhoped to discover \u201cwhether Jesus of Nazareth was really so extraordinary a\nperson that he would have cause to fear Him.\u201d The resurrection of Lazarus\nis authentic.\n\nBut the Gospel narrative is rationalised whenever it can be done. It was\nnot the demons, but the Gadarene demoniacs themselves, who rushed among\nthe swine. Alarmed by their fury the whole herd plunged over the precipice\ninto the lake and were drowned; while by this accommodation to the fixed\nidea of the demoniacs, Jesus effected their cure. Perhaps, too, Hess\nconjectures, the Lord desired to test the Gadarenes, and to see whether\nthey would attach greater importance to the good deed done to two of their\nnumber than to the loss of their swine. This explanation, reinforced by\nits moral, held its ground in theology for some sixty years and passed\nover into a round dozen Lives of Jesus.\n\nThis plan of \u201cpresenting each occurrence in such a way that what is\nvaluable and instructive in it immediately strikes the eye\u201d is followed\nout by Hess so faithfully that all clearness of impression is destroyed.\nThe parables are barely recognisable, swathed, as they are, in the mummy\u2010\nwrappings of his paraphrase; and in most cases their meaning is completely\ntravestied by the ethical or historical allusions which he finds in them.\nThe parable of the pounds is explained as referring to a man who went,\nlike Archelaus, to Rome to obtain the kingship, while his subjects\nintrigued behind his back.\n\nOf the peculiar beauty of the speech of Jesus not a trace remains. The\nparable of the Sower, for instance, begins: \u201cA countryman went to sow his\nfield, which lay beside a country\u2010road, and was here and there rather\nrocky, and in some places weedy, but in general was well cultivated, and\nhad a good sort of soil.\u201d The beatitude upon the mourners appears in the\nfollowing guise: \u201cHappy are they who amid the adversities of the present\nmake the best of things and submit themselves with patience; for such men,\nif they do not see better times here, shall certainly elsewhere receive\ncomfort and consolation.\u201d The question addressed by the Pharisees to John\nthe Baptist, and his answer, are given dialogue\u2010wise, in fustian of this\nkind:\u2014_The Pharisees_: \u201cWe are directed to enquire of you, in the name of\nour president, who you profess to be? As people are at present expecting\nthe Messiah, and seem not indisposed to accept you in that capacity, we\nare the more anxious that you should declare yourself with regard to your\nvocation and person.\u201d John: \u201cThe conclusion might have been drawn from my\ndiscourses that I was not the Messiah. Why should people attribute such\nlofty pretensions to me?\u201d etc. In order to give the Gospels the true\nliterary flavour, a characterisation is tacked on to each of the persons\nof the narrative. In the case of the disciples, for instance, this runs:\n\u201cThey had sound common sense, but very limited insight; the capacity to\nreceive teaching, but an incapacity for reflective thought; a knowledge of\ntheir own weakness, but a difficulty in getting rid of old prejudices;\nsensibility to right feeling, but weakness in following out a pre\u2010\ndetermined moral plan.\u201d\n\nThe simplest occurrences give occasion for sentimental portraiture. The\nsaying \u201cExcept ye become as little children\u201d is introduced in the\nfollowing fashion: \u201cJesus called a boy who was standing near. The boy\ncame. Jesus took his hand and told him to stand beside Him, nearer than\nany of His disciples, so that he had the foremost place among them. Then\nJesus threw His arm round the boy and pressed him tenderly to His breast.\nThe disciples looked on in astonishment, wondering what this meant. Then\nHe explained to them,\u201d etc. In these expansions Hess does not always\nescape the ludicrous. The saying of Jesus in John x. 9, \u201cI am the door,\u201d\ntakes on the following form: \u201cNo one, whether he be sheep or shepherd, can\ncome into the fold (if, that is to say, he follows the right way) except\nin so far as he knows me and is admitted by me, and included among the\nflock.\u201d\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nReinhard\u2019s work is on a distinctly higher level. The author was born in\n1753. In 1792, after he had worked for fourteen years as Docent in\nWittenberg, he was appointed Senior Court Chaplain at Dresden. He died in\n1812.\n\n\u201cI am, as you know, a very prosaic person,\u201d writes Reinhard to a friend,\nand in these words he has given an admirable characterisation of himself.\nThe writers who chiefly appeal to him are the ancient moralists; he\nacknowledges that he has learned more from them than from a \u201ccollegium\nhomileticum.\u201d In his celebrated \u201cSystem of Christian Ethics\u201d (5 vols.,\n1788\u20101815) he makes copious use of them. His sermons\u2014they fill thirty\u2010five\nvolumes, and in their day were regarded as models\u2014show some power and\ndepth of thought, but are all cast in the same mould. He seems to have\nbeen haunted by a fear that it might some time befall him to admit into\nhis mind a thought which was mystical or visionary, not justifiable by the\nlaws of logic and the canons of the critical reason. With all his\nphilosophising and rationalising, however, certain pillars of the\nsupernaturalistic view of history remain for him immovable.\n\nAt first sight one might be inclined to suppose that he frankly shared the\nbelief in miracle. He mentions the raising of the widow\u2019s son, and of\nLazarus, and accepts as an authentic saying the command of the risen Jesus\nto baptize all nations. But if we look more closely, we find that he\ndeliberately brings very few miracles into his narrative, and the\ndefinition by which he disintegrates the conception of miracle from within\nleaves no doubt as to his own position. What he says is this: \u201cAll that\nwhich we call miraculous and supernatural is to be understood as only\nrelatively so, and implies nothing further than an obvious exception to\nwhat can be brought about by natural causes, so far as we know them and\nhave experience of their capacity. A cautious thinker will not venture in\nany single instance to pronounce an event to be so extraordinary that God\ncould not have brought it about by the use of secondary causes, but must\nhave intervened directly.\u201d\n\nThe case stands similarly with regard to the divinity of Christ. Reinhard\nassumes it, but his \u201cLife\u201d is not directed to prove it; it leads only to\nthe conclusion that the Founder of Christianity is to be regarded as a\nwonderful \u201cdivine\u201d teacher. In order to prove His uniqueness, Reinhard has\nto show that His plan for the welfare of mankind was something\nincomparably higher than anything which hero or sage has ever striven for.\nReinhard makes the first attempt to give an account of the teaching of\nJesus which should be historical in the sense that all dogmatic\nconsiderations should be excluded. \u201cAbove all things, let us collect and\nexamine the indications which we find in the writings of His companions\nregarding the designs which He had in view.\u201d\n\nThe plan of Jesus shows its greatness above all in its universality.\nReinhard is well aware of the difficulty raised in this connexion by those\nsayings which assert the prerogative of Israel, and he discusses them at\nlength. He finds the solution in the assumption that Jesus in His own\nlifetime naturally confined Himself to working among His own people, and\nwas content to indicate the future universal development of His plan.\n\nWith the intention \u201cof introducing a universal change, tending to the\nbenefit of the whole human race,\u201d Jesus attaches His teaching to the\nJewish eschatology. It is only the form of His teaching, however, which is\naffected by this, since He gives an entirely different significance to the\nterms Kingdom of Heaven and Kingdom of God, referring them to a universal\nethical reorganisation of mankind. But His plan was entirely independent\nof politics. He never based His claims upon His Davidic descent. This was,\nindeed, the reason why He held aloof from His family. Even the entry into\nJerusalem had no Messianic significance. His plan was so entirely non\u2010\npolitical that He would, on the contrary, have welcomed the severance of\nall connexion between the state and religion, in order to avoid the risk\nof a conflict between these two powers. Reinhard explains the voluntary\ndeath of Jesus as due to this endeavour. \u201cHe quitted the stage of the\nworld by so early and shameful a death because He wished to destroy at\nonce and for ever the mistaken impression that He was aiming at the\nfoundation of an earthly kingdom, and to turn the thoughts, wishes, and\nefforts of His disciples and companions into another channel.\u201d\n\nIn order to make the Kingdom of God a practical reality, it was necessary\nfor Him to dissociate it from all the forces of this world, and to bring\nmorality and religion into the closest connexion. \u201cThe law of love was the\nindissoluble bond by which Jesus for ever united morality with religion.\u201d\n\u201cMoral instruction was the principal content and the very essence of all\nHis discourses.\u201d His efforts \u201cwere directed to the establishment of a\npurely ethical organisation.\u201d\n\nIt was important, therefore, to overthrow superstition and to bring\nreligion within the domain of reason. First of all the priesthood must be\ndeprived for ever of its influence. Then an improvement of the social\ncondition of mankind must be introduced, since the level of morality\ndepends upon social conditions. Jesus was a social reformer. Through the\nattainment of \u201cthe highest perfection of which Society is capable,\nuniversal peace\u201d was \u201cgradually to be brought about.\u201d\n\nBut the point of primary importance for Him was the alliance of religion\nwith reason. Reason was to maintain its freedom by the aid of religion,\nand religion was not to be withdrawn from the critical judgment of reason:\nall things were to be tested, and only the best retained.\n\n\u201cFrom these data it is easy to determine the characteristics of a religion\nwhich is to be the religion of all mankind: it must be ethical,\nintelligible, and spiritual.\u201d\n\nAfter the plan of Jesus has been expounded on these lines, Reinhard shows,\nin the second part of his work, that, prior to Jesus, no great man of\nantiquity had devised a plan of beneficence of a scope commensurate with\nthe whole human race. In the third part the conclusion is drawn that Jesus\nis the uniquely divine Teacher.\n\nBut before the author can venture to draw this conclusion, he feels it\nnecessary first to show that the plan of Jesus was no chimera. If we were\nobliged to admit its impracticability Jesus would have to be ranked with\nthe visionaries and enthusiasts; and these, however noble and virtuous,\ncan only injure the cause of rational religion. \u201cVisionary enthusiasm and\nenlightened reason\u2014who that knows anything of the human mind can conceive\nthese two as united in a single soul?\u201d But Jesus was no visionary\nenthusiast. \u201cWith what calmness, self\u2010mastery, and cool determination does\nHe think out and pursue His divine purpose?\u201d By the truths which He\nrevealed and declared to be divine communications He did not desire to put\npressure upon the human mind, but only to guide it. \u201cIt would be\nimpossible to show a more conscientious respect and a more delicate\nconsideration for the rights of human reason than is shown by Jesus. He\nwill conquer only by convincing.\u201d \u201cHe is willing to bear with\ncontradiction, and condescends to meet the most irrational objections and\nthe most ill\u2010natured misrepresentations with the most incredible\npatience.\u201d\n\nIt was well for Reinhard that he had no suspicion how full of enthusiasm\nJesus was, and how He trod reason under His feet!\n\nBut what kind of relation was there between this rational religion taught\nby Jesus and the Christian theology which Reinhard accepted? How does he\nharmonise the symbolical view of Baptism and the Lord\u2019s Supper which he\nhere expounds with ecclesiastical doctrine? How does he pass from the\nconception of the divine teacher to that of the Son of God?\n\nThis is a question which he does not feel himself obliged to answer. For\nhim the one circle of thought revolves freely within the other, but they\nnever come into contact with each other.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nSo far as concerns the presentation of the teaching, the Life of Jesus by\nOpitz follows the same lines as that of Reinhard. It is disfigured,\nhowever, by a number of lapses of taste, and by a crass supernaturalism in\nthe description of the miracles and experiences of the Great Teacher.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nJakobi writes \u201cfor thoughtful and sympathetic readers.\u201d He recognises that\nmuch of the miraculous is a later addition to the facts, but he has a\nrooted distrust of thoroughgoing rationalism, \u201cwhose would\u2010be helpful\nexplanations are often stranger than the miracles themselves.\u201d A certain\namount of miracle must be maintained, but not for the purpose of founding\nbelief upon it: \u201cthe miracles were not intended to authenticate the\nteaching of Jesus, but to surround His life with a guard of honour.\u201d(20)\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nWhether Herder, in his two Lives of Jesus, is to be classed with the older\nrationalists is a question to which the answer must be \u201cYes, and No,\u201d as\nin the case of every attempt to classify those men of lonely greatness who\nstand apart from their contemporaries, but who nevertheless are not in all\npoints in advance of them.\n\nProperly speaking, he has really nothing to do with the rationalists,\nsince he is distinguished from them by the depth of his insight and his\npower of artistic apprehension, and he is far from sharing their lack of\ntaste. Further, his horizon embraces problems of which rationalism, even\nin its developed form, never came in sight. He recognises that all\nattempts to harmonise the Synoptists with John are unavailing; a\nconclusion which he had avowed earlier in his \u201cLetters referring to the\nStudy of Theology.\u201d(21) He grasps this incompatibility, it is true, rather\nby the aid of poetic, than of critical insight. \u201cSince they cannot be\nunited,\u201d he writes in his \u201cLife of Jesus according to John,\u201d \u201cthey must be\nleft standing independently, each evangelist with his own special merit.\nMan, Ox, Lion, and Eagle, they advance together, supporting the throne of\nglory, but they refuse to coalesce into a single form, to unite into a\nDiatessaron.\u201d But to him belongs the honour of being the first and the\nonly scholar, prior to Strauss, to recognise that the life of Jesus can be\nconstrued either according to the Synoptists, or according to John, but\nthat a Life of Jesus based on the four Gospels is a monstrosity. In view\nof this intuitive historical grasp, it is not surprising that the\ncommentaries of the theologians were an abomination to him.\n\nThe fourth Gospel is, in his view, not a primitive historical source, but\na protest against the narrowness of the \u201cPalestinian Gospels.\u201d It gives\nfree play, as the circumstances of the time demanded, to Greek ideas.\n\u201cThere was need, in addition to those earlier, purely historical Gospels,\nof a Gospel at once theological and historical, like that of John,\u201d in\nwhich Jesus should be presented, not as the Jewish Messiah, \u201cbut as the\nSaviour of the World.\u201d\n\nThe additions and omissions of this Gospel are alike skilfully planned. It\nretains only those miracles which are symbols of a continuous permanent\nmiracle, through which the Saviour of the World works constantly,\nunintermittently, among men. The Johannine miracles are not there for\ntheir own sakes. The cures of demoniacs are not even represented among\nthem. These had no interest for the Graeco\u2010Roman world, and the Evangelist\nwas unwilling \u201cthat this Palestinian superstition should become a\npermanent feature of Christianity, to be a reproach of scoffers or a\nbelief of the foolish.\u201d His recording of the raising of Lazarus is, in\nspite of the silence of the Synoptists, easily explicable. The latter\ncould not yet tell the story \u201cwithout exposing a family which was still\nliving near Jerusalem to the fury of that hatred which had sworn with an\noath to put Lazarus to death.\u201d John, however, could recount it without\nscruple, \u201cfor by this time Jerusalem was probably in ruins, and the\nhospitable family of Bethany were perhaps already with their Friend in the\nother world.\u201d This most na\u00efve of explanations is reproduced in a whole\nseries of Lives of Jesus.\n\nIn dealing with the Synoptists, Herder grasps the problem with the same\nintuitive insight. Mark is no epitomist, but the creator of the archetype\nof the Synoptic representation. \u201cThe Gospel of Mark is not an epitome; it\nis an original Gospel. What the others have, and he has not, has been\nadded by them, not omitted by him. Consequently Mark is a witness to an\noriginal, shorter Gospel\u2010scheme, to which the additional matter of the\nothers ought properly to be regarded as a supplement.\u201d\n\nMark is the \u201cunornamented central column, or plain foundation stone, on\nwhich the others rest.\u201d The birth\u2010stories of Matthew and Luke are \u201ca new\ngrowth to meet new needs.\u201d The different tendencies, also, point to a\nlater period. Mark is still comparatively friendly towards the Jews,\nbecause Christianity had not yet separated itself from Judaism. Matthew is\nmore hostile towards them because his Gospel was written at a time when\nChristians had given up the hope of maintaining amicable relations with\nthe Jews and were groaning under the pressure of persecution. It is for\nthat reason that the Jesus of the Matthaean discourses lays so much stress\nupon His second coming, and presupposes the rejection of the Jewish nation\nas something already in being, a sign of the approaching end.\n\nPure history, however, is as little to be looked for in the first three\nGospels as in the fourth. They are the sacred epic of Jesus the Messiah,\nand model the history of their hero upon the prophetic words of the Old\nTestament. In this view, also, Herder is a precursor of Strauss.\n\nIn essence, however, Herder represents a protest of art against theology.\nThe Gospels, if we are to find the life of Jesus in them, must be read,\nnot with pedantic learning, but with taste. From this point of view,\nmiracles cease to offend. Neither Old Testament prophecies, nor\npredictions of Jesus, nor miracles, can be adduced as evidence for the\nGospel; the Gospel is its own evidence. The miracles stand outside the\npossibility of proof, and belong to mere \u201cChurch belief,\u201d which ought to\nlose itself more and more in the pure Gospel. Yet miracles, in a limited\nsense, are to be accepted on the ground of the historic evidence. To\nrefuse to admit this is to be like the Indian king who denied the\nexistence of ice because he had never seen anything like it. Jesus, in\norder to help His miracle\u2010loving age, reconciled Himself to the necessity\nof performing miracles. But, in any case, the reality of a miracle is of\nsmall moment in comparison with its symbolic value.\n\nIn this, therefore, Herder, though in his grasp of many problems he was\nmore than a generation in advance of his time, belongs to the primitive\nrationalists. He allows the supernatural to intrude into the events of the\nlife of Jesus, and does not feel that the adoption of the historical\nstandpoint involves the necessity of doing away with miracle. He\ncontributed much to the clearing up of ideas, but by evading the question\nof miracle he slurred over a difficulty which needed to be faced and\nsolved before it should be possible to entertain the hope of forming a\nreally historical conception of the life of Jesus. In reading Herder one\nis apt to fancy that it would be possible to pass straight on to Strauss.\nIn reality, it was necessary that a very prosaic spirit, Paulus, should\nintervene, and should attack the question of miracle from a purely\nhistorical standpoint, before Strauss could give expression to the ideas\nof Herder in an effectual way, _i.e._ in such a way as to produce offence.\nThe fact is that in theology the most revolutionary ideas are swallowed\nquite readily so long as they smooth their passage by a few small\nconcessions. It is only when a spicule of bone stands out obstinately and\ncauses choking that theology begins to take note of dangerous ideas.\nStrauss is Herder with just that little bone sticking out\u2014the absolute\ndenial of miracle on historical grounds. That is to say, Strauss is a\nHerder who has behind him the uncompromising rationalism of Paulus.\n\n\n\n\n\nIV. THE EARLIEST FICTITIOUS LIVES OF JESUS\n\n\n    _Karl Friedrich Bahrdt._ Briefe \u00fcber die Bibel im Volkston. Eine\n    Wochenschrift von einem Prediger auf dem Lande. (Popular Letters\n    about the Bible. A weekly paper by a country clergyman.) J. Fr.\n    Dost, Halle, 1782. 816 pp.\n\n    Ausf\u00fchrung des Plans und Zwecks Jesu. In Briefen an Wahrheit\n    suchende Leser. (An Explanation of the Plans and Aims of Jesus. In\n    letters addressed to readers who seek the truth.) 11 vols.,\n    embracing 3000 pp. August Mylius, Berlin, 1784\u20101792. This work is\n    a sequel to the Popular Letters about the Bible.\n\n    Die s\u00e4mtlichen Reden Jesu aus den Evangelisten ausgezogen. (The\n    Whole of the Discourses of Jesus, extracted from the Gospels.)\n    Berlin, 1786.\n\n    _Karl Heinrich Venturini._ Nat\u00fcrliche Geschichte des grossen\n    Propheten von Nazareth. (A Non\u2010supernatural History of the Great\n    Prophet of Nazareth.) Bethlehem (Copenhagen), 1st ed., 1800\u20101802;\n    2nd ed., 1806. 4 vols., embracing 2700 pp. The work appeared\n    anonymously. The description given below is based on the 2nd ed.,\n    which shows dependence, in some of the exegetical details, upon\n    the then recently published commentaries of Paulus.\n\n\nIt is strange to notice how often in the history of our subject a few\nimperfectly equipped free\u2010lances have attacked and attempted to carry the\ndecisive positions before the ordered ranks of professional theology have\npushed their advance to these decisive points.\n\nThus, it was the fictitious \u201cLives\u201d of Bahrdt and Venturini which, at the\nend of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries, first\nattempted to apply, with logical consistency, a non\u2010supernatural\ninterpretation to the miracle stories of the Gospel. Further, these\nwriters were the first who, instead of contenting themselves with the\nsimple reproduction of the successive sections of the Gospel narrative,\nendeavoured to grasp the inner connexion of cause and effect in the events\nand experiences of the life of Jesus. Since they found no such connexion\nindicated in the Gospels, they had to supply it for themselves. The\nparticular form which their explanation takes\u2014the hypothesis of a secret\nsociety of which Jesus is the tool\u2014is, it is true, rather a sorry\nmakeshift. Yet, in a sense, these Lives of Jesus, for all their colouring\nof fiction, are the first which deserve the name. The rationalists, and\neven Paulus, confine themselves to describing the teaching of Jesus;\nBahrdt and Venturini make a bold attempt to paint the portrait of Jesus\nHimself. It is not surprising that their portraiture is at once crude and\nfantastic, like the earliest attempts of art to represent the human figure\nin living movement.\n\nKarl Friedrich Bahrdt was born in 1741 at Bischofswerda. Endowed with\nbrilliant abilities, he made, owing to a bad upbringing and an\nundisciplined sensuous nature, a miserable failure. After being first\nCatechist and afterwards Professor Extraordinary of Sacred Philology at\nLeipzig, he was, in 1766, requested to resign on account of scandalous\nlife. After various adventures, and after holding for a time a\nprofessorship at Giessen, he received under Frederick\u2019s minister Zedlitz\nauthorisation to lecture at Halle. There he lectured to nearly nine\nhundred students who were attracted by his inspiring eloquence. The\ngovernment upheld him, in spite of his serious failings, with the double\nmotive of annoying the faculty and maintaining the freedom of learning.\nAfter the death of Frederick the Great, Bahrdt had to resign his post, and\ntook to keeping an inn at a vineyard near Halle. By ridiculing W\u00f6llner\u2019s\nedict (1788), he brought on himself a year of confinement in a fortress.\nHe died in disrepute, in 1792.\n\nBahrdt had begun as an orthodox cleric. In Halle he gave up his belief in\nrevelation, and endeavoured to explain religion on the ground of reason.\nTo this period belong the \u201cPopular Letters about the Bible,\u201d which were\nafterwards continued in the further series, \u201cAn Explanation of the Plans\nand Aims of Jesus.\u201d\n\nHis treatment of the life of Jesus has been too severely censured. The\nwork is not without passages which show a real depth of feeling,\nespecially in the continually recurring explanations regarding the\nrelation of belief in miracle to true faith, in which the actual\ndescription of the life of Jesus lies embedded. And the remarks about the\nteaching of Jesus are not always commonplace. But the paraphernalia of\ndialogues of portentous length make it, as a whole, formless and\ninartistic. The introduction of a galaxy of imaginary characters\u2014Haram,\nSchimah, Avel, Limmah, and the like\u2014is nothing less than bewildering.\n\nBahrdt finds the key to the explanation of the life of Jesus in the\nappearance in the Gospel narrative of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea.\nThey are not disciples of Jesus, but belong to the upper classes; what\nr\u00f4le, then, can they have played in the life of Jesus, and how came they\nto intercede on His behalf? They were Essenes. This Order had secret\nmembers in all ranks of society, even in the Sanhedrin. It had set itself\nthe task of detaching the nation from its sensuous Messianic hopes and\nleading it to a higher knowledge of spiritual truths. It had the most\nwidespread ramifications, extending to Babylon and to Egypt. In order to\ndeliver the people from the limitations of the national faith, which could\nonly lead to disturbance and insurrection, they must find a Messiah who\nwould destroy these false Messianic expectations. They were therefore on\nthe look\u2010out for a claimant of the Messiahship whom they could make\nsubservient to their aims.\n\nJesus came under the notice of the Order immediately after His birth. As a\nchild He was watched over at every step by the Brethren. At the feasts at\nJerusalem Alexandrian Jews, secret members of the Essene Order, put\nthemselves into communication with Him, explained to Him the falsity of\nthe priests, inspired Him with a horror of the bloody sacrifices of the\nTemple, and made him acquainted with Socrates and Plato. This is set forth\nin dialogues of a hundred pages long. At the story of the death of\nSocrates, the boy bursts into a tempest of sobs which His friends are\nunable to calm. He longs to emulate the martyr\u2010death of the great\nAthenian.\n\nOn the market\u2010place at Nazareth a mysterious Persian gives Him two\nsovereign remedies\u2014one for affections of the eye, the other for nervous\ndisorders.\n\nHis father does his best for Him, teaching Him, along with His cousin\nJohn, afterwards the Baptist, about virtue and immortality. A priest\nbelonging to the Essene Order, who makes their acquaintance disguised as a\nshepherd, and takes part in their conversations, leads the lads deeper\ninto the knowledge of wisdom. At twelve years old, Jesus is already so far\nadvanced that He argues with the Scribes in the Temple concerning\nmiracles, maintaining the thesis that they are impossible.\n\nWhen they feel themselves ready to appear in public the two cousins take\ncounsel together how they can best help the people. They agree to open the\neyes of the people regarding the tyranny and hypocrisy of the priests.\nThrough Haram, a prominent member of the Essene Order, Luke the physician\nis introduced to Jesus and places all his science at His disposal.\n\nIn order to produce any effect they were obliged to practise accommodation\nto the superstitions of the people, and introduce their wisdom to them\nunder the garb of folly, in the hope that, beguiled by its attractive\nexterior, the people would admit into their minds the revelation of\nrational truth, and after a time be able to emancipate themselves from\nsuperstition. Jesus, therefore, sees Himself obliged to appear in the r\u00f4le\nof the Messiah of popular expectation, and to make up His mind to work by\nmeans of miracles and illusions. About this He felt the gravest scruples.\nHe was obliged, however, to obey the Order; and His scruples were quieted\nby the reminder of the lofty end which was to be reached by these means.\nAt last, when it is pointed out to Him that even Moses had followed the\nsame plan, He submits to the necessity. The influential Order undertakes\nthe duty of stage\u2010managing the miracles, and that of maintaining His\nfather. On the reception of Jesus into the number of the Brethren of the\nFirst Degree of the Order it is made known to Him that these Brethren are\nbound to face death in the cause of the Order; but that the Order, on its\npart, undertakes so to use the machinery and influence at its disposal\nthat the last extremity shall always be avoided and the Brother\nmysteriously preserved from death.\n\nThen begins the cleverly staged drama by means of which the people are to\nbe converted to rational religion. The members of the Order are divided\ninto three classes: The Baptized, The Disciples, The Chosen Ones. The\nBaptized receive only the usual popular teaching; the Disciples are\nadmitted to further knowledge, but are not entrusted with the highest\nmysteries; the Chosen Ones, who in the Gospels are also spoken of as\n\u201cAngels,\u201d are admitted into all wisdom. As the Apostles were only members\nof the Second Degree, they had not the smallest suspicion of the secret\nmachinery which was at work. Their part in the drama of the Life of Jesus\nwas that of zealous \u201csupers.\u201d The Gospels which they composed therefore\nreport, in perfect good faith, miracles which were really clever illusions\nproduced by the Essenes, and they depict the life of Jesus only as seen by\nthe populace from the outside.\n\nIt is therefore not always possible for us to discover how the events\nwhich they record as miracles actually came about. But whether they took\nplace in one way or another\u2014and as to this we can sometimes get a clue\nfrom a hint in the text\u2014it is certain that in all cases the process was\nnatural. With reference to the feeding of the five thousand, Bahrdt\nremarks: \u201cIt is more reasonable here to think of a thousand ways by which\nJesus might have had sufficient supplies of bread at hand, and by the\ndistribution of it have shamed the disciples\u2019 lack of courage, than to\nbelieve in a miracle.\u201d The explanation which he himself prefers is that\nthe Order had collected a great quantity of bread in a cave and this was\ngradually handed out to Jesus, who stood at the concealed entrance and\ntook some every time the apostles were occupied in distributing the former\nsupply to the multitude. The walking on the sea is to be explained by\nsupposing that Jesus walked towards the disciples over the surface of a\ngreat floating raft; while they, not being able to see the raft, must\nneeds suppose a miracle. When Peter tried to walk on the water he failed\nmiserably. The miracles of healing are to be attributed to the art of\nLuke. He also called the attention of Jesus to remarkable cases of\napparent death, which He then took in hand, and restored the apparently\ndead to their sorrowing friends. In such cases, however, the Lord never\nfailed expressly to inform the disciples that the persons were not really\ndead. They, however, did not permit this assurance to deprive them of\ntheir faith in the miracle which they felt they had themselves witnessed.\n\nIn teaching, Jesus had two methods: one, exoteric, simple, for the world;\nthe other, esoteric, mystic, for the initiate. \u201cNo attentive reader of the\nBible,\u201d says Bahrdt, \u201ccan fail to notice that Jesus made use of two\ndifferent styles of speech. Sometimes He spoke so plainly and in such\nuniversally intelligible language, and declared truths so simple and so\nwell adapted to the general comprehension of mankind that even the\nsimplest could follow Him. At other times he spoke so mystically, so\nobscurely, and in so veiled a fashion that words and thoughts alike\nbaffled the understandings of ordinary people, and even by more practised\nminds were not to be grasped without close reflection, so that we are told\nin John vi. 60 that \u2018many of His disciples, when they heard this, said,\nThis is an hard saying; who can hear it?\u2019 And Jesus Himself did not deny\nit, but only told them that the reason of their not understanding His\nsayings lay in their prejudices, which made them interpret everything\nliterally and materially, and overlook the ethical meaning which underlay\nHis figurative language.\u201d Most of these mystical discourses are to be\nfound in John, who seems to have preserved for us the greater part of the\nsecret teaching imparted to the initiate. The key to the understanding of\nthis esoteric teaching is to be found, therefore, in the prologue to\nJohn\u2019s Gospel, and in the sayings about the new birth. \u201cTo be born again\u201d\nis identical with the degree of perfection which was attained in the\nhighest class of the Brotherhood.\n\nThe members of the Order met on appointed days in caves among the hills.\nWhen we are told in the Gospels that Jesus went alone into a mountain to\npray, this means that He repaired to one of these secret gatherings, but\nthe disciples, of course, knew nothing about that. The Order had its\nhidden caves everywhere; in Galilee as well as in the neighbourhood of\nJerusalem.\n\n\u201cOnly by sensuous means can sensuous ideas be overcome.\u201d The Jewish\nMessiah must die and rise again, in order that the false conceptions of\nthe Messiah which were cherished by the multitude might be destroyed in\nthe moment of their fulfilment\u2014that is, might be spiritualised. Nicodemus,\nHaram, and Luke met in a cave in order to take counsel how they might\nbring about the death of Jesus in a way favourable to their plans. Luke\nguaranteed that by the aid of powerful drugs which he would give Him the\nLord should be enabled to endure the utmost pain and suffering and yet\nresist death for a long time. Nicodemus undertook so to work matters in\nthe Sanhedrin that the execution should follow immediately upon the\nsentence, and the crucified remain only a short time upon the cross. At\nthis moment Jesus rushed into the cave. He had scarcely had time to\nreplace the stone which concealed the entrance, so closely had He been\npursued over the rocks by hired assassins. He Himself is firmly resolved\nto die, but care must be taken that He shall not be simply assassinated,\nor the whole plan fails. If He falls by the assassin\u2019s knife, no\nresurrection will be possible.\n\nIn the end, the piece is staged to perfection. Jesus provokes the\nauthorities by His triumphal Messianic entry. The unsuspected Essenes in\nthe council urge on His arrest and secure His condemnation\u2014though Pilate\nalmost frustrates all their plans by acquitting Him. Jesus, by uttering a\nloud cry and immediately afterwards bowing His head, shows every\nappearance of a sudden death. The centurion has been bribed not to allow\nany of His bones to be broken. Then comes Joseph of Ramath, as Bahrdt\nprefers to call Joseph of Arimathea, and removes the body to the cave of\nthe Essenes, where he immediately commences measures of resuscitation. As\nLuke had prepared the body of the Messiah by means of strengthening\nmedicines to resist the fearful ill\u2010usage which He had gone through\u2014the\nbeing dragged about and beaten and finally crucified\u2014these efforts were\ncrowned with success. In the cave the most strengthening nutriment was\nsupplied to Him. \u201cSince the humours of the body were in a thoroughly\nhealthy condition, His wounds healed very readily, and by the third day He\nwas able to walk, in spite of the fact that the wounds made by the nails\nwere still open.\u201d\n\nOn the morning of the third day they forced away the stone which closed\nthe mouth of the grave. As Jesus was descending the rocky slopes the watch\nawakened and took to flight in alarm. One of the Essenes appeared, in the\ngarb of an angel, to the women and announced to them the resurrection of\nJesus. Shortly afterwards the Lord appeared to Mary. At the sound of His\nvoice she recognises Him. \u201cThereupon Jesus tells her that He is going to\nHis Father (to heaven\u2014in the mystic sense of the word\u2014that is to say, to\nthe Chosen Ones in their peaceful dwellings of truth and blessedness\u2014to\nthe circle of His faithful friends, among whom He continued to live,\nunseen by the world, but still working for the advancement of His\npurpose). He bade her tell His disciples that He was alive.\u201d\n\nFrom His place of concealment He appeared several times to His disciples.\nFinally He bade them meet Him at the Mount of Olives, near Bethany, and\nthere took leave of them. After exhorting them, and embracing each of them\nin turn, He tore Himself away from them and walked away up the mountain.\n\u201cThere stood those poor men, amazed\u2014beside themselves with sorrow\u2014and\nlooked after Him as long as they could. But as He mounted higher, He\nentered ever deeper into the cloud which lay upon the hill\u2010top, until\nfinally He was no longer to be seen. The cloud received Him out of their\nsight.\u201d\n\nFrom the mountain He returned to the chief lodge of the Brotherhood. Only\nat rare intervals did He again intervene in active life\u2014as on the occasion\nwhen He appeared to Paul upon the road to Damascus. But, though unseen, He\ncontinued to direct the destinies of the community until His death.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nVenturini\u2019s \u201cNon\u2010supernatural History of the Great Prophet of Nazareth\u201d is\nrelated to Bahrdt\u2019s work as the finished picture to the sketch.\n\nKarl Heinrich Venturini was born at Brunswick in 1768. On the completion\nof his theological studies he vainly endeavoured to secure a post as\nDocent in the theological faculty at Helmstadt, or as Librarian at\nWolfenb\u00fcttel.\n\nHis life was blameless and his personal piety beyond reproach, but he was\nconsidered to be too free in his ideas. The Duke of Brunswick was\npersonally well disposed towards him, but did not venture to give him a\npost on the teaching staff in face of the opposition of the consistories.\nHe was reduced to earning a bare pittance by literary work, and finally in\n1806 was thankful to accept a small living in Hordorf near Brunswick. He\nthen abandoned theological writing and devoted his energies to recording\nthe events of contemporary history, of which he published a yearly\nchronicle\u2014a proceeding which under the Napoleonic _r\u00e9gime_ was not always\nunattended with risk, as he more than once had occasion to experience. He\ncontinued this undertaking till 1841. In 1849 death released him from his\ntasks.\n\nVenturini\u2019s fundamental assumption is that it was impossible, even for the\nnoblest spirit of mankind, to make Himself understood by the Judaism of\nHis time except by clothing His spiritual teaching in a sensuous garb\ncalculated to please the oriental imagination, \u201cand, in general, by\nbringing His higher spiritual world into such relations with the lower\nsensuous world of those whom He wished to teach as was necessary to the\naccomplishment of His aims.\u201d \u201cGod\u2019s Messenger was morally bound to perform\nmiracles for the Jews. These miracles had an ethical purpose, and were\nespecially designed to counteract the impression made by the supposed\nmiracles of the deceivers of the people, and thus to hasten the overthrow\nof the kingdom of Satan.\u201d\n\nFor modern medical science the miracles are not miraculous. He never\nhealed without medicaments and always carried His \u201cportable medicine\nchest\u201d with Him. In the case of the Syro\u2010phoenician woman\u2019s daughter, for\nexample, we can still detect in the narrative a hint of the actual course\nof events. The mother explains the case to Jesus. After enquiring where\nher dwelling was he made a sign to John, and continued to hold her in\nconversation. The disciple went to the daughter and gave her a sedative,\nand when the mother returned she found her child cured.\n\nThe raisings from the dead were cases of coma. The nature\u2010miracles were\ndue to a profound acquaintance with the powers of Nature and the order of\nher processes. They involve fore\u2010knowledge rather than control.\n\nMany miracle stories rest on obvious misunderstandings. Nothing could be\nsimpler than the explanation of the miracle at Cana. Jesus had brought\nwith Him as a wedding\u2010gift some jars of good wine and had put them aside\nin another room. When the wine was finished and His mother became anxious,\nHe still allowed the guests to wait a little, as the stone vessels for\npurification had not yet been filled with water. When that had been done\nHe ordered the servants to pour out some of his wine, but to tell no one\nwhence it came. When John, as an old man, wrote his Gospel, he got all\nthis rather mixed up\u2014had not indeed observed it very closely at the time,\n\u201chad perhaps been the least thing merry himself,\u201d says Venturini, and had\nbelieved in the miracle with the rest. Perhaps, too, he had not ventured\nto ask Jesus for an explanation, for he had only become His disciple a few\ndays before.\n\nThe members of the Essene Order had watched over the child Jesus even in\nEgypt. As He grew older they took charge of His education along with that\nof His cousin, John, and trained them both for their work as deliverers of\nthe people. Whereas the nation as a whole looked to an insurrection as the\nmeans of its deliverance, they knew that freedom could only be achieved by\nmeans of a spiritual renewal. Once Jesus and John met a band of\ninsurgents: Jesus worked on them so powerfully by His fervid speech that\nthey recognised the impiousness of their purpose. One of them sprang\ntowards Him and laid down his arms; it was Simon, who afterwards became\nHis disciple.\n\nWhen Jesus was about thirty years old, and, owing to the deep experiences\nof His inner life, had really far outgrown the aims of the Essene Order,\nHe entered upon His office by demanding baptism from John. Just as this\nwas taking place a thunderstorm broke, and a dove, frightened by the\nlightning, fluttered round the head of Jesus. Both Jesus and John took\nthis as a sign that the hour appointed by God had come.\n\nThe temptations in the wilderness, and upon the pinnacle of the Temple,\nwere due to the machinations of the Pharisee Zadok, who pretended to enter\ninto the plans of Jesus and feigned admiration for Him in order the more\nsurely to entrap Him. It was Zadok, too, who stirred up opposition to Him\nin the Sanhedrin.\n\nBut Jesus did not succeed in destroying the old Messianic belief with its\nearthly aims. The hatred of the leading circles against Him grew, although\nHe avoided everything \u201cthat could offend their prejudices.\u201d It was for\nthis reason that He even forbade His disciples to preach the Gospel beyond\nthe borders of Jewish territory. He paid the temple\u2010tax, also, although he\nhad no fixed abode. When the collector went to Peter about it, the\nfollowing dialogue took place.\n\n_Tax\u2010collector_ (_drawing Peter aside_). Tell me, Simon, does the Rabbi\npay the didrachma to the Temple treasury, or should we not trouble Him\nabout it?\n\n_Peter._ Why shouldn\u2019t He pay it? Why do you ask?\n\n_Tax\u2010collector._ It\u2019s been owing from both of you since last Nisan, as our\nbooks show. We did not like to remind your Master, out of reverence.\n\n_Peter._ I\u2019ll tell Him at once. He will certainly pay the tax. You need\nhave no fear about that.\n\n_Tax\u2010collector._ That\u2019s good. That will put everything straight, and we\nshall have no trouble over our accounts. Good\u2010bye!\n\nWhen Jesus hears of it He commands Peter to go and catch a fish, and to\ntake care, in removing the hook, not to tear its mouth, that it may be fit\nfor salting (!) In that case it will doubtless be worth a _stater_.\n\nThe time arrived when an important move must be made. In full conclave of\nthe Secret Society it was resolved that Jesus should go up to Jerusalem\nand there publicly proclaim Himself as the Messiah. Then He was to\nendeavour to disabuse the people of their earthly Messianic expectations.\n\nThe triumphal entry succeeded. The whole people hailed Him with\nacclamations. But when He tried to substitute for their picture of the\nMessiah one of a different character, and spoke of times of severe trial\nwhich should come upon all, when He showed Himself but seldom in the\nTemple, instead of taking His place at the head of the people, they began\nto doubt Him.\n\nJesus was suddenly arrested and put to death. Here, then, the death is\nnot, as in Bahrdt, a piece of play\u2010acting, stage\u2010managed by the Secret\nSociety. Jesus really expected to die, and only to meet His disciples\nagain in the eternal life of the other world. But when He so soon gave up\nthe ghost, Joseph of Arimathea was moved by some vague premonition to\nhasten at once to Pontius Pilate and make request for His body. He offers\nthe Procurator money. _Pilate_ (_sternly and emphatically_): \u201cDost thou\nalso mistake me? Am I, then, such an insatiable miser? Still, thou art a\nJew\u2014how could this people do me justice? Know, then, that a Roman can\nhonour true nobility wherever he may find it. (_He sits down and writes\nsome words on a strip of parchment._) Give this to the captain of the\nguard. Thou shall be permitted to remove the body. I ask nothing for this.\nIt is granted to thee freely.\u201d\n\n\u201cA tender embrace from his wife rewarded the noble deed of the Roman,\nwhile Joseph left the Praetorium, and with Nicodemus, who was impatiently\nawaiting him, hastened to Golgotha.\u201d There he received the body; he washed\nit, anointed it with spices, and laid it on a bed of moss in the rock\u2010hewn\ngrave. From the blood which was still flowing from the wound in the side,\nhe ventured to draw a hopeful augury, and sent word to the Essene\nBrethren. They had a hold close by, and promised to watch over the body.\nIn the first four\u2010and\u2010twenty hours no movement of life showed itself. Then\ncame the earthquake. In the midst of the terrible commotion a Brother, in\nthe white robes of the Order, was making his way to the grave by a secret\npath. When he, illumined by a flash of lightning, suddenly appeared above\nthe grave, and at the same moment the earth shook violently, panic seized\nthe watch, and they fled. In the morning the Brother hears a sound from\nthe grave: Jesus is moving. The whole Order hastens to the spot, and Jesus\nis removed to their Lodge. Two brethren remain at the grave\u2014these were the\n\u201cangels\u201d whom the women saw later. Jesus, in the dress of a gardener, is\nafterwards recognised by Mary Magdalene. Later, He comes out at intervals\nfrom the hiding\u2010place, where He is kept by the Brethren, and appears to\nthe disciples. After forty days He took His leave of them: His strength\nwas exhausted. The farewell scene gave rise to the mistaken impression of\nHis Ascension.\n\nFrom the historical point of view these lives are not such contemptible\nperformances as might be supposed. There is much penetrating observation\nin them. Bahrdt and Venturini are right in feeling that the connexion of\nevents in the life of Jesus has to be discovered; the Gospels give only a\nseries of occurrences, and offer no explanation why they happened just as\nthey did. And if, in making Jesus subservient to the plans of a secret\nsociety, they represented Him as not acting with perfect freedom, but as\nshowing a certain passivity, this assumption of theirs was to be\nbrilliantly vindicated, a hundred years later, by the eschatological\nschool, which asserts the same remarkable passivity on the part of Jesus,\nin that He allows His actions to be determined, not indeed by a secret\nsociety, but by the eschatological plan of God. Bahrdt and Venturini were\nthe first to see that, of all Jesus\u2019 acts, His death was most\ndistinctively His own, because it was by this that He purposed to found\nthe kingdom.\n\nVenturini\u2019s \u201cNon\u2010supernatural History of the Great Prophet of Nazareth\u201d\nmay almost be said to be reissued annually down to the present day, for\nall the fictitious \u201cLives\u201d go back directly or indirectly to the type\nwhich he created. It is plagiarised more freely than any other Life of\nJesus, although practically unknown by name.\n\n\n\n\n\nV. FULLY DEVELOPED RATIONALISM\u2014PAULUS\n\n\n    _Heinrich Eberhard Gottlob Paulus._ Das Leben Jesu als Grundlage\n    einer reinen Geschichte des Urchristentums. Heidelberg, C. F.\n    Winter. (The Life of Jesus as the Basis of a purely Historical\n    Account of Early Christianity.) 1828. 2 vols., 1192 pp.\n\n\n    Freut euch mit Gottesandacht, wenn es gew\u00e4hrt euch ist,\n    Dem, so kurz er war, weltumschaffenden Lebensgang\n      Nach Jahrhunderten fern zu folgen,\n      Denket, glaubet, folget des Vorbildes Spur!\n\n    (Closing words of vol. ii.)\n\n    (Rejoice with grateful devotion, if unto you \u2019tis permitted,\n    After the lapse of centuries, still to follow afar off\n    That Life which, short as it was, changed the course of the ages;\n    Think ye well, and believe; follow the path of our Pattern.)\n\n\nPaulus was not the mere dry\u2010as\u2010dust rationalist that he is usually\nrepresented to have been, but a man of very versatile abilities. His\nlimitation was that, like Reinhard, he had an unconquerable distrust of\nanything that went outside the boundaries of logical thought. That was due\nin part to the experiences of his youth. His father, a deacon in Leonberg,\nhalf\u2010mystic, half\u2010rationalist, had secret difficulties about the doctrine\nof immortality, and made his wife promise on her death\u2010bed that, if it\nwere possible, she would appear to him after her death in bodily form.\nAfter she was dead he thought he saw her raise herself to a sitting\nposture, and again sink down. From that time onwards he firmly believed\nhimself to be in communication with departed spirits, and he became so\ndominated by this idea that in 1771 he had to be removed from his office.\nHis children suffered sorely from a _r\u00e9gime_ of compulsory spiritualism,\nwhich pressed hardest upon Heinrich Eberhard Gottlob, born in 1761, who,\nfor the sake of peace, was obliged to pretend to his father that he was in\ncommunication with his mother\u2019s spirit.\n\nHe himself had inherited only the rationalistic side of his father\u2019s\ntemperament. As a student at the T\u00fcbingen Stift (theological institute) he\nformed his views on the writings of Semler and Michaelis. In 1789 he was\ncalled to Jena as Professor of Oriental Languages, and succeeded in 1793\nto the third ordinary professorship of theology. The naturalistic\ninterpretation of miracles which he upheld in his commentary on the\nSynoptic Gospels, published in 1800\u20101802, aroused the indignation of the\nconsistories of Meiningen and Eisenach. But their petition for his removal\nfrom the professorship was unsuccessful, since Herder, who was president\nof the consistorium, used his influence to protect him. In 1799 Paulus, as\nPro\u2010rector, used his influence on behalf of his colleague Fichte, who was\nattacked on the ground of atheism; but in vain, owing to the passionate\nconduct of the accused.\n\nWith Goethe, Schiller, and Wieland, Paulus and his wife, a lively lady of\nsome literary talents, stood in the most friendly relations.\n\nWhen the Jena circle began to break up, he accepted, in 1803, an\ninvitation from the Elector of Bavaria, Maximilian Joseph II., to go to\nW\u00fcrzburg as Konsistorialrat and professor. There the liberal minister,\nMontgelas, was desirous of establishing a university founded on the\nprinciples of illuminism\u2014Schelling, Hufeland, and Schleiermacher were\namong those whom he contemplated appointing as Docents. Here the Catholic\ntheological students were obliged to attend the lectures of the Protestant\nprofessor of theology, as there were no Protestants to form an audience.\nHis first course was on \u201cEncyclop\u00e4die\u201d (_i.e._ introduction to the\nliterature of theology).\n\nThe plan failed. Paulus resigned his professorship and became in 1807 a\nmember of the Bavarian educational council (_Schulrat_). In this capacity\nhe worked at the reorganisation of the Bavarian school system at the time\nwhen Hegel was similarly engaged. He gave four years to this task, which\nhe felt to be laid upon him as a duty. Then, in 1811, he went to\nHeidelberg as professor of theology; and he remained there until his\ndeath, in 1851, at the age of ninety. One of his last sayings, a few hours\nbefore he died, was, \u201cI am justified before God, through my desire to do\nright.\u201d His last words were, \u201cThere is another world.\u201d\n\nThe forty years of his Heidelberg period were remarkably productive; there\nwas no department of knowledge on which he did not write. He expressed his\nviews about homoeopathy, about the freedom of the Press, about academic\nfreedom, and about the duelling nuisance. In 1831, he wrote upon the\nJewish Question; and there the veteran rationalist showed himself a bitter\nanti\u2010Semite, and brought upon himself the scorn of Heine. On politics and\nconstitutional questions he fought for his opinions so openly and manfully\nthat he had to be warned to be more discreet. In philosophy he took an\nespecially keen interest. When in Jena he had, in conjunction with\nSchiller, busied himself in the study of Kant. He did a particularly\nmeritorious service in preparing an edition of Spinoza\u2019s writings, with a\nbiography of that thinker, in 1803, at the time when neo\u2010Spinozism was\nmaking its influence felt in German philosophy. He constituted himself the\nspecial guardian of philosophy, and the moment he detected the slightest\nhint of mysticism, he sounded the alarm. His pet aversion was Schelling,\nwho was born fourteen years later than he, in the very same house at\nLeonberg, and whom he had met as colleague at Jena and at W\u00fcrzburg. The\nworks, avowed and anonymous, which he directed against this \u201ccharlatan,\njuggler, swindler, and obscurantist,\u201d as he designated him, fill an entire\nlibrary.\n\nIn 1841, Schelling was called to the chair of philosophy in Berlin, and in\nthe winter of 1841\u20101842 he gave his lectures on \u201cThe Philosophy of\nRevelation\u201d which caused the Berlin reactionaries to hail him as their\ngreat ally. The veteran rationalist\u2014he was eighty years old\u2014was\ntransported with rage. He had had the lectures taken down for him, and he\npublished them with critical remarks under the title \u201cThe Philosophy of\nRevelation at length Revealed, and set forth for General Examination, by\nDr. H. E. G. Paulus\u201d (Darmstadt, 1842). Schelling was furious, and dragged\n\u201cthe impudent scoundrel\u201d into a court of law on the charge of illicit\npublication. In Prussia the book was suppressed. But the courts decided in\nfavour of Paulus, who coolly explained that \u201cthe philosophy of Schelling\nappeared to him an insidious attack upon sound reason, the unmasking of\nwhich by every possible means was a work of public utility, nay, even a\nduty.\u201d He also secured the result at which he aimed; Schelling resigned\nhis lectureship.\n\nIn his last days the veteran rationalist was an isolated survival from an\nearlier age into a period which no longer understood him. The new men\nreproached him for standing in the old ways; he accused them of a want of\nhonesty. It was just in his immobility and his one\u2010sidedness that his\nsignificance lay. By his consistent carrying through of the rationalistic\nexplanation he performed a service to theology more valuable than those\nwho think themselves so vastly his superiors are willing to acknowledge.\n\nHis Life of Jesus is awkwardly arranged. The first part gives a historical\nexposition of the Gospels, section by section. The second part is a\nsynopsis interspersed with supplementary matter. There is no attempt to\ngrasp the life of Jesus as a connected whole. In that respect he is far\ninferior to Venturini. Strictly regarded, his work is only a harmony of\nthe gospels with explanatory comments, the ground plan of which is taken\nfrom the Fourth Gospel.(22)\n\nThe main interest centres in the explanations of the miracles, though the\nauthor, it must be admitted, endeavoured to guard against this. \u201cIt is my\nchief desire,\u201d he writes in his preface, \u201cthat my views regarding the\nmiracle stories should not be taken as by any means the principal thing.\nHow empty would devotion or religion be if one\u2019s spiritual well\u2010being\ndepended on whether one believed in miracles or no!\u201d \u201cThe truly miraculous\nthing about Jesus is Himself, the purity and serene holiness of His\ncharacter, which is, notwithstanding, genuinely human, and adapted to the\nimitation and emulation of mankind.\u201d\n\nThe question of miracle is therefore a subsidiary question. Two points of\nprimary importance are certain from the outset: (1) that unexplained\nalterations of the course of nature can neither overthrow nor attest a\nspiritual truth, (2) that everything which happens in nature emanates from\nthe omnipotence of God.\n\nThe Evangelists intended to relate miracles; of that there can be no\ndoubt. Nor can any one deny that in their time miracles entered into the\nplan of God, in the sense that the minds of men were to be astounded and\nsubdued by inexplicable facts. This effect, however, is past. In periods\nto which the miraculous makes less appeal, in view of the advance in\nintellectual culture of the nations which have been led to accept\nChristianity, the understanding must be satisfied if the success of the\ncause is to be maintained.\n\nSince that which is produced by the laws of nature is really produced by\nGod, the Biblical miracles consist merely in the fact that eyewitnesses\nreport events of which they did not know the secondary causes. Their\nknowledge of the laws of nature was insufficient to enable them to\nunderstand what actually happened. For one who has discovered the\nsecondary causes, the fact remains, as such, but not the miracle.\n\nThe question of miracle, therefore, does not really exist, or exists only\nfor those \u201cwho are under the influence of the sceptical delusion that it\nis possible really to think any kind of natural powers as existing apart\nfrom God, or to think the Being of God apart from the primal\npotentialities which unfold themselves in the never\u2010ceasing process of\nBecoming.\u201d The difficulty arises from the \u201coriginal sin\u201d of dissolving the\ninner unity of God and nature, of denying the equivalence implied by\nSpinoza in his \u201cDeus sive Natura.\u201d\n\nFor the normal intelligence the only problem is to discover the secondary\ncauses of the \u201cmiracles\u201d of Jesus. It is true there is one miracle which\nPaulus retains\u2014the miracle of the birth, or at least the possibility of\nit; in the sense that it is through holy inspiration that Mary receives\nthe hope and the power of conceiving her exalted Son, in whom the spirit\nof the Messiah takes up its dwelling. Here he indirectly denies the\nnatural generation, and regards the conception as an act of the self\u2010\nconsciousness of the mother.\n\nWith the miracles of healing, however, the case is very simple. Sometimes\nJesus worked through His spiritual power upon the nervous system of the\nsufferer; sometimes He used medicines known to Him alone. The latter\napplies, for instance, to the cures of the blind. The disciples, too, as\nappears from Mark vi. 7 and 13, were not sent out without medicaments, for\nthe oil with which they were to anoint the sick was, of course, of a\nmedicinal character; and the casting out of evil spirits was effected\npartly by means of sedatives.\n\nDiet and after\u2010treatment played a great part, though the Evangelists say\nlittle about this because directions on these points would not be given\npublicly. Thus, the saying, \u201cThis kind goeth not out save by prayer and\nfasting,\u201d is interpreted as an instruction to the father as to the way in\nwhich he could make the sudden cure of the epileptic into a permanent one,\nviz. by keeping him to a strict diet and strengthening his character by\ndevotional exercises.\n\nThe nature miracles suggest their own explanation. The walking on the\nwater was an illusion of the disciples. Jesus walked along the shore, and\nin the mist was taken for a ghost by the alarmed and excited occupants of\nthe boat. When Jesus called to them, Peter threw himself into the water,\nand was drawn to shore by Jesus just as he was sinking. Immediately after\ntaking Jesus into the boat they doubled a headland and drew clear of the\nstorm centre; they therefore supposed that He had calmed the sea by His\ncommand. It was the same in the case where He was asleep during the storm.\nWhen they waked Him He spoke to them about the wind and the weather. At\nthat moment they gained the shelter of a hill which protected them from\nthe wind that swept down the valley; and they marvelled among themselves\nthat even the winds and the sea obeyed their Messiah.\n\nThe feeding of the five thousand is explained in the following way. When\nJesus saw the multitude all hungered, He said to His disciples, \u201cWe will\nset the rich people among them a good example, that they may share their\nsupplies with the others,\u201d and he began to distribute His own provisions,\nand those of the disciples, to the people who were sitting near them. The\nexample had its effect, and soon there was plenty for every one.\n\nThe explanation of the transfiguration is somewhat more complicated. While\nJesus was lingering with a few followers in this mountainous district He\nhad an interview upon a high mountain at night with two dignified\u2010looking\nmen whom His three companions took for Moses and Elias. These unknown\npersons, as we learn from Luke ix. 31, informed Him of the fate which\nawaited Him at Jerusalem. In the early morning, as the sun was rising, the\nthree disciples, only half awake, looked upwards from the hollow in which\nthey had been sleeping and saw Jesus with the two strangers upon the\nhigher part of the mountain, illuminated by the beams of the rising sun,\nand heard them speak, now of the fate which threatened Him in the capital,\nnow of the duty of steadfastness and the hopes attached thereto, and\nfinally heard an exhortation addressed to themselves, bidding them ever to\nhold Jesus to be the beloved Son of the Deity, whom they must obey....\nTheir drowsiness, and the clouds which in an autumnal sunrise float to and\nfro over those mountains,(23) left them no clear recollection of what had\nhappened. This only added to the wonder of the vague undefined impression\nof having been in contact with apparitions from a higher sphere. The three\nwho had been with Him on the mount never arrived at any more definite\nknowledge of the facts, because Jesus forbade them to speak of what they\nhad seen until the end should come.\n\nIn dealing with the raisings from the dead the author is in his element.\nHere he is ready with the unfailing explanation taken over from Bahrdt\nthat they were only cases of coma. These narratives should not be headed\n\u201craisings from the dead,\u201d but \u201cdeliverances from premature burial.\u201d In\nJudaea, interment took place three hours after death. How many seemingly\ndead people may have returned to consciousness in their graves, and then\nhave perished miserably! Thus Jesus, owing to a presentiment suggested to\nHim by the father\u2019s story, saves the daughter of Jairus from being buried\nwhile in a cataleptic trance. A similar presentiment led Him to remove the\ncovering of the bier which He met at the gate of Nain, and to discover\ntraces of life in the widow\u2019s son. A similar instinct moved Him to ask to\nbe taken to the grave of Lazarus. When the stone is rolled away He sees\nHis friend standing upright and calls to him joyfully, \u201cCome forth!\u201d\n\nThe Jewish love of miracle \u201ccaused everything to be ascribed immediately\nto the Deity, and secondary causes to be overlooked; consequently no\nthought was unfortunately given to the question of how to prevent these\nhorrible cases of premature burial from taking place!\u201d But why does it not\nappear strange to Paulus that Jesus did not enlighten His countrymen as to\nthe criminal character of over\u2010hasty burial, instead of allowing even his\nclosest followers to believe in miracle? Here the hypothesis condemns\nitself, although it has a foundation of fact, in so far as cases of\npremature burial are abnormally frequent in the East.\n\nThe resurrection of Jesus must be brought under the same category if we\nare to hold fast to the facts that the disciples saw Him in His natural\nbody with the print of the nails in His hands, and that He took food in\ntheir presence. Death from crucifixion was in fact due to a condition of\nrigor, which extended gradually inwards. It was the slowest of all deaths.\nJosephus mentions in his _Contra Apionem_ that it was granted to him as a\nfavour by Titus, at Tekoa, that he might have three crucified men whom he\nknew taken down from the cross. Two of them died, but one recovered.\nJesus, however, \u201cdied\u201d surprisingly quickly. The loud cry which he uttered\nimmediately before His head sank shows that His strength was far from\nbeing exhausted, and that what supervened was only a death\u2010like trance. In\nsuch trances the process of dying continues until corruption sets in.\n\u201cThis alone proves that the process is complete and that death has\nactually taken place.\u201d\n\nIn the case of Jesus, as in that of others, the vital spark would have\nbeen gradually extinguished, had not Providence mysteriously effected on\nbehalf of its favourite that which in the case of others was sometimes\neffected in more obvious ways by human skill and care. The lance\u2010thrust,\nwhich we are to think of rather as a mere surface wound, served the\npurpose of a phlebotomy. The cool grave and the aromatic unguents\ncontinued the process of resuscitation, until finally the storm and the\nearthquake aroused Jesus to full consciousness. Fortunately the earthquake\nalso had the effect of rolling away the stone from the mouth of the grave.\nThe Lord stripped off the grave\u2010clothes and put on a gardener\u2019s dress\nwhich He managed to procure. That was what made Mary, as we are told in\nJohn xx. 15, take Him for the gardener. Through the women, He sends a\nmessage to His disciples bidding them meet Him in Galilee, and Himself\nsets out to go thither. At Emmaus, as the dusk was falling, He met two of\nHis followers, who at first failed to recognise Him because His\ncountenance was so disfigured by His sufferings. But His manner of giving\nthanks at the breaking of bread, and the nail\u2010prints in His uplifted\nhands, revealed to them who He was. From them He learns where His\ndisciples are, returns to Jerusalem, and appears unexpectedly among them.\nThis is the explanation of the apparent contradiction between the message\npointing to Galilee and the appearances in Jerusalem. Thomas was not\npresent at this first appearance, and at a later interview was suffered to\nput his hand into the marks of the wounds. It is a misunderstanding to see\na reproach in the words which Jesus addresses to him. What, then, is the\nmeaning of \u201cBlessed are they that have not seen and have believed\u201d? It is\na benediction upon Thomas for what he has done in the interests of later\ngenerations. \u201cNow,\u201d Jesus says, \u201cthou, Thomas, art convinced because thou\nhast so unmistakably seen Me. It is well for those who now or in the\nfuture shall not see Me; for after this they can feel a firm conviction,\nbecause thou hast convinced thyself so completely that to thee, whose\nhands have touched Me, no possible doubt can remain of My corporeal\nreanimation.\u201d Had it not been for Thomas\u2019s peculiar mental constitution we\nshould not have known whether what was seen was a phantom or a real\nappearance of the reanimated Jesus.\n\nIn this way Jesus lived with them for forty days, spending part of that\ntime with them in Galilee. In consequence of the ill\u2010treatment which He\nhad undergone, He was not capable of continuous exertion. He lived quietly\nand gathered strength for the brief moments in which He appeared among His\nown followers and taught them. When He felt his end drawing near He\nreturned to Jerusalem. On the Mount of Olives, in the early sunlight, He\nassembled His followers for the last time. He lifted up His hands to bless\nthem, and with hands still raised in benediction He moved away from them.\nA cloud interposes itself between them and Him, so that their eyes cannot\nfollow Him. As he disappeared there stood before them, clothed in white,\nthe two dignified figures whom the three disciples who were present at the\ntransfiguration had taken for Moses and Elias, but who were really among\nthe secret adherents of Jesus in Jerusalem. These men exhorted them not to\nstand waiting there but to be up and doing.\n\nWhere Jesus really died they never knew, and so they came to describe His\ndeparture as an ascension.\n\nThis Life of Jesus is not written without feeling. At times, in moments of\nexaltation, the writer even dashes into verse. If only the lack of all\nnatural aesthetic feeling did not ruin everything! Paulus constantly falls\ninto a style that sets the teeth on edge. The episode of the death of the\nBaptist is headed \u201cCourt\u2010and\u2010Priest intrigues enhance themselves to a\njudicial murder.\u201d Much is spoiled by a kind of banality. Instead of\n\u201cdisciples,\u201d he always says \u201cpupils,\u201d instead of \u201cfaith,\u201d \u201csincerity of\nconviction.\u201d The appeal which the father of the lunatic boy addresses to\nJesus, \u201cLord, I believe, help thou my unbelief,\u201d runs \u201cI am sincerely\nconvinced; help me, even if there is anything lacking in the sincerity of\nmy conviction.\u201d\n\nThe beautiful saying in the story of Martha and Mary, \u201cOne thing is\nneedful,\u201d is interpreted as meaning that a single course will be\nsufficient for the meal.(24) The scene in the home at Bethany rejoices in\nthe heading, \u201cGeniality of Jesus among sympathetic friends in a hospitable\nfamily circle at Bethany. A Messiah with no stiff solemnity about Him.\u201d\nThe following is the explanation which Paulus discovers for the saying\nabout the tribute\u2010money: \u201cSo long as you need the Romans to maintain some\nsort of order among you,\u201d says Jesus, \u201cyou must provide the means thereto.\nIf you were fit to be independent you would not need to serve any one but\nGod.\u201d\n\nAmong the historical problems, Paulus is especially interested in the idea\nof the Messiahship, and in the motives of the betrayal. His sixty\u2010five\npages on the history of the conception of the Messiah are a real\ncontribution to the subject. The Messianic idea, he explains, goes back to\nthe Davidic kingdom; the prophets raised it to a higher religious plane;\nin the times of the Maccabees the ideal of the kingly Messiah perished and\nits place was taken by that of the super\u2010earthly deliverer. The only\nmistake which Paulus makes is in supposing that the post\u2010Maccabean period\nwent back to the political ideal of the Davidic king. On the other hand,\nhe rightly interprets the death of Jesus as the deed by which He thought\nto win the Messiahship proper to the Son of Man.\n\nWith reference to the question of the High Priest at the trial, he remarks\nthat it does not refer to the metaphysical Divine Sonship, but to the\nMessiahship in the ancient Jewish sense, and accordingly Jesus answers by\npointing to the coming of the Son of Man.\n\nThe importance of eschatology in the preaching of Jesus is clearly\nrecognised, but Paulus proceeds to nullify this recognition by making the\nrisen Lord cut short all the questions of the disciples in regard to this\nsubject with the admonition \u201cthat in whatever way all this should come\nabout, and whether soon or late, their business was to see that they had\ndone their own part.\u201d\n\nHow did Judas come to play the traitor? He believed in the Messiahship of\nJesus and wanted to force Him to declare Himself. To bring about His\narrest seemed to Judas the best means of rousing the people to take His\nside openly. But the course of events was too rapid for him. Owing to the\nFeast the news of the arrest spread but slowly. In the night \u201cwhen people\nwere sleeping off the effects of the Passover supper,\u201d Jesus was\ncondemned; in the morning, before they were well awake, He was hurried\naway to be crucified. Then Judas was overcome with despair, and went and\nhanged himself. \u201cJudas stands before us in the history of the Passion as a\nwarning example of those who allow their cleverness to degenerate into\ncunning, and persuade themselves that it is permissible to do evil that\ngood may come\u2014to seek good objects, which they really value, by intrigue\nand chicanery. And the underlying cause of their errors is that they have\nfailed to overcome their passionate desire for self\u2010advancement.\u201d\n\nSuch was the consistently rationalistic Life of Jesus, which evoked so\nmuch opposition at the time of its appearance, and seven years later\nreceived its death\u2010blow at the hands of Strauss. The method is doomed to\nfailure because the author only saves his own sincerity at the expense of\nthat of his characters. He makes the disciples of Jesus see miracles where\nthey could not possibly have seen them; and makes Jesus Himself allow\nmiracles to be imagined where He must necessarily have protested against\nsuch a delusion. His exegesis, too, is sometimes violent. But in this, who\nhas the right to judge him? If the theologians dragged him before the\nLord, He would command, as of old, \u201cLet him that is without sin among you\ncast the first stone at him,\u201d and Paulus would go forth unharmed.\n\nMoreover, a number of his explanations are right in principle. The feeding\nof the multitudes and the walking on the sea must be explained somehow or\nother as misunderstandings of something that actually happened. And how\nmany of Paulus\u2019 ideas are still going about in all sorts of disguises, and\ncrop up again and again in commentaries and Lives of Jesus, especially in\nthose of the \u201canti\u2010rationalists\u201d! Nowadays it belongs to the complete duty\nof the well\u2010trained theologian to renounce the rationalists and all their\nworks; and yet how poor our time is in comparison with theirs\u2014how poor in\nstrong men capable of loyalty to an ideal, how poor, so far as theology is\nconcerned, in simple commonplace sincerity!\n\n\n\n\n\nVI. THE LAST PHASE OF RATIONALISM\u2014HASE AND SCHLEIERMACHER\n\n\n    _Karl August Hase._ Das Leben Jesu zun\u00e4chst f\u00fcr akademische\n    Studien. (The Life of Jesus, primarily for the use of students.)\n    1829. 205 pp. This work contains a bibliography of the earliest\n    literature of the subject. 5th ed., 1865.\n\n    _Friedrich Ernst Daniel Schleiermacher._ Das Leben Jesu. 1864.\n    Edited by R\u00fctenik. The edition is based upon a student\u2019s note\u2010book\n    of a course of lectures delivered in 1832.\n\n    _David Friedrich Strauss._ Der Christus des Glaubens und der Jesus\n    der Geschichte. Eine Kritik des Schleiermacher\u2019schen Lebens Jesu.\n    (The Christ of Faith and the Jesus of History. A criticism of\n    Schleiermacher\u2019s Life of Jesus.) 1865.\n\n\nIn their treatment of the life of Jesus, Hase and Schleiermacher are in\none respect still wholly dominated by rationalism. They still cling to the\nrationalistic explanation of miracle; although they have no longer the\nsame ingenuous confidence in it as their predecessors, and although at the\ndecisive cases they are content to leave a question\u2010mark instead of\noffering a solution. They might, in fact, be described as the sceptics of\nrationalism. In another respect, however, they aim at something beyond the\nrange of rationalism, inasmuch as they endeavour to grasp the inner\nconnexion of the events of Jesus\u2019 ministry, which in Paulus had entirely\nfallen out of sight. Their Lives of Jesus are transitional, in the good\nsense of the word as well as in the bad. In respect of progress, Hase\nshows himself the greater of the two.\n\nScarcely thirteen years have elapsed since the death of the great Jena\nprofessor, his Excellency von Hase, and already we think of him as a man\nof the past. Theology has voted to inscribe his name upon its records in\nletters of gold\u2014and has passed on to the order of the day. He was no\npioneer like Baur, and he does not meet the present age on the footing of\na contemporary, offering it problems raised by him and still unsolved.\nEven his \u201cChurch History,\u201d with its twelve editions, has already had its\nday, although it is still the most brilliantly written work in this\ndepartment, and conceals beneath its elegance of form a massive erudition.\nHe was more than a theologian; he was one of the finest monuments of\nGerman culture, the living embodiment of a period which for us lies under\nthe sunset glow of the past, in the land of \u201conce upon a time.\u201d\n\nHis path in life was unembarrassed; he knew toil, but not disappointment.\nBorn in 1800, he finished his studies at T\u00fcbingen, where he qualified as a\nPrivat\u2010Docent in 1823. In 1824\u20101825 he spent eleven months in the fortress\nof Hohenasperg, where he was confined for taking the part of the\nBurschenschaften,(25) and had leisure for meditation and literary plans.\nIn 1830 he went to Jena, where, with a yearly visit to Italy to lay in a\nstore of sunshine and renewed strength, he worked until 1890.\n\nNot without a certain reverence does one take this little text\u2010book of 205\npages into one\u2019s hands. This is the first attempt by a fully equipped\nscholar to reconstruct the life of Jesus on a purely historical basis.\nThere is more creative power in it than in almost any of his later works.\nIt manifests already the brilliant qualities of style for which he was\ndistinguished\u2014clearness, terseness, elegance. What a contrast with that of\nBahrdt, Venturini, or Paulus!\n\nAnd yet the keynote of the work is rationalistic, since Hase has recourse\nto the rationalistic explanation of miracles wherever that appears\npossible. He seeks to make the circumstances of the baptism intelligible\nby supposing the appearance of a meteor. In the story of the\ntransfiguration, the fact which is to be retained is that Jesus, in the\ncompany of two unknown persons, appeared to the disciples in unaccustomed\nsplendour. Their identification of His companions as Moses and Elias is a\nconclusion which is not confirmed by Jesus, and owing to the position of\nthe eyewitnesses, is not sufficiently guaranteed by their testimony. The\nabrupt breaking off of the interview by the Master, and the injunction of\nsilence, point to some secret circumstance in His history. By this hint\nHase seems to leave room for the \u201csecret society\u201d of Bahrdt and Venturini.\n\nHe makes no difficulty about the explanation of the story of the _stater_.\nIt is only intended to show \u201chow the Messiah avoided offence in submitting\nHimself to the financial burdens of the community.\u201d In regard to the\nstilling of the storm, it seems uncertain whether Jesus through His\nknowledge of nature was enabled to predict the end of the storm or whether\nHe brought it about by the possession of power over nature. The \u201csceptic\nof rationalism\u201d thus leaves open the possibility of miracle. He proceeds\nsomewhat similarly in explaining the raisings from the dead. They can be\nmade intelligible by supposing that they were cases of coma, but it is\nalso possible to look upon them as supernatural. For the two great\nJohannine miracles, the change of the water into wine and the increase of\nthe loaves, no naturalistic explanation can be admitted. But how\nunsuccessful is his attempt to make the increase of the bread\nintelligible! \u201cWhy should not the bread have been increased?\u201d he asks. \u201cIf\nnature every year in the period between seed\u2010time and harvest performs a\nsimilar miracle, nature might also, by unknown laws, bring it about in a\nmoment.\u201d Here crops up the dangerous anti\u2010rationalistic intellectual\nsupernaturalism which sometimes brings Hase and Schleiermacher very close\nto the frontiers of the territory occupied by the disingenuous\nreactionaries.\n\nThe crucial point is the explanation of the resurrection of Jesus. A\nstringent proof that death had actually taken place cannot, according to\nHase, be given, since there is no evidence that corruption had set in, and\nthat is the only infallible sign of death. It is possible, therefore, that\nthe resurrection was only a return to consciousness after a trance. But\nthe direct impression made by the sources points rather to a supernatural\nevent. Either view is compatible with the Christian faith. \u201cBoth the\nhistorically possible views\u2014either that the Creator gave new life to a\nbody which was really dead, or that the latent life reawakened in a body\nwhich was only seemingly dead\u2014recognise in the resurrection a manifest\nproof of the care of Providence for the cause of Jesus, and are therefore\nboth to be recognised as Christian, whereas a third view\u2014that Jesus gave\nHimself up to his enemies in order to defeat them by the bold stroke of a\nseeming death and a skilfully prepared resurrection\u2014is as contrary to\nhistorical criticism as to Christian faith.\u201d\n\nHase, however, quietly lightens the difficulty of the miracle question in\na way which must not be overlooked. For the rationalists all miracles\nstood on the same footing, and all must equally be abolished by a\nnaturalistic explanation. If we study Hase carefully, we find that he\naccepts only the Johannine miracles as authentic, whereas those of the\nSynoptists may be regarded as resting upon a misunderstanding on the part\nof the authors, because they are not reported at first hand, but from\ntradition. Thus the discrimination of the two lines of Gospel tradition\ncomes to the aid of the anti\u2010rationalists, and enables them to get rid of\nsome of the greatest difficulties. Half playfully, it might almost be\nsaid, they sketch out the ideas of Strauss, without ever suspecting what\ndesperate earnest the game will become, if the authenticity of the Fourth\nGospel has to be given up.\n\nHase surrenders the birth\u2010story and the \u201clegends of the Childhood\u201d\u2014the\nexpression is his own\u2014almost without striking a blow. The same fate\nbefalls all the incidents in which angels figure, and the miracles at the\ntime of the death of Jesus. He describes these as \u201cmythical touches.\u201d The\nascension is merely \u201ca mythical version of His departure to the Father.\u201d\n\nHase\u2019s conception even of the non\u2010miraculous portion of the history of\nJesus is not free from rationalistic traits. He indulges in the following\nspeculations with regard to the celibacy of the Lord. \u201cIf the true grounds\nof the celibacy of Jesus do not lie hidden in the special circumstances of\nHis youth, the conjecture may be permitted that He from whose religion was\nto go forth the ideal view of marriage, so foreign to the ideas of\nantiquity, found in His own time no heart worthy to enter into this\ncovenant with Him.\u201d It is on rationalistic lines also that Hase explains\nthe betrayal by Judas. \u201cA purely intellectual, worldly, and unscrupulous\ncharacter, he desired to compel the hesitating Messiah to found His\nKingdom upon popular violence.... It is possible that Judas in his\nterrible blindness took that last word addressed to him by Jesus, \u2018What\nthou doest, do quickly,\u2019 as giving consent to his plan.\u201d\n\nBut Hase again rises superior to this rationalistic conception of the\nhistory when he refuses to explain away the Jewish elements in the plan\nand preaching of Jesus as due to mere accommodation, and maintains the\nview that the Lord really, to a certain extent, shared this Jewish system\nof ideas. According to Hase there are two periods in the Messianic\nactivity of Jesus. In the first He accepted almost without reservation the\npopular ideas regarding the Messianic age. In consequence, however, of His\nexperience of the practical results of these ideas, He was led to abandon\nthis error, and in the second period He developed His own distinctive\nviews. Here we meet for the first time the idea of two different periods\nin the life of Jesus, which, especially through the influence of Holtzmann\nand Keim, became the prevailing view, and down to Johannes Weiss,\ndetermined the plan of all Lives of Jesus. Hase created the modern\nhistorico\u2010psychological picture of Jesus. The introduction of this more\npenetrating psychology would alone suffice to place him in advance of the\nrationalists.\n\nAnother interesting point is the thorough way in which he traces out the\nhistorical and literary consequences of this idea of development. The\napostles, he thinks, did not understand this progress of thought on the\npart of Jesus, and did not distinguish between the sayings of the first\nand second periods. They remained wedded to the eschatological view. After\nthe death of Jesus this view prevailed so strongly in the primitive\ncommunity of disciples that they interpolated their expectations into the\nlast discourses of Jesus. According to Hase, the apocalyptic discourse in\nMatt. xxiv. was originally only a prediction of the judgment upon and\ndestruction of Jerusalem, but this was obscured later by the influx of the\neschatological views of the apostolic community. Only John remained free\nfrom this error. Therefore the non\u2010eschatological Fourth Gospel preserves\nin their pure form the ideas of Jesus in His second period.\n\nHase rightly observes that the Messiahship of Jesus plays next to no part\nin His preaching, at any rate at first, and that, before the incident at\nCaesarea Philippi, it was only in moments of enthusiastic admiration,\nrather than with settled conviction, that even the disciples looked on Him\nas the Messiah. This indication of the central importance of the\ndeclaration of the Messiahship at Caesarea Philippi is another sign\u2010post\npointing out the direction which the future study of the life of Jesus was\nto follow.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nSchleiermacher\u2019s Life of Jesus introduces us to quite a different order of\ntransitional ideas. Its value lies in the sphere of dogmatics, not of\nhistory. Nowhere, indeed, is it so clear that the great dialectician had\nnot really a historical mind than precisely in his treatment of the\nhistory of Jesus.\n\nFrom the first it was no favourable star which presided over this\nundertaking. It is true that in 1819 Schleiermacher was the first\ntheologian who had ever lectured upon this subject. But his Life of Jesus\ndid not appear until 1864. Its publication had been so long delayed,\npartly because it had to be reconstructed from students\u2019 note\u2010books,\npartly because immediately after Schleiermacher, in 1832, had delivered\nthe course for the last time, it was rendered obsolete by the work of\nStrauss. For the questions raised by the latter\u2019s Life of Jesus, published\nin 1835, Schleiermacher had no answer, and for the wounds which it made,\nno healing. When, in 1864, Schleiermacher\u2019s work was brought forth to view\nlike an embalmed corse, Strauss accorded to the dead work of the great\ntheologian a dignified and striking funeral oration.\n\nSchleiermacher is not in search of the historical Jesus, but of the Jesus\nChrist of his own system of theology; that is to say, of the historic\nfigure which seems to him appropriate to the self\u2010consciousness of the\nRedeemer as he represents it. For him the empirical has simply no\nexistence. A natural psychology is scarcely attempted. He comes to the\nfacts with a ready\u2010made dialectic apparatus and sets his puppets in lively\naction. Schleiermacher\u2019s dialectic is not a dialectic which generates\nreality, like that of Hegel, of which Strauss availed himself, but merely\na dialectic of exposition. In this literary dialectic he is the greatest\nmaster that ever lived.\n\nThe limitations of the historical Jesus both in an upward and downward\ndirection are those only which apply equally to the Jesus of dogma. The\nuniqueness of His Divine self\u2010consciousness is not to be tampered with. It\nis equally necessary to avoid Ebionism which does away with the Divine in\nHim, and Docetism which destroys His humanity. Schleiermacher loves to\nmake his hearers shudder by pointing out to them that the least false step\nentails precipitation into one or other of these abysses; or at least\nwould entail it for any one who was not under the guidance of his\ninfallible dialectic.\n\nIn the course of this dialectic treatment, all the historical questions\ninvolved in the life of Jesus come into view one after another, but none\nof them is posed or solved from the point of view of the historian; they\nare \u201cmoments\u201d in his argument.\n\nHe is like a spider at work. The spider lets itself down from aloft, and\nafter making fast some supporting threads to points below, it runs back to\nthe centre and there keeps spinning away. You look on fascinated, and\nbefore you know it, you are entangled in the web. It is difficult even for\na reader who is strong in the consciousness of possessing a sounder grasp\nof the history than Schleiermacher to avoid being caught in the toils of\nthat magical dialectic.\n\nAnd how loftily superior the dialectician is! Paulus had shown that, in\nview of the use of the title Son of Man, the Messianic self\u2010consciousness\nof Jesus must be interpreted in accordance with the passage in Daniel. On\nthis Schleiermacher remarks: \u201cI have already said that it is inherently\nimprobable that such a predilection (_sc._ for the Book of Daniel) would\nhave been manifested by Christ, because the Book of Daniel does not belong\nto the prophetic writings properly so\u2010called, but to the third division of\nthe Old Testament literature.\u201d\n\nIn his estimate of the importance to be attached to the story of the\nbaptism, too, he falls behind the historical knowledge of his day. \u201cTo lay\nsuch great stress upon the baptism,\u201d he says, \u201cleads either to the Gnostic\nview that it was only there that the \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 united itself with Jesus, or to\nthe rationalistic view that it was only at the baptism that He became\nconscious of His vocation.\u201d But what does history care whether a view is\ngnostic or rationalistic if only it is historical!\n\nThis dialectic, so fatal often to sound historical views, might have been\nexpressly created to deal with the question of miracle. Compared with\nSchleiermacher\u2019s discussions all that has been written since upon this\nsubject is mere honest\u2014or dishonest\u2014bungling. Nothing new has been added\nto what he says, and no one else has succeeded in saying it with the same\namazing subtlety. It is true, also, that no one else has shown the same\nskill in concealing how much in the way of miracle he ultimately retains\nand how much he rejects. His solution of the problem is, in fact, not\nhistorical, but dialectical, an attempt to transcend the necessity for a\nrationalistic explanation of miracle which does not really succeed in\ngetting rid of it.\n\nSchleiermacher arranges the miracles in an ascending scale of probability\naccording to the degree in which they can be seen to depend on the known\ninfluence of spirit upon organic matter. The most easily explained are the\nmiracles of healing \u201cbecause we are not without analogies to show that\npathological conditions of a purely functional nature can be removed by\nmental influence.\u201d But where, on the other hand, the effect produced by\nChrist lies outside the sphere of human life, the difficulties involved\nbecome insoluble. To get rid, in some measure, of these difficulties he\nmakes use of two expedients. In the first place, he admits that in\nparticular cases the rationalistic method may have a certain limited\napplication; in the second place he, like Hase, recognises a difference\nbetween the miracle stories themselves, retaining the Johannine miracles,\nbut surrendering, more or less completely, the Synoptic miracles as not\nresting on evidence of the same certainty and exactness.\n\nThat he is still largely under the sway of rationalism can be seen in the\nfact that he admits on an equal footing, as conceptions of the\nresurrection of Jesus, a return to consciousness from a trance\u2010state, or a\nsupernatural restoration to life, thought of as a resurrection. He goes so\nfar as to say that the decision of this question has very little interest\nfor him. He fully accepts the principle of Paulus that apart from\ncorruption there is no certain indication of death.\n\n\u201cAll that we can say on this point,\u201d he concludes, \u201cis that even to those\nwhose business it was to ensure the immediate death of the crucified, in\norder that the bodies might at once be taken down, Christ appeared to be\nreally dead, and this, moreover, although it was contrary to their\nexpectations, for it was a subject of astonishment. It is no use going any\nfurther into the matter, since nothing can be ascertained in regard to\nit.\u201d\n\nWhat is certain is that Jesus in His real body lived on for a time among\nHis followers; that the Fourth Gospel requires us to believe. The reports\nof the resurrection are not based upon \u201capparitions.\u201d Schleiermacher\u2019s own\nopinion is what really happened was reanimation after apparent death. \u201cIf\nChrist had only eaten to show that He could eat, while He really had no\nneed of nourishment, it would have been a pretence\u2014something docetic. This\ngives us a clue to all the rest, teaching us to hold firmly to the way in\nwhich Christ intends Himself to be represented, and to put down all that\nis miraculous in the accounts of the appearances to the prepossessions of\nthe disciples.\u201d\n\nWhen He revealed himself to Mary Magdalene He had no certainty that He\nwould frequently see her again. \u201cHe was conscious that His present\ncondition was that of genuine human life, but He had no confidence in its\ncontinuance.\u201d He bade His disciples meet Him in Galilee because He could\nthere enjoy greater privacy and freedom from observation in His\nintercourse with them. The difference between the present and the past was\nonly that He no longer showed Himself to the world. \u201cIt was possible that\na movement in favour of an earthly Messianic Kingdom might break out, and\nwe need only take this possibility into account in order to explain\ncompletely why Jesus remained in such close retirement.\u201d \u201cIt was the\npremonition of the approaching end of this second life which led Him to\nreturn from Galilee to Jerusalem.\u201d\n\nOf the ascension he says: \u201cHere, therefore, something happened, but what\nwas seen was incomplete, and has been conjecturally supplemented.\u201d The\nunderlying rationalistic explanation shows through!\n\nBut if the condition in which Jesus lived on after His crucifixion was \u201ca\ncondition of reanimation,\u201d by what right does Schleiermacher constantly\nspeak of it as a \u201cresurrection,\u201d as if resurrection and reanimation were\nsynonymous terms? Further, is it really true that faith has no interest\nwhatever in the question whether it was as risen from the dead, or merely\nas recovered from a state of suspended animation, that Jesus showed\nHimself to His disciples? In regard to this, it might seem, the\nrationalists were more straightforward.\n\nThe moment one tries to take hold of this dialectic it breaks in one\u2019s\nfingers. Schleiermacher would not indeed have ventured to play so risky a\ngame if he had not had a second position to retire to, based on the\ndistinction between the Synoptic and the Johannine miracle stories. In\nthis respect he simplified matters for himself, as compared with the\nrationalists, even more than Hase. The miracle at the baptism is only\nintelligible in the narrative of the Fourth Gospel, where it is not a\nquestion of an external occurrence, but of a purely subjective experience\nof John, with which we have nothing to do. The Synoptic story of the\ntemptation has no intelligible meaning. \u201cTo change stones into bread, if\nthere were need for it, would not have been a sin.\u201d \u201cA leap from the\nTemple could have had no attraction for any one.\u201d\n\nThe miracles of the birth and childhood are given up without hesitation;\nthey do not belong to the story of the life of Jesus; and it is the same\nwith the miracles at His death. One might fancy it was Strauss speaking\nwhen Schleiermacher says: \u201cIf we give due consideration to the fact that\nwe have certainly found in these for the most part simple narratives of\nthe last moments of Christ two incidents, such as the rending of the veil\nof the Temple and the opening of the graves, in reference to which we\ncannot possibly suppose that they are literal descriptions of actual\nfacts, then we are bound to ask the question whether the same does not\napply to many other points. Certainly the mention of the sun\u2019s light\nfailing and the consequent great darkness looks very much as if it had\nbeen imported by poetic imagination into the simple narrative.\u201d\n\nA rebuke could have no possible effect upon the wind and sea. Here we must\nsuppose either an alteration of the facts or a different causal connexion.\n\nIn this way Schleiermacher\u2014and it was for this reason that these lectures\non the life of Jesus became so celebrated\u2014enabled dogmatics, though not\nindeed history, to take a flying leap over the miracle question.\n\nWhat is chiefly fatal to a sound historical view is his one\u2010sided\npreference for the Fourth Gospel. It is, according to him, only in this\nGospel that the consciousness of Jesus is truly reflected. In this\nconnexion he expressly remarks that of a progress in the teaching of\nJesus, and of any \u201cdevelopment\u201d in Him, there can be no question. His\ndevelopment is the unimpeded organic unfolding of the idea of the Divine\nSonship.\n\nFor the outline of the life of Jesus, also, the Fourth Gospel is alone\nauthoritative. \u201cThe Johannine representation of the way in which the\ncrisis of His fate was brought about is the only clear one.\u201d The same\napplies to the narrative of the resurrection in this Gospel. \u201cAccordingly,\non this point also,\u201d so he concludes his discussion, \u201cI take it as\nestablished that the Gospel of John is the narrative of an eyewitness and\nforms an organic whole. The first three Gospels are compilations formed\nout of various narratives which had arisen independently; their discourses\nare composite structures, and their presentation of the history is such\nthat one can form no idea of the grouping of events.\u201d The \u201ccrowded days,\u201d\nsuch as that of the sermon on the mount and the day of the parables, exist\nonly in the imagination of the Evangelists. In reality there were no such\ndays. Luke is the only one of them who has some semblance of historical\norder. His Gospel is compiled with much insight and critical tact out of a\nnumber of independent documents, as Schleiermacher believed himself to\nhave shown convincingly in his critical study of Luke\u2019s Gospel, published\nin 1817.\n\nIt is only on the ground of such a valuation of the sources that we can\narrive at a just estimate of the different representations of the locality\nof the life of Jesus. \u201cThe contradictions,\u201d Schleiermacher proceeds,\n\u201ccould not be explained if all our Gospels stood equally close to Jesus.\nBut if John stands closer than the others, we may perhaps find the key in\nthe fact that John, too, mentions it as a prevailing opinion in Jerusalem\nthat Jesus was a Galilaean, and that Luke, when he has got to the end of\nthe sections which show skilful arrangement and are united by similarity\nof subject, gathers all the rest into the framework of a journey to\nJerusalem. Following this analogy, and not remembering that Jesus had\noccasion to go several times a year to Jerusalem, the other two gathered\ninto one mass all that happened there on various occasions. This could\nonly have been done by Hellenists.\u201d(26)\n\nSchleiermacher is quite insensible to the graphic realism of the\ndescription of the last days at Jerusalem in Mark and Matthew, and has no\nsuspicion that if only a single one of the Jerusalem sayings in the\nSynoptists is true Jesus had never before spoken in Jerusalem.\n\nThe ground of Schleiermacher\u2019s antipathy to the Synoptists lies deeper\nthan a mere critical view as to their composition. The fact is that their\n\u201cpicture of Christ\u201d does not agree with that which he wishes to insert\ninto the history. When it serves his purpose, he does not shrink from the\nmost arbitrary violence. He abolishes the scene in Gethsemane because he\ninfers from the silence of John that it cannot have taken place. \u201cThe\nother Evangelists,\u201d he explains, \u201cgive us an account of a sudden\ndepression and deep distress of spirit which fell upon Jesus, and which He\nadmitted to His disciples, and they tell us how He sought relief from it\nin prayer, and afterwards recovered His serenity and resolution. John\npasses over this in silence, and his narrative of what immediately\nprecedes is not consistent with it.\u201d It is evidently a symbolical story,\nas the thrice\u2010repeated petition shows. \u201cIf they speak of such a depression\nof spirit, they have given the story that form in order that the example\nof Christ might be the more applicable to others in similar\ncircumstances.\u201d\n\nOn these premises it is possible to write a Life of Christ; it is not\npossible to write a Life of Jesus. It is, therefore, not by accident that\nSchleiermacher regularly speaks, not of Jesus, but of Christ.\n\n\n\n\n\nVII. DAVID FRIEDRICH STRAUSS\u2014THE MAN AND HIS FATE\n\n\nIn order to understand Strauss one must love him. He was not the greatest,\nand not the deepest, of theologians, but he was the most absolutely\nsincere. His insight and his errors were alike the insight and the errors\nof a prophet. And he had a prophet\u2019s fate. Disappointment and suffering\ngave his life its consecration. It unrolls itself before us like a\ntragedy, in which, in the end, the gloom is lightened by the mild radiance\nwhich shines forth from the nobility of the sufferer.\n\nStrauss was born in 1808 at Ludwigsburg. His father was a merchant, whose\nbusiness, however, was unsuccessful, so that his means steadily declined.\nThe boy took his ability from his mother, a good, self\u2010controlled,\nsensible, pious woman, to whom he raised a monument in his \u201cMemorial of a\nGood Mother\u201d written in 1858, to be given to his daughter on her\nconfirmation\u2010day.\n\nFrom 1821 to 1825 he was a pupil at the \u201clower seminary\u201d at Blaubeuren,\nalong with Friedrich Vischer, Pfizer, Zimmermann, M\u00e4rklin, and Binder.\nAmong their teachers was Ferdinand Christian Baur, whom they were to meet\nwith again at the university.\n\nHis first year at the university was uninteresting, as it was only in the\nfollowing year that the reorganisation of the theological faculty took\nplace, in consequence of the appointment of Baur. The instruction in the\nphilosophical faculty was almost equally unsatisfactory, so that the\nfriends would have gained little from the two years of philosophical\npropaedeutic which formed part of the course prescribed for theological\nstudents, if they had not combined to prosecute their philosophical\nstudies for themselves. The writings of Hegel began to exercise a powerful\ninfluence upon them. For the philosophical faculty, Hegel\u2019s philosophy was\nas yet non\u2010existent.\n\nThese student friends were much addicted to poetry. Two journeys which\nStrauss made along with his fellow\u2010student Binder to Weinsberg to see\nJustinus Kerner made a deep impression upon him. He had to make a\ndeliberate effort to escape from the dream\u2010world of the \u201cProphetess of\nPrevorst.\u201d Some years later, in a Latin note to Binder, he speaks of\nWeinsberg as \u201cMecca nostra.\u201d(27)\n\nAccording to Vischer\u2019s picture of him, the tall stripling made an\nimpression of great charm, though he was rather shy except with intimates.\nHe attended lectures with pedantic regularity.\n\nBaur was at that time still immersed in the prolegomena to his system; but\nStrauss already suspected the direction which the thoughts of his young\nteacher were to take.\n\nWhen Strauss and his student friends entered on their duties as clergymen,\nthe others found great difficulty in bringing their theological views into\nline with the popular beliefs which they were expected to preach. Strauss\nalone remained free from inner struggles. In a letter to Binder(28) of the\nyear 1831, he explains that in his sermons\u2014he was then assistant at Klein\u2010\nIngersheim near Ludwigsburg\u2014he did not use \u201crepresentative notions\u201d\n(_Vorstellungen_, used as a philosophical technicality) such as that of\nthe Devil, which the people were already prepared to dispense with; but\nothers which still appeared to be indispensable, such as those of an\neschatological character, he merely endeavoured to present in such a way\nthat the \u201cintellectual concept\u201d (_Begriff_) which lay behind, might so far\nas possible shine through. \u201cWhen I consider,\u201d he continues, \u201chow far even\nin intellectual preaching the expression is inadequate to the true essence\nof the concept, it does not seem to me to matter much if one goes even a\nstep further. I at least go about the matter without the least scruple,\nand cannot ascribe this to a mere want of sincerity in myself.\u201d\n\nThat is Hegelian logic.\n\nAfter being for a short time Deputy\u2010professor at Maulbronn, he took his\ndoctor\u2019s degree with a dissertation on the \u1f00\u03c0\u03bf\u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03ac\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd\n(restoration of all things, Acts iii. 21). This work is lost. From his\nletters it appears that he treated the subject chiefly from the religious\u2010\nhistorical point of view.(29)\n\nWhen Binder took his doctorate with a philosophical thesis on the\nimmortality of the soul, Strauss, in 1832, wrote to him expressing the\nopinion that the belief in personal immortality could not properly be\nregarded as a consequence of the Hegelian system, since according to\nHegel, it was not the subjective spirit of the individual person, but only\nthe objective Spirit, the self\u2010realising Idea which constantly embodies\nitself in new creations, to which immortality belongs.(30)\n\nIn October 1831 he went to Berlin to hear Hegel and Schleiermacher. On the\n14th of November Hegel, whom he had visited shortly before, was carried\noff by cholera. Strauss heard the news in Schleiermacher\u2019s house, from\nSchleiermacher himself, and is said to have exclaimed, with a certain want\nof tact, considering who his informant was: \u201cAnd it was to hear him that I\ncame to Berlin!\u201d\n\nThere was no satisfactory basis for a relationship between Schleiermacher\nand Strauss. They had nothing in common. That did not prevent Strauss\u2019s\nLife of Jesus being sometimes described by opponents of Schleiermacher as\na product of the latter\u2019s philosophy of religion. Indeed, as late as the\n\u2019sixties, Tholuck thought it necessary to defend the memory of the great\ntheologian against this reproach.\n\nAs a matter of fact, the plan of the Life of Jesus arose during Strauss\u2019s\nintercourse with Vatke, to whom he felt himself strongly drawn. Moreover,\nwhat was first sketched out was not primarily the plan of a Life of Jesus,\nbut that of a history of the ideas of primitive Christianity, intended to\nserve as a standard by which to judge ecclesiastical dogma. The Life of\nJesus was originally designed, it might almost be said, as a mere prologue\nto this work, the plan of which was subsequently carried out under the\ntitle, \u201cChristian Theology in its Historical Development and in its\nAntagonism with Modern Scientific Knowledge\u201d (published in 1840\u20101841).\n\nWhen in the spring of 1832 he returned to T\u00fcbingen to take up the position\nof \u201cRepetent\u201d(31) in the theological college (_Stift_), these plans were\nlaid on the shelf in consequence of his pre\u2010occupation with philosophy,\nand if things had gone according to Strauss\u2019s wishes, they would perhaps\nnever have come to fulfilment. The \u201cRepetents\u201d had the right to lecture\nupon philosophy. Strauss felt himself called upon to come forward as an\napostle of Hegel, and lectured upon Hegel\u2019s logic with tremendous success.\nZeller, who attended these lectures, records the unforgettable impression\nwhich they made on him. Besides championing Hegel, Strauss also lectured\nupon Plato, and upon the history of modern philosophy. These were three\nhappy semesters.\n\n\u201cIn my theology,\u201d he writes in a letter of 1833,(32) \u201cphilosophy occupies\nsuch a predominant position that my theological views can only be worked\nout to completeness by means of a more thorough study of philosophy, and\nthis course of study I am now going to prosecute uninterruptedly and\nwithout concerning myself whether it leads me back to theology or not.\u201d\nFurther on he says: \u201cIf I know myself rightly, my position in regard to\ntheology is that what interests me in theology causes offence, and what\ndoes not cause offence is indifferent to me. For this reason I have\nrefrained from delivering lectures on theology.\u201d\n\nThe philosophical faculty was not altogether pleased at the success of the\napostle of Hegel, and wished to have the right of the \u201cRepetents\u201d to\nlecture on philosophy curtailed. The latter, however, took their stand\nupon the tradition. Strauss was desired to intermit his lectures until the\nmatter should be settled. He would have liked best to end the situation by\nentering the philosophical faculty. The other \u201cRepetents,\u201d however, begged\nhim not to do so, but to continue to champion their rights. It is possible\nalso that obstacles were placed in the way of his plan by the\nphilosophical faculty. However that may be, it was in any case not carried\nthrough. Strauss was forced back upon theology.\n\nAccording to Hase,(33) Strauss began his studies for the Life of Jesus by\nwriting a detailed critical review of his (Hase\u2019s) text\u2010book. He sent this\nto Berlin to the _Jahrb\u00fccher f\u00fcr wissenschaftliche Kritik_, which,\nhowever, refused it. His resolve to publish first, instead of the general\nwork on the genesis of Christian doctrine, a critical study on the life of\nJesus was doubtless determined by Schleiermacher\u2019s lectures on this\nsubject. When in Berlin he had procured a copy of a lecture note\u2010book, and\nthe reading of it incited him to opposition.\n\nConsidering its character, the work was rapidly produced. He wrote it\nsitting at the window of the Repetents\u2019 room, which looks out upon the\ngateway\u2010arch. When its two volumes appeared in 1835 the name of the author\nwas wholly unknown, except for some critical studies upon the Gospels.\nThis book, into which he had poured his youthful enthusiasm, rendered him\nfamous in a moment\u2014and utterly destroyed his prospects. Among his\nopponents the most prominent was Steudel, a member of the theological\nfaculty, who, as president of the _Stift_, made representations against\nhim to the Ministry, and succeeded in securing his removal from the post\nof \u201cRepetent.\u201d The hopes which Strauss had placed upon his friends were\ndisappointed. Only two or three at most dared to publish anything in his\ndefence.\n\nHe first accepted a transfer to the post of Deputy\u2010professor at\nLudwigsburg, but in less than a year he was glad to give it up, and he\nthen returned to Stuttgart. There he lived for several years, busying\nhimself in the preparation of new editions of the Life of Jesus, and in\nwriting answers to the attacks which were made upon him.\n\nTowards the end of the \u2019thirties he became conscious of a growing impulse\ntowards more positive views. The criticisms of his opponents had made some\nimpression upon him. The second volume of polemics was laid aside. In its\nplace appeared the third edition of the Life of Jesus, 1838\u20101839,\ncontaining a series of amazing concessions. Strauss explains that in\nconsequence of reading de Wette\u2019s commentary and Neander\u2019s Life of Jesus\nhe had begun to feel some hesitation about his former doubts regarding the\ngenuineness and credibility of the Fourth Gospel. The historic personality\nof Jesus again began to take on intelligible outlines for him. These\ninconsistencies he removed in the next edition, acknowledging that he did\nnot know how he could so have temporarily vacillated in his point of view.\nThe matter admits, however, of a psychological explanation. He longed for\npeace, for he had suffered more than his enemies suspected or his friends\nknew. The ban of the outlaw lay heavy upon his soul. In this spirit he\ncomposed in 1839 the monologues entitled _Verg\u00e4ngliches und Bleibendes im\nChristentum_ (\u201cTransient and Permanent Elements in Christianity\u201d), which\nappeared again in the following year under the title _Friedliche Bl\u00e4tter_\n(\u201cLeaves of Peace\u201d).\n\nFor a moment it seemed as though his rehabilitation would be accomplished.\nIn January 1839 the noble\u2010minded Hitzig succeeded in getting him appointed\nto the vacant chair of dogmatics in Zurich. But the orthodox and pietist\nparties protested so vehemently that the Government was obliged to revoke\nthe appointment. Strauss was pensioned off, without ever entering on his\noffice.\n\nAbout that time his mother died. In 1841 he lost his father. When the\nestate came to be settled up, it was found that his affairs were in a less\nunsatisfactory condition than had been feared. Strauss was secure against\nwant. The success of his second great work, his \u201cChristian Theology\u201d\n(published in 1840\u201041), compensated him for his disappointment at Zurich.\nIn conception it is perhaps even greater than the Life of Jesus; and in\ndepth of thought it is to be classed with the most important contributions\nto theology. In spite of that it never attracted so much attention as the\nearlier work. Strauss continued to be known as the author of the Life of\nJesus. Any further ground of offence which he might give was regarded as\nquite subsidiary.\n\nAnd the book contains matter for offence in no common degree. The point to\nwhich Strauss applies his criticism is the way in which the Christian\ntheology which grew out of the ideas of the ancient world has been brought\ninto harmony with the Christianity of rationalism and of speculative\nphilosophy. Either, to use his own expression, both are so finely\npulverised in the process\u2014as in the case of Schleiermacher\u2019s combination\nof Spinozism with Christianity\u2014that it needs a sharp eye to rediscover the\nelements of the mixture; or the two are shaken together like water and\noil, in which case the semblance of combination is only maintained so long\nas the shaking continues. For this crude procedure he desires to\nsubstitute a better method, based upon a preliminary historical criticism\nof dogma, in order that thought may no longer have to deal with the\npresent form of Church theology, but with the ideas which worked as living\nforces in its formation.\n\nThis is brilliantly worked out in detail. The result is not a positive,\nbut a negative Hegelian theology. Religion is not concerned with supra\u2010\nmundane beings and a divinely glorious future, but with present spiritual\nrealities which appear as \u201cmoments\u201d in the eternal being and becoming of\nAbsolute Spirit. At the end of the second volume, where battle is joined\non the issue of personal immortality, all these ideas play their part in\nthe struggle. Personal immortality is finally rejected in every form, for\nthe critical reasons which Strauss had already set forth in the letters of\n1832. Immortality is not something which stretches out into the future,\nbut simply and solely the present quality of the spirit, its inner\nuniversality, its power of rising above everything finite to the Idea.\nHere the thought of Hegel coincides with that of Schleiermacher. \u201cThe\nsaying of Schleiermacher, \u2018In the midst of finitude to be one with the\nInfinite, and to be eternal in a moment,\u2019 is all that modern thought can\nsay about immortality.\u201d But neither Schleiermacher nor Hegel was willing\nto draw the natural inferences from their ultimate position, or at least\nthey did not give them any prominence.\n\nIt is not the application of the mythological explanation to the Gospel\nhistory which irrevocably divides Strauss from the theologians, but the\nquestion of personal immortality. It would be well for them if they had\nonly to deal with the Strauss of the Life of Jesus, and not with the\nthinker who posed this question with inexorable trenchancy. They might\nthen face the future more calmly, relieved of the anxiety lest once more\nHegel and Schleiermacher might rise up in some pious but critical spirit,\nnot to speak smooth things, but to ask the ultimate questions, and might\nforce theology to fight its battle with Strauss all over again.\n\nAt the very time when Strauss was beginning to breathe freely once more,\nhad turned his back upon all attempts at compromise, and reconciled\nhimself to giving up teaching; and when, after settling his father\u2019s\naffairs, he had the certainty of being secure against penury; at that very\ntime he sowed for himself the seeds of a new, immitigable suffering by his\nmarriage with Agnese Schebest, the famous singer.\n\nThey were not made for one another. He could not look to her for any\nsympathy with his plans, and she on her part was repelled by the pedantry\nof his disposition. Housekeeping difficulties and the trials of a limited\nincome added another element of discord. They removed to Sontheim near\nHeilbronn with the idea of learning to adapt themselves to one another far\nfrom the distractions of the town; but that did not better matters. They\nlived apart for a time, and after some years they procured a divorce,\ncustody of the children being assigned to the father. The lady took up her\nresidence in Stuttgart, and Strauss paid her an allowance up to her death\nin 1870.\n\nWhat he suffered may be read between the lines in the passage in \u201cThe Old\nFaith and the New\u201d where he speaks of the sacredness of marriage and the\nadmissibility of divorce. The wound bled inwardly. His mental powers were\ndisabled. At this time he wrote little. Only in the apologue \u201cJulian the\nApostate, or the Romanticist on the throne of the Caesars\u201d\u2014that brilliant\nsatire upon Frederic William IV., written in 1847\u2014is there a flash of the\nold spirit.\n\nBut in spite of his antipathy to the romantic disposition of the King of\nPrussia he entered the lists in 1848 on behalf of the efforts of the\nsmaller German states to form a united Germany, apart from Austria, under\nthe hegemony of Prussia. He did not suffer his political acumen to be\nblunted either by personal antipathies or by particularism. The citizens\nof Ludwigsburg wished to have him as their representative in the Frankfort\nparliament, but the rural population, who were pietistic in sympathies,\ndefeated his candidature. Instead, his native town sent him to the\nW\u00fcrtemberg Chamber of Deputies. But here his philistinism came to the fore\nagain. The phrase\u2010mongering revolutionary party in the chamber disgusted\nhim. He saw himself more and more forced to the \u201cright,\u201d and was obliged\nto act politically with men whose reactionary sympathies he was far from\nsharing. His constituents, meanwhile, were thoroughly discontented with\nhis attitude. In the end the position became intolerable. It was also\npainful to him to have to reside in Stuttgart, where he could not avoid\nmeeting the woman who had brought so much misery into his life. Further\u2014he\nhimself mentions this point in his memoirs\u2014he had no practice in speaking\nwithout manuscript, and cut a poor figure as a debater. Then came the\n\u201cBlum Case.\u201d Robert Blum, a revolutionary, had been shot by court martial\nin Vienna. The W\u00fcrtemberg Chamber desired to vote a public celebration of\nhis funeral. Strauss did not think there was any ground for making a hero\nof this agitator, merely because he had been shot, and was not inclined to\nblame the Austrian Government very severely for meting out summary justice\nto a disturber of the peace. His attitude brought on him a vote of censure\nfrom his constituents. When, subsequently, the President of the Chamber\ncalled him to order for asserting that a previous speaker had \u201cconcealed\nby sleight of hand\u201d (_wegeskamotiert_, \u201cjuggled away\u201d) an important point\nin the debate, he refused to accept the vote of censure, resigned his\nmembership, and ceased to attend the diets. As he himself put it, he\n\u201cjumped out of the boat.\u201d Then began a period of restless wandering,\nduring which he beguiled his time with literary work. He wrote, _inter\nalia_, upon Lessing, Hutten, and Reimarus, rediscovering the last\u2010named\nfor his fellow\u2010countrymen.\n\nAt the end of the \u2019sixties he returned once more to theology. His \u201cLife of\nJesus adapted for the German People\u201d appeared in 1864. In the preface he\nrefers to Renan, and freely acknowledges the great merits of his work.\n\nThe Prusso\u2010Austrian war placed him in a difficult position. His historical\ninsight made it impossible for him to share the particularism of his\nfriends; on the contrary, he recognised that the way was now being\nprepared for the realisation of his dream of 1848\u2014an alliance of the\nsmaller German States under the hegemony of Prussia. As he made no secret\nof his opinions, he had the bitter experience of receiving the cold\nshoulder from men who had hitherto loyally stood by him.\n\nIn the year 1870 it was granted to him to become the spokesman of the\nGerman people; through a publication on Voltaire which had appeared not\nlong before he had become acquainted with Renan. In a letter to Strauss,\nwritten after the first battles, Renan made a passing allusion to these\ngreat events. Strauss seized the opportunity to explain to him, in a\nvigorous \u201copen letter\u201d of the 12th of August, Germany\u2019s reason and\njustification for going to war. Receiving an answer from Renan, he then,\nin a second letter, of the 29th of September, took occasion to defend\nGermany\u2019s right to demand the cession of Alsace, not on the ground of its\nhaving formerly been German territory, but for the defence of her natural\nfrontiers. The resounding echo evoked by these words, inspired, as they\nwere, by the enthusiasm of the moment, compensated him for much of the\nobloquy which he had had to bear.\n\nHis last work, \u201cThe Old Faith and the New,\u201d appeared in 1872. Once more,\nas in the work on theology published in 1840\u20101841, he puts to himself the\nquestion, What is there of permanence in this artificial compound of\ntheology and philosophy, faith and thought? But he puts the question with\na certain bitterness, and shows himself too much under the influence of\nDarwinism, by which his mind was at that time dominated. The Hegelian\nsystem of thought, which served as a firm basis for the work of 1840, has\nfallen in ruins. Strauss is alone with his own thoughts, endeavouring to\nraise himself above the new scientific world\u2010view. His powers of thought,\nnever, for all his critical acumen, strong on the creative side, and now\nimpaired by age, were unequal to the task. There is no force and no\ngreatness in the book.\n\nTo the question, \u201cAre we still Christians?\u201d he answers, \u201cNo.\u201d But to his\nsecond question, \u201cHave we still a religion?\u201d he is prepared to give an\naffirmative answer, if the assumption is granted that the feeling of\ndependence, of self\u2010surrender, of inner freedom, which has sprung from the\npantheistic world\u2010view, can be called religion. But instead of developing\nthe idea of this deep inner freedom, and presenting religion in the form\nin which he had experienced it, he believes himself obliged to offer some\nnew construction based upon Darwinism, and sets himself to answer the two\nquestions, \u201cHow are we to understand the world?\u201d and \u201cHow are we to\nregulate our lives?\u201d\u2014the form of the latter is somewhat lacking in\ndistinction\u2014in a quite impersonal way. It is only the schoolmaster and\npedant in him\u2014who was always at the elbow of the thinker even in his\ngreatest works\u2014that finds expression here.\n\nIt was a dead book, in spite of the many editions which it went through,\nand the battle which raged over it was, like the fiercest of the Homeric\nbattles, a combat over the dead.\n\nThe theologians declared Strauss bankrupt, and felt themselves rich\nbecause they had made sure of not being ruined by a similar unimaginative\nhonesty. Friedrich Nietzsche, from the height of his would\u2010be\nSchopenhauerian pessimism, mocked at the fallen hero.\n\nBefore the year was out Strauss began to suffer from an internal ulcer.\nFor many months he bore his sufferings with quiet resignation and inner\nserenity, until on the 8th of February 1874, in his native town of\nLudwigsburg, death set him free.\n\nA few weeks earlier, on the 29th of December 1873, his sufferings and his\nthoughts received illuminating expression in the following poignant\nverses:\u2014\n\n\n    Wem ich dieses klage,\n    Weiss, ich klage nicht;\n    Der ich dieses sage,\n    F\u00fchlt, ich zage nicht.\n\n    Heute heisst\u2019s verglimmen,\n    Wie ein Licht verglimmt,\n    In die Luft verschwimmen,\n    Wie ein Ton verschwimmt.\n\n    M\u00f6ge schwach wie immer,\n    Aber hell und rein,\n    Dieser letzte Schimmer\n    Dieser Ton nur sein.(34)\n\n\nHe was buried on a stormy February day.\n\n\n\n\n\nVIII. STRAUSS\u2019S FIRST \u201cLIFE OF JESUS\u201d\n\n\n    First edition, 1835 and 1836. 2 vols. 1480 pp.\n    The second edition was unaltered.\n    Third edition, with alterations, 1838\u20101839.\n    Fourth edition, agreeing with the first, 1840.\n\n\nConsidered as a literary work, Strauss\u2019s first Life of Jesus is one of the\nmost perfect things in the whole range of learned literature. In over\nfourteen hundred pages he has not a superfluous phrase; his analysis\ndescends to the minutest details, but he does not lose his way among them;\nthe style is simple and picturesque, sometimes ironical, but always\ndignified and distinguished.\n\nIn regard to the application of the mythological explanation to Holy\nScripture, Strauss points out that De Wette, Eichhorn, Gabler, and others\nof his predecessors had long ago freely applied it to the Old Testament,\nand that various attempts had been made to portray the life of Jesus in\naccordance with the critical assumptions upon which his undertaking was\nbased. He mentions especially Usteri as one who had helped to prepare the\nway for him. The distinction between Strauss and those who had preceded\nhim upon this path consists only in this, that prior to him the conception\nof myth was neither truly grasped nor consistently applied. Its\napplication was confined to the account of Jesus\u2019 coming into the world\nand of His departure from it, while the real kernel of the evangelical\ntradition\u2014the sections from the Baptism to the Resurrection\u2014was left\noutside the field of its application. Myth formed, to use Strauss\u2019s\nillustration, the lofty gateways at the entrance to, and at the exit from,\nthe Gospel history; between these two lofty gateways lay the narrow and\ncrooked streets of the naturalistic explanation.\n\nThe principal obstacle, Strauss continues, which barred the way to a\ncomprehensive application of myth, consisted in the supposition that two\nof our Gospels, Matthew and John, were reports of eyewitnesses; and a\nfurther difficulty was the offence caused by the word myth, owing to its\nassociations with the heathen mythology. But that any of our Evangelists\nwas an eyewitness, or stood in such relations with eyewitnesses as to make\nthe intrusion of myth unthinkable, is a thesis which there is no extant\nevidence sufficient to prove. Even though the earthly life of the Lord\nfalls within historic times, and even if only a generation be assumed to\nhave elapsed between His death and the composition of the Gospels; such a\nperiod would be sufficient to allow the historical material to become\nintermixed with myth. No sooner is a great man dead than legend is busy\nwith his life.\n\nThen, too, the offence of the word myth disappears for any one who has\ngained an insight into the essential character of religious myth. It is\nnothing else than the clothing in historic form of religious ideas, shaped\nby the unconsciously inventive power of legend, and embodied in a historic\npersonality. Even on a priori grounds we are almost compelled to assume\nthat the historic Jesus will meet us in the garb of old Testament\nMessianic ideas and primitive Christian expectations.\n\nThe main distinction between Strauss and his predecessors consisted in the\nfact that they asked themselves anxiously how much of the historical life\nof Jesus would remain as a foundation for religion if they dared to apply\nthe conception of myth consistently, while for him this question had no\nterrors. He claims in his preface that he possessed one advantage over all\nthe critical and learned theologians of his time without which nothing can\nbe accomplished in the domain of history\u2014the inner emancipation of thought\nand feeling in regard to certain religious and dogmatic prepossessions\nwhich he had early attained as a result of his philosophic studies.\nHegel\u2019s philosophy had set him free, giving him a clear conception of the\nrelationship of idea and reality, leading him to a higher plane of\nChristological speculation, and opening his eyes to the mystic\ninterpenetration of finitude and infinity, God and man.\n\nGod\u2010manhood, the highest idea conceived by human thought, is actually\nrealised in the historic personality of Jesus. But while conventional\nthinking supposes that this phenomenal realisation must be perfect, true\nthought, which has attained by genuine critical reasoning to a higher\nfreedom, knows that no idea can realise itself perfectly on the historic\nplane, and that its truth does not depend on the proof of its having\nreceived perfect external representation, but that its perfection comes\nabout through that which the idea carries into history, or through the way\nin which history is sublimated into idea. For this reason it is in the\nlast analysis indifferent to what extent God\u2010manhood has been realised in\nthe person of Jesus; the important thing is that the idea is now alive in\nthe common consciousness of those who have been prepared to receive it by\nits manifestation in sensible form, and of whose thought and imagination\nthat historical personality took such complete possession, that for them\nthe unity of Godhood and manhood assumed in Him enters into the common\nconsciousness, and the \u201cmoments\u201d which constitute the outward course of\nHis life reproduce themselves in them in a spiritual fashion.\n\nA purely historical presentation of the life of Jesus was in that first\nperiod wholly impossible; what was operative was a creative reminiscence\nacting under the impulse of the idea which the personality of Jesus had\ncalled to life among mankind. And this idea of God\u2010manhood, the\nrealisation of which in every personality is the ultimate goal of\nhumanity, is the eternal reality in the Person of Jesus, which no\ncriticism can destroy.\n\nHowever far criticism may go in proving the reaction of the idea upon the\npresentment of the historical course of the life of Jesus, the fact that\nJesus represented that idea and called it to life among mankind is\nsomething real, something that no criticism can annul. It is alive\nthenceforward\u2014to this day, and for ever more.\n\nIt is in this emancipation of spirit, and in the consciousness that Jesus\nas the creator of the religion of humanity is beyond the reach of\ncriticism, that Strauss goes to work, and batters down the rubble, assured\nthat his pick can make no impression on the stone. He sees evidence that\nthe time has come for this undertaking in the condition of exhaustion\nwhich characterised contemporary theology. The supernaturalistic\nexplanation of the events of the life of Jesus had been followed by the\nrationalistic, the one making everything supernatural, the other setting\nitself to make all the events intelligible as natural occurrences. Each\nhad said all that it had to say. From their opposition now arises a new\nsolution\u2014the mythological interpretation. This is a characteristic example\nof the Hegelian method\u2014the _synthesis_ of a _thesis_ represented by the\nsupernaturalistic explanation with an _antithesis_ represented by the\nrationalistic interpretation.\n\nStrauss\u2019s Life of Jesus is, therefore, like Schleiermacher\u2019s, the product\nof antithetic conceptions. But whereas in the latter the antitheses\nDocetism and Ebionism are simply limiting conceptions, between which his\nview is statically suspended, the synthesis with which Strauss operates\nrepresents a composition of forces, of which his view is the dynamic\nresultant. The dialectic is in the one case descriptive, in the other\ncreative. This Hegelian dialectic determines the method of the work. Each\nincident of the life of Jesus is considered separately; first as\nsupernaturally explained, and then as rationalistically explained, and the\none explanation is refuted by the other. \u201cBy this means,\u201d says Strauss in\nhis preface, \u201cthe incidental advantage is secured that the work is fitted\nto serve as a repertory of the leading views and discussions of all parts\nof the Gospel history.\u201d\n\nIn every case the whole range of representative opinions is reviewed.\nFinally the forced interpretations necessitated by the naturalistic\nexplanation of the narrative under discussion drives the reader back upon\nthe supernaturalistic. That had been recognised by Hase and\nSchleiermacher, and they had felt themselves obliged to make a place for\ninexplicable supernatural elements alongside of the historic elements of\nthe life of Jesus. Contemporaneously there had sprung up in all directions\nnew attempts to return by the aid of a mystical philosophy to the\nsupernaturalistic point of view of our forefathers. But in these Strauss\nrecognises only the last desperate efforts to make the past present and to\nconceive the inconceivable; and in direct opposition to the reactionary\nineptitudes by means of which critical theology was endeavouring to work\nits way out of rationalism, he sets up the hypothesis that these\ninexplicable elements are mythical.\n\nIn the stories prior to the baptism, everything is myth. The narratives\nare woven on the pattern of Old Testament prototypes, with modifications\ndue to Messianic or messianically interpreted passages. Since Jesus and\nthe Baptist came into contact with one another later, it is felt necessary\nto represent their parents as having been connected. The attempts to\nconstruct Davidic genealogies for Jesus, show us that there was a period\nin the formation of the Gospel History during which the Lord was simply\nregarded as the son of Joseph and Mary, otherwise genealogical studies of\nthis kind would not have been undertaken. Even in the story of the twelve\u2010\nyear\u2010old Jesus in the temple, there is scarcely more than a trace of\nhistorical material.\n\nIn the narrative of the baptism we may take it as certainly unhistorical\nthat the Baptist received a revelation of the Messianic dignity of Jesus,\notherwise he could not later have come to doubt this. Whether his message\nto Jesus is historical must be left an open question; its possibility\ndepends on whether the nature of his confinement admitted of such\ncommunication with the outer world. Might not a natural reluctance to\nallow the Baptist to depart this life without at least a dawning\nrecognition of the Messiahship of Jesus have here led to the insertion of\na legendary trait into the tradition? If so, the historical residuum would\nbe that Jesus was for a time one of the adherents of the Baptist, and was\nbaptized by him, and that He soon afterwards appeared in Galilee with the\nsame message which John had proclaimed, and even when He had outgrown his\ninfluence, never ceased to hold John in high esteem, as is shown by the\neulogy which He pronounced upon him. But if the baptism of John was a\nbaptism of repentance with a view to \u201chim who was to come,\u201d Jesus cannot\nhave held Himself to be sinless when He submitted to it. Otherwise we\nshould have to suppose that He did it merely for appearance\u2019 sake. Whether\nit was in the moment of the baptism that the consciousness of His\nMessiahship dawned upon Him, we cannot tell. This only is certain, that\nthe conception of Jesus as having been endowed with the Spirit at His\nbaptism, was independent of, and earlier than, that other conception which\nheld Him to have been supernaturally born of the Spirit. We have,\ntherefore, in the Synoptists several different strata of legend and\nnarrative, which in some cases intersect and in some are superimposed one\nupon the other.\n\nThe story of the temptation is equally unsatisfactory, whether it be\ninterpreted as supernatural, or as symbolical either of an inward struggle\nor of external events (as for example in Venturini\u2019s interpretation of it,\nwhere the part of the Tempter is played by a Pharisee); it is simply\nprimitive Christian legend, woven together out of Old Testament\nsuggestions.\n\nThe call of the first disciples cannot have happened as it is narrated,\nwithout their having known anything of Jesus beforehand; the manner of the\ncall is modelled upon the call of Elisha by Elijah. The further legend\nattached to it\u2014Peter\u2019s miraculous draught of fishes\u2014has arisen out of the\nsaying about \u201cfishers of men,\u201d and the same idea is reflected, at a\ndifferent angle of refraction, in John xxi. The mission of the seventy is\nunhistorical.\n\nWhether the cleansing of the temple is historical, or whether it arose out\nof a Messianic application of the text, \u201cMy house shall be called a house\nof prayer,\u201d cannot be determined. The difficulty of forming a clear idea\nof the circumstances is not easily to be removed. How freely the\nhistorical material has been worked up, is seen in the groups of stories\nwhich have grown out of a single incident; as, for example, the anointing\nof Jesus at Bethany by an unknown woman, out of which Luke has made an\nanointing by a penitent sinner, and John an anointing by Mary of Bethany.\n\nAs regards the healings, some of them are certainly historical, but not in\nthe form in which tradition has preserved them. The recognition of Jesus\nas Messiah by the demons immediately arouses suspicion. It is doubtless\nrather to be ascribed to the tendency which grew up later to represent Him\nas receiving, in His Messianic character, homage even from the world of\nevil spirits, than to any advantage in respect of clearness of insight\nwhich distinguished the mentally deranged, in comparison with their\ncontemporaries. The cure of the demoniac in the synagogue at Capernaum may\nwell be historical, but, in other cases, the procedure is so often raised\ninto the region of the miraculous that a psychical influence of Jesus upon\nthe sufferer no longer suffices to explain it; the creative activity of\nlegend must have come in to confuse the account of what really happened.\n\nOne cure has sometimes given rise to three or four narratives. Sometimes\nwe can still recognise the influences which have contributed to mould a\nstory. When, for example, the disciples are unable to heal the lunatic boy\nduring Jesus\u2019 absence on the Mount of Transfiguration, we are reminded of\n2 Kings iv., where Elisha\u2019s servant Gehazi tries in vain to bring the dead\nboy to life by using the staff of the prophet. The immediate healing of\nleprosy has its prototype in the story of Naaman the Syrian. The story of\nthe ten lepers shows so clearly a didactic tendency that its historic\nvalue is thereby rendered doubtful.\n\nThe cures of blindness all go back to the case of the blind man at\nJericho. But who can say how far this is itself historical? The cures of\nparalytics, too, belong rather to the equipment of the Messiah than to\nhistory. The cures through touching clothes, and the healings at a\ndistance, have myth written on their foreheads. The fact is, the Messiah\nmust equal, nay, surpass, the deeds of the prophets. That is why raisings\nfrom the dead figure among His miracles.\n\nThe nature miracles, over a collection of which Strauss puts the heading\n\u201cSea\u2010Stories and Fish\u2010Stories,\u201d have a much larger admixture of the\nmythical. His opponents took him severely to task for this irreverent\nsuperscription.\n\nThe repetition of the story of the feeding of the multitude arouses\nsuspicion regarding the credibility of what is narrated, and at once\ninvalidates the hypothesis of the apostolic authorship of the Gospel of\nMatthew. Moreover, the incident was so naturally suggested by Old\nTestament examples that it would have been a miracle if such a story had\nnot found its way into the Life of Jesus. An explanation on the analogy of\nan expedited process of nature, is here, as in the case of the miracle at\nCana also, to be absolutely rejected. Strauss allows it to be laughed out\nof court. The cursing of the fig\u2010tree and its fulfilment go back in some\nway or other to a parable of Jesus, which was afterwards made into\nhistory.\n\nMore important than the miracles heretofore mentioned are those which have\nto do with Jesus Himself and mark the crises of His history. The\ntransfiguration had to find a place in the life of Jesus, because of the\nshining of Moses\u2019 countenance. In dealing with the narratives of the\nresurrection it is evident that we must distinguish two different strata\nof legend, an older one, represented by Matthew, which knew only of\nappearances in Galilee, and a later, in which the Galilaean appearances\nare excluded in favour of appearances in Jerusalem. In both cases,\nhowever, the narratives are mythical. In any attempt to explain them we\nare forced on one horn of the dilemma or the other\u2014if the resurrection was\nreal, the death was not real, and vice versa. That the ascension is a myth\nis self\u2010evident.\n\nSuch, and so radical, are the results at which Strauss\u2019s criticism of the\nsupernaturalistic and the rationalistic explanations of the life of Jesus\nultimately arrives.\n\nIn reading Strauss\u2019s discussions one is not so much struck with their\nradical character, because of the admirable dialectic skill with which he\nshows the total impossibility of any explanation which does not take\naccount of myth. On the whole, the supernaturalistic explanation, which at\nleast represents the plain sense of the narratives, comes off much better\nthan the rationalistic, the artificiality of which is everywhere\nremorselessly exposed.\n\nThe sections which we have summarised are far from having lost their\nsignificance at the present day. They marked out the ground which is now\noccupied by modern critical study. And they filled in the death\u2010\ncertificates of a whole series of explanations which, at first sight, have\nall the air of being alive, but are not really so. If these continue to\nhaunt present\u2010day theology, it is only as ghosts, which can be put to\nflight by simply pronouncing the name of David Friedrich Strauss, and\nwhich would long ago have ceased to \u201cwalk,\u201d if the theologians who regard\nStrauss\u2019s book as obsolete would only take the trouble to read it.\n\nThe results so far considered do not represent the elements of the life of\nJesus which Strauss was prepared to accept as historical. He sought to\nmake the boundaries of the mythical embrace the widest possible area; and\nit is clear that he extended them too far.\n\nFor one thing, he overestimates the importance of the Old Testament\nmotives in reference to the creative activity of the legend. He does not\nsee that while in many cases he has shown clearly enough the source of the\n_form_ of the narrative in question, this does not suffice to explain its\n_origin_. Doubtless, there is mythical material in the story of the\nfeeding of the multitude. But the existence of the story is not explained\nby referring to the manna in the desert, or the miraculous feeding of a\nmultitude by Elisha.(35) The story in the Gospel has far too much\nindividuality for that, and stands, moreover, in much too closely\narticulated an historical connexion. It must have as its basis some\nhistorical fact. It is not a myth, though there is myth in it. Similarly\nwith the account of the transfiguration. The substratum of historical fact\nin the life of Jesus is much more extensive than Strauss is prepared to\nadmit. Sometimes he fails to see the foundations, because he proceeds like\nan explorer who, in working on the ruins of an Assyrian city, should cover\nup the most valuable evidence with the rubbish thrown out from another\nportion of the excavations.\n\nAgain, he sometimes rules out statements by assuming their impossibility\non purely dialectical grounds, or by playing off the narratives one\nagainst another. The Baptist\u2019s message to Jesus is a case in point. This\nis connected with the fact that he often fails to realise the strong\nconfirmation which the narratives derive from their connexion with the\npreceding and following context.\n\nThat, however, was only to be expected. Who ever discovered a true\nprinciple without pressing its application too far?\n\nWhat really alarmed his contemporaries was not so much the comprehensive\napplication of the mythical theory, as the general mining and sapping\noperations which they were obliged to see brought to bear upon the\nGospels.\n\nIn section after section Strauss cross\u2010examines the reports on every\npoint, down to the minutest detail, and then pronounces in what proportion\nan alloy of myth enters into each of them. In every case the decision is\nunfavourable to the Gospel of John. Strauss was the first to take this\nview. It is true that, at the end of the eighteenth century, many doubts\nas to the authenticity of this Gospel had been expressed, and\nBretschneider, the famous General Superintendent at Gotha (1776\u20101848), had\nmade a tentative collection of them in his _Probabilia_.(36) The essay\nmade some stir at the time. But Schleiermacher threw the aegis of his\nauthority over the authenticity of the Gospel, and it was the favourite\nGospel of the rationalists because it contained fewer miracles than the\nothers. Bretschneider himself declared that he had been brought to a\nbetter opinion through the controversy.\n\nAfter this episode the Johannine question had been shelved for fifteen\nyears. The excitement was, therefore, all the greater when Strauss\nreopened the discussion. He was opposing a dogma of critical theology,\nwhich, even at the present day, is wont to defend its dogmas with a\ntenacity beyond that of the Church itself.\n\nThe luminous haze of apparent circumstantiality which had hitherto\nprevented men from recognising the true character of this Gospel is\ncompletely dissipated. Strauss shows that the Johannine representation of\nthe life of Jesus is dominated by a theory, and that its portraiture shows\nthe further development of the tendencies which are perceptible even in\nthe Synoptists. He shows this, for example, in the case of the Johannine\nnarrative of the baptism of Jesus, in which critics had hitherto seen the\nmost credible account of what occurred, pointing out that it is just in\nthis pseudo\u2010simplicity that the process of bringing Jesus and the Baptist\ninto the closest possible relations reaches its limit. Similarly, in\nregard to the call of the first disciples, it is, according to Strauss, a\nlater postulate that they came from the Baptist\u2019s following and were\nbrought by him to the Lord. Strauss does not scruple even to assert that\nJohn introduces imaginary characters. If this Gospel relates fewer\nmiracles, the miracles which it retains are proportionately greater; so\ngreat, indeed, that their absolutely miraculous character is beyond the\nshadow of doubt; and, moreover, a moral or symbolical significance is\nadded.\n\nHere, therefore, it is no longer the unconscious action of legend which\nselects, creates, or groups the incidents, but a clearly\u2010determined\napologetic and dogmatic purpose.\n\nThe question regarding the different representations of the locality and\nchronology of the life of Jesus, had always been decided, prior to\nStrauss, in favour of the Fourth Gospel. De Wette makes it an argument\nagainst the genuineness of Matthew\u2019s Gospel that it mistakenly confines\nthe ministry of Jesus to Galilee. Strauss refuses to decide the question\nby simply weighing the chronological and geographical statements one\nagainst the other, lest he should be as one\u2010sided in his own way as the\ndefenders of the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel were in theirs. On this\npoint, he contents himself with remarking that if Jesus had really taught\nin Jerusalem on several occasions, it is absolutely unintelligible how all\nknowledge of this could have so completely disappeared from the Synoptic\ntradition; for His going up to the Passover at which He met His death is\nthere represented as His sole journey to Jerusalem. On the other hand, it\nis quite conceivable that if Jesus had only once been in Jerusalem there\nwould be a tendency for legend gradually to make several journeys out of\nthis one, on the natural assumption that He regularly went up to the\nFeasts, and that He would proclaim His Gospel not merely in the remote\nprovince, but also in the capital.\n\nFrom the triumphal entry to the resurrection, the difference between the\nSynoptic and Johannine narratives is so great that all attempts to\nharmonise them are to be rejected. How are we to reconcile the statement\nof the Synoptists that the ovation at the triumphal entry was offered by\nGalilaeans who accompanied him, with that of John, according to which it\nwas offered by a multitude from Jerusalem which came out to welcome\nJesus\u2014who, moreover, according to John, was not coming from Galilee and\nJericho\u2014and escorted Him into the city. To suppose that there were two\ndifferent triumphal entries is absurd.\n\nBut the decision between John and the Synoptists is not based solely upon\ntheir representation of the facts; the decisive consideration is found in\nthe ideas by which they are respectively dominated. John represents a more\nadvanced stage of the mythopoeic process, inasmuch as he has substituted\nfor the Jewish Messianic conception, the Greek metaphysical conception of\nthe Divine Sonship, and, on the basis of his acquaintance with the\nAlexandrian Logos doctrine, even makes Jesus apply to Himself the Greek\nspeculative conception of pre\u2010existence. The writer is aware of an already\nexisting danger from the side of a Gnostic docetism, and has himself an\napologetic Christology to propound, thus fighting the Gnostics as a\nGnostic of another kind. That he is free from eschatological conceptions\nis not, from the historical point of view, an advantage, but very much the\nreverse. He is not unacquainted with eschatology, but deliberately\ntransforms it, endeavouring to substitute for the expectation of the\nSecond Coming of Christ, as an external event of the future, the thought\nof His inward presence.\n\nThe most decisive evidence of all is found in the farewell discourses and\nin the absence of all mention of the spiritual struggle in Gethsemane. The\nintention here is to show that Jesus not only had a foreknowledge of His\ndeath, but had long overcome it in anticipation, and went to meet His\ntragic fate with perfect inward serenity. That, however, is no historical\nnarrative, but the final stage of reverent idealisation.\n\nThe question is decided. The Gospel of John is inferior to the Synoptics\nas a historical source just in proportion as it is more strongly dominated\nthan they by theological and apologetic interests. It is true that the\nassignment of the dominant motives is for Strauss\u2019s criticism mainly a\nmatter of conjecture. He cannot define in detail the attitude and tendency\nof this Gospel, because the development of dogma in the second century was\nstill to a great extent obscure. He himself admits that it was only\nsubsequently, through the labours of Baur, that the positions which he had\ntaken up in 1835 were rendered impregnable. And yet it is true to say that\nJohannine study has added in principle nothing new to what was said by\nStrauss. He recognised the decisive point. With critical acumen he\nresigned the attempt to base a decision on a comparison of the historical\ndata, and allowed the theological character of the two lines of tradition\nto determine the question. Unless this is done the debate is endless, for\nan able man who has sworn allegiance to John will always find a thousand\nways in which the Johannine data can be reconciled with those of the\nSynoptists, and is finally prepared to stake his life upon the exact point\nat which the missing account of the institution of the Lord\u2019s Supper must\nbe inserted into the narrative.\n\nThis changed estimate of John carries with it a reversal of the order in\nwhich the Gospels are supposed to have originated. Instead of John, Luke,\nMatthew, we have Matthew, Luke, and John\u2014the first is last, and the last\nfirst. Strauss\u2019s unsophisticated instinct freed Matthew from the\nhumiliating vassalage to which Schleiermacher\u2019s aesthetic had consigned\nhim. The practice of differentiating between John and the Synoptists,\nwhich in the hands of Schleiermacher and Hase had been an elegant\namusement, now received unexpected support, and it at last became possible\nfor the study of the life of Jesus to go forward.\n\nBut no sooner had Strauss opened up the way than he closed it again, by\nrefusing to admit the priority of Mark. His attitude towards this Gospel\nat once provokes opposition. For him Mark is an epitomising narrator, a\nmere satellite of Matthew with no independent light. His terse and graphic\nstyle makes on Strauss an impression of artificiality. He refuses to\nbelieve this Evangelist when he says that on the first day at Capernaum\n\u201cthe whole town\u201d (Mark i. 33) came together before Peter\u2019s door, and that,\non other occasions (Mark iii. 20, vi. 31), the press was so great that\nJesus and His disciples had no leisure so much as to eat. \u201cAll very\nimprobable traits,\u201d he remarks, \u201cthe absence of which in Matthew is\nentirely to his advantage, for what else are they than legendary\nexaggerations?\u201d In this criticism he is at one with Schleiermacher, who in\nhis essay on Luke(37) speaks of the unreal vividness of Mark \u201cwhich often\ngives his Gospel an almost apocryphal aspect.\u201d\n\nThis prejudice against Mark has a twofold cause. In the first place, this\nGospel with its graphic details had rendered great service to the\nrationalistic explanation of miracle. Its description of the cure of the\nblind man at Bethsaida (Mark viii. 22\u201026)\u2014whose eyes Jesus first anointed\nwith spittle, whereupon he at first saw things dimly, and then, after he\nhad felt the touch of the Lord\u2019s hand upon his eyes a second time, saw\nmore clearly\u2014was a veritable treasure\u2010trove for rationalism. As Strauss is\ndisposed to deal much more peremptorily with the rationalists than with\nthe supernaturalists, he puts Mark upon his trial, as their accessory\nbefore the fact, and pronounces upon him a judgment which is not entirely\nunprejudiced. Moreover, it is not until the Gospels are looked at from the\npoint of view of the plan of the history and the inner connexion of events\nthat the superiority of Mark is clearly realised. But this way of looking\nat the matter does not enter into Strauss\u2019s purview. On the contrary, he\ndenies that there is any traceable connexion of events at all, and\nconfines his attention to determining the proportion of myth in the\ncontent of each separate narrative.\n\nOf the Synoptic question he does not, strictly speaking, take any account.\nThat was partly due to the fact that when he wrote it was in a thoroughly\nunsatisfactory position. There was a confused welter of the most various\nhypotheses. The priority of Mark, which had had earlier champions in\nKoppe,(38) Storr,(39) Gratz,(40) and Herder,(41) was now maintained by\nCredner and Lachmann, who saw in Matthew a combination of the logia\u2010\ndocument with Mark. The \u201cprimitive Gospel\u201d hypothesis of Eichhorn,\naccording to which the first three Gospels went back to a common source,\nnot identical with any of them, had become somewhat discredited. There had\nbeen much discussion and various modifications of Griesbach\u2019s \u201cdependence\ntheory,\u201d according to which Mark was pieced together out of Matthew and\nLuke, and Schleiermacher\u2019s _Diegesentheorie_,(42) which saw the primary\nmaterial not in a gospel, but in unconnected notes; from these,\ncollections of narrative passages were afterwards formed, which in the\npost\u2010apostolic period coalesced into continuous descriptions of the life\nof Jesus such as the three which have been preserved in our Synoptic\nGospels.\n\nIn this matter Strauss is a sceptical eclectic. In the main he may be said\nto combine Griesbach\u2019s theory of the secondary origin of Mark with\nSchleiermacher\u2019s _Diegesentheorie_, the latter answering to his method of\ntreating the sections separately. But whereas Schleiermacher had used the\nplan of John\u2019s Gospel as a framework into which to fit the independent\nnarratives, Strauss\u2019s rejection of the Fourth Gospel left him without any\nmeans of connecting the sections. He makes a point, indeed, of sharply\nemphasising this want of connexion; and it was just this that made his\nwork appear so extreme.\n\nThe Synoptic discourses, like the Johannine, are composite structures,\ncreated by later tradition out of sayings which originally belonged to\ndifferent times and circumstances, arranged under certain leading ideas so\nas to form connected discourses. The sermon on the mount, the discourse at\nthe sending forth of the twelve, the great parable\u2010discourse, the polemic\nagainst the Pharisees, have all been gradually formed like geological\ndeposits. So far as the original juxtaposition may be supposed to have\nbeen here and there preserved, Matthew is doubtless the most trustworthy\nauthority for it. \u201cFrom the comparison which we have been making,\u201d says\nStrauss in one passage, \u201cwe can already see that the hard grit of these\nsayings of Jesus (_die k\u00f6rnigen Reden Jesu_) has not indeed been dissolved\nby the flood of oral tradition, but they have often been washed away from\ntheir original position and like rolling pebbles (_Ger\u00f6lle_) have been\ndeposited in places to which they do not properly belong.\u201d(43) And,\nmoreover, we find this distinction between the first three Evangelists,\nviz. that Matthew is a skilful collector who, while he is far from having\nbeen able always to give the original connexion, has at least known how to\nbring related passages aptly together, whereas in the other two many\nfragmentary sayings have been left exactly where chance had deposited\nthem, which was generally in the interstices between the larger masses of\ndiscourse. Luke, indeed, has in some cases made an effort to give them an\nartistic setting, which is, however, by no means a satisfactory substitute\nfor the natural connexion.\n\nIt is in his criticism of the parables that Strauss is most extreme. He\nstarts out from the assumption that they have mutually influenced one\nanother, and that those which may possibly be genuine have only been\npreserved in a secondary form. In the parable of the marriage supper of\nthe king\u2019s son, for example, he confidently assumes that the conduct of\nthe invited guests, who finally ill\u2010treated and slew the messengers, and\nthe question why the guest is not wearing a wedding\u2010garment are secondary\nfeatures.\n\nHow external he supposes the connexion of the narratives to be is clear\nfrom the way in which he explains the juxtaposition of the story of the\ntransfiguration with the \u201cdiscourse while descending the mountain.\u201d They\nhave, he says, really nothing to do with one another. The disciples on one\noccasion asked Jesus about the coming of Elijah as forerunner; Elijah also\nappears in the story of the transfiguration: accordingly tradition simply\ngrouped the transfiguration and the discourse together under the heading\n\u201cElijah,\u201d and, later on, manufactured a connexion between them.\n\nThe tendency of the work to purely critical analysis, the ostentatious\navoidance of any positive expression of opinion, and not least, the manner\nof regarding the Synoptists as mere bundles of narratives and discourses,\nmake it difficult\u2014indeed, strictly speaking, impossible\u2014to determine\nStrauss\u2019s own distinctive conception of the life of Jesus, to discover\nwhat he really thinks is moving behind the curtain of myth. According to\nthe view taken in regard to this point his work becomes either a negative\nor a positive life of Jesus. There are, for instance, a number of\nincidental remarks which contain the suggestion of a positive construction\nof the life of Jesus. If they were taken out of their context and brought\ntogether they would yield a picture which would have points of contact\nwith the latest eschatological view. Strauss, however, deliberately\nrestricts his positive suggestions to these few detached remarks. He\nfollows out no line to its conclusion. Each separate problem is indeed\nconsidered, and light is thrown upon it from various quarters with much\ncritical skill. But he will not venture on a solution of any of them.\nSometimes, when he thinks he has gone too far in the way of positive\nsuggestion, he deliberately wipes it all out again with some expression of\nscepticism.\n\nAs to the duration of the ministry he will not even offer a vague\nconjecture. As to the connexion of certain events, nothing can, according\nto him, be known, since the Johannine outline cannot be accepted and the\nSynoptists arrange everything with an eye to analogies and association of\nideas, though they flattered themselves that they were giving a\nchronologically arranged narrative. From the contents of the narratives,\nhowever, and from the monotonous recurrence of certain formulae of\nconnexion, it is evident that no clear view of an organically connected\nwhole can be assumed to be present in their work. We have no fixed points\nto enable us to reconstruct even in a measure the chronological order.\n\nEspecially interesting is his discussion of the title \u201cSon of Man.\u201d In the\nsaying \u201cthe Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath day\u201d (Matt. xii. 8),\nthe expression might, according to Strauss, simply denote \u201cman.\u201d In other\npassages one gets the impression that Jesus spoke of the Son of Man as a\nsupernatural person, quite distinct from Himself, but identified with the\nMessiah. This is the most natural explanation of the passage in Matt. x.\n23, where he promises the disciples, in sending them forth, that they\nshall not have gone over the cities of Israel before the Son of Man shall\ncome. Here Jesus speaks of the Messiah as if He Himself were his\nforerunner. These sayings would, therefore, fall in the first period,\nbefore He knew Himself to be the Messiah. Strauss does not suspect the\nsignificance of this incidental remark; it contains the germ of the\nsolution of the problem of the Son of Man on the lines of Johannes Weiss.\nBut immediately scepticism triumphs again. How can we tell, asks Strauss,\nwhere the title Son of Man is genuine in the sayings of Jesus, and where\nit has been inserted without special significance, merely from habit?\n\nNot less insoluble, in his opinion, is the question regarding the point of\ntime at which Jesus claimed the Messianic dignity for Himself. \u201cWhereas in\nJohn,\u201d Strauss remarks, \u201cJesus remains constant in His avowal, his\ndisciples and followers constant in their conviction, that He is the\nMessiah; in the Synoptics, on the other hand, there are, so to speak,\nrelapses to be observed; so that, in the case of the disciples and the\npeople generally, the conviction of Jesus\u2019 Messiahship expressed on\nearlier occasions, sometimes, in the course of the narrative, disappears\nagain and gives place to a much lower view of Him; and even Jesus Himself,\nin comparison with His earlier unambiguous declaration, is more reserved\non later occasions.\u201d The account of the confession of the Messiahship at\nCaesarea Philippi, where Jesus pronounces Peter blessed because of his\nconfession, and at the same time forbids the Twelve to speak of it, is\nunintelligible, since according to this same Gospel His Messiahship had\nbeen mooted by the disciples on several previous occasions, and had been\nacknowledged by the demoniacs. The Synoptists, therefore, contradict\nthemselves. Then there are the further cases in which Jesus forbids the\nmaking known of His Messiahship, without any reason whatever. It would, no\ndoubt, be historically possible to assume that it only gradually dawned\nupon Him that He was the Messiah\u2014in any case not until after His baptism\nby John, as otherwise He would have to be supposed to have made a pretence\nupon that occasion\u2014and that as often as the thought that He might be the\nMessiah was aroused in others by something that occurred, and was\nsuggested to Him from without, He was immediately alarmed at hearing\nspoken, aloud and definitely, that which He Himself had scarcely dared to\ncherish as a possibility, or in regard to which He had only lately\nattained to a clear conviction.\n\nFrom these suggestions one thing is evident, namely, that for Strauss the\nMessianic consciousness of Jesus was an historical fact, and is not to be\nreferred, as has sometimes been supposed, to myth. To assert that Strauss\ndissolved the life of Jesus into myth is, in fact, an absurdity which,\nhowever often it may be repeated by people who have not read his book, or\nhave read it only superficially, does not become any the less absurd by\nrepetition.\n\nTo come to detail, Jesus thought of His Messiahship, according to Strauss,\nin the form that He, although of human parentage, should after His earthly\nlife be taken up into heaven, and thence should come again to bring in His\nKingdom. \u201cAs, moreover, in the higher Jewish theology, immediately after\nthe time of Jesus, the idea of the pre\u2010existence of the Messiah was\npresent, the conjecture naturally suggests itself that it was also present\nat the time when Jesus\u2019 thoughts were being formed, and that consequently,\nif He once began to think of Himself as the Messiah, He might also have\nreferred to Himself this feature of the Messianic conception. Whether\nJesus had been initiated, as Paul was, into the wisdom of the schools in\nsuch a way that He could draw this conception from it, is no doubt open to\nquestion.\u201d\n\nIn his treatment of the eschatology Strauss makes a valiant effort to\nescape from the dilemma \u201c_either_ spiritual _or_ political\u201d in regard to\nthe Messianic plans of Jesus, and to make the eschatological expectation\nintelligible as one which did not set its hopes upon human aid, but on\nDivine intervention. This is one of the most important contributions to a\nreal understanding of the eschatological problem. Sometimes one almost\nseems to be reading Johannes Weiss; as, for example, when Strauss explains\nthat Jesus could promise His followers that they should sit on thrones\nwithout thinking of a political revolution, because He expected a reversal\nof present conditions to be brought about by God, and referred this\njudicial authority and kingly rule to the time of the \u03c0\u03b1\u03bb\u03b9\u03b3\u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03b5\u03c3\u03af\u03b1.\n\u201cJesus, therefore, certainly expected to restore the throne of David, and,\nwith His disciples, to rule over a people freed from political bondage,\nbut in this expectation He did not set His hopes on the sword of human\nfollowers (Luke xxii. 38, Matt. xxvi. 52), but upon the legions of angels\nwhich His heavenly Father could give Him (Matt. xxvi. 53). When He speaks\nof the coming of His Messianic glory, it is with angels and heavenly\npowers that He surrounds Himself (Matt. xvi. 27, xxiv. 30 ff., xxv. 31).\nBefore the majesty of the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven the\nnations will submit without striking a blow, and at the sound of the\nangel\u2019s trumpet\u2010blast will, with the dead who shall then arise, range\nthemselves before Him and His disciples for judgment. All this Jesus did\nnot purpose to bring about by any arbitrary action of His own, but left it\nto His heavenly Father, who alone knew the right moment for this\ncatastrophic change (Mark xiii. 32), to give Him the signal of its coming;\nand He did not waver in His faith even when death came upon Him before its\nrealisation. Any one who shrinks from adopting this view of the Messianic\nbackground of Jesus\u2019 plans, because he fears by so doing to make Jesus a\nvisionary enthusiast, must remember how exactly these hopes corresponded\nto the long\u2010cherished Messianic expectation of the Jews; and how easily,\non the supernaturalistic assumptions of the period and among a people\nwhich preserved so strict an isolation as the Jews, an ideal which was in\nitself fantastic, if it were the national ideal and had some true and good\nfeatures, could take possession of the mind even of one who was not\ninclined to fanaticism.\u201d\n\nOne of the principal proofs that the preaching of Jesus was\neschatologically conditioned is the Last Supper. \u201cWhen,\u201d says Strauss, \u201cHe\nconcluded the celebration with the saying, \u2018I will not drink henceforth of\nthe fruit of the vine until I drink it new with you in my Father\u2019s\nkingdom,\u2019 He would seem to have expected that in the Messianic kingdom the\nPassover would be celebrated with peculiar solemnity. Therefore, in\nassuring them that they shall next partake of the Feast, not in the\npresent age, but in the new era, He evidently expects that within a year\u2019s\ntime the pre\u2010Messianic dispensation will have come to an end and the\nMessianic age will have begun.\u201d But it must be admitted, Strauss\nimmediately adds, that the definite assurance which the Evangelists put\ninto His mouth may after all only have been in reality an expression of\npious hope. In a similar way he qualifies his other statements regarding\nthe eschatological ideas of Jesus by recalling that we cannot determine\nthe part which the expectations of primitive Christianity may have had in\nmoulding these sayings.\n\nThus, for example, the opinions which he expresses on the great Parousia\ndiscourse in Matt. xxiv. are extremely cautious. The detailed prophecies\nregarding the Second Coming which the Synoptists put into the mouth of\nJesus cannot be derived from Jesus Himself. The question suggests itself,\nhowever, whether He did not cherish the hope, and make the promise, that\nHe would one day appear in glory as the Messiah? \u201cIf in any period of His\nlife He held Himself to be the Messiah\u2014and that there was a period when He\ndid so there can be no doubt\u2014and if He described Himself as the Son of\nMan, He must have expected the coming in the clouds which Daniel had\nascribed to the Son of Man; but it may be questioned whether He thought of\nthis as an exaltation which should take place even in His lifetime, or as\nsomething which was only to take place after His death. Utterances like\nMatt. x. 23, xvi. 28 rather suggest the former, but the possibility\nremains that later, when he had begun to feel that His death was certain,\nhis conception took the latter form, and that Matt. xxvi. 64 was spoken\nwith this in view.\u201d Thus, even for Strauss, the problem of the Son of Man\nis already the central problem in which are focused all the questions\nregarding the Messiahship and eschatology.\n\nFrom all this it may be seen how strongly he had been influenced by\nReimarus, whom, indeed, he frequently mentions. It would be still more\nevident if he had not obscured his historical views by constantly bringing\nthe mythological explanation into play.\n\nThe thought of the supernatural realisation of the Kingdom of God must\nalso, according to Strauss, be the starting\u2010point of any attempt to\nunderstand Jesus\u2019 attitude towards the Law and the Gentiles, so far as\nthat is possible in view of the conflicting data. The conservative\npassages must carry most weight. They need not necessarily fall at the\nbeginning of His ministry, because it is questionable whether the\nhypothesis of a later period of increasing liberality in regard to the law\nand the Gentiles can be made probable. There would be more chance of\nproving that the conservative sayings are the only authentic ones, for\nunless all the indications are misleading the _terminus a quo_ for this\nchange of attitude is the death of Jesus. He no doubt looked forward to\nthe abolition of the Law and the removal of the barriers between Jew and\nGentile, but only in the future Kingdom. \u201cIf that be so,\u201d remarks Strauss,\n\u201cthe difference between the views of Jesus and of Paul consisted only in\nthis, that while Jesus expected these limitations to fall away when, at\nHis second coming, the earth should be renewed, Paul believed himself\njustified in doing away with them in consequence of the first coming of\nthe Messiah, upon the still unregenerated earth.\u201d\n\nThe eschatological passages are therefore the most authentic of all. If\nthere is anything historic about Jesus, it is His assertion of the claim\nthat in the coming kingdom He would be manifested as the Son of Man.\n\nOn the other hand, in the predictions of the passion and resurrection we\nare on quite uncertain ground. The detailed statements regarding the\nmanner of the catastrophe place it beyond doubt that we have here\n_vaticinia ex eventu_. Otherwise the despair of the disciples when the\nevents occurred could not be explained. Yet it is possible that Jesus had\na prevision of His death. Perhaps the resolve to die was essential to His\nconception of the Messiahship and He was not forced thereto by\ncircumstances. This we might be able to determine with certainty if we had\nmore exact information regarding the conception of the suffering Messiah\nin contemporary Jewish theology; which is, however, not available. We do\nnot even know whether the conception had ever existed in Judaism. \u201cIn the\nNew Testament it almost looks as if no one among the Jews had ever thought\nof a suffering or dying Messiah.\u201d The conception can, however, certainly\nbe found in later passages of Rabbinic literature.\n\nThe question is therefore insoluble. We must be content to work with\npossibilities. The result of a full discussion of the resolve to suffer\nand the significance attached to the suffering is summed up by Strauss in\nthe following sentences. \u201cIn view of these considerations it is possible\nthat Jesus might, by a natural process of thought, have come to see how\ngreatly such a catastrophe would contribute to the spiritual development\nof His disciples, and in accordance with national conceptions, interpreted\nin the light of some Old Testament passages, might have arrived at the\nidea of an atoning power in His Messianic death. At the same time the\nexplicit utterance which the Synoptists attribute to Jesus describing His\ndeath as an atoning sacrifice, might well belong rather to the system of\nthought which grew up after the death of Jesus, and the saying which the\nFourth Gospel puts into His mouth regarding the relation of His death to\nthe coming of the Paraclete might seem to be prophecy after the event. So\nthat even in these sayings of Jesus regarding the purpose of His death, it\nis necessary to distinguish between the particular and the general.\u201d\n\nStrauss\u2019s \u201cLife of Jesus\u201d has a different significance for modern theology\nfrom that which it had for his contemporaries. For them it was the work\nwhich made an end of miracle as a matter of historical belief, and gave\nthe mythological explanation its due.\n\nWe, however, find in it also an historical aspect of a positive character,\ninasmuch as the historic Personality which emerges from the mist of myth\nis a Jewish claimant of the Messiahship, whose world of thought is purely\neschatological. Strauss is, therefore, no mere destroyer of untenable\nsolutions, but also the prophet of a coming advance in knowledge.\n\nIt was, however, his own fault that his merit in this respect was not\nrecognised in the nineteenth century, because in his \u201cLife of Jesus for\nthe German People\u201d (1864), where he undertook to draw a positive historic\npicture of Jesus, he renounced his better opinions of 1835, eliminated\neschatology, and, instead of the historic Jesus, portrayed the Jesus of\nliberal theology.\n\n\n\n\n\nIX. STRAUSS\u2019S OPPONENTS AND SUPPORTERS\n\n\n    _David Friedrich Strauss._ Streitschriften zur Verteidigung meiner\n    Schrift \u00fcber das Leben\u2010Jesu und zur Charakteristik der\n    gegenw\u00e4rtigen Theologie. (Replies to criticisms of my work on the\n    Life of Jesus; with an estimate of present\u2010day theology.)\n    T\u00fcbingen, 1837.\n\n    Das Leben\u2010Jesu, 3te verbesserte Auflage (3rd revised edition).\n    1838\u20101839, T\u00fcbingen.\n\n    _August Tholuck._ Die Glaubw\u00fcrdigkeit der evangelischen\n    Geschichte, zugleich eine Kritik des Lebens Jesu von Strauss. (The\n    Credibility of the Gospel History, with an incidental criticism of\n    Strauss\u2019s \u201cLeben\u2010Jesu.\u201d) Hamburg, 1837.\n\n    _Aug. Wilh. Neander._ Das Leben Jesu\u2010Christi. Hamburg, 1837.\n\n    Dr. Neanders auf h\u00f6here Veranlassung abgefasstes Gutachten \u00fcber\n    das Buch des Dr. Strauss\u2019 \u201cLeben\u2010Jesu\u201d und das in Beziehung auf\n    die Verbreitung desselben zu beachtende Verfahren. (Dr. Neander\u2019s\n    report, drawn up at the request of the authorities, upon Dr.\n    Strauss\u2019s \u201cLeben\u2010Jesu\u201d and the measures to be adopted in regard to\n    its circulation.) 1836.\n\n    _Leonhard Hug._ Gutachten \u00fcber das Leben\u2010Jesu, kritisch bearbeitet\n    von D. Fr. Strauss. (Report on D. Fr. Strauss\u2019s critical work upon\n    the Life of Jesus.) Freiburg, 1840.\n\n    _Christian Gottlob Wilke._ Tradition und Mythe. Ein Beitrag zur\n    historischen Kritik der kanonischen Evangelien \u00fcberhaupt, wie\n    insbesondere zur W\u00fcrdigung des mythischen Idealismus im Leben\u2010Jesu\n    von Strauss. (Tradition and Myth. A Contribution to the General\n    Historical Criticism of the Gospels; with special reference to the\n    mythical idealism of Strauss\u2019s \u201cLeben\u2010Jesu.\u201d) Leipzig, 1837.\n\n    _August Ebrard._ Wissenschaftliche Kritik der evangelischen\n    Geschichte. (Scientific Criticism of the Gospel History.)\n    Frankfort, 1842.\n\n    _Georg Heinr. Aug. Ewald._ Geschichte Christus\u2019 und seiner Zeit.\n    (History of Christ and His Times.) 1855. Fifth volume of the\n    \u201cGeschichte des Volkes Israel.\u201d\n\n    _Christoph Friedrich von Ammon._ Die Geschichte des Lebens Jesu\n    mit steter R\u00fccksicht auf die vorhandenen Quellen. (History of the\n    Life of Jesus with constant reference to the extant sources.) 3\n    vols. 1842\u20101847.\n\n\nScarcely ever has a book let loose such a storm of controversy; and\nscarcely ever has a controversy been so barren of immediate result. The\nfertilising rain brought up a crop of toad\u2010stools. Of the forty or fifty\nessays on the subject which appeared in the next five years, there are\nonly four or five which are of any value, and even of these the value is\nvery small.\n\nStrauss\u2019s first idea was to deal with each of his opponents separately,\nand he published in 1837 three successive _Streitschriften_.(44) In the\npreface to the first of these he states that he has kept silence for two\nyears from a rooted objection to anything in the nature of reply or\ncounter\u2010criticism, and because he had little expectation of any good\nresults from such controversy. These essays are able, and are often\nwritten with biting scorn, especially that directed against his inveterate\nenemy, Steudel of T\u00fcbingen, the representative of intellectual\nsupernaturalism, and that against Eschenmayer, a pastor, also of T\u00fcbingen.\nTo a work of the latter, \u201cThe Iscariotism of our Days\u201d (1835), he had\nreferred in the preface to the second volume of his Life of Jesus in the\nfollowing remark: \u201cThis offspring of the legitimate marriage between\ntheological ignorance and religious intolerance, blessed by a sleep\u2010\nwalking philosophy, succeeds in making itself so completely ridiculous\nthat it renders any serious reply unnecessary.\u201d\n\nBut for all his sarcasm Strauss does not show himself an adroit debater in\nthis controversy, any more than in later times in the Diet.\n\nIt is indeed remarkable how unskilled in polemics is this man who had\nproduced a critical work of the first importance with almost playful ease.\nIf his opponents made no effort to understand him rightly\u2014and many of them\ncertainly wrote without having carefully studied the fourteen hundred\npages of his two volumes\u2014Strauss on his part seemed to be stricken with a\nkind of uncertainty, lost himself in a maze of detail, and failed to keep\ncontinually re\u2010formulating the main problems which he had set up for\ndiscussion, and so compelling his adversaries to face them fairly.\n\nOf these problems there were three. The first was composed of the related\nquestions regarding miracle and myth; the second concerned the connexion\nof the Christ of faith with the Jesus of history; the third referred to\nthe relation of the Gospel of John to the Synoptists.\n\nIt was the first that attracted most attention; more than half the critics\ndevoted themselves to it alone. Even so they failed to get a thorough\ngrasp of it. The only thing that they clearly see is that Strauss\naltogether denies the miracles; the full scope of the mythological\nexplanation as applied to the traditional records of the life of Jesus,\nand the extent of the historical material which Strauss is prepared to\naccept, is still a riddle to them. That is in some measure due, it must in\nfairness be said, to the arrangement of Strauss\u2019s own work, in which the\nunconnected series of separate investigations makes the subject\nunnecessarily difficult even for one who wishes to do the author justice.\n\nThe attitude towards miracle assumed in the anti\u2010Strauss literature shows\nhow far the anti\u2010rationalistic reaction had carried professedly scientific\ntheology in the direction of supernaturalism. Some significant symptoms\nhad begun to show themselves even in Hase and Schleiermacher of a tendency\ntowards the overcoming of rationalism by a kind of intellectual gymnastic\nwhich ran some risk of falling into insincerity. The essential character\nof this new kind of historical theology first came to light when Strauss\nput it to the question, and forced it to substitute a plain yes or no for\nthe ambiguous phrases with which this school had only too quickly\naccustomed itself to evade the difficulties of the problem of miracle. The\nmottoes with which this new school of theology adorned the works which it\nsent forth against the untimely troubler of their peace manifest its\ncomplete perplexity, and display the coquettish resignation with which the\nsacred learning of the time essayed to cover its nakedness, after it had\nsuccumbed to the temptation of the serpent insincerity. Adolf Harless of\nErlangen chose the melancholy saying of Pascal: \u201cTout tourne bien pour les\n\u00e9lus, jusqu\u2019aux obscurit\u00e9s de l\u2019\u00e9criture, car ils les honorent \u00e0 cause des\nclart\u00e9s divines qu\u2019ils y voient; et tout tourne en mal aux reprouv\u00e9s,\njusqu\u2019aux clart\u00e9s, car ils les blasph\u00e8ment \u00e0 cause des obscurit\u00e9s qu\u2019ils\nn\u2019entendent pas.\u201d(45)\n\nHerr Wilhelm Hoffmann,(46) deacon at Winnenden, selected Bacon\u2019s aphorism:\n\u201cAnimus ad amplitudinem mysteriorum pro modulo suo dilatetur, non mysteria\nad angustias animi constringantur.\u201d (Let the mind, so far as possible, be\nexpanded to the greatness of the mysteries, not the mysteries contracted\nto the compass of the mind.)\n\nProfessor Ernst Osiander,(47) of the seminary at Maulbronn, appeals to\nCicero: \u201cO magna vis veritatis, quae contra hominum ingenia, calliditatem,\nsollertiam facillime se per ipsam defendit.\u201d (O mighty power of truth,\nwhich against all the ingenious devices, the craft and subtlety, of men,\neasily defends itself by its own strength!)\n\nFranz Baader, of Munich,(48) ornaments his work with the reflection: \u201cIl\nfaut que les hommes soient bien loin de toi, \u00f4 V\u00e9rit\u00e9! puisque tu supporte\n(_sic!_) leur ignorance, leurs erreurs, et leurs crimes.\u201d (Men must indeed\nbe far from thee, O Truth, since thou art able to bear with their\nignorance, their errors, and their crimes!)\n\nTholuck(49) girds himself with the Catholic maxim of Vincent of Lerins:\n\u201cTeneamus quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est.\u201d (Let us\nhold that which has been believed always, everywhere, by all.)\n\nThe fear of Strauss had, indeed, a tendency to inspire Protestant\ntheologians with catholicising ideas. One of the most competent reviewers\nof his book, Dr. Ullmann in the _Studien und Kritiken_, had expressed the\nwish that it had been written in Latin to prevent its doing harm among the\npeople.(50) An anonymous dialogue of the period shows us the schoolmaster\ncoming in distress to the clergyman. He has allowed himself to be\npersuaded into reading the book by his acquaintance the Major, and he is\nnow anxious to get rid of the doubts which it has aroused in him. When his\ncure has been safely accomplished, the reverend gentleman dismisses him\nwith the following exhortation: \u201cNow I hope that after the experience\nwhich you have had you will for the future refrain from reading books of\nthis kind, which are not written for you, and of which there is no\nnecessity for you to take any notice; and for the refutation of which,\nshould that be needful, you have no equipment. You may be quite sure that\nanything useful or profitable for you which such books may contain will\nreach you in due course through the proper channel and in the right way,\nand, that being so, you are under no necessity to jeopardise any part of\nyour peace of mind.\u201d\n\nTholuck\u2019s work professedly aims only at presenting a \u201chistorical argument\nfor the credibility of the miracle stories of the Gospels.\u201d \u201cEven if we\nadmit,\u201d he says in one place, \u201cthe scientific position that no act can\nhave proceeded from Christ which transcends the laws of nature, there is\nstill room for the mediating view of Christ\u2019s miracle\u2010working activity.\nThis leads us to think of mysterious powers of nature as operating in the\nhistory of Christ\u2014powers such as we have some partial knowledge of, as,\nfor example, those magnetic powers which have survived down to our own\ntime, like ghosts lingering on after the coming of day.\u201d From the\nstandpoint of this spurious rationalism he proceeds to take Strauss to\ntask for rejecting the miracles. \u201cHad this latest critic been able to\napproach the Gospel miracles without prejudice, in the Spirit of\nAugustine\u2019s declaration, \u2018dandum est deo, eum aliquid facere posse quod\nnos investigare non possumus,\u2019 he would certainly\u2014since he is a man who in\naddition to the acumen of the scholar possesses sound common sense\u2014have\ncome to a different conclusion in regard to these difficulties. As it is,\nhowever, he has approached the Gospels with the conviction that miracles\nare impossible; and on that assumption, it was certain before the argument\nbegan that the Evangelists were either deceivers or deceived.\u201d\n\nNeander, in his Life of Jesus,(51) handles the question with more delicacy\nof touch, rather in the style of Schleiermacher. \u201cChrist\u2019s miracles,\u201d he\nexplains, \u201care to be understood as an influencing of nature, human or\nmaterial.\u201d He does not, however, give so much prominence as Schleiermacher\nhad done to the difficulty involved in the supposition of an influence\nexercised upon material nature. He repeats Schleiermacher\u2019s assertions,\nbut without the imposing dialectic which in Schleiermacher\u2019s hands almost\ncommands assent. In regard to the miracle at Cana he remarks: \u201cWe cannot\nindeed form any clear conception of an effect brought about by the\nintroduction of a higher creative principle into the natural order, since\nwe have no experience on which to base such a conception, but we are by no\nmeans compelled to take this extreme view as to what happened; we may\nquite well suppose that Christ by an immediate influence upon the water\ncommunicated to it a higher potency which enabled it to produce the\neffects of strong wine.\u201d In the case of all the miracles he makes a point\nof seeking not only the explanation, but the higher symbolical\nsignificance. The miracle of the fig\u2010tree\u2014which is _sui generis_\u2014has only\nthis symbolical significance, seeing that it is not beneficent and\ncreative but destructive. \u201cIt can only be thought of as a vivid\nillustration of a prediction of the Divine judgment, after the manner of\nthe symbolic actions of the Old Testament prophets.\u201d\n\nWith reference to the ascension and the resurrection he writes: \u201cEven\nthough we can form no clear idea of the exact way in which the exaltation\nof Christ from the earth took place\u2014and indeed there is much that is\nobscure in regard to the earthly life of Christ after His\nresurrection\u2014yet, in its place in the organic unity of the Christian\nfaith, it is as certain as the resurrection, which apart from it cannot be\nrecognised in its true significance.\u201d\n\nThat extract is typical of Neander\u2019s Life of Jesus, which in its time was\nhailed as a great achievement, calculated to provide a learned refutation\nof Strauss\u2019s criticism, and of which a seventh edition appeared as late as\n1872. The real piety of heart with which it is imbued cannot conceal the\nfact that it is a patchwork of unsatisfactory compromises. It is the child\nof despair, and has perplexity for godfather. One cannot read it without\npain.\n\nNeander, however, may fairly claim to be judged, not by this work, but by\nhis personal attitude in the Strauss controversy. And here he appears as a\nmagnanimous and dignified representative of theological science.\nImmediately after the appearance of Strauss\u2019s book, which, it was at once\nseen, would cause much offence, the Prussian Government asked Neander to\nreport upon it, with a view to prohibiting the circulation, should there\nappear to be grounds for doing so. He presented his report on the 15th of\nNovember 1835, and, an inaccurate account of it having appeared in the\n_Allgemeine Zeitung_, subsequently published it.(52) In it he censures the\nwork as being written from a too purely rationalistic point of view, but\nstrongly urges the Government not to suppress it by an edict. He describes\nit as \u201ca book which, it must be admitted, constitutes a danger to the\nsacred interests of the Church, but which follows the method of\nendeavouring to produce a reasoned conviction by means of argument. Hence\nany other method of dealing with it than by meeting argument with argument\nwill appear in the unfavourable light of an arbitrary interference with\nthe freedom of science.\u201d\n\nIn holding that scientific theology will be able by its own strength to\noverthrow whatever in Strauss\u2019s Life of Jesus deserves to be overthrown,\nNeander is at one with the anonymous writer of \u201cAphorisms in Defence of\nDr. Strauss and his Work,\u201d(53) who consoles himself with Goethe\u2019s saying\u2014\n\n\n    Das T\u00fcchtige, auch wenn es falsch ist,\n    Wirkt Tag f\u00fcr Tag, von Haus zu Haus;\n    Das T\u00fcchtige, wenn\u2019s wahrhaftig ist,\n    Wirkt \u00fcber alle Zeiten hinaus.(54)\n\n    (Strive hard, and though your aim be wrong,\n    Your work shall live its little day;\n    Strive hard, and for the truth be strong,\n    Your work shall live and grow for aye.)\n\n\n\u201cDr. Strauss,\u201d says this anonymous writer, \u201cdoes not represent the\nauthor\u2019s views, and he on his part cannot undertake to defend Dr.\nStrauss\u2019s conclusions. But it is clear to him that Dr. Strauss\u2019s work\nconsidered as a scientific production is more scientific than the works\nopposed to it from the side of religion are religious. Otherwise why are\nthey so passionate, so apprehensive, so unjust?\u201d\n\nThis confidence in pure critical science was not shared by Herr Privat\u2010\nDocent Daniel Schenkel of Basle, afterwards Professor at Heidelberg. In a\ndreary work dedicated to his G\u00f6ttingen teacher L\u00fccke, on \u201cHistorical\nScience and the Church,\u201d(55) he looks for future salvation towards that\nmiddle region where faith and science interpenetrate, and hails the new\nsupernaturalism which approximates to a scientific treatment of these\nsubjects \u201cas a hopeful phenomenon.\u201d He rejoices in the violent opposition\nat Zurich which led to the cancelling of Strauss\u2019s appointment, regarding\nit as likely to exercise an elevating influence. A similarly lofty\nposition is taken up by the anonymous author of \u201cDr. Strauss and the\nZurich Church,\u201d(56) to which De Wette contributed a preface. Though\nprofessing great esteem for Strauss, and admitting that from the purely\nhistorical point of view he is in the right, the author feels bound to\ncongratulate the Zurichers on having refused to admit him to the office of\nteacher.\n\nThe pure rationalists found it much more difficult than did the mediating\ntheologians, whether of the older or younger school, to adjust their\nattitude to the new solution of the miracle question. Strauss himself had\nmade it difficult for them by remorselessly exposing the absurd and\nridiculous aspects of their method, and by refusing to recognise them as\nallies in the battle for truth, as they really were. Paulus would have\nbeen justified in bearing him a grudge. But the inner greatness of that\nman of hard exterior comes out in the fact that he put his personal\nfeelings in the background, and when Strauss became the central figure in\nthe battle for the purity and freedom of historical science he ignored his\nattacks on rationalism and came to his defence. In a very remarkable\nletter to the Free Canton of Zurich, on \u201cFreedom in Theological Teaching\nand in the Choice of Teachers for Colleges,\u201d(57) he urges the council and\nthe people to appoint Strauss because of the principle at stake, and in\norder to avoid giving any encouragement to the retrograde movement in\nhistorical science. It is as though he felt that the end of rationalism\nhad come, but that, in the person of the enemy who had defeated it, the\npure love of truth, which was the only thing that really mattered, would\ntriumph over all the forces of reaction.\n\nIt would not, however, be true to say that Strauss had beaten rationalism\nfrom the field. In Ammon\u2019s famous Life of Jesus,(58) in which the author\ntakes up a very respectful attitude towards Strauss, there is a vigorous\nsurvival of a peculiar kind of rationalism inspired by Kant. For Ammon, a\nmiraculous event can only exist when its natural causes have been\ndiscovered. \u201cThe sacred history is subject to the same laws as all other\nnarratives of antiquity.\u201d L\u00fccke, in dealing with the raising of Lazarus,\nhad thrown out the question whether Biblical miracles could be thought of\nhistorically at all, and in so doing supposed that he was putting their\nabsolute character on a firmer basis. \u201cWe,\u201d says Ammon, \u201cgive the opposite\nanswer from that which is expected; only historically conceivable miracles\ncan be admitted.\u201d He cannot away with the constant confusion of faith and\nknowledge found in so many writers \u201cwho swim in an ocean of ideas in which\nthe real and the illusory are as inseparable as salt and sea\u2010water in the\nactual ocean.\u201d In every natural process, he explains, we have to suppose,\naccording to Kant, an interpenetration of natural and supernatural. For\nthat very reason the purely supernatural does not exist for our\nexperience. \u201cIt is no doubt certain,\u201d so he lays it down on the lines of\nKant\u2019s _Kritik der reinen Vernunft_, \u201cthat every act of causation which\ngoes forth from God must be immediate, universal, and eternal, because it\nis thought as an effect of His will, which is exalted above space and time\nand interpenetrates both of them, but without abolishing them, leaving\nthem undisturbed in their continuity and succession. For us men,\ntherefore, all action of God is mediate, because we are completely\nsurrounded by time and space, as the fish is by the sea or the bird by the\nair, and apart from these relations we should be incapable of\napperception, and therefore of any real experience. As free beings we can,\nindeed, think of miracle as immediately Divine, but we cannot perceive it\nas such, because that would be impossible without seeing God, which for\nwise reasons is forbidden to us.\u201d \u201cIn accordance with these principles, we\nshall hold it to be our duty in what follows to call attention to the\nnatural side even of the miracles of Jesus, since apart from this no fact\ncan become an object of belief.\u201d\n\nIt is only in this intelligible sense that the cures of Jesus are to be\nthought of as \u201cmiracles.\u201d The magnetic force, with which the mediating\ntheology makes play, is to be rejected. \u201cThe cure of psychical diseases by\nthe power of the word and of faith is the only kind of cure in which the\nstudent of natural science can find any basis for a conjecture regarding\nthe way in which the cures of Jesus were effected.\u201d\n\nIn the case of the other miracles Ammon assumes a kind of Occasionalism,\nin the sense that it may have pleased the Divine Providence \u201cto fulfil in\nfact the confidently spoken promises of Jesus, and in that way to confirm\nHis personal authority, which was necessary to the establishment of His\ndoctrine of the Divine salvation.\u201d\n\nIn most cases, however, he is content to repeat the rationalistic\nexplanation, and portrays a Jesus who makes use of medicines, allows the\ndemoniac himself to rush upon the herd of swine, helps a leper, whom he\nsees to be suffering only from one of the milder forms of the disease, to\nsecure the public recognition of his being legally clean, and who exerts\nhimself to prevent by word and act the premature burial of persons in a\nstate of trance. The story of the feeding of the multitude is based on\nsome occasion when there was \u201ca bountiful display of hospitality, a\ngenerous sharing of provisions, inspired by Jesus\u2019 prayer of thanksgiving\nand the example which He set when the disciples were inclined selfishly to\nhold back their own supply.\u201d The story of the miracle at Cana rests on a\nmere misunderstanding, those who report it not having known that the wine\nwhich Jesus caused to be secretly brought forth was the wedding\u2010gift which\nhe was presenting in the name of the family. As a disciple of Kant,\nhowever, Ammon feels obliged to refute the imputation that Jesus could\nhave done anything to promote excess, and calculates that the present of\nwine which Jesus had intended to give the bridal pair may be estimated as\nequivalent to not more than eighteen bottles.(59) He explains the walking\non the sea by claiming for Jesus an acquaintance with \u201cthe art of treading\nwater.\u201d\n\nOnly in regard to the explanation of the resurrection does Ammon break\naway from rationalism. He decides that the reality of the death of Jesus\nis historically proved. But he does not venture to suppose a real\nreawakening to life, and remains at the standpoint of Herder.\n\nBut the way in which, in spite of the deeper view of the conception of\nmiracle which he owes to Kant, he constantly falls back upon the most\npedestrian naturalistic explanations, and his failure to rid himself of\nthe prejudice that an actual, even if not a miraculous fact must underlie\nall the recorded miracles, is in itself sufficient to prove that we have\nhere to do with a mere revival of rationalism: that is, with an untenable\ntheory which Strauss\u2019s refutation of Paulus had already relegated to the\npast.\n\nIt was an easier task for pure supernaturalism than for pure rationalism\nto come to terms with Strauss. For the former Strauss was only the enemy\nof the mediating theology\u2014there was nothing to fear from him and much to\ngain. Accordingly Hengstenberg\u2019s _Evangelische Kirchenzeitung_ hailed\nStrauss\u2019s book as \u201cone of the most gratifying phenomena in the domain of\nrecent theological literature,\u201d and praises the author for having carried\nout with logical consistency the application of the mythical theory which\nhad formerly been restricted to the Old Testament and certain parts only\nof the Gospel tradition. \u201cAll that Strauss has done is to bring the spirit\nof the age to a clear consciousness of itself and of the necessary\nconsequences which flow from its essential character. He has taught it how\nto get rid of foreign elements which were still present in it, and which\nmarked an imperfect stage of its development.\u201d\n\nHe has been the most influential factor in the necessary process of\nseparation. There is no one with whom Hengstenberg feels himself more in\nagreement than with the T\u00fcbingen scholar. Had he not shown with the\ngreatest precision how the results of the Hegelian philosophy, one may\nsay, of philosophy in general, reacted upon Christian faith? \u201cThe relation\nof speculation to faith has now come clearly to light.\u201d\n\n\u201cTwo nations,\u201d writes Hengstenberg in 1836, \u201care struggling in the womb of\nour time, and two only. They will be ever more definitely opposed to one\nanother. Unbelief will more and more cast off the elements of faith to\nwhich it still clings, and faith will cast off its elements of unbelief.\nThat will be an inestimable advantage. Had the Time\u2010spirit continued to\nmake concessions, concessions would constantly have been made to it in\nreturn.\u201d Therefore the man who \u201ccalmly and deliberately laid hands upon\nthe Lord\u2019s anointed, undeterred by the vision of the millions who have\nbowed the knee, and still bow the knee, before His appearing,\u201d has in his\nown way done a service.\n\nStrauss on his part escaped with relief from the musty atmosphere of the\nstudy\u2014beloved by theology in carpet\u2010slippers\u2014to the bracing air of\nHengstenberg\u2019s _Kirchenzeitung_. In his \u201cReplies\u201d he devotes to it some\nfifty\u2010four pages. \u201cI must admit,\u201d he says, \u201cthat it is a satisfaction to\nme to have to do with the _Evangelische Kirchenzeitung_. In dealing with\nit one knows where one is and what one has to expect. If Herr Hengstenberg\ncondemns, he knows why he condemns, and even one against whom he launches\nhis anathema must admit that the attitude becomes him. Any one who, like\nthe editor of the _Evangelische Kirchenzeitung_, has taken upon him the\nyoke of confessional doctrine with all its implications, has paid a price\nwhich entitles him to the privilege of condemning those who differ from\nhis opinions.\u201d(60)\n\nHengstenberg\u2019s only complaint against Strauss is that he does not go far\nenough. He would have liked to force upon him the r\u00f4le of the Wolfenb\u00fcttel\nFragmentist, and considers that if Strauss did not, like the latter, go so\nfar as to suppose the apostles guilty of deliberate deceit, that is not so\nmuch from any regard for the historical kernel of Christianity as in order\nto mask his attack.\n\nEven in Catholic theology Strauss\u2019s work caused a great sensation.\nCatholic theology in general did not at that time take up an attitude of\nabsolute isolation from Protestant scholarship; it had adopted from the\nlatter numerous rationalistic ideas, and had been especially influenced by\nSchleiermacher. Thus, Catholic scholars were almost prepared to regard\nStrauss as a common enemy, against whom it was possible to make common\ncause with Protestants. In 1837 Joseph Mack, one of the Professors of the\nCatholic faculty at T\u00fcbingen, published his \u201cReport on Herr Dr. Strauss\u2019s\nHistorical Study of the Life of Jesus.\u201d(61) In 1839 appeared \u201cDr.\nStrauss\u2019s Life of Jesus, considered from the Catholic point of view,\u201d(62)\nby Dr. Maurus Hagel, Professor of Theology at the Lyceum at Dillingen; in\n1840 that lover of hypotheses and doughty fighter, Johann Leonhard\nHug,(63) presented his report upon the work.(64)\n\nEven French Catholicism gave some attention to Strauss\u2019s work. This marks\nan epoch\u2014the introduction of the knowledge of German critical theology\ninto the intellectual world of the Latin nations. In the _Revue des deux\nmondes_ for December 1838, Edgar Quinet gave a clear and accurate account\nof the influence of the Hegelian philosophy upon the religious ideas of\ncultured Germany.(65) In an eloquent peroration he lays bare the danger\nwhich was menacing the Church from the nation of Strauss and Hegel. His\ncountrymen need not think that it could be charmed away by some ingenious\nformula; a mighty effort of the Catholic spirit was necessary, if it was\nto be successfully opposed. \u201cA new barbarian invasion was rolling up\nagainst sacred Rome. The barbarians were streaming from every quarter of\nthe horizon, bringing their strange gods with them and preparing to\nbeleaguer the holy city. As, of yore, Leo went forth to meet Attila, so\nnow let the Papacy put on its purple and come forth, while yet there is\ntime, to wave back with an authoritative gesture the devastating hordes\ninto that moral wilderness which is their native home.\u201d\n\nQuinet might have done better still if he had advised the Pope to issue,\nas a counterblast to the unbelieving critical work of Strauss, the Life of\nJesus which had been _revealed_ to the faith of the blessed Anna Katharina\nEmmerich.(66) How thoroughly this refuted Strauss can be seen from the\nfragment issued in 1834, \u201cThe Bitter Sufferings of Our Lord Jesus Christ,\u201d\nwhere even the age of Jesus on the day of His death is exactly given. On\nthat Maundy Thursday the 13th Nisan, it was exactly thirty\u2010three years and\neighteen weeks less one day. The \u201cpilgrim\u201d Clement Brentano would\ncertainly have consented, had he been asked, to allow his note\u2010books to be\nused in the sacred cause, and to have given to the world the Life of Jesus\nas it was revealed to him by this visionary from the end of July 1820 day\nby day for three years, instead of allowing this treasure to remain hidden\nfor more than twenty years longer. He himself ascribed to these visions\nthe most strictly historical character, and insisted on considering them\nnot merely as reflections on what had happened, but as the immediate\nreflex of the facts themselves, so that the picture of the life of Jesus\nis given in them as in a mirror. Hug, it may be mentioned, in his\nlectures, called attention to the exact agreement of the topography of the\npassion story in Katharina\u2019s vision with the description of the locality\nin Josephus. If he had known her complete Life of Jesus he would doubtless\nhave expressed his admiration for the way in which she harmonises John and\nthe Synoptists; and with justice, for the harmony is really ingenious and\nskilfully planned.\n\nApart from these merits, too, this Life of Jesus, written, it should be\nobserved, earlier than Strauss\u2019s, contains a wealth of interesting\ninformation. John at first baptized at Aenon, but later was directed to\nremove to Jericho. The baptisms took place in \u201cbaptismal springs.\u201d\n\nPeter owned three boats, of which one was fitted up especially for the use\nof Jesus, and carried a complement of ten persons. Forward and aft there\nwere covered\u2010in spaces where all kinds of gear could be kept, and where\nalso they could wash their feet; along the sides of the boat were hung\nreceptacles for the fish.\n\nWhen Judas Iscariot became a disciple of Jesus he was twenty\u2010five years\nold. He had black hair and a red beard, but could not be called really\nugly. He had had a stormy past. His mother had been a dancing\u2010woman, and\nJudas had been born out of wedlock, his father being a military tribune in\nDamascus. As an infant he had been exposed, but had been saved, and later\nhad been taken charge of by his uncle, a tanner at Iscariot. At the time\nwhen he joined the company of Jesus\u2019 disciples he had squandered all his\npossessions. The disciples at first liked him well enough because of his\nreadiness to make himself useful; he even cleaned the shoes.\n\nThe fish with the _stater_ in its mouth was so large that it made a full\nmeal for the whole company.\n\nA work to which Jesus devoted special attention\u2014though this is not\nmentioned in the Gospels\u2014was the reconciliation of unhappy married\ncouples. Another matter which is not mentioned in the Gospels is the\nvoyage of Jesus to Cyprus, upon which He entered after a farewell meal\nwith His disciples at the house of the Canaanitish woman. This voyage took\nplace during the war between Herod and Aretas while the disciples were\nmaking their missionary journey in Palestine. As they could not give an\neyewitness report of it they were silent; nor did they make any mention of\nthe feast to which the Proconsul at Salamis invited the Saviour. In regard\nto another journey, also, which Jesus made to the land of the wise men of\nthe East, the \u201cpilgrim\u2019s\u201d oracle has the advantage of knowing more than\nthe Evangelists.\n\nIn spite of these additional traits a certain monotony is caused by the\nfact that the visionary, in order to fill in the tale of days in the three\nyears, makes the persons known to us from the Gospel history meet with the\nSaviour on several occasions previous to the meeting narrated in the\nGospels. Here the artificial character of the composition comes out too\nclearly, though in general a lively imagination tends to conceal this. And\nyet these na\u00efve embellishments and inventions have something rather\nattractive about them; one cannot handle the book without a certain\nreverence when one thinks amid what pains these revelations were received.\nIf Brentano had published his notes at the time of the excitement produced\nby Strauss\u2019s Life of Jesus, the work would have had a tremendous success.\nAs it was, when the first two volumes appeared at the end of the \u2019fifties,\nthere were sold in one year three thousand and several hundred copies,\nwithout reckoning the French edition which appeared contemporaneously.\n\nIn the end, however, all the efforts of the mediating theology, of\nrationalism and supernaturalism, could do nothing to shake Strauss\u2019s\nconclusion that it was all over with supernaturalism as a factor to be\nreckoned with in the historical study of the Life of Jesus, and that\nscientific theology, instead of turning back from rationalism to\nsupernaturalism, must move straight onward between the two and seek out a\nnew path for itself. The Hegelian method had proved itself to be the logic\nof reality. With Strauss begins the period of the non\u2010miraculous view of\nthe Life of Jesus; all other views exhausted themselves in the struggle\nagainst him, and subsequently abandoned position after position without\nwaiting to be attacked. The separation which Hengstenberg had hailed with\nsuch rejoicing was really accomplished; but in the form that\nsupernaturalism practically separated itself from the serious study of\nhistory. It is not possible to date the stages of this process. After the\nfirst outburst of excitement everything seems to go on as quietly as\nbefore; the only difference is that the question of miracle constantly\nfalls more and more into the background. In the modern period of the study\nof the Life of Jesus, which begins about the middle of the \u2019sixties, it\nhas lost all importance.\n\nThat does not mean that the problem of miracle is solved. From the\nhistorical point of view it is really impossible to solve it, since we are\nnot able to reconstruct the process by which a series of miracle stories\narose, or a series of historical occurrences were transformed into miracle\nstories, and these narratives must simply be left with a question mark\nstanding against them. What has been gained is only that the exclusion of\nmiracle from our view of history has been universally recognised as a\nprinciple of criticism, so that miracle no longer concerns the historian\neither positively or negatively. Scientific theologians of the present day\nwho desire to show their \u201csensibility,\u201d ask no more than that two or three\nlittle miracles may be left to them\u2014in the stories of the childhood,\nperhaps, or in the narratives of the resurrection. And these miracles are,\nmoreover, so far scientific that they have at least no relation to those\nin the text, but are merely spiritless, miserable little toy\u2010dogs of\ncriticism, flea\u2010bitten by rationalism, too insignificant to do historical\nscience any harm, especially as their owners honestly pay the tax upon\nthem by the way in which they speak, write, and are silent about Strauss.\n\nBut even that is better than the delusive fashion in which some writers of\nthe present day succeed in discussing the narratives of the resurrection\n\u201cas pure historians\u201d without betraying by a single word whether they\nthemselves believe it to be possible or not. But the reason modern\ntheology can allow itself these liberties is that the foundation laid by\nStrauss is unshakable.\n\nCompared with the problem of miracle, the question regarding the mythical\nexplanation of the history takes a very subordinate place in the\ncontroversy. Few understood what Strauss\u2019s real meaning was; the general\nimpression was that he entirely dissolved the life of Jesus into myth.\n\nThere appeared, indeed, three satires ridiculing his method. One showed\nhow, for the historical science of the future, the life of Luther would\nalso become a mere myth,(67) the second treated the life of Napoleon in\nthe same way;(68) in the third, Strauss himself becomes a myth.(69)\n\nM. Eug\u00e8ne Mussard, \u201ccandidat au saint minist\u00e8re,\u201d made it his business to\nset at rest the minds of the premier faculty at Geneva by his thesis, _Du\nsyst\u00e8me mythique appliqu\u00e9 \u00e0 l\u2019histoire de la vie de J\u00e9sus_, 1838, which\nbears the ingenious motto \u03bf\u1f50 \u03c3\u03b5\u03c3\u03bf\u03c6\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2 \u03bc\u03cd\u03b8\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2 (not ... in cunningly\ndevised myths, 2 Peter i. 16). He certainly did not exaggerate the\ndifficulties of his task, but complacently followed up an \u201cExposition of\nthe Mythical Theory,\u201d with a \u201cRefutation of the Mythical Theory as applied\nto the Life of Jesus.\u201d\n\nThe only writer who really faced the problem in the form in which it had\nbeen raised by Strauss was Wilke in his work \u201cTradition and Myth.\u201d(70) He\nrecognises that Strauss had given an exceedingly valuable impulse towards\nthe overcoming of rationalism and supernaturalism and to the rejection of\nthe abortive mediating theology. \u201cA keener criticism will only establish\nthe truth of the Gospel, putting what is tenable on a firmer basis,\nsifting out what is untenable, and showing up in all its nakedness the\ncounterfeit theology of the new evangelicalism with its utter lack of\nunderstanding and sincerity.\u201d Again, \u201cthe approval which Strauss has met\nwith, and the excitement which he has aroused, sufficiently show what an\nadvantage rationalistic speculation possesses over the theological second\u2010\nchildishness of the new evangelicals.\u201d The time has come for a rational\nmysticism, which shall preserve undiminished the honesty of the old\nrationalism, making no concessions to supernaturalism, but, on the other\nhand, overcoming the \u201ctruculent rationalism of the Kantian criticism\u201d by\nmeans of a religious conception in which there is more warmth and more\npious feeling.\n\nThis rational mysticism makes it a reproach against the \u201cmythical\nidealism\u201d of Strauss that in it philosophy does violence to history, and\nthe historic Christ only retains His significance as a mere ideal. A new\nexamination of the sources is necessary to decide upon the extent of the\nmythical element.\n\nThe Gospel of Matthew cannot, Wilke agrees, have been the work of an\neyewitness. \u201cThe principal argument against its authenticity is the\nabsence of the characteristic marks of an eyewitness, which must\nnecessarily have been present in a gospel actually composed by a disciple\nof the Lord, and which are not present here. The narrative is lacking in\nprecision, fragmentary and legendary, tradition everywhere manifest in its\nvery form.\u201d There are discrepancies in the legends of the first and second\nchapters, as well as elsewhere, _e.g._ the stories of the baptism, the\ntemptation, and the transfiguration. In other cases, where there is a\nbasis of historic fact, there is an admixture of legendary material, as in\nthe narratives of the death and resurrection of Jesus.\n\nIn the Gospel of Mark, Wilke recognises the pictorial vividness of many of\nthe descriptions, and conjectures that in some way or other it goes back\nto the Petrine tradition. The author of the Fourth Gospel is not an\neyewitness; the \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03ac (according to) only indicates the origin of the\ntradition; the author received it, either directly or indirectly, from the\nApostle, but he gave to it the gnosticising dialectical form of the\nAlexandrian theology.\n\nAs against the _Diegesentheorie_(71) Wilke defends the independence and\noriginality of the individual Gospels. \u201cNo one of the Evangelists knew the\nwriting of any of the others, each produced an independent work drawn from\na separate source.\u201d\n\nIn the remarks on points of detail in this work of Wilke\u2019s there is\nevidence of a remarkable grasp of the critical data; we already get a hint\nof the \u201cmathematician\u201d of the Synoptic problem, who, two years later, was\nto work out convincingly the literary argument for the priority of Mark.\nBut the historian is quite subordinated to the literary critic, and, when\nall is said, Wilke takes up no clearly defined position in regard to\nStrauss\u2019s main problem, as is evident from his seeking to retain, on more\nor less plausible grounds, a whole series of miracles, among them the\nmiracle of Cana and the resurrection.\n\nFor most thinkers of that period, however, the question \u201cmyth or history\u201d\nyielded in interest to the philosophical question of the relation of the\nhistorical Jesus to the ideal Christ. That was the second problem raised\nby Strauss. Some thought to refute him by showing that his exposition of\nthe relation of the Jesus of history to the ideal Christ was not justified\neven from the point of view of the Hegelian philosophy, arguing that the\nedifice which he had raised was not in harmony with the ground\u2010plan of the\nHegelian speculative system. He therefore felt it necessary, in his reply\nto the review in the _Jahrb\u00fccher f\u00fcr wissenschaftliche Kritik_, to expound\n\u201cthe general relationship of the Hegelian philosophy to theological\ncriticism,\u201d(72) and to express in more precise form the thoughts upon\nspeculative and historical Christology which he had suggested at the close\nof the second volume of his \u201cLife of Jesus.\u201d\n\nHe admits that Hegel\u2019s philosophy is ambiguous in this matter, since it is\nnot clear \u201cwhether the evangelical fact as such, not indeed in its\nisolation, but together with the whole series of manifestations of the\nidea (of God\u2010manhood) in the history of the world, is the truth; or\nwhether the embodiment of the idea in that single fact is only a formula\nof which consciousness makes use in forming its concept.\u201d The Hegelian\n\u201cright,\u201d he says, represented by Marheineke and G\u00f6schel, emphasises the\npositive side of the master\u2019s religious philosophy, implying that in Jesus\nthe idea of God\u2010manhood was perfectly fulfilled and in a certain sense\nintelligibly realised. \u201cIf these men,\u201d Strauss explains, \u201cappeal to Hegel\nand declare that he would not have recognised my book as an expression of\nhis meaning, they say nothing which is not in accordance with my own\nconvictions. Hegel was personally no friend to historical criticism. It\nannoyed him, as it annoyed Goethe, to see the historic figures of\nantiquity, on which their thoughts were accustomed lovingly to dwell,\nassailed by critical doubts. Even if it was in some cases wreaths of mist\nwhich they took for pinnacles of rock, they did not want to have this\nforced upon their attention, nor to be disturbed in the illusion from\nwhich they were conscious of receiving an elevating influence.\u201d\n\nBut though prepared to admit that he had added to the edifice of Hegel\u2019s\nreligious philosophy an annexe of historical criticism, of which the\nmaster would hardly have approved, Strauss is convinced that he is the\nonly logical representative of Hegel\u2019s essential view. \u201cThe question which\ncan be decided from the standpoint of the philosophy of religion is not\nwhether what is narrated in the Gospels actually happened or not, but\nwhether in view of the truth of certain conceptions it must necessarily\nhave happened. And in regard to this, what I assert is that from the\ngeneral system of the Hegelian philosophy it by no means necessarily\nfollows that such an event must have happened, but that from the\nstandpoint of the system the truth of that history from which actually the\nconception arose is reduced to a matter of indifference; it may have\nhappened, but it may just as well not have happened, and the task of\ndeciding on this point may be calmly handed over to historical criticism.\u201d\n\nStrauss reminds us that, even according to Hegel, the belief in Jesus as\nGod\u2010made\u2010man is not immediately given with His appearing in the world of\nsense, but only arose after His death and the removal of His sensible\npresence. The master himself had acknowledged the existence of mythical\nelements in the Life of Jesus; in regard to miracle he had expressed the\nopinion that the true miracle was \u201cSpirit.\u201d The conception of the\nresurrection and ascension as outward facts of sense was not recognised by\nhim as true.\n\nHegel\u2019s authority may, no doubt, fairly be appealed to by those who\nbelieve, not only in an incarnation of God in a general sense, \u201cbut also\nthat this manifestation of God in flesh has taken place in this man\n(Jesus) at this definite time and place.\u201d... \u201cIn making the assertion,\u201d\nconcludes Strauss, \u201cthat the truth of the Gospel narrative cannot be\nproved, whether in whole or in part, from philosophical considerations,\nbut that the task of inquiring into its truth must be left to historical\ncriticism, I should like to associate myself with the \u2018left wing\u2019 of the\nHegelian school, were it not that the Hegelians prefer to exclude me\naltogether from their borders, and to throw me into the arms of other\nsystems of thought\u2014only, it must be admitted, to have me tossed back to\nthem like a ball.\u201d\n\nIn regard to the third problem which Strauss had offered for discussion,\nthe relation of the Synoptists to John, there was practically no response.\nThe only one of his critics who understood what was at stake was\nHengstenberg. He alone perceived the significance of the fact that\ncritical theology, having admitted mythical elements first in the Old\nTestament, and then in the beginning and end of the Gospel history, and\nhaving, in consequence of the latter admission, felt obliged to give up\nthe first three Gospels, retaining only the fourth, was now being besieged\nby Strauss in its last stronghold. \u201cThey withdrew,\u201d says the _Evangelische\nKirchenzeitung_, \u201cinto the Gospel of John as into a fortress, and boasted\nthat they were safe there, though they could not suppress a secret\nconsciousness that they only held it at the enemy\u2019s pleasure; now the\nenemy has appeared before it; he is using the same weapons with which he\nwas formerly victorious; the Gospel of John is in as desperate case as\nformerly the Synoptists. The time has come to make a bold resolve, a\ndecisive choice; either they must give up everything, or else they must\nsuccessively re\u2010occupy the more advanced positions which at an earlier\ndate they had successively abandoned.\u201d It would be impossible to give a\nmore accurate picture of the desperate position into which Hase and\nSchleiermacher had brought the mediating theology by their ingenious\nexpedient of giving up the Synoptics in favour of the Gospel of John.\nBefore any danger threatened, they had abandoned the outworks and\nwithdrawn into the citadel, oblivious of the fact that they thereby\nexposed themselves to the danger of having their own guns turned upon them\nfrom the positions they had abandoned, and being obliged to surrender\nwithout striking a blow the position of which they had boasted as\nimpregnable. It is impossible to emphasise strongly enough the fact that\nit was not Strauss, but Hase and Schleiermacher, who had brought the\nmediating theology into this hopeless position, in which the fall of the\nFourth Gospel carried with it the surrender of the historical tradition as\na whole.\n\nBut there is no position so desperate that theology cannot find a way out\nof it. The mediating theologians simply ignored the problem which Strauss\nhad raised. As they had been accustomed to do before, so they continued to\ndo after, taking the Gospel of John as the authentic framework, and\nfitting into it the sections of the Synoptic narrative wherever place\ncould best be found for them. The difference between the Johannine and\nSynoptic representations of Jesus\u2019 method of teaching, says Neander, is\nonly apparently irreconcilable, and he calls out in support of this\nassertion all the reserves of old worn\u2010out expedients and artifices, among\nothers the argument that the Pauline Christology is only explicable as a\ncombination of the Synoptic and Johannine views. Other writers who belong\nto the same apologetic school, such as Tholuck, Ebrard,(73) Wieseler,(74)\nLange,(75) and Ewald,(76) maintain the same point of view, only that their\ndefence is usually much less skilful.\n\nThe only writer who really in some measure enters into the difficulties is\nAmmon. He, indeed, is fully conscious of the difference, and thinks we\ncannot rest content with merely recognising it, but must find a solution,\neven if rather a forced one, \u201cby subordinating the indefinite\nchronological data of the Synoptists, of whom, after all, only one was, or\ncould have been, an eyewitness, to the ordered narrative of John.\u201d The\nfourth Evangelist makes so brief a reference to the Galilaean period\nbecause it was in accordance with his plan to give more prominence to the\ndiscourses of Jesus in the Temple and His dialogues with the Scribes as\ncompared to the parables and teaching given to the people. The cleansing\nof the Temple falls at the outset of Jesus\u2019 ministry; Jesus begins His\nMessianic work in Jerusalem by this action of making an end of the\nunseemly chaffering in the court of the Temple. The question regarding the\nrelative authenticity of the reports is decisively settled by a comparison\nof the two accounts of the triumphal entry, because there it is quite\nevident that \u201cMatthew, the chief authority among the Synoptists, adapts\nhis narrative to his special Jewish\u2010Messianic standpoint.\u201d According to\nAmmon\u2019s rationalistic view, the work of Jesus consisted precisely in the\ntransformation of this Jewish\u2010Messianic idea into the conception of a\n\u201cSaviour of the world.\u201d In this lies the explanation of the fate of Jesus:\n\u201cThe mass of the Jewish people were not prepared to receive a Christ so\nspiritual as Jesus was, since they were not ripe for so lofty a view of\nreligion.\u201d\n\nAmmon here turns his Kantian philosophy to account. It serves especially\nto explain to him the consciousness of pre\u2010existence avowed by the Jesus\nof the Johannine narrative as something purely human. We, too, he\nexplains, can \u201cafter the spirit\u201d claim an ideal existence prior to the\nspatial creation without indulging any delusion, and without, on the other\nhand, thinking of a real existence. In this way Jesus is for Himself a\nBiblical idea, with which He has become identified. \u201cThe purer and deeper\na man\u2019s self\u2010consciousness is, the keener may his consciousness of God\nbecome, until time disappears for him, and his partaking in the Divine\nnature fills his whole soul.\u201d\n\nBut Ammon\u2019s support of the authenticity of John\u2019s Gospel is, even from a\npurely literary point of view, not so unreserved as in the case of the\nother opponents of Strauss. In the background stands the hypothesis that\nour Gospel is only a working\u2010over of the authentic John, a suggestion in\nregard to which Ammon can claim priority, since he had made it as early as\n1811,(77) nine years before the appearance of Bretschneider\u2019s\n_Probabilia_. Were it not for the ingenuous fashion in which he works the\nSynoptic material into the Johannine plan, we might class him with\nAlexander Schweizer and Weisse, who in a similar way seek to meet the\nobjections of Strauss by an elaborate theory of editing.(78)\n\nThe first stage of the discussion regarding the relation of John to the\nSynoptists passed without result. The mediating theology continued to hold\nits positions undisturbed\u2014and, strangest of all, Strauss himself was eager\nfor a suspension of hostilities.\n\nIt is as though history took the trouble to countersign the genuineness of\nthe great critical discoveries by letting the discoverers themselves\nattempt to cancel them. As Kant disfigures his critical idealism by making\ninconsistent additions in order to refute a reviewer who had put him in\nthe same category with Berkeley, so Strauss inserts additions and\nretractations in the third edition of his Life of Jesus in deference to\nthe uncritical works of Tholuck and Neander! Wilke, the only one of his\ncritics from whom he might have learned something, he ignores. \u201cFrom the\nlofty vantage ground of Tholuck\u2019s many\u2010sided knowledge I have sometimes,\nin spite of a slight tendency to vertigo, gained a juster point of view\nfrom which to look at one matter or another,\u201d is the avowal which he makes\nin the preface to this ill\u2010starred edition.\n\nIt would, indeed, have done no harm if he had confined himself to stating\nmore exactly here and there the extent of the mythical element, had\nincreased the number of possible cures, had inclined a little less to the\nnegative side in examining the claims of reported facts to rank as\nhistorical, and had been a little more circumspect in pointing out the\nfactors which produced the myths; the serious thing was that he now began\nto hesitate in his denial of the historical character of the Fourth\nGospel\u2014the very foundation of his critical view.\n\nA renewed study of it, aided by De Wette\u2019s commentary and Neander\u2019s Life\nof Jesus, had made him \u201cdoubtful about his doubts regarding the\ngenuineness and credibility of this Gospel.\u201d \u201cNot that I am convinced of\nits genuineness,\u201d he admits, \u201cbut I am no longer convinced that it is not\ngenuine.\u201d\n\nHe feels bound, therefore, to state whatever makes in its favour, and to\nleave open a number of possibilities which formerly he had not recognised.\nThe adhesion of the first disciples may, he now thinks, have happened\nessentially in the form in which it is reported in the Fourth Gospel; in\ntransferring the cleansing of the Temple to the first period of Jesus\u2019\nministry, John may be right as against the Synoptic tradition \u201cwhich has\nno decisive evidence in its favour\u201d; in regard to the question whether\nJesus had been only once, or several times, in Jerusalem, his opinion now\nis that \u201con this point the superior circumstantiality of the Fourth Gospel\ncannot be contested.\u201d\n\nAs regards the prominence allowed to the eschatology also all is toned\ndown and softened. Everywhere feeble compromises! But what led Strauss to\nplace his foot upon this shelving path was the essentially just perception\nthat the Synoptists gave him no clearly ordered plan to set against that\nof the Fourth Gospel; consequently he felt obliged to make some\nconcessions to its strength in this respect.\n\nYet he recognised almost immediately that the result was a mere patchwork.\nEven in the summer of 1839 he complained to Hase in conversation that he\nhad been deafened by the clamour of his opponents, and had conceded too\nmuch to them.(79) In the fourth edition he retracted all his concessions.\n\u201cThe Babel of voices of opponents, critics, and supporters,\u201d he says in\nhis preface, \u201cto which I had felt it my duty to listen, had confused me in\nregard to the idea of my work; in my diligent comparison of various views\nI had lost sight of the thing itself. In this way I was led to make\nalterations which, when I came to consider the matter calmly, surprised\nmyself; and in making which it was obvious that I had done myself an\ninjustice. In all these passages the earlier text has been restored, and\nmy work has therefore consisted, it might be said, in removing from my\ngood sword the notches which had not so much been hewn in it by the enemy\nas ground into it by myself.\u201d\n\nStrauss\u2019s vacillation had, therefore, not even been of any indirect\nadvantage to him. Instead of endeavouring to find a purposeful connexion\nin the Synoptic Gospels by means of which he might test the plan of the\nFourth Gospel, he simply restores his former view unaltered, thereby\nshowing that in the decisive point it was incapable of development. In the\nvery year in which he prepared his improved edition, Weisse, in his\n_Evangelische Geschichte_, had set up the hypothesis that Mark is the\nground\u2010document, and had thus carried criticism past the \u201cdead\u2010point\u201d\nwhich Strauss had never been able to overcome. Upon Strauss, however, the\nnew suggestion made no impression. He does, it is true, mention Weisse\u2019s\nbook in the preface to his third edition, and describes it as \u201cin many\nrespects a very satisfactory piece of work.\u201d It had appeared too late for\nhim to make use of it in his first volume; but he did not use it in his\nsecond volume either. He had, indeed, a distinct antipathy to the Marcan\nhypothesis.\n\nIt was unfortunate that in this controversy the highly important\nsuggestions in regard to various historical problems which had been made\nincidentally in the course of Strauss\u2019s work were never discussed at all.\nThe impulse in the direction of progress which might have been given by\nhis treatment of the relation of Jesus to the law, of the question\nregarding His particularism, of the eschatological conception, the Son of\nMan, and the Messiahship of Jesus, wholly failed to take effect, and it\nwas only after long and circuitous wanderings that theology again came in\nsight of these problems from an equally favourable point of view. In this\nrespect Strauss shared the fate of Reimarus; the positive solutions of\nwhich the outlines were visible behind their negative criticism escaped\nobservation in consequence of the offence caused by the negative side of\ntheir work; and even the authors themselves failed to realise their full\nsignificance.\n\n\n\n\n\nX. THE MARCAN HYPOTHESIS\n\n\n    _Christian Hermann Weisse._ Die evangelische Geschichte kritisch\n    und philosophisch bearbeitet. (A Critical and Philosophical Study\n    of the Gospel History.) 2 vols. Leipzig, Breitkopf and H\u00e4rtel,\n    1838. Vol. i. 614 pp. Vol. ii. 543 pp.\n\n    _Christian Gottlob Wilke._ Der Urevangelist. (The Earliest\n    Evangelist.) 1838. Dresden and Leipzig. 694 pp.\n\n    _Christian Hermann Weisse._ Die Evangelienfrage in ihrem\n    gegenw\u00e4rtigen Stadium. (The Present Position of the Problem of the\n    Gospels.) Leipzig, 1856.\n\n\nThe \u201cGospel History\u201d of Weisse was written, like Strauss\u2019s Life of Jesus,\nby a philosopher who had been driven out of philosophy and forced back\nupon theology. Weisse was born in 1801 at Leipzig, and became Professor\nExtraordinary of Philosophy in the university there in 1828. In 1837,\nfinding his advance to the Ordinary Professorship barred by the\nHerbartians, he withdrew from academic teaching and gave himself to the\npreparation of this work, the plan of which he had had in mind for some\ntime. Having brought it to a satisfactory completion, he began again in\n1841 as a Privat\u2010Docent in Philosophy, and became Ordinary Professor in\n1845. From 1848 onwards he lectured on Theology also. His work on\n\u201cPhilosophical Dogmatics, or the Philosophy of Christianity,\u201d(80) is well\nknown. He died in 1866, of cholera. Lotze and Lipsius were both much\ninfluenced by him.\n\nWeisse admired Strauss and hailed his Life of Jesus as a forward step\ntowards the reconciliation of religion and philosophy. He expresses his\ngratitude to him for clearing the ground of the primeval forest of\ntheology, thus rendering it possible for him (Weisse) to develop his views\nwithout wasting time upon polemics, \u201csince most of the views which have\nhitherto prevailed may be regarded as having received the _coup de gr\u00e2ce_\nfrom Strauss.\u201d He is at one with Strauss also in his general view of the\nrelations of philosophy and religion, holding that it is only if\nphilosophy, by following its own path, attains independently to the\nconviction of the truth of Christianity that its alliance with theology\nand religion can be welcomed as advantageous.(81) His work, therefore,\nlike that of Strauss, leads up finally to a philosophical exposition in\nwhich he shows how for us the Jesus of history becomes the Christ of\nfaith.(82)\n\nWeisse is the direct continuator of Strauss. Standing outside the\nlimitations of the Hegelian formulae, he begins at the point where Strauss\nleaves off. His aim is to discover, if possible, some thread of general\nconnexion in the narratives of the Gospel tradition, which, if present,\nwould represent a historically certain element in the Life of Jesus, and\nthus serve as a better standard by which to determine the extent of myth\nthan can possibly be found in the subjective impression upon which Strauss\nrelies. Strauss, by way of gratitude, called him a dilettante. This was\nmost unjust, for if any one deserved to share Strauss\u2019s place of honour,\nit was certainly Weisse.\n\nThe idea that Mark\u2019s Gospel might be the earliest of the four, first\noccurred to Weisse during the progress of his work. In March 1837, when he\nreviewed Tholuck\u2019s \u201cCredibility of the Gospel History,\u201d he was as innocent\nof this discovery as Wilke was at the same period. But when once he had\nobserved that the graphic details of Mark, which had hitherto been\nregarded as due to an attempt to embellish an epitomising narrative, were\ntoo insignificant to have been inserted with this purpose, it became clear\nto him that only one other possibility remained open, viz., that their\nabsence in Matthew and Luke was due to omission. He illustrates this from\nthe description of the first day of Jesus\u2019 ministry at Capernaum. \u201cThe\nrelation of the first Evangelist to Mark,\u201d he avers, \u201cin those portions of\nthe Gospel which are common to both is, with few exceptions, mainly that\nof an epitomiser.\u201d\n\nThe decisive argument for the priority of Mark is, even more than his\ngraphic detail, the composition and arrangement of the whole. \u201cIt is true,\nthe Gospel of Mark shows very distinct traces of having arisen out of\nspoken discourses, which themselves were by no means ordered and\nconnected, but disconnected and fragmentary\u201d\u2014being, he means, in its\noriginal form based on notes of the incidents related by Peter. \u201cIt is not\nthe work of an eyewitness, nor even of one who had had an opportunity of\nquestioning eyewitnesses thoroughly and carefully; nor even of deriving\nassistance from inquirers who, on their part, had made a connected study\nof the subject, with a view to filling up the gaps and placing each\nindividual part in its right position, and so articulating the whole into\nan organic unity which should be neither merely inward, nor on the other\nhand merely external.\u201d Nevertheless the Evangelist was guided in his work\nby a just recollection of the general course of the life of Jesus. \u201cIt is\nprecisely in Mark,\u201d Weisse explains, \u201cthat a closer study unmistakably\nreveals that the incidental remarks (referring for the most part to the\nway in which the fame of Jesus gradually extended, the way the people\nbegan to gather round Him and the sick to besiege Him), far from shutting\noff and separating the different narratives, tend rather to unite them\nwith each other, and so give the impression not of a series of anecdotes\nfortuitously thrown together, but of a connected history. By means of\nthese remarks, and by many other connecting links which he works into the\nnarration of the individual stories, Mark has succeeded in conveying a\nvivid impression of the stir which Jesus made in Galilee, and from Galilee\nto Jerusalem, of the gradual gathering of the multitudes to Him, of the\ngrowing intensity of loyalty in the inner circle of disciples, and as the\ncounterpart of all this, of the growing enmity of the Pharisees and\nScribes\u2014an impression which mere isolated narratives, strung together\nwithout any living connexion, would not have sufficed to produce.\u201d A\nconnexion of this kind is less clearly present in the other Synoptists,\nand is wholly lacking in John. The Fourth Gospel, by itself, would give us\na completely false conception of the relation of Jesus to the people. From\nthe content of its narratives the reader would form the impression that\nthe attitude of the people towards Jesus was hostile from the very first,\nand that it was only in isolated occasions, for a brief moment, that Jesus\nby His miraculous acts inspired the people with astonishment rather than\nadmiration; that, surrounded by a little company of disciples he contrived\nfor a time to defy the enmity of the multitude, and that, having\nrepeatedly provoked it by intemperate invective, he finally succumbed to\nit.\n\nThe simplicity of the plan of Mark is, in Weisse\u2019s opinion, a stronger\nargument for his priority than the most elaborate demonstration; one only\nneeds to compare it with the perverse design of Luke, who makes Jesus\nundertake a journey through Samaria. \u201cHow,\u201d asks Weisse, \u201cin the case of a\nwriter who does things of this kind can it be possible at this time of day\nto speak seriously of historical exactitude in the use of his sources?\u201d\n\nTo come down to detail, Weisse\u2019s argument for the priority of Mark rests\nmainly on the following propositions:\u2014\n\n1. In the first and third Gospels, traces of a common plan are found only\nin those parts which they have in common with Mark, not in those which are\ncommon to them, but not to Mark also.\n\n2. In those parts which the three Gospels have in common, the \u201cagreement\u201d\nof the other two is mediated through Mark.\n\n3. In those sections which the First and Third Gospels have, but Mark has\nnot, the agreement consists in the language and incidents, not in the\norder. Their common source, therefore, the \u201cLogia\u201d of Matthew, did not\ncontain any type of tradition which gave an order of narration different\nfrom that of Mark.\n\n4. The divergences of wording between the two other Synoptists is in\ngeneral greater in the parts where both have drawn on the Logia document\nthan where Mark is their source.\n\n5. The first Evangelist reproduces this Logia\u2010document more faithfully\nthan Luke does; but his Gospel seems to have been of later origin.\n\nThis historical argument for the priority of Mark was confirmed in the\nyear in which it appeared by Wilke\u2019s work, \u201cThe Earliest Gospel,\u201d(83)\nwhich treated the problem more from the literary side, and, to take an\nillustration from astronomy, supplied the mathematical confirmation of the\nhypothesis.\n\nIn regard to the Gospel of John, Weisse fully shared the negative views of\nStrauss. What is the use, he asks, of keeping on talking about the plan of\nthis Gospel, seeing that no one has yet succeeded in showing what that\nplan is? And for a very good reason: there is none. One would never guess\nfrom the Gospel of John that Jesus, until His departure from Galilee, had\nexperienced almost unbroken success. It is no good trying to explain the\nwant of plan by saying that John wrote with the purpose of supplementing\nand correcting his predecessors, and that his omissions and additions were\ndetermined by this purpose. Such a purpose is betrayed by no single word\nin the whole Gospel.\n\nThe want of plan lies in the very plan itself. \u201cIt is a fixed idea, one\nmay say, with the author of this Gospel, who had heard that Jesus had\nfallen a victim in Jerusalem to the hatred of the Jewish rulers,\nespecially the Scribes, that he must represent Jesus as engaged, from His\nfirst appearance onward, in an unceasing struggle with \u2018the Jews\u2019\u2014whereas\nwe know that the mass of the people, even to the last, in Jerusalem\nitself, were on the side of Jesus; so much so, indeed, that His enemies\nwere only able to get Him into their power by means of a secret betrayal.\u201d\n\nIn regard to the graphic descriptions in John, of which so much has been\nmade, the case is no better. It is the graphic detail of a writer who\ndesires to work up a vivid picture, not the natural touches of an\neyewitness, and there are, moreover, actual inconsistencies, as in the\ncase of the healing at the pool of Bethesda. The circumstantiality is due\nto the care of the author not to assume an acquaintance, on the part of\nhis readers, with Jewish usages or the topography of Palestine. \u201cA\nconsiderable proportion of the details are of such a character as\ninevitably to suggest that the narrator inserts them because of the\ntrouble which it has cost him to orientate himself in regard to the scene\nof the action and the dramatis personae, his object being to spare his\nreaders a similar difficulty; though he does not always go about it in the\nway best calculated to effect his purpose.\u201d\n\nThe impossibility also that the historic Jesus can have preached the\ndoctrine of the Johannine Christ, is as clear to Weisse as to Strauss. \u201cIt\nis not so much a picture of Christ that John sets forth, as a conception\nof Christ; his Christ does not speak _in_ His own Person, but _of_ His own\nPerson.\u201d\n\nOn the other hand, however, \u201cthe authority of the whole Christian Church\nfrom the second century to the nineteenth\u201d carries too much weight with\nWeisse for him to venture altogether to deny the Johannine origin of the\nGospel; and he seeks a middle path. He assumes that the didactic portions\nreally, for the most part, go back to John the Apostle. \u201cJohn,\u201d he\nexplains, \u201cdrawn on by the interest of a system of doctrine which had\nformed itself in his mind, not so much as a direct reflex of the teaching\nof his Master, as on the basis of suggestions offered by that teaching in\ncombination with a certain creative activity of his own, endeavoured to\nfind this system also in the teaching of his Master.\u201d\n\nAccordingly, with this purpose, and originally for himself alone, not with\nthe object of communicating it to others, he made an effort to exhibit, in\nthe light of this system of thought, what his memory still retained of the\ndiscourses of the Lord. \u201cThe Johannine discourses, therefore, were\nrecalled by a laborious effort of memory on the part of the disciple. When\nhe found that his memory\u2010image of his Master was threatening to dissolve\ninto a mist\u2010wraith, he endeavoured to impress the picture more firmly in\nhis recollection, to connect and define its rapidly disappearing features,\nreconstructing it by the aid of a theory evolved by himself or drawn from\nelsewhere regarding the Person and work of the Master.\u201d For the portrait\nof Christ in the Synoptic Gospels the mind of the disciples who describe\nHim is a neutral medium; for the portrait in John it is a factor which\ncontributes to the production of the picture. The same portrait is\noutlined by the apostle in the first epistle which bears his name.\n\nThese tentative \u201cessays,\u201d not originally intended for publication, came,\nafter the death of the apostle, into the hands of his adherents and\ndisciples, and they chose the form of a complete Life of Jesus as that in\nwhich to give them to the world. They, therefore, added narrative\nportions, which they distributed here and there among the speeches, often\ndoing some violence to the latter in the process. Such was the origin of\nthe Fourth Gospel.\n\nWeisse is not blind to the fact that this hypothesis of a Johannine basis\nin the Gospel is beset with the gravest\u2014one might almost say with\ninsuperable\u2014difficulties. Here is a man who was an immediate disciple of\nthe Lord, one who, in the Synoptic Gospels, in Acts, and in the Pauline\nletters, appears in a character which gives no hint of a coming spiritual\nmetamorphosis, one, moreover, who at a relatively late period, when it\nmight well have been supposed that his development was in all essentials\nclosed (at the time of Paul\u2019s visit to Jerusalem, which falls at least\nfourteen years after Paul\u2019s conversion), was chosen, along with James and\nPeter, and in contrast with the apostles of the Gentiles, Paul and\nBarnabas, as an apostle of the Jews\u2014\u201chow is it possible,\u201d asks Weisse, \u201cto\nexplain and make it intelligible, that a man of these antecedents displays\nin his thought and speech, in fact in his whole mental attitude, a\nthoroughly Hellenistic stamp? How came he, the beloved disciple, who,\naccording to this very Gospel which bears his name, was admitted more\nintimately than any other into the confidence of Jesus, how came he to\nclothe his Master in this foreign garb of Hellenistic speculation, and to\nattribute to Him this alien manner of speech? But, however difficult the\nexplanation may be, whatever extreme of improbability may seem to us to be\ninvolved in the assumption of the Johannine authorship of the Epistle and\nof these essential elements of the Gospel, it is better to assent to the\nimprobability, to submit to the burden of being forced to explain the\ninexplicable, than to set ourselves obstinately against the weight of\ntestimony, against the authority of the whole Christian Church from the\nsecond century to the present day.\u201d\n\nThere could be no better argument against the genuineness of the Fourth\nGospel than just such a defence of its genuineness as this. In this form\nthe hypothesis may well be destined to lead a harmless and never\u2010ending\nlife. What matters for the historical study of the Life of Jesus is simply\nthat the Fourth Gospel should be ruled out. And that Weisse does so\nthoroughly that it is impossible to imagine its being done more\nthoroughly. The speeches, in spite of their apostolic authority, are\nunhistorical, and need not be taken into account in describing Jesus\u2019\nsystem of thought. As for the unhappy redactor, who by adding the\nnarrative pictures created the Gospel, all possibility of his reports\nbeing accurate is roundly denied, and as if that was not enough, he must\nput up with being called a bungler into the bargain. \u201cI have, to tell the\ntruth, no very high opinion of the literary art of the editor of the\nJohannine Gospel\u2010document,\u201d says Weisse in his \u201cProblem of the Gospels\u201d of\n1856, which is the best commentary upon his earlier work.\n\nHis treatment of the Fourth Gospel reminds us of the story that Frederic\nthe Great once appointed an importunate office\u2010seeker to the post of\n\u201cPrivy Councillor for War,\u201d on condition that he would never presume to\noffer a syllable of advice!\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe hypothesis which was brought forward about the same time by Alexander\nSchweizer,(84) with the intention of saving the genuineness of the Gospel\nof John, did not make any real contribution to the subject. The reading of\nthe facts which form his starting\u2010point is almost the exact converse of\nthat of Weisse, since he regards, not the speeches, but certain parts of\nthe narrative as Johannine. That which it is possible, in his opinion, to\nrefer to the apostle is an account, not involving any miracles, of the\nministry of Jesus at Jerusalem, and the discourses which He delivered\nthere. The more or less miraculous events which occur in the course of\nit\u2014such as, that Jesus had seen Nathanael under the fig\u2010tree, knew the\npast life of the Samaritan woman, and healed the sick man at the Pool of\nBethesda\u2014are of a simple character, and contrast markedly with those which\nare represented to have occurred in Galilee, where Jesus turned water into\nwine and fed a multitude with a few crusts of bread. We must, therefore,\nsuppose that this short, authentic, spiritual Jerusalem\u2010Gospel has had a\nGalilaean Life of Jesus worked into it, and this explains the\ninconsistencies of the representation and the oscillation between a\nsensuous and a spiritual point of view.\n\nThis distinction, however, cannot be made good. Schweizer was obliged to\nascribe the reports of a material resurrection to the Galilaean source,\nwhereas these, since they exclude the Galilaean appearances of Jesus, must\nbelong to the Jerusalem Gospel; and accordingly, the whole distinction\nbetween a spiritual and material Gospel falls to the ground. Thus this\nhypothesis at best preserves the nominal authenticity of the Fourth\nGospel, only to deprive it immediately of all value as a historical\nsource.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nHad Strauss calmly examined the bearing of Weisse\u2019s hypothesis, he would\nhave seen that it fully confirmed the line he had taken in leaving the\nFourth Gospel out of account, and he might have been less unjust towards\nthe hypothesis of the priority of Mark, for which he cherished a blind\nhatred, because, in its fully developed form, it first met him in\nconjunction with seemingly reactionary tendencies towards the\nrehabilitation of John. He never in the whole course of his life got rid\nof the prejudice that the recognition of the priority of Mark was\nidentical with a retrograde movement towards an uncritical orthodoxy.\n\nThis is certainly not true as regards Weisse. He is far from having used\nMark unreservedly as a historical source. On the contrary, he says\nexpressly that the picture which this Gospel gives of Jesus is drawn by an\nimaginative disciple of the faith, filled with the glory of his subject,\nwhose enthusiasm is consequently sometimes stronger than his judgment.\nEven in Mark the mythopoeic tendency is already actively at work, so that\noften the task of historical criticism is to explain how such myths could\nhave been accepted by a reporter who stands as near the facts as Mark\ndoes.\n\nOf the _miracula_(85)\u2014so Weisse denominates the \u201cnon\u2010genuine\u201d miracles, in\ncontradistinction to the \u201cgenuine\u201d\u2014the feeding of the multitude is that\nwhich, above all others, cries aloud for an explanation. Its historical\nstrength lies in its being firmly interwoven with the preceding and\nfollowing context; and this applies to both the Marcan narratives. It is\ntherefore impossible to regard the story, as Strauss proposes to do, as\npure myth; it is necessary to show how, growing out of some incident\nbelonging to that context, it assumed its present literary form. The\nauthentic saying about the leaven of the Pharisees, which, in Mark viii.\n14 and 15, is connected with the two miracles of feeding the multitude,\ngives ground for supposing that they rest upon a parabolic discourse\nrepeated on two occasions, in which Jesus spoke, perhaps with allusion to\nthe manna, of a miraculous food given through Him. These discourses were\nlater transformed by tradition into an actual miraculous giving of food.\nHere, therefore, Weisse endeavours to substitute for Strauss\u2019s\n\u201cunhistorical\u201d conception of myth a different conception, which in each\ncase seeks to discover a sufficient historical cause.\n\nThe miracles at the baptism of Jesus are based upon His account of a\nvision which He experienced in that moment. The present form of the story\nof the transfiguration has a twofold origin. In the first place, it is\npartly based on a real experience shared by the three disciples. That\nthere is an historical fact here is evident from the way in which it is\nconnected with the context by a definite indication of time. The six days\nof Mark ix. 2 cannot really be connected, as Strauss would have us\nsuppose, with Ex. xxiv. 16;(86) the meaning is simply that between the\npreviously reported discourse of Jesus and the event described there was\nan interval of six days. The three disciples had a waking, spiritual\nvision, not a dream\u2010vision, and what was revealed in this vision was the\nMessiahship of Jesus. But at this point comes in the second, the mythico\u2010\nsymbolical element. The disciples see Jesus accompanied, according to the\nJewish Messianic expectations, by those whom the people thought of as His\nforerunners. He, however, turns away from them, and Moses and Elias, for\nwhom the disciples were about to build tabernacles, for them to abide in,\ndisappear. The mythical element is a reflection of the teaching which\nJesus imparted to them on that occasion, in consequence of which there\ndawned on them the spiritual \u201csignificance of those expectations and\npredictions, which they were to recognise as no longer pointing forward to\na future fulfilment, but as already fulfilled.\u201d The high mountain upon\nwhich, according to Mark, the event took place is not to be understood in\na literal sense, but as symbolical of the sublimity of the revelation; it\nis to be sought not on the map of Palestine, but in the recesses of the\nspirit.\n\nThe most striking case of the formation of myth is the story of the\nresurrection. Here, too, myth must have attached itself to an historical\nfact. The fact in question is not, however, the empty grave. This only\ncame into the story later, when the Jews, in order to counteract the\nChristian belief in the resurrection, had spread abroad the report that\nthe body had been stolen from the grave. In consequence of this report the\nempty grave had necessarily to be taken up into the story, the Christian\naccount now making use of the fact that the body of Jesus was not found as\na proof of His bodily resurrection. The emphasis laid on the identity of\nthe body which was buried with that which rose again, of which the Fourth\nEvangelist makes so much, belongs to a time when the Church had to oppose\nthe Gnostic conception of a spiritual, incorporeal immortality. The\nreaction against Gnosticism is, as Weisse rightly remarks, one of the most\npotent factors in the development of myth in the Gospel history. As an\nadditional instance of this he might have cited the anti\u2010gnostic form of\nthe Johannine account of the baptism of Jesus.\n\nWhat, then, is the historical fact in the resurrection? \u201cThe historical\nfact,\u201d replies Weisse, \u201cis only the existence of a belief\u2014not the belief\nof the later Christian Church in the myth of the bodily resurrection of\nthe Lord\u2014but the personal belief of the Apostles and their companions in\nthe miraculous presence of the risen Christ in the visions and appearances\nwhich they experienced.\u201d \u201cThe question whether those extraordinary\nphenomena which, soon after the death of the Lord, actually and undeniably\ntook place within the community of His disciples, rest upon fact or\nillusion\u2014that is, whether in them the departed spirit of the Lord, of\nwhose presence the disciples supposed themselves to be conscious, was\nreally present, or whether the phenomena were produced by natural causes\nof a different kind, spiritual and psychical, is a question which cannot\nbe answered without going beyond the confines of purely historical\ncriticism.\u201d The only thing which is certain is \u201cthat the resurrection of\nJesus is a fact which belongs to the domain of the spiritual and psychic\nlife, and which is not related to outward corporeal existence in such a\nway that the body which was laid in the grave could have shared therein.\u201d\nWhen the disciples of Jesus had their first vision of the glorified body\nof their Lord, they were far from Jerusalem, far from the grave, and had\nno thought of bringing that spiritual corporeity into any kind of relation\nwith the dead body of the Crucified. That the earliest appearances took\nplace in Galilee is indicated by the genuine conclusion of Mark, according\nto which the angel charges the women with the message that the disciples\nwere to await Jesus in Galilee.\n\nStrauss\u2019s conception of myth, which failed to give it any point of vital\nconnexion with the history, had not provided any escape from the dilemma\noffered by the rationalistic and supernaturalistic views of the\nresurrection. Weisse prepared a new historical basis for a solution. He\nwas the first to handle the problem from a point of view which combined\nhistorical with psychological considerations, and he is fully conscious of\nthe novelty and the far\u2010reaching consequences of his attempt. Theological\nscience did not overtake him for sixty years; and though it did not for\nthe most part share his one\u2010sidedness in recognising only the Galilaean\nappearances, that does not count for much, since it was unable to solve\nthe problem of the double tradition regarding the appearances. His\ndiscussion of the question is, both from the religious and from the\nhistorical point of view, the most satisfying treatment of it with which\nwe are acquainted; the pompous and circumspect utterances of the very\nlatest theology in regard to the \u201cempty grave\u201d look very poor in\ncomparison. Weisse\u2019s psychology requires only one correction\u2014the insertion\ninto it of the eschatological premise.\n\nIt is not only the admixture of myth, but the whole character of the\nMarcan representation, which forbids us to use it without reserve as a\nsource for the life of Jesus. The inventor of the Marcan hypothesis never\nwearies of repeating that even in the Second Gospel it is only the main\noutline of the Life of Jesus, not the way in which the various sections\nare joined together, which is historical. He does not, therefore, venture\nto write a Life of Jesus, but begins with a \u201cGeneral Sketch of the Gospel\nHistory\u201d in which he gives the main outlines of the Life of Jesus\naccording to Mark, and then proceeds to explain the incidents and\ndiscourses in each several Gospel in the order in which they occur.(87)\n\nHe avoids the professedly historical forced interpretation of detail,\nwhich later representatives of the Marcan hypothesis, Schenkel in\nparticular, employ in such distressing fashion that Wrede\u2019s book, by\nmaking an end of this inquisitorial method of extracting the Evangelist\u2019s\ntestimony, may be said to have released the Marcan hypothesis from the\ntorture\u2010chamber. Weisse is free from these over\u2010refinements. He refuses to\ndivide the Galilaean ministry of Jesus into a period of success and a\nperiod of failure and gradual falling off of adherents, divided by the\ncontroversy about legal purity in Mark vii.; he does not allow this\nepisode to counterbalance the general evidence that Jesus\u2019 public work was\naccompanied by a constantly growing success. Nor does it occur to him to\nconceive the sojourn of the Lord in Phoenician territory, and His journey\nto the neighbourhood of Caesarea Philippi, as a compulsory withdrawal from\nGalilee, an abandonment of His cause in that district, and to head the\nchapter, as was usual in the second period of the exegesis of Mark,\n\u201cFlights and Retirements.\u201d He is content simply to state that Jesus once\nvisited those regions, and explicitly remarks that while the Synoptists\nspeak of the Pharisees and Scribes as working actively against Him, there\nis nowhere any hint of a hostile movement on the part of the people, but\nthat, on the contrary, in spite of the Scribes and Pharisees the people\nare always ready to approve Him and take His part; so much so that His\nenemies can only hope to get Him into their power by a secret betrayal.\n\nWeisse does not admit any failure in Jesus\u2019 work, nor that death came upon\nHim from without as an inevitable necessity. He cannot, therefore, regard\nthe thought of suffering as forced upon Jesus by outward events. Later\ninterpreters of Mark have often held that the essential thing in the\nLord\u2019s resolve to die was that by His voluntary acceptance of a fate which\nwas more and more clearly revealing itself as inevitable, He raised it\ninto the sphere of ethico\u2010religious freedom: this was not Weisse\u2019s view.\nJesus, according to him, was not moved by any outward circumstances when\nHe set out for Jerusalem in order to die there. He did it in obedience to\na supra\u2010rational higher necessity. We can at most venture to conjecture\nthat a cessation of His miracle\u2010working power, of which He had become\naware, revealed to Him that the hour appointed by God had come. He did, in\nfact, no further miracle in Jerusalem.\n\nHow far Isaiah liii. may have contributed to suggest the conception of\nsuch a death being a necessary part of Messiah\u2019s work, it is impossible to\ndiscover. In the popular expectation there was no thought of the Messiah\nas suffering. The thought was conceived by Jesus independently, through\nHis deep and penetrating spiritual insight. Without any external\nsuggestion whatever He announces to His disciples that He is to die at\nJerusalem, and that He is going thither with that end in view. He\njourneyed, not to the Passover, but to His death. The fact that it took\nplace at the time of the Feast was, so far as Jesus was concerned,\naccidental. The circumstances of His entry were such as to suggest\nanything rather than the fulfilment of His predictions; but though the\njubilant multitude surrounded Him day by day, as with a wall of defence,\nHe did not let that make Him falter in His purpose; rather He forced the\nauthorities to arrest Him; He preserved silence before Pilate with the\ndeliberate purpose of rendering His death inevitable. The theory of later\ndefenders of the Marcan hypothesis that Jesus, giving up His cause in\nGalilee for lost, went up to Jerusalem to conquer or die, is foreign to\nWeisse\u2019s conception. In his view, Jesus, breaking off His Galilaean work\nwhile the tide of success was still flowing strongly, journeyed to\nJerusalem, in the scorn of consequence, with the sole purpose of dying\nthere.\n\nIt is true there are some premonitions of the later course of Marcan\nexegesis. The Second Gospel mentions no Passover journeys as falling in\nthe course of the public ministry of Jesus; consequently the most natural\nconclusion would be that no Passover journeys fall within that period;\nthat is, that Jesus\u2019 ministry began after one Passover and closed with the\nnext, thus lasting less than a full year. Weisse thinks, however, that it\nis impossible to understand the success of His teaching unless we assume a\nministry of several years, of more than three years, indeed. Mark does not\nmention the Feasts simply because Jesus did not go up to Jerusalem.\n\u201cIntrinsic probability is, in our opinion, so strongly in favour of a\nduration of a considerable number of years, that we are at a loss to\nexplain how it is that at least a few unprejudiced investigators have not\nfound in this a sufficient reason for departing from the traditional\nopinion.\u201d\n\nThe account of the mission of the Twelve is also, on the ground of\n\u201cintrinsic probability,\u201d explained in a way which is not in accordance\nwith the plain sense of the words. \u201cWe do not think,\u201d says Weisse, \u201cthat\nit is necessary to understand this in the sense that He sent all the\ntwelve out at one time, two and two, remaining alone in the meantime; it\nis much more natural to suppose that He only sent them out two at a time,\nkeeping the others about Him. The object of this mission was less the\nimmediate spreading abroad of His teaching than the preparation of the\ndisciples themselves for the independent activity which they would have to\nexercise after His death.\u201d These are, however, the only serious liberties\nwhich he takes with the statements of Mark.\n\nWhen did Jesus begin to think of Himself as the Messiah? The baptism seems\nto have marked an epoch in regard to His Messianic consciousness, but that\ndoes not mean that He had not previously begun to have such thoughts about\nHimself. In any case He did not on that occasion arrive all at once at\nthat point of His inward journey which He had reached at the time of His\nfirst public appearance. We must assume a period of some duration between\nthe baptism and the beginning of His ministry\u2014a longer period than we\nshould suppose from the Synoptists\u2014during which Jesus cast off the\nMessianic ideas of Judaism and attained to a spiritual conception of the\nMessiahship. When He began to teach, His \u201cdevelopment\u201d was already closed.\nLater interpreters of Mark have generally differed from Weisse in assuming\na development in the thought of Jesus during His public ministry.\n\nHis conception of the Messiahship was therefore fully formed when He began\nto teach in Capernaum; but He did not allow the people to see that He held\nHimself to be the Messiah until His triumphal entry. It was in order to\navoid declaring His Messiahship that He kept away from Jerusalem. \u201cIt was\nonly in Galilee and not in the Jewish capital that an extended period of\nteaching and work was possible for Him without being obliged to make an\nexplicit declaration whether He were the Messiah or no. In Jerusalem\nitself the High Priests and Scribes would soon have put this question to\nHim in such a way that He could not have avoided answering it, whereas in\nGalilee He doubtless on more than one occasion cut short such attempts to\nquestion Him too closely by the incisiveness of His replies.\u201d Like\nStrauss, Weisse recognises that the key to the explanation of the\nMessianic consciousness of Jesus lies in the self\u2010designation \u201cSon of\nMan.\u201d \u201cWe are most certainly justified,\u201d he says, with almost prophetic\ninsight, in his \u201cProblem of the Gospels,\u201d published in 1856, \u201cin regarding\nthe question, what sense the Divine Saviour desired to attach to this\npredicate?\u2014what, in fact, He intended to make known about Himself by using\nthe title Son of Man\u2014as an essential question for the right understanding\nof His teaching, and not of His teaching only, but also of the very heart\nand inmost essence of His personality.\u201d\n\nBut at this point Weisse lets in the cloven hoof of that fatal method of\ninterpretation, by the aid of which the defenders of the Marcan hypothesis\nwho succeeded him were to wage war, with a kind of dull and dogged\ndetermination, against eschatology, in the interests of an original and\n\u201cspiritual\u201d conception of the Messiahship supposed to be held by Jesus.\nUnder the obsession of the fixed idea that it was their mission to defend\nthe \u201coriginality\u201d of Jesus by ascribing to Him a modernising\ntransformation and spiritualisation of the eschatological system of ideas,\nthe defenders of the Marcan hypothesis have impeded the historical study\nof the Life of Jesus to an almost unbelievable extent.\n\nThe explanation of the name Son of Man had, Weisse explains, hitherto\noscillated between two extremes. Some had held the expression to be, even\nin the mouth of Jesus, equivalent to \u201cman\u201d in general, an interpretation\nwhich cannot be carried through; others had connected it with the Son of\nMan in Daniel, and supposed that in using the term Jesus was employing a\nMessianic title understood by and current among the Jews. But how came He\nto employ only this unusual periphrastic name for the Messiah? Further, if\nthis name were really a Messianic title, how could He repeatedly have\nrefused Messianic salutations, and not until the triumphal entry suffered\nthe people to hail Him as Messiah?\n\nThe questions are rightly asked; it is therefore the more pity that they\nare wrongly answered. It follows, Weisse says, from the above\nconsiderations that Jesus did not assume an acquaintance on the part of\nHis hearers with the Old Testament Messianic significance of the\nexpression. \u201cIt was therefore incontestably the intention of Jesus\u2014and any\none who considers it unworthy betrays thereby his own want of insight\u2014that\nthe designation should have something mysterious about it, something which\nwould compel His hearers to reflect upon His meaning.\u201d The expression Son\nof Man was calculated to lead them on to higher conceptions of His nature\nand origin, and therefore sums up in itself the whole spiritualisation of\nthe Messiahship.\n\nWeisse, therefore, passionately rejects any suggestion, however modest,\nthat Jesus\u2019 self\u2010designation, Son of Man, implies any measure of\nacceptance of the Jewish apocalyptic system of ideas. Ewald had furnished\nforth his Life of Jesus(88) with a wealth of Old Testament learning, and\nhad made some half\u2010hearted attempts to show the connexion of Jesus\u2019 system\nof thought with that of post\u2010canonical Judaism, but without taking the\nmatter seriously and without having any suspicion of the real character of\nthe eschatology of Jesus. But even these parade\u2010ground tactics excite\nWeisse\u2019s indignation; in his book, published in 1856, he reproaches Ewald\nwith failing to understand his task.\n\nThe real duty of criticism is, according to Weisse, to show that Jesus had\nno part in those fantastic errors which are falsely attributed to Him when\na literal Jewish interpretation is given to His great sayings about the\nfuture of the Son of Man, and to remove all the obstacles which seem to\nhave prevented hitherto the recognition of the novel character and special\nsignificance of the expression, Son of Man, in the mouth of Him who, of\nHis own free choice, applied this name to Himself. \u201cHow long will it be,\u201d\nhe cries, \u201cbefore theology at last becomes aware of the deep importance of\nits task? Historical criticism, exercised with all the thoroughness and\nimpartiality which alone can produce a genuine conviction, must free the\nMaster\u2019s own teaching from the imputation that lies upon it\u2014the imputation\nof sharing the errors and false expectations in which, as we cannot deny,\nowing to imperfect or mistaken understanding of the suggestions of the\nMaster, the Apostles, and with them the whole early Christian Church,\nbecame involved.\u201d\n\nThis fundamental position determines the remainder of Weisse\u2019s views.\nJesus cannot have shared the Jewish particularism. He did not hold the Law\nto be binding. It was for this reason that He did not go up to the Feasts.\nHe distinctly and repeatedly expressed the conviction that His doctrine\nwas destined for the whole world. In speaking of the parousia of the Son\nof Man He was using a figure\u2014a figure which includes in a mysterious\nfashion all His predictions of the future. He did not speak to His\ndisciples of His resurrection, His ascension, and His parousia as three\ndistinct acts, since the event to which He looked forward is not identical\nwith any of the three, but is composed of them all. The resurrection is,\nat the same time, the ascension and parousia, and in the parousia the\nresurrection and the ascension are also included. \u201cThe one conclusion to\nwhich we believe we can point with certainty is that Jesus spoke of the\nfuture of His work and His teaching in a way that implied the\nconsciousness of an influence to be continued after His death, whether\nunbrokenly or intermittently, and the consciousness that by this influence\nHis work and teaching would be preserved from destruction and the final\nvictory assured to it.\u201d\n\nThe personal presence of Jesus which the disciples experienced after His\ndeath was in their view only a partial fulfilment of that general promise.\nThe parousia appeared to them as still awaiting fulfilment. Thought of\nthus, as an isolated event, they could only conceive it from the Jewish\napocalyptic standpoint, and they finally came to suppose that they had\nderived these fantastic ideas from the Master Himself.\n\nIn his determined opposition to the recognition of eschatology in\nStrauss\u2019s first Life of Jesus, Weisse here lays down the lines which were\nto be followed by the \u201cliberal\u201d Lives of Jesus of the \u2019sixties and\nfollowing years, which only differ from him, not always to their\nadvantage, in their more elaborate interpretation of the detail of Mark.\nThe only work, therefore, which was a conscious continuation of Strauss\u2019s,\ntakes, in spite of its just appreciation of the character of the sources,\na wrong path, led astray by the mistaken idea of the \u201coriginality\u201d of\nJesus, which it exalts into a canon of historical criticism. Only after\nlong and devious wanderings did the study of the subject find the right\nroad again. The whole struggle over eschatology is nothing else than a\ngradual elimination of Weisse\u2019s ideas. It was only with Johannes Weiss\nthat theology escaped from the influence of Christian Hermann Weisse.\n\n\n\n\n\nXI. BRUNO BAUER. THE FIRST SCEPTICAL LIFE OF JESUS\n\n\n    Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte des Johannes. (Criticism of\n    the Gospel History of John.) Bremen, 1840. 435 pp.\n\n    Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte der Synoptiker. (Criticism of\n    the Gospel History of the Synoptics.) 3 vols., Leipzig, 1841\u20101842;\n    vol. i. 416 pp.; vol. ii. 392 pp.; vol. iii. 341 pp.\n\n    Kritik der Evangelien. (Criticism of the Gospels.) 2 vols.,\n    1850\u20101851, Berlin.\n\n    Kritik der Apostelgeschichte. (Criticism of Acts.) 1850.\n\n    Kritik der Paulinischen Briefe. Berlin, 1850\u20101852. In three parts.\n\n    Philo, Strauss, Renan und das Urchristentum. (P., S., R., and\n    Primitive Christianity.) Berlin, 1874. 155 pp.\n\n    Christus und die C\u00e4saren. Der Ursprung des Christentums aus dem\n    r\u00f6mischen Griechentum. (The Origin of Christianity from Graeco\u2010\n    Roman Civilisation.) Berlin, 1877. 387 pp.\n\n\nBruno Bauer was born in 1809 at Eisenberg, in the duchy of Sachsen\u2010\nAltenburg. In philosophy, he was at first associated entirely with the\nHegelian \u201cright.\u201d Like Strauss, he received a strong impulse from Vatke.\nAt this stage of his development he reviewed, in 1835 and 1836, Strauss\u2019s\nLife of Jesus in the _Jahrb\u00fccher f\u00fcr wissenschaftliche Kritik_, and wrote\nin 1838 a \u201cCriticism of the History of Revelation.\u201d(89)\n\nIn 1834 he had become Privat\u2010Docent in Berlin, but in 1839 he removed to\nBonn. He was then in the midst of that intellectual crisis of which the\nevidence appeared in his critical works on John and the Synoptics. In\nAugust 1841 the Minister, Eichhorn, requested the Faculties of the\nPrussian Universities to report on the question whether Bauer should be\nallowed to retain the _venia docendi_. Most of them returned an evasive\nanswer, K\u00f6nigsberg replied in the affirmative, and Bonn in the negative.\nIn March 1842 Bauer was obliged to cease lecturing, and retired to Rixdorf\nnear Berlin. In the first heat of his furious indignation over this\ntreatment he wrote a work with the title \u201cChristianity Exposed,\u201d(90)\nwhich, however, was cancelled before publication at Zurich in 1843.\n\nHe then turned his attention to secular history and wrote on the French\nRevolution, on Napoleon, on the Illuminism of the Eighteenth Century, and\non the party struggles in Germany during the years 1842\u20101846. At the\nbeginning of the \u2019fifties he returned to theological subjects, but failed\nto exercise any influence. His work was simply ignored.\n\nRadical though he was in spirit, Bauer found himself fighting, at the end\nof the \u2019fifties and beginning of the \u2019sixties, in the ranks of the\nPrussian Conservatives\u2014we are reminded how Strauss in the W\u00fcrtemberg\nChamber was similarly forced to side with the reactionaries. He died in\n1882. His was a pure, modest, and lofty character.\n\nAt the time of his removal from Berlin to Bonn he was just at the end of\nthe twenties, that critical age when pupils often surprise their teachers,\nwhen men begin to find themselves and show what they are, not merely what\nthey have been taught.\n\nIn approaching the investigation of the Gospel history, Bauer saw, as he\nhimself tells us, two ways open to him. He might take as his starting\u2010\npoint the Jewish Messianic conception, and endeavour to answer the\nquestion how the intuitive prophetic idea of the Messiah became a fixed\nreflective conception. That was the historical method; he chose, however,\nthe other, the literary method. This starts from the opposite side of the\nquestion, from the end instead of the beginning of the Gospel history.\nTaking first the Gospel of John, in which it is obvious that reflective\nthought has fitted the life of the Jewish Messiah into the frame of the\nLogos conception, he then, starting as it were from the embouchure of the\nstream, works his way upwards to the high ground in which the Gospel\ntradition takes its rise. The decision in favour of the latter view\ndetermined the character of Bauer\u2019s life\u2010work; it was his task to follow\nout, to its ultimate consequences, the literary solution of the problem of\nthe life of Jesus.\n\nHow far this path would lead him he did not at first suspect. But he did\nsuspect how strong was the influence upon the formation of history of a\ndominant idea which moulds and shapes it with a definite artistic purpose.\nHis interest was especially arrested by Philo, who, without knowing or\nintending it, contributed to the fulfilment of a higher task than that\nwith which he was immediately engaged. Bauer\u2019s view is that a speculative\nprinciple such as Philo\u2019s, when it begins to take possession of men\u2019s\nminds, influences them in the first glow of enthusiasm which it evokes\nwith such overmastering power that the just claims of that which is actual\nand historical cannot always secure the attention which is their due. In\nPhilo\u2019s pupil, John, we must look, not for history, but for art.\n\nThe Fourth Gospel is in fact a work of art. This was now for the first\ntime appreciated by one who was himself an artist. Schleiermacher, indeed,\nhad at an earlier period taken up the aesthetic standpoint in considering\nthis Gospel. But he had used it as an apologist, proceeding to exalt the\nartistic truth which he rightly recognised into historic reality, and his\ncritical sense failed him, precisely because he was an aesthete and an\napologist, when he came to deal with the Fourth Gospel. Now, however,\nthere comes forward a true artist, who shows that the depth of religious\nand intellectual insight which Tholuck and Neander, in opposing Strauss,\nhad urged on behalf of the Fourth Gospel, is\u2014Christian art.\n\nIn Bauer, however, the aesthete is at the same time a critic. Although\nmuch in the Fourth Gospel is finely \u201cfelt,\u201d like the opening scenes\nreferring to the Baptist and to Jesus, which Bauer groups together under\nthe heading \u201cThe Circle of the Expectant,\u201d yet his art is by no means\nalways perfect. The author who conceived those discourses, of which the\nmovement consists in a kind of tautological return upon itself, and who\nmakes the parables trail out into dragging allegories, is no perfect\nartist. \u201cThe parable of the Good Shepherd,\u201d says Bauer, \u201cis neither\nsimple, nor natural, nor a true parable, but a metaphor, which is,\nnevertheless, much too elaborate for a metaphor, is not clearly conceived,\nand, finally, in places shows much too clearly the skeleton of reflection\nover which it is stretched.\u201d\n\nBauer treats, in his work of 1840,(91) the Fourth Gospel only. The\nSynoptics he deals with only in a quite incidental fashion, \u201cas opposing\narmies make demonstrations in order to provoke the enemy to a decisive\nconflict.\u201d\n\nHe breaks off at the beginning of the story of the passion, because here\nit would be necessary to bring in the Synoptic parallels. \u201cFrom the\ndistant heights on which the Synoptic forces have taken up a menacing\nposition, we must now draw them down into the plain; now comes the pitched\nbattle between them and the Fourth Gospel, and the question regarding the\nhistorical character of that which we have found to be the ultimate basis\nof the last Gospel, can now at length be decided.\u201d\n\nIf, in the Gospel of John, no smallest particle could be found which was\nunaffected by the creative reflection of the author, how will it stand\nwith the Synoptists?\n\nWhen Bauer broke off his work upon John in this abrupt way\u2014for he had not\noriginally intended to conclude it at this point\u2014how far did he still\nretain a belief in the historical character of the Synoptics? It looks as\nif he had intended to treat then as the solid foundation, in contrast with\nthe fantastic structure raised upon it by the Fourth Gospel. But when he\nbegan to use his pick upon the rock, it crumbled away. Instead of a\ndifference of kind he found only a difference of degree. The \u201cCriticism of\nthe Gospel History of the Synoptists\u201d of 1841 is built on the site which\nStrauss had levelled. \u201cThe abiding influence of Strauss,\u201d says Bauer,\n\u201cconsists in the fact that he has removed from the path of subsequent\ncriticism the danger and trouble of a collision with the earlier orthodox\nsystem.\u201d\n\nBauer finds his material laid ready to his hand by Weisse and Wilke.\nWeisse had divined in Mark the source from which criticism\u2014becoming barren\nin the work of Strauss\u2014might draw a new spring of vigorous life; and\nWilke, whom Bauer places above Weisse, had raised this happy conjecture to\nthe level of a scientifically assured result. The Marcan hypothesis was no\nlonger on its trial.\n\nBut its bearing upon the history of Jesus had still to be determined. What\nposition do Weisse and Wilke take up towards the hypothesis of a tradition\nlying behind the Gospel of Mark? If it be once admitted that the whole\nGospel tradition, so far as concerns its plan, goes back to a single\nwriter, who has created the connexion between the different events\u2014for\nneither Weisse nor Wilke regards the connexion of the sections as\nhistorical\u2014does not the possibility naturally suggest itself that the\nnarrative of the events themselves, not merely the connexion in which they\nappear in Mark, is to be set down to the account of the author of the\nGospel? Weisse and Wilke had not suspected how great a danger arises when,\nof the three witnesses who represent the tradition, only one is allowed to\nstand, and the tradition is recognised and allowed to exist in this one\nwritten form only. The triple embankment held; will a single one bear the\nstrain?\n\nThe following considerations have to be taken into account. The criticism\nof the Fourth Gospel compels us to recognise that a Gospel _may_ have a\npurely literary origin. This discovery dawned upon Bauer at a time when he\nwas still disinclined to accept Wilke\u2019s conclusions regarding Mark. But\nwhen he had recognised the truth of the latter he felt compelled by the\ncombination of the two to accept the idea that Mark also might be of\npurely literary origin. For Weisse and Wilke the Marcan hypothesis had not\nimplied this result, because they continued to combine with it the wider\nhypothesis of a general tradition, holding that Matthew and Luke used the\ncollection of \u201cLogia,\u201d and also owed part of their supplementary matter to\na free use of floating tradition, so that Mark, it might almost be said,\nmerely supplied them with the formative principle by means of which they\nmight order their material.\n\nBut what if Papias\u2019s statement about the collection of \u201cLogia\u201d were\nworthless, and could be shown to be so by the literary data? In that case\nMatthew and Luke would be purely literary expansions of Mark, and like\nhim, purely literary inventions.\n\nIn this connexion Bauer attaches decisive importance to the phenomena of\nthe birth\u2010stories. If these had been derived from tradition they could not\ndiffer from each other as they do. If it is suggested that tradition had\nproduced a large number of independent, though mutually consistent,\nstories of the childhood, out of which the Evangelists composed their\nopening narratives, this also is found to be untenable, for these\nnarratives are not composite structures. The separate stories of which\neach of these two histories of the childhood consists could not have been\nformed independently of one another; none of them existed by itself; each\npoints to the others and is informed by a view which implies the whole.\nThe histories of the childhood are therefore not literary versions of a\ntradition, but literary inventions.\n\nIf we go on to examine the discourse and narrative material, additional to\nthat of Mark, which is found in Matthew and Luke, a similar result\nappears. The same standpoint is regulative throughout, showing that the\nadditions do not consist of oral or written traditional material which has\nbeen worked into the Marcan plan, but of a literary development of certain\nfundamental ideas and suggestions found in the first author. These\ndevelopments, as is shown by the accounts of the Sermon on the Mount and\nthe charge to the Twelve, are not carried as far in Luke as in Matthew.\nThe additional material in the latter seems indeed to be worked up from\nsuggestions in the former. Luke thus forms the transition stage between\nMark and Matthew. The Marcan hypothesis, accordingly, now takes on the\nfollowing form. Our knowledge of the Gospel history does not rest upon any\nbasis of tradition, but only upon three literary works. Two of these are\nnot independent, being merely expansions of the first, and the third,\nMatthew, is also dependent upon the second. Consequently there is no\ntradition of the Gospel history, but only a single _literary source_.\n\nBut, if so, who is to assure us that this Gospel history, with its\nassertion of the Messiahship of Jesus, was already a matter of common\nknowledge before it was fixed in writing, and did not first become known\nin a literary form? In the latter case, one man would have created out of\ngeneral ideas the definite historical tradition in which these ideas are\nembodied. The only thing that could be set against this literary\npossibility, as a historical counter\u2010possibility, would be a proof that at\nthe period when the Gospel history is supposed to take place a Messianic\nexpectation really existed among the Jews, so that a man who claimed to be\nthe Messiah and was recognised as such, as Mark represents Jesus to have\nbeen, would be historically conceivable. This presupposition had hitherto\nbeen unanimously accepted by all writers, no matter how much opposed in\nother respects. They were all satisfied \u201cthat before the appearance of\nJesus the expectation of a Messiah prevailed among the Jews\u201d; and were\neven able to explain its precise character.\n\nBut where\u2014apart from the Gospels\u2014did they get their information from?\nWhere is the documentary evidence of the Jewish Messianic doctrine on\nwhich that of the Gospels is supposed to be based? Daniel was the last of\nthe prophets. Everything tends to suggest that the mysterious content of\nhis work remained without influence in the subsequent period. Jewish\nliterature ends with the Wisdom writings, in which there is no mention of\na Messiah. In the LXX there is no attempt to translate in accordance with\na preconceived picture of the Messiah. In the Apocalypses, which are of\nsmall importance, there is reference to a Messianic Kingdom; the Messiah\nHimself, however, plays a quite subordinate part, and is, indeed, scarcely\nmentioned. For Philo He has no existence; the Alexandrian does not dream\nof connecting Him with his Logos speculation. There remain, therefore, as\nwitnesses for the Jewish Messianic expectations in the time of Tiberius,\nonly Mark and his imitators. This evidence, however, is of such a\ncharacter that in certain points it contradicts itself.\n\nIn the first place, if at the time when the Christian community was\nforming its view of history and the religious ideas which we find in the\nGospels, the Jews had already possessed a doctrine of the Messiah, there\nwould have been already a fixed type of interpretation of the Messianic\npassages in the Old Testament, and it would have been impossible for the\nsame passages to be interpreted in a totally different way, as referring\nto Jesus and His work, as we find them interpreted in the New Testament.\nNext, consider the representation of the Baptist\u2019s work. We should have\nexpected him to connect his baptism with the preaching of \u201cHim who was to\ncome\u201d\u2014if this were really the Messiah\u2014by baptizing in the name of this\n\u201cComing One.\u201d He, however, keeps them separate, baptizing in preparation\nfor the Kingdom, though referring in his discourses to \u201cHim who was to\ncome.\u201d\n\nThe earliest Evangelist did not venture openly to carry back into the\nhistory the idea that Jesus had claimed to be the Messiah, because he was\naware that in the time of Jesus no general expectation of the Messiah had\nprevailed among the people. When the disciples in Mark viii. 28 report the\nopinions of the people concerning Jesus they cannot mention any who hold\nHim to be the Messiah. Peter is the first to attain to the recognition of\nHis Messiahship. But as soon as the confession is made the Evangelist\nmakes Jesus forbid His disciples to tell the people who He is. Why is the\nattribution of the Messiahship to Jesus made in this surreptitious and\ninconsistent way? It is because the writer who gave the history its form\nwell knew that no one had ever come forward publicly on Palestinian soil\nto claim the Messiahship, or had been recognised by the people as Messiah.\n\nThe \u201creflective conception of the Messiah\u201d was not, therefore, taken over\nready\u2010made from Judaism; that dogma first arose along with the Christian\ncommunity, or rather the moment in which it arose was the same in which\nthe Christian community had its birth.\n\nMoreover, how unhistorical, even on a priori grounds, is the mechanical\nway in which Jesus at this first appearance at once sets Himself up as the\nMessiah and says, \u201cBehold I am He whom ye have expected.\u201d In essence,\nBauer thinks, there is not so much difference between Strauss and\nHengstenberg. For Hengstenberg the whole life of Jesus is the living\nembodiment of the Old Testament picture of the Messiah; Strauss, a less\nreverent counterpart of Hengstenberg, made the image of the Messiah into a\nmask which Jesus Himself was obliged to assume, and which legend\nafterwards substituted for His real features.\n\n\u201cWe save the honour of Jesus,\u201d says Bauer, \u201cwhen we restore His Person to\nlife from the state of inanition to which the apologists have reduced it,\nand give it once more a living relation to history, which it certainly\npossessed\u2014that can no longer be denied. If a conception was to become\ndominant which should unite heaven and earth, God and man, nothing more\nand nothing less was necessary as a preliminary condition, than that a Man\nshould appear, the very essence of whose consciousness should be the\nreconciliation of these antitheses, and who should manifest this\nconsciousness to the world, and lead the religious mind to the sole point\nfrom which its difficulties can be solved. Jesus accomplished this mighty\nwork, but not by prematurely pointing to His own Person. Instead He\ngradually made known to the people the thoughts which filled and entered\ninto the very essence of His mind. It was only in this indirect way that\nHis Person\u2014which He freely offered up in the cause of His historical\nvocation and of the idea for which He lived\u2014continued to live on in so far\nas this idea was accepted. When, in the belief of His followers, He rose\nagain and lived on in the Christian community, it was as the Son of God\nwho had overcome and reconciled the great antithesis. He was that in which\nalone the religious consciousness found rest and peace, apart from which\nthere was nothing firm, trustworthy, and enduring.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt was only now that the vague, ill\u2010defined, prophetic representations\nwere focused into a point; were not only fulfilled, but were also united\ntogether by a common bond which strengthened and gave greater value to\neach of them. With His appearance and the rise of belief in Him, a clear\nconception, a definite mental picture of the Messiah became possible; and\nthus it was that a Christology(92) first arose.\u201d\n\nWhile, therefore, at the close of Bauer\u2019s first work it might have seemed\nthat it was only the Gospel of John which he held to be a literary\ncreation, here the same thing is said of the original Gospel. The only\ndifference is that we find more primitive reflection in the Synoptics, and\nlater work in the representation given by the Fourth Evangelist; the\nformer is of a more practical character, the latter more dogmatic.\n\nNevertheless it is false to assert that according to Bauer the earliest\nEvangelist invented the Gospel history and the personality of Jesus. That\nis to carry back the ideas of a later period and a further stage of\ndevelopment into the original form of his view. At the moment when, having\ndisposed of preliminaries, he enters on his investigation, he still\nassumes that a great, a unique Personality, who so impressed men by His\ncharacter that it lived on among them in an ideal form, had awakened into\nlife the Messianic idea; and that what the original Evangelist really did\nwas to portray the life of this Jesus\u2014the Christ of the community which He\nfounded\u2014in accordance with the Messianic view of Him, just as the Fourth\nEvangelist portrayed it in accordance with the presupposition that Jesus\nwas the revealer of the Logos. It was only in the course of his\ninvestigations that Bauer\u2019s opinion became more radical. As he goes on,\nhis writing becomes ill\u2010tempered, and takes the form of controversial\ndialogues with \u201cthe theologians,\u201d whom he apostrophises in a biting and\ninjurious fashion, and whom he continually reproaches with not daring,\nowing to their apologetic prejudices, to see things as they really are,\nand with declining to face the ultimate results of criticism from fear\nthat the tradition might suffer more loss of historic value than religion\ncould bear. In spite of this hatred of the theologians, which is\npathological in character, like his meaningless punctuation, his critical\nanalyses are always exceedingly acute. One has the impression of walking\nalongside a man who is reasoning quite intelligently, but who talks to\nhimself as though possessed by a fixed idea. What if the whole thing\nshould turn out to be nothing but a literary invention\u2014not only the\nincidents and discourses, but even the Personality which is assumed as the\nstarting\u2010point of the whole movement? What if the Gospel history were only\na late imaginary embodiment of a set of exalted ideas, and these were the\nonly historical reality from first to last? This is the idea which\nobsesses his mind more and more completely, and moves him to contemptuous\nlaughter. What, he mocks, will these apologists, who are so sure of\neverything, do then with the shreds and tatters which will be all that is\nleft to them?\n\nBut at the outset of his investigations Bauer was far from holding such\nviews. His purpose was really only to continue the work of Strauss. The\nconception of myth and legend of which the latter made use is, Bauer\nthinks, much too vague to explain this deliberate \u201ctransformation\u201d of a\npersonality. In the place of myth Bauer therefore sets \u201creflection.\u201d The\nlife which pulses in the Gospel history is too vigorous to be explained as\ncreated by legend; it is real \u201cexperience,\u201d only not the experience of\nJesus, but of the Church. The representation of this experience of the\nChurch in the Life of a Person is not the work of a number of persons, but\nof a single author. It is in this twofold aspect\u2014as the composition of one\nman, embodying the experience of many\u2014that the Gospel history is to be\nregarded. As religious art it has a profound truth. When it is regarded\nfrom this point of view the difficulties which are encountered in the\nendeavour to conceive it as real immediately disappear.\n\nWe must take as our point of departure the belief in the sacrificial death\nand the resurrection of Jesus. Everything else attaches itself to this as\nto its centre. When the need arose to fix definitely the beginning of the\nmanifestation of Jesus as the Saviour\u2014to determine the point of time at\nwhich the Lord issued forth from obscurity\u2014it was natural to connect this\nwith the work of the Baptist; and Jesus comes to his baptism. While this\nis sufficient for the earliest Evangelist, Matthew and Luke feel it to be\nnecessary, in view of the important consequences involved in the connexion\nof Jesus with the Baptist, to bring them into relation once more by means\nof the question addressed by the Baptist to Jesus, although this addition\nis quite inconsistent with the assumptions of the earliest Evangelist. If\nhe had conceived the story of the baptism with the idea of introducing the\nBaptist again on a later occasion, and this time, moreover, as a doubter,\nhe would have given it a different form. This is a just observation of\nBauer\u2019s; the story of the baptism with the miracle which took place at it,\nand the Baptist\u2019s question, understood as implying a doubt of the\nMessiahship of Jesus, mutually exclude one another.\n\nThe story of the temptation embodies an experience of the early Church.\nThis narrative represents her inner conflicts under the form of a conflict\nof the Redeemer. On her march through the wilderness of this world she has\nto fight with temptations of the devil, and in the story composed by Mark\nand Luke, and artistically finished by Matthew, she records a vow to build\nonly on the inner strength of her constitutive principle. In the sermon on\nthe mount also, Matthew has carried out with greater completeness that\nwhich was more vaguely conceived by Luke. It is only when we understand\nthe words of Jesus as embodying experiences of the early Church that their\ndeeper sense becomes clear and what would otherwise seem offensive\ndisappears. The saying, \u201cLet the dead bury their dead,\u201d would not have\nbeen fitting for Jesus to speak, and had He been a real man, it could\nnever have entered into His mind to create so unreal and cruel a collision\nof duties; for no command, Divine or human, could have sufficed to make it\nright for a man to contravene the ethical obligations of family life. So\nhere again, the obvious conclusion is that the saying originated in the\nearly Church, and was intended to inculcate renunciation of a world which\nwas felt to belong to the kingdom of the dead, and to illustrate this by\nan extreme example.\n\nThe mission of the Twelve, too, is, as an historical occurrence, simply\ninconceivable. It would have been different if Jesus had given them a\ndefinite teaching, or form of belief, or positive conception of any kind,\nto take with them as their message. But how ill the charge to the Twelve\nfulfils its purpose as a discourse of instruction! What the disciples\nneeded to learn, namely, what and how they were to teach, they are not\ntold; and the discourse which Matthew has composed, working on the basis\nof Luke, implies quite a different set of circumstances. It is concerned\nwith the struggles of the Church with the world and the sufferings which\nit must endure. This is the explanation of the references to suffering\nwhich constantly recur in the discourses of Jesus, in spite of the fact\nthat His disciples were not enduring any sufferings, and that the\nEvangelist cannot even make it conceivable as a possibility that those\nbefore whose eyes Jesus holds up the way of the Cross could ever come into\nsuch a position. The Twelve, at any rate, had no sufferings to encounter\nduring their mission, and if they were merely being sent by Jesus into the\nsurrounding districts they were not very likely to meet with kings and\nrulers there.\n\nThat it is a case of invented history is also shown by the fact that\nnothing is said about the doings of the disciples, and they seem to come\nback again immediately, though the earliest Evangelist, it is true, to\nprevent this from being too apparent, inserts at this point the story of\nthe execution of the Baptist.\n\nAll this is just and acute criticism. The charge to the Twelve is not a\ndiscourse of instruction. What Jesus there sets before the disciples they\ncould not at that time have understood, and the promises which He makes to\nthem are not appropriate to their circumstances.\n\nMany of the discourses are mere bundles of heterogeneous sayings, though\nthis is not so much the case in Mark as in the others. He has not\nforgotten that effective polemic consists of short, pointed, incisive\narguments. The others, as advanced theologians, are of opinion that it is\nfitting to indulge in arguments which have nothing to do with the matter\nin hand, or only the most distant connexion with it. They form the\ntransition to the discourses of the Fourth Gospel, which usually\ndegenerate into an aimless wrangle. In the same connexion it is rightly\nobserved that the discourses of Jesus do not advance from point to point\nby the logical development of an idea, the thoughts are merely strung\ntogether one after another, the only connexion, if connexion there is,\nbeing due to a kind of conventional mould in which the discourse is cast.\n\nThe parables, Bauer continues, present difficulties no less great. It is\nan ineptitude on the part of the apologists to suggest that the parables\nare intended to make things clear. Jesus Himself contradicts this view by\nsaying bluntly and unambiguously to His disciples that to them it was\ngiven to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, but to the people all\nHis teaching must be spoken as parables, that \u201cseeing they might see and\nnot perceive, and hearing they might hear and not understand.\u201d The\nparables were therefore intended only to exercise the intelligence of the\ndisciples; and so far from being understood by the people, mystified and\nrepelled them; as if it would not have been much better to exercise the\nminds of the disciples in this way when He was alone with them. The\ndisciples, however, do not even understand the simple parable of the\nSower, but need to have it interpreted to them, so that the Evangelist\nonce more stultifies his own theory.\n\nBruno Bauer is right in his observation that the parables offer a serious\nproblem, seeing that they were intended to conceal and not to make plain,\nand that Jesus nevertheless taught only in parables. The character of the\ndifficulty, however, is such that even literary criticism has no\nexplanation ready. Bruno Bauer admits that he does not know what was in\nthe mind of the Evangelist when he composed these parables, and thinks\nthat he had no very definite purpose, or at least that the suggestions\nwhich were floating in his mind were not worked up into a clearly ordered\nwhole.\n\nHere, therefore, Bauer\u2019s method broke down. He did not, however, allow\nthis to shake his confidence in his reading of the facts, and he continued\nto maintain it in the face of a new difficulty which he himself brought\nclearly to light. Mark, according to him, is an artistic unity, the\noffspring of a single mind. How then is it to be explained that in\naddition to other less important doublets it contains two accounts of the\nfeeding of the multitude? Here Bauer has recourse to the aid of Wilke, who\ndistinguishes our Mark from an Ur\u2010Markus,(93) and ascribes these doublets\nto later interpolation. Later on he became more and more doubtful about\nthe artistic unity of Mark, despite the fact that this was the fundamental\nassumption of his theory, and in the second edition of his \u201cCriticism of\nthe Gospels,\u201d of 1851, he carried through the distinction between the\ncanonical Mark and the Ur\u2010Markus.\n\nBut even supposing the assumption of a redaction were justified, how could\nthe redactor have conceived the idea of adding to the first account of the\nfeeding of the multitude a second which is identical with it almost to the\nvery wording? In any case, on what principle can Mark be distinguished\nfrom Ur\u2010Markus? There are no fundamental differences to afford a ready\ncriterion. The distinction is purely one of subjective feeling, that is to\nsay, it is arbitrary. As soon as Bauer admits that the artistic unity of\nMark, on which he lays so much stress, has been tampered with, he cannot\nmaintain his position except by shutting his eyes to the fact that it can\nonly be a question of the weaving in of fragments of tradition, not of the\ninventions of an imitator. But if he once admits the presence of\ntraditional materials, his whole theory of the earliest Evangelist\u2019s\nhaving created the Gospel falls to the ground.\n\nFor the moment he succeeds in laying the spectre again, and continues to\nthink of Mark as a work of art, in which the interpolation alters nothing.\n\nBauer discusses with great thoroughness those sayings of Jesus in which He\nforbids those whom He had healed to noise abroad their cure. In the form\nin which they appear these cannot, he argues, be historical, for Jesus\nimposes this prohibition in some cases where it is quite meaningless,\nsince the healing had taken place in the presence of a multitude. It must\ntherefore be derived from the Evangelist. Only when it is recognised as a\nfree creation can its meaning be discerned. It finds its explanation in\nthe inconsistent views regarding miracle which were held side by side in\nthe early Church. No doubt was felt that Jesus had performed miracles, and\nby these miracles had given evidence of His Divine mission. On the other\nhand, by the introduction of the Christian principle, the Jewish demand\nfor a sign had been so far limited, and the other, the spiritual line of\nevidence, had become so important, or at least so indispensable, that it\nwas no longer possible to build on the miracles only, or to regard Jesus\nmerely as a wonder\u2010worker; so in some way or other the importance ascribed\nto miracle must be reduced. In the graphic symbolism of the Gospel history\nthis antithesis takes the form that Jesus did miracles\u2014there was no\ngetting away from that\u2014but on the other hand Himself declared that He did\nnot wish to lay any stress upon such acts. As there are times when\nmiracles must hide their light under a bushel, Jesus, on occasion, forbids\nthat they should be made known. The other Synoptists no longer understood\nthis theory of the first Evangelist, and introduced the prohibition in\npassages where it was absurd.\n\nThe way in which Jesus makes known His Messiahship is based on another\ntheory of the original Evangelist. The order of Mark can give us no\ninformation regarding the chronology of the life of Jesus, since this\nGospel is anything rather than a chronicle. We cannot even assert that\nthere is a deliberate logic in the way in which the sections are\nconnected. But there is one fundamental principle of arrangement which\ncomes quite clearly to light, viz. that it was only at Caesarea Philippi,\nin the closing period of His life, that Jesus made Himself known as the\nMessiah, and that, therefore, He was not previously held to be so either\nby His disciples or by the people. This is clearly shown in the answers of\nthe disciples when Jesus asked them whom men took Him to be. The implied\ncourse of events, however, is determined by art, not history\u2014as history it\nwould be inconceivable.\n\nCould there indeed be a more absurd impossibility? \u201cJesus,\u201d says Bauer,\n\u201cmust perform these innumerable, these astounding miracles because,\naccording to the view which the Gospels represent, He is the Messiah; He\nmust perform them in order to prove Himself to be the Messiah\u2014and yet no\none recognises Him as the Messiah! That is the greatest miracle of all,\nthat the people had not long ago recognised the Messiah in this wonder\u2010\nworker. Jesus could only be held to be the Messiah in consequence of doing\nmiracles; but He only began to do miracles when, in the faith of the early\nChurch, He rose from the dead as Messiah, and the facts that He rose as\nMessiah and that He did miracles, are one and the same fact.\u201d\n\nMark, however, represents a Jesus who does miracles and who nevertheless\ndoes not thereby reveal Himself to be the Messiah. He was obliged so to\nrepresent Him, because he was conscious that Jesus was not recognised and\nacknowledged as Messiah by the people, nor even by His immediate\nfollowers, in the unhesitating fashion in which those of later times\nimagined Him to have been recognised. Mark\u2019s conception and representation\nof the matter carried back into the past the later developments by which\nthere finally arose a Christian community for which Jesus had become the\nMessiah. \u201cMark is also influenced by an artistic instinct which leads him\nto develop the main interest, the origin of the faith, gradually. It is\nonly after the ministry of Jesus has extended over a considerable period,\nand is, indeed, drawing towards its close, that faith arises in the circle\nof the disciples; and it is only later still, when, in the person of the\nblind man at Jericho, a prototype of the great company of believers that\nwas to be has hailed the Lord with a Messianic salutation, that, at the\ntriumphal entry into Jerusalem, the faith of the people suddenly ripens\nand finds expression.\u201d\n\nIt is true, this artistic design is completely marred when Jesus does\nmiracles which must have made Him known to every child as the Messiah. We\ncannot, therefore, blame Matthew very much if, while he retains this plan\nin its external outlines in a kind of mechanical way, he contradicts it\nsomewhat awkwardly by making Jesus at an earlier point clearly designate\nHimself as Messiah and many recognise Him as such. And the Fourth\nEvangelist cannot be said to be destroying any very wonderful work of art\nwhen he gives the impression that from the very first any one who wished\ncould recognise Jesus as the Messiah.\n\nMark himself does not keep strictly to his own plan. He makes Jesus forbid\nHis disciples to make known His Messiahship; how then does the multitude\nat Jerusalem recognise it so suddenly, after a single miracle which they\nhad not even witnessed, and which was in no way different from others\nwhich He had done before? If that \u201cchance multitude\u201d in Jerusalem was\ncapable of such sudden enlightenment it must have fallen from heaven!\n\nThe following remarks of Bauer, too, are nothing less than classical. The\nincident at Caesarea Philippi is the central fact of the Gospel history;\nit gives us a fixed point from which to group and criticise the other\nstatements of the Gospel. At the same time it introduces a complication\ninto the plan of the life of Jesus, because it necessitates the carrying\nthrough of the theory\u2014often in the face of the text\u2014that previously Jesus\nhad never been regarded as the Messiah; and lays upon us the necessity of\nshowing not only how Peter had come to recognise His Messiahship, but also\nhow He subsequently became Messiah for the multitude\u2014if indeed He ever did\nbecome Messiah for them. But the very fact that it does introduce this\ncomplication is in itself a proof that in this scene at Caesarea Philippi\nwe have the one ray of light which history sheds upon the life of Jesus.\nIt is impossible to explain how any one could come to reject the simple\nand natural idea that Jesus claimed from the first to be the Messiah, if\nthat had been the fact, and accept this complicated representation in its\nplace. The latter, therefore, must be the original version. In pointing\nthis out, Bauer gave for the first time the real proof, from internal\nevidence, of the priority of Mark.\n\nThe difficulty involved in the conception of miracle as a proof of the\nMessiahship of Jesus is another discovery of Bauer\u2019s. Only here, instead\nof probing the question to the bottom, he stops half\u2010way. How do we know,\nhe should have gone on to ask, that the Messiah was expected to appear as\nan earthly wonder\u2010worker? There is nothing to that effect in Jewish\nwritings. And do not the Gospels themselves prove that any one might do\nmiracles without suggesting to a single person the idea that he might be\nthe Messiah? Accordingly the only inference to be drawn from the Marcan\nrepresentation is that miracles were not among the characteristic marks of\nthe Messiah, and that it was only later, in the Christian community, which\nmade Jesus the miracle\u2010worker into Jesus the Messiah, that this connexion\nbetween miracles and Messiahship was established. In dealing with the\nquestion of the triumphal entry, too, Bauer halts half\u2010way. Where do we\nread that Jesus was hailed as Messiah upon that occasion? If He had been\ntaken by the people to be the Messiah, the controversy in Jerusalem must\nhave turned on this personal question; but it did not even touch upon it,\nand the Sanhedrin never thinks of setting up witnesses to Jesus\u2019 claim to\nbe the Messiah. When once Bauer had exposed the historical and literary\nimpossibility of Jesus\u2019 being hailed by the people as Messiah, he ought to\nhave gone on to draw the conclusion that Jesus did not, according to Mark,\nmake a Messianic entry into Jerusalem.\n\nIt was, however, a remarkable achievement on Bauer\u2019s part to have thus set\nforth clearly the historical difficulties of the life of Jesus. One might\nsuppose that between the work of Strauss and that of Bauer there lay not\nfive, but fifty years\u2014the critical work of a whole generation.\n\nThe stereotyped character of the thrice\u2010repeated prediction of the\npassion, which, according to Bauer, betrays a certain poverty and\nfeebleness of imagination on the part of the earliest Evangelist, shows\nclearly, he thinks, the unhistorical character of the utterance recorded.\nThe fact that the prediction occurs three times, its definiteness\nincreasing upon each occasion, proves its literary origin.\n\nIt is the same with the transfiguration. The group in which the heroic\nrepresentatives of the Law and the Prophets stand as supporters of the\nSaviour, was modelled by the earliest Evangelist. In order to place it in\nthe proper light and to give becoming splendour to its great subject, he\nhas introduced a number of traits taken from the story of Moses.\n\nBauer pitilessly exposes the difficulties of the journey of Jesus from\nGalilee to Jerusalem, and exults over the perplexities of the\n\u201capologists.\u201d \u201cThe theologian,\u201d he says, \u201cmust not boggle at this journey,\nhe must just believe it. He must in faith follow the footsteps of his\nLord! Through the midst of Galilee and Samaria\u2014and at the same time, for\nMatthew also claims a hearing, through Judaea on the farther side of\nJordan! I wish him _Bon voyage_!\u201d\n\nThe eschatological discourses are not history, but are merely an expansion\nof those explanations of the sufferings of the Church of which we have had\na previous example in the charge to the Twelve. An Evangelist who wrote\nbefore the destruction of Jerusalem would have referred to the Temple, to\nJerusalem, and to the Jewish people, in a very different way.\n\nThe story of Lazarus deserves special attention. Did not Spinoza say that\nhe would break his system in pieces if he could be convinced of the\nreality of this event? This is the decisive point for the question of the\nrelation between the Synoptists and John. Vain are all the efforts of the\napologists to explain why the Synoptists do not mention this miracle. The\nreason they ignore it is that it originated after their time in the mind\nof the Fourth Evangelist, and they were unacquainted with his Gospel. And\nyet it is the most valuable of all, because it shows clearly the\nconcentric circles of progressive intensification by which the development\nof the Gospel history proceeds. \u201cThe Fourth Gospel,\u201d remarks Bauer,\n\u201crepresents a dead man as having been restored to life after having been\nfour days under the power of death, and having consequently become a prey\nto corruption; Luke represents the young man at Nain as being restored to\nlife when his body was being carried to the grave; Mark, the earliest\nEvangelist, can only tell us of the restoration of a dead person who had\nthe moment before succumbed to an illness. The theologians have a great\ndeal to say about the contrast between the canonical and the apocryphal\nwritings, but they might have found a similar contrast even within the\nfour Gospels, if the light had not been so directly in their eyes.\u201d\n\nThe treachery of Judas, as described in the Gospels, is inexplicable.\n\nThe Lord\u2019s Supper, considered as an historic scene, is revolting and\ninconceivable. Jesus can no more have instituted it than He can have\nuttered the saying, \u201cLet the dead bury their dead.\u201d In both cases the\nobjectionableness arises from the fact that a tenet of the early Church\nhas been cast into the form of an historical saying of Jesus. A man who\nwas present in person, corporeally present, could not entertain the idea\nof offering others his flesh and blood to eat. To demand from others that\nthey should, while he was actually present, imagine the bread and wine\nwhich they were eating to be his body and blood, would be for an actual\nman wholly impossible. It was only when Jesus\u2019 actual bodily presence had\nbeen removed, and only when the Christian community had existed for some\ntime, that such a conception as is expressed in that formula could have\narisen. A point which clearly betrays the later composition of the\nnarrative is that the Lord does not turn to the disciples sitting with Him\nat table and say, \u201cThis is my blood which is shed for you,\u201d but, since the\nwords were invented by the early Church, speaks of the \u201cmany\u201d for whom He\ngives Himself. The only historical fact is that the Jewish Passover was\ngradually transformed by the Christian community into a feast which had\nreference to Jesus.\n\nAs regards the scene in Gethsemane, Mark, according to Bauer, held it\nnecessary that in the moment when the last conflict and final catastrophe\nwere coming upon Jesus, He should show clearly by His actions that He met\nthis fate of His own free will. The reality of His choice could only be\nmade clear by showing Him first engaged in an inner struggle against the\nacceptance of His vocation, before showing how He freely submitted to His\nfate.\n\nThe last words ascribed to Jesus by Mark, \u201cMy God, my God, why hast Thou\nforsaken me?\u201d were written without thinking of the inferences that might\nbe drawn from them, merely with the purpose of showing that even to the\nlast moment of His passion Jesus fulfilled the r\u00f4le of the Messiah, the\npicture of whose sufferings had been revealed to the Psalmist so long\nbeforehand by the Holy Spirit.\n\nIt is scarcely necessary now, Bauer thinks, to go into the contradictions\nin the story of the resurrection, for \u201cthe doughty Reimarus, with his\nthorough\u2010going honesty, has already fully exposed them, and no one has\nrefuted him.\u201d\n\nThe results of Bauer\u2019s analysis may be summed up as follows:\u2014\n\nThe Fourth Evangelist has betrayed the secret of the original Gospel,\nnamely, that it too can be explained on purely literary grounds. Mark has\n\u201cloosed us from the theological lie.\u201d \u201cThanks to the kindly fate,\u201d cries\nBauer, \u201cwhich has preserved to us this writing of Mark by which we have\nbeen delivered from the web of deceit of this hellish pseudo\u2010science!\u201d\n\nIn order to tear this web of falsehood the critic and historian must,\ndespite his repugnance, once more take up the pretended arguments of the\ntheologians in favour of the historicity of the Gospel narratives and set\nthem on their feet, only to knock them down again. In the end Bauer\u2019s only\nfeeling towards the theologians was one of contempt. \u201cThe expression of\nhis contempt,\u201d he declares, \u201cis the last weapon which the critic, after\nrefuting the arguments of the theologians, has at his disposal for their\ndiscomfiture; it is his right to use it; that puts the finishing touch\nupon his task and points forward to the happy time when the arguments of\nthe theologians shall no more be heard of.\u201d\n\nThese outbreaks of bitterness are to be explained by the feeling of\nrepulsion which German apologetic theology inspired in every genuinely\nhonest and thoughtful man by the methods which it adopted in opposing\nStrauss. Hence the fiendish joy with which he snatches away the crutches\nof this pseudo\u2010science, hurls them to a distance, and makes merry over its\nhelplessness. A furious hatred, a fierce desire to strip the theologians\nabsolutely bare, carried Bauer much farther than his critical acumen would\nhave led him in cold blood.\n\nBauer hated the theologians for still holding fast to the barbarous\nconception that a great man had forced himself into a stereotyped and\nunspiritual system, and in that way had set in motion great ideas, whereas\nhe held that that would have signified the death of both the personality\nand the ideas; but this hatred is only the surface symptom of another\nhatred, which goes deeper than theology, going down, indeed, to the very\ndepths of the Christian conception of the world. Bruno Bauer hates not\nonly the theologians, but Christianity, and hates it because it expresses\na truth in a wrong way. It is a religion which has become petrified in a\ntransitional form. A religion which ought to have led on to the true\nreligion has usurped the place of the true religion, and in this petrified\nform it holds prisoner all the real forces of religion.\n\nReligion is the victory over the world of the self\u2010conscious ego. It is\nonly when the ego grasps itself in its antithesis to the world as a whole,\nand is no longer content to play the part of a mere \u201cwalking gentleman\u201d in\nthe world\u2010drama, but faces the world with independence and reserve, that\nthe necessary conditions of universal religion are present. These\nconditions came into being with the rise of the Roman Empire, in which the\nindividual suddenly found himself helpless and unarmed in face of a world\nin which he could no longer find free play for his activities, but must\nstand prepared at any moment to be ground to powder by it.\n\nThe self\u2010conscious ego, recognising this position, found itself faced by\nthe necessity of breaking loose from the world and standing alone, in\norder in this way to overcome the world. Victory over the world by\nalienation from the world\u2014these were the ideas out of which Christianity\nwas born. But it was not the true victory over the world; Christianity\nremained at the stage of violent opposition to the world.\n\nMiracle, to which the Christian religion has always appealed, and to which\nit gives a quite fundamental importance, is the appropriate symbol of this\nfalse victory over the world. There are some wonderfully deep thoughts\nscattered through Bauer\u2019s critical investigations. \u201cMan\u2019s realisation of\nhis personality,\u201d he says, \u201cis the death of Nature, but in the sense that\nhe can only bring about this death by the knowledge of Nature and its\nlaws, that is to say from within, being himself essentially the\nannihilation and negation of Nature.... Spirit honours and recognises the\nworth of the very thing which it negates.... Spirit does not fume and\nbluster, and rage and rave against Nature, as it is supposed to do in\nmiracle, for that would be the denial of its inner law, but quietly works\nits way through the antithesis. In short the death of Nature implied in\nthe conscious realisation of personality is the resurrection of Nature in\na nobler form, not the maltreatment, mockery, and insult to which it would\nbe exposed by miracle.\u201d Not only miracle, however, but the portrait of\nJesus Christ as drawn in the Gospels, is a stereotyping of that false idea\nof victory over the world. The Christ of the Gospel history, thought of as\na really historic figure, would be a figure at which humanity would\nshudder, a figure which could only inspire dismay and horror. The\nhistorical Jesus, if He really existed, can only have been One who\nreconciled in His own consciousness the antithesis which obsessed the\nJewish mind, namely the separation between God and Man; He cannot in the\nprocess of removing this antithesis have called into existence a new\nprinciple of religious division and alienation; nor can He have shown the\nway of escape, by the principle of inwardness, from the bondage of the Law\nonly to impose a new set of legal fetters.\n\nThe Christ of the Gospel history, on the other hand, is Man exalted by the\nreligious consciousness to heaven, who, even if He comes down to earth to\ndo miracles, to teach, and to suffer, is no longer true man. The Son of\nMan of religion, even though His mission be to reconcile, is man as\nalienated from himself. This Christ of the Gospel history, the ego exalted\nto heaven and become God, overthrew antiquity, and conquered the world in\nthe sense that He exhausted it of all its vitality. This magnified ego\nwould have fulfilled its historical vocation if, by means of the terrible\ndisorganisation into which it threw the real spirit of mankind, it had\ncompelled the latter to come to a knowledge of itself, to become self\u2010\nconscious with a thoroughness and decisiveness which had not been possible\nto the simple spirit of antiquity. It was disastrous that the figure which\nstood for the first emancipation of the ego, remained alive. That\ntransformation of the human spirit which was brought about by the\nencounter of the world\u2010power of Rome with philosophy was represented by\nthe Gospels, under the influence of the Old Testament, as realised in a\nsingle historic Personality; and the strength of the spirit of mankind was\nswallowed up by the omnipotence of the pure absolute ego, an ego which was\nalien from actual humanity. The self\u2010consciousness of humanity finds\nitself reflected in the Gospels, a self, indeed, in alienation from\nitself, and therefore a grotesque parody of itself, but, after all, in\nsome sense, itself; hence the magical charm which attracted mankind and\nenchained it, and, so long as it had not truly found itself, urged it to\nsacrifice everything to grasp the image of itself, to prefer it to all\nother and all else, counting all, as the apostle says, but \u201cdung\u201d in\ncomparison with it.\n\nEven when the Roman world was no more, and a new world had come into\nbeing, the Christ so created did not die. The magic of His enchantment\nbecame only more terrible, and as new strength came flooding into the old\nworld, the time arrived when it was to accomplish its greatest work of\ndestruction. Spirit, in its abstraction, became a vampire, the destroyer\nof the world. Sap and strength, blood and life, it sucked, to the last\ndrop, out of humanity. Nature and art, family, nation, state, all were\ndestroyed by it; and in the ruins of the fallen world the ego, exhausted\nby its efforts, remained the only surviving power.\n\nHaving made a desert all about it, the ego could not immediately create\nanew, out of the depths of its inner consciousness, nature and art, nation\nand state; the awful process which now went on, the only activity of which\nit was now capable, was the absorption into itself of all that had\nhitherto had life in the world. The ego was now everything; and yet it was\na void. It had become the universal power, and yet as it brooded over the\nruins of the world it was filled with horror at itself and with despair at\nall that it had lost. The ego which had devoured all things and was still\na void now shuddered at itself.\n\nUnder the oppression of this awful power the education of mankind has been\ngoing on; under this grim task\u2010master it has been preparing for true\nfreedom, preparing to rouse itself from the depths of its distress, to\nescape from its opposition to itself and cast out that alien ego which is\nwasting its substance. Odysseus has now returned to his home, not by\nfavour of the gods, not laid on the shore in sleep, but awake, by his own\nthought and his own strength. Perchance, as of yore, he will have need to\nfight with the suitors who have devoured his substance and sought to rob\nhim of all he holds most dear. Odysseus must string the bow once more.\n\nThe baleful charm of the self\u2010alienated ego is broken the moment any one\nproves to the religious sense of mankind that the Jesus Christ of the\nGospels is its creation and ceases to exist as soon as this is recognised.\nThe formation of the Church and the arising of the idea that the Jesus of\nthe Gospels is the Messiah are not two different things, they are one and\nthe same thing, they coincide and synchronise; but the idea was only the\nimaginative conception of the Church, the first movement of its life, the\nreligious expression of its experience.\n\nThe question which has so much exercised the minds of men\u2014whether Jesus\nwas the historic Christ (= Messiah)\u2014is answered in the sense that\neverything that the historical Christ is, everything that is said of Him,\neverything that is known of Him, belongs to the world of imagination, that\nis, of the imagination of the Christian community, and therefore has\nnothing to do with any man who belongs to the real world.\n\nThe world is now free, and ripe for a higher religion in which the ego\nwill overcome nature, not by self\u2010alienation, but by penetrating it and\nennobling it. To the theologian we may fling as a gift the shreds of his\nformer science, when we have torn it to pieces; that will be something to\noccupy himself with, that time may not hang heavy upon his hands in the\nnew world whose advent is steadily drawing nearer.\n\nThus the task which Bauer had set himself at the beginning of his\ncriticism of the Gospel history, turned, before he had finished, into\nsomething different. When he began, he thought to save the honour of Jesus\nand to restore His Person from the state of inanition to which the\napologists had reduced it, and hoped by furnishing a proof that the\nhistorical Jesus could not have been the Jesus Christ of the Gospels, to\nbring Him into a living relation with history. This task, however, was\ngiven up in favour of the larger one of freeing the world from the\ndomination of the Judaeo\u2010Roman idol, Jesus the Messiah, and in carrying\nout this endeavour the thesis that Jesus Christ is a product of the\nimagination of the early Church is formulated in such a way that the\nexistence of a historic Jesus becomes problematical, or, at any rate,\nquite indifferent.\n\nAt the end of his study of the Gospels, Bauer is inclined to make the\ndecision of the question whether there ever was a historic Jesus depend on\nthe result of a further investigation which he proposed to make into the\nPauline Epistles. It was not until ten years later (1850\u20101851) that he\naccomplished this task,(94) and applied the result in his new edition of\nthe \u201cCriticism of the Gospel History.\u201d(95) The result is negative: there\nnever was any historical Jesus. While criticising the four great Pauline\nEpistles, which the T\u00fcbingen school fondly imagined to be beyond the reach\nof criticism, Bauer shows, however, his inability to lay a positive\nhistoric foundation for his view of the origin of Christianity. The\ntransference of the Epistles to the second century is effected in so\narbitrary a fashion that it refutes itself. However, this work professes\nto be only a preliminary study for a larger one in which the new theory\nwas to be fully worked out. This did not appear until 1877; it was\nentitled \u201cChrist and the Caesars; How Christianity originated from Graeco\u2010\nRoman Civilisation.\u201d(96) The historical basis for his theory, which he\nhere offers, is even more unsatisfactory than that suggested in the\npreliminary work on the Pauline Epistles. There is no longer any pretence\nof following an historical method, the whole thing works out into an\nimaginary picture of the life of Seneca. Nero\u2019s tutor had, Bauer thinks,\nalready in his inmost consciousness fully attained to inner opposition to\nthe world. There are expressions in his works which, in their mystical\nemancipation from the world, prelude the utterances of Paul. The same\nthoughts, since they belong not to Seneca only, but to his time, are found\nalso in the works of the three poets of the Neronian period, Persius,\nLucan, and Petronius. Though they had but a feeble breath of the divine\nafflatus, they are interesting witnesses to the spiritual condition of the\ntime. They, too, contributed to the making of Christianity.\n\nBut Seneca, in spite of his inner alienation from the world, remained in\nactive relations with the world. He desired to found a kingdom of virtue\nupon earth. At the courts of Claudius and Nero he used the arts of\nintrigue to further his ends, and even quietly approved deeds of violence\nwhich he thought likely to serve his cause. Finally, he grasped at the\nsupreme power; and paid the supreme penalty. Stoicism had made an attempt\nto reform the world, and had failed. The great thinkers began to despair\nof exercising any influence upon history, the Senate was powerless, all\npublic bodies were deprived of their rights. Then a spirit of resignation\ncame over the world. The alienation from the world, which in Seneca had\nstill been only half serious, was come in earnest. The time of Nero and\nDomitian was a great epoch in that hidden spiritual history which goes\nsilently forward side by side with the noisy outward history of the world.\nWhen Stoicism, in this development, had been deepened by the introduction\nof neo\u2010Platonic ideas, it was on its way to become the Gospel.\n\nBut by itself it would not have given birth to that new thing. It attached\nitself as a formative principle to Judaism, which was then just breaking\nloose from the limitations of nationality. Bauer points to Josephus as a\ntype of this new Roman Judaism. This \u201cneo\u2010Roman\u201d lived in the conviction\nthat his God, who had withdrawn from His Temple, would take possession of\nthe world, and make the Roman Empire submit to His law. Josephus realised\nin his life that for which the way had been spiritually prepared by Philo.\nThe latter did not merely effect a fusion of Jewish ideas with Greek\nspeculations; he took advantage of the universal dominion established by\nthe Romans to found upon it his spiritual world. Bauer had already\npictured him in this r\u00f4le in his work \u201cPhilo, Strauss, and Renan, and\nPrimitive Christianity.\u201d\n\nThus was the new religion formed. The spirit of it came from the west, the\noutward frame was furnished by Judaism. The new movement had two foci,\nRome and Alexandria. Philo\u2019s \u201cTherapeutae\u201d were real people; they were the\nforerunners of Christianity. Under Trajan the new religion began to be\nknown. Pliny\u2019s letter asking for instructions as to how to deal with the\nnew movement is its certificate of birth\u2014the original form of the letter,\nit must be understood, not the present form, which has undergone editing\nat the hands of Christians.\n\nThe literary process by which the origin of the movement was thrown back\nto an earlier date in history lasted about fifty years.\n\nWhen this latest work of Bauer\u2019s appeared he had long been regarded by\ntheologians as an extinct force; nay, more, had been forgotten. And he had\nnot even kept his promise. He had not succeeded in showing what that\nhigher form of victory over the world was, which he declared superior to\nChristianity; and in place of the personality of Jesus he had finally set\nup a hybrid thing, laboriously compounded out of two personalities of so\nlittle substance as those of Seneca and Josephus. That was the end of his\ngreat undertaking.\n\nBut it was a mistake to bury, along with the Bauer of the second period,\nalso the Bauer of the first period, the critic\u2014for the latter was not\ndead. It was, indeed, nothing less than a misfortune that Strauss and\nBauer appeared within so short a time of one another. Bauer passed\npractically unnoticed, because every one was preoccupied with Strauss.\nAnother unfortunate thing was that Bauer overthrew with his powerful\ncriticism the hypothesis which attributed real historical value to Mark,\nso that it lay for a long time disregarded, and there ensued a barren\nperiod of twenty years in the critical study of the Life of Jesus.\n\nThe only critic with whom Bauer can be compared is Reimarus. Each\nexercised a terrifying and disabling influence upon his time. No one else\nhad been so keenly conscious as they of the extreme complexity of the\nproblem offered by the life of Jesus. In view of this complexity they\nfound themselves compelled to seek a solution outside the confines of\nverifiable history. Reimarus, by finding the basis of the story of Jesus\nin a deliberate imposture on the part of the disciples; Bauer, by\npostulating an original Evangelist who invented the history. On this\nground it was just that they should lose their case. But in dismissing the\nsolutions which they offered, their contemporaries also dismissed the\nproblems which had necessitated such solutions; they dismissed them\nbecause they were as little able to grasp as to remove these difficulties.\n\nBut the time is past for pronouncing judgment upon Lives of Christ on the\nground of the solutions which they offer. For us the great men are not\nthose who solved the problems, but those who discovered them. Bauer\u2019s\n\u201cCriticism of the Gospel History\u201d is worth a good dozen Lives of Jesus,\nbecause his work, as we are only now coming to recognise, after half a\ncentury, is the ablest and most complete collection of the difficulties of\nthe Life of Jesus which is anywhere to be found.\n\nUnfortunately, by the independent, the too loftily independent way in\nwhich he developed his ideas, he destroyed the possibility of their\ninfluencing contemporary theology. The shaft which he had driven into the\nmountain broke down behind him, so that it needed the work of a whole\ngeneration to lay bare once more the veins of ore which he had struck. His\ncontemporaries could not suspect that the abnormality of his solutions was\ndue to the intensity with which he grasped the problems as problems, and\nthat he had become blind to history by examining it too microscopically.\nThus for his contemporaries he was a mere eccentric.\n\nBut his eccentricity concealed a penetrating insight. No one else had as\nyet grasped with the same completeness the idea that primitive\nChristianity and early Christianity were not merely the direct outcome of\nthe preaching of Jesus, not merely a teaching put into practice, but more,\nmuch more, since to the experience of which Jesus was the subject there\nallied itself the experience of the world\u2010soul at a time when its\nbody\u2014humanity under the Roman Empire\u2014lay in the throes of death. Since\nPaul, no one had apprehended so powerfully the mystic idea of the super\u2010\nsensible \u03c3\u1ff6\u03bc\u03b1 \u03a7\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6. Bauer transferred it to the historical plane and\nfound the \u201cbody of Christ\u201d in the Roman Empire.\n\n\n\n\n\nXII. FURTHER IMAGINATIVE LIVES OF JESUS\n\n\n    _Charles Christian Hennell._ Untersuchungen \u00fcber den Ursprung des\n    Christentums. (An Inquiry concerning the Origin of Christianity.)\n    1840. With a preface by David Friedrich Strauss. English edition,\n    1838.\n\n    Wichtige Enth\u00fcllungen \u00fcber die wirkliche Todesart Jesu. Nach einem\n    alten zu Alexandria gefundenen Manuskripte von einem Zeitgenossen\n    Jesu aus dem heiligen Orden der Ess\u00e4er. (Important Disclosures\n    concerning the Manner of Jesus\u2019 Death. From an ancient MS. found\n    at Alexandria, written by a contemporary of Jesus belonging to the\n    sacred Order of the Essenes.) 1849. 5th ed., Leipzig. (Anonymous.)\n\n    Historische Enth\u00fcllungen \u00fcber die wirklichen Ereignisse der Geburt\n    und Jugend Jesu. Als Fortsetzung der zu Alexandria aufgefundenen\n    alten Urkunden aus dem Ess\u00e4erorden. (Historical Disclosures\n    concerning the real circumstances of the Birth and Youth of Jesus.\n    A Continuation of the ancient Essene MS. discovered at\n    Alexandria.) 1849. 2nd ed., Leipzig.\n\n    _August Friedrich Gfr\u00f6rer._ Kritische Geschichte des\n    Urchristentums. (Critical History of Primitive Christianity.)\n\n    Vol. i. 1st ed., 1831; 2nd, 1835. Part i. 543 pp.; Part ii. 406\n    pp. Vol. ii. 1838. Part i. 452 pp.; Part ii. 417 pp.\n\n    _Richard von der Alm._ (Pseudonym of _Friedrich Wilhelm\n    Ghillany_.) Theologische Briefe an die Gebildeten der deutschen\n    Nation, 1863. (Theological Letters to the Cultured Classes of the\n    German People, 1863.) Vol. i. 929 pp.; Vol. ii. 656 pp.; Vol. iii.\n    802 pp.\n\n    _Ludwig Noack._ Die Geschichte Jesu auf Grund freier\n    geschichtlicher Untersuchungen \u00fcber das Evangelium und die\n    Evangelien. (The History of Jesus on the Basis of a free\n    Historical Inquiry regarding the Gospel and the Gospels.) 2nd ed.,\n    1876, Mannheim. Book i. 251 pp.; Book ii. 187 pp.; Book iii. 386\n    pp.; Book iv. 285 pp.\n\n\nStrauss can hardly be said to have done himself honour by contributing a\npreface to the translation of Hennell\u2019s work, which is nothing more than\nVenturini\u2019s \u201cNon\u2010miraculous History of the Great Prophet of Nazareth\u201d\ntricked out with a fantastic paraphernalia of learning.(97)\n\nThe two series of \u201cImportant Disclosures\u201d also are really \u201cconveyed\u201d with\nno particular ability from that classic romance of the Life of Jesus, but\nthat did not prevent their making something of a sensation at the time\nwhen they appeared.(98) Jesus, according to his narrative, was the son of\na member of the Essene Order. The child was watched over by the Order and\nprepared for His future mission. He entered on His public ministry as a\ntool of the Essenes, who after the crucifixion took Him down from the\ncross and resuscitated Him.\n\nThese \u201cDisclosures\u201d only preserve the more external features of\nVenturini\u2019s representation. His Life of Jesus had been more than a mere\nromance, it had been an imaginative solution of problems which he had\nintuitively perceived. It may be regarded as the Forerunner of\nrationalistic criticism. The problems which Venturini had intuitively\nperceived were not solved either by the rationalists, or by Strauss, or by\nWeisse. These writers had not succeeded in providing that of which\nVenturini had dreamed\u2014a living purposeful connexion between the events of\nthe life of Jesus\u2014or in explaining His Person and Work as having a\nrelation, either positive or negative, to the circumstances of Late\nJudaism. Venturini\u2019s plan, however fantastic, connects the life of Jesus\nwith Jewish history and contemporary thought much more closely than any\nother Life of Jesus, for that connexion is of course vital to the plot of\nthe romance. In Weisse\u2019s \u201cGospel History\u201d criticism had deliberately\nrenounced the attempt to explain Jesus directly from Judaism, finding\nitself unable to establish any connexion between His teachings and\ncontemporary Jewish ideas. The way was therefore once more open to the\nimagination. Accordingly several imaginative Lives preluded a new era in\nthe study of the subject, in so far as they endeavoured to understand\nJesus on the basis of purely Jewish ideas, in some cases as affirming\nthese, in others as opposing them in favour of a more spiritual\nconception. In Gfr\u00f6rer, Richard von der Alm, and Noack, begins the\nskirmishing preparatory to the future battle over eschatology.(99)\n\nAugust Friedrich Gfr\u00f6rer, born in 1803 at Calw, was \u201cRepetent\u201d at the\nT\u00fcbingen theological seminary at the time when Strauss was studying there.\nAfter being curate at the principal church in Stuttgart for a year he gave\nup, in 1830, the clerical profession in order to devote himself wholly to\nhis clerical studies.\n\nBy that time he had abandoned Christianity. In the preface to the first\nedition of the first volume of his work, he describes Christianity as a\nsystem which now only maintains itself by the force of custom, after\nhaving commended itself to antiquity \u201cby the hope of the mystic Kingdom of\nthe future world and having ruled the middle ages by the fear of the same\nfuture.\u201d By enunciating this view he has made an end, he thinks, of all\nhigh\u2010flying Hegelian ideas, and being thus freed from all speculative\nprejudices he feels himself in a position to approach his task from a\npurely historical standpoint, with a view to showing how much of\nChristianity is the creation of one exceptional Personality, and how much\nbelongs to the time in which it arose. In the first volume he describes\nhow the transformation of Jewish theology in Alexandria reacted upon\nPalestinian theology, and how it came to its climax in Philo. The great\nAlexandrian anticipated, according to Gfr\u00f6rer, the ideas of Paul. His\n\u201cTherapeutae\u201d are identical with the Essenes. At the same period Judaea\nwas kept in a ferment by a series of risings, to all of which the\nincentive was found in Messianic expectations. Then Jesus appeared. The\nthree points to be investigated in His history are: what end He had in\nview; why He died; and what modifications His work underwent at the hands\nof the Apostles.\n\nThe second volume, entitled \u201cThe Sacred Legend,\u201d does not, however, carry\nout this plan. The works of Strauss and Weisse necessitated a new method\nof treatment. The fame of Strauss\u2019s achievement stirred Gfr\u00f6rer to\nemulation, and Weisse, with his priority of Mark and rejection of John,\nmust be refuted. The work is therefore almost a polemic against Weisse for\nhis \u201cwant of historic sense,\u201d and ends in setting up views which had not\nentered into Gfr\u00f6rer\u2019s mind at the time when he wrote his first volume.\n\nThe statements of Papias regarding the Synoptists, which Weisse followed,\nare not deserving of credence. For a whole generation and more the\ntradition about Jesus had passed from mouth to mouth, and it had absorbed\nmuch that was legendary. Luke was the first\u2014as his preface shows\u2014who\nchecked that process, and undertook to separate what was genuine from what\nwas not. He is the most trustworthy of the Evangelists, for he keeps\nclosely to his sources and adds nothing of his own, in contrast with\nMatthew who, writing at a later date, used sources of less value and\ninvented matter of his own, which Gfr\u00f6rer finds especially in the story of\nthe passion in this Gospel. The lateness of Matthew is also evident from\nhis tendency to carry over the Old Testament into the New. In Luke, on the\nother hand, the sources are so conscientiously treated that Gfr\u00f6rer finds\nno difficulty in analysing the narrative into its component parts,\nespecially as he always has a purely instinctive feeling \u201cwhenever a\ndifferent wind begins to blow.\u201d\n\nBoth Gospels, however, were written long after the destruction of the holy\ncity, since they do not draw their material from the Jerusalem tradition,\nbut \u201cfrom the Christian legends which had grown up in the neighbourhood of\nthe Sea of Tiberias,\u201d and in consequence \u201cmistakenly transferred the scene\nof Jesus\u2019 ministry to Galilee.\u201d For this reason it is not surprising \u201cthat\neven down into the second century many Christians had doubts about the\ntruth of the Synoptics and ventured to express their doubts.\u201d Such doubts\nonly ceased when the Church became firmly established and began to use its\nauthority to suppress the objections of individuals. Mark is the earliest\nwitness to doubts within the primitive Christian community regarding the\ncredibility of his predecessors. Luke and Matthew are for him not yet\nsacred books; he desires to reconcile their inconsistencies, and at the\nsame time to produce \u201ca Gospel composed of materials of which the\nauthenticity could be maintained even against the doubters.\u201d For this\nreason he omits most of the discourses, ignores the birth\u2010story, and of\nthe miracles retains only those which were most deeply embedded in the\ntradition. His Gospel was probably produced between 110 and 120. The \u201cnon\u2010\ngenuine\u201d conclusion was a later addition, but by the Evangelist himself.\nThus Mark proves that the Synoptists contain legendary matter even though\nthey are separated from the events which they relate only by a generation\nand a half, or at most two generations. To show that there is nothing\nstrange in this, Gfr\u00f6rer gives a long catalogue of miracles found in\nhistorians who were contemporaries of the events which they describe, and\nin some cases were concerned in them\u2014in this connexion Cortez affords him\na rich storehouse of material. On the other hand, all objections against\nthe genuineness of the Fourth Gospel collapse miserably. It is true that,\nlike the others, it offers no historically accurate report of the\ndiscourses of Jesus. It pictures Him as the Logos\u2010Christ and makes Him\nspeak in this character; which Jesus certainly did not do. Inadvertently\nthe author makes John the Baptist speak in the same way. That does not\nmatter, however, for the historical conditions are rightly represented;\nrightly, because Jerusalem was the scene of the greater part of the\nministry, and the five Johannine miracles are to be retained. The healing\nof the nobleman\u2019s son, that of the lame man at the pool of Bethesda, and\nthat of the man blind from birth happened just as they are told. The story\nof the miracle at Cana rests on a misunderstanding, for the wine which\nJesus provided was really the wedding\u2010gift which He had brought with Him.\nIn the raising of Lazarus a real case of apparent death is combined with a\npolemical exaggeration of it, the restoration to life becoming, in the\ncourse of controversy with the Jews, an actual resurrection. Having thus\nwon free, dragging John along with him, from the toils of the Hegelian\ndenial of miracle\u2014only, it is true, by the aid of Venturini\u2014and being\nprepared to explain the feeding of the multitude on the most commonplace\nrationalistic lines, he may well boast that he has \u201cdriven the doubt\nconcerning the Fourth Gospel into a very small corner.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe miserable era of negation,\u201d cries Gfr\u00f6rer, \u201cis now at an end;\naffirmation begins. We are ascending the eastern mountains from which the\npure airs of heaven breathe upon the spirit. Our guide shall be historical\nmathematics, a science which is as yet known to few, and has not been\napplied by any one to the New Testament.\u201d This \u201cmathematic\u201d of Gfr\u00f6rer\u2019s\nconsists in developing his whole argument out of a single postulate. Let\nit be granted to him that all other claimants of the Messiahship\u2014Gfr\u00f6rer,\nin defiance of the evidence of Josephus, makes all the leaders of revolt\nin Palestine claimants of the Messiahship\u2014were put to death by the Romans,\nwhereas Jesus was crucified by His own people: it follows that the\nMessiahship of Jesus was not political, but spiritual. He had declared\nHimself to be in a certain sense the longed\u2010for Messiah, but in another\nsense He was not so. His preaching moved in the sphere of Philonian ideas;\nalthough He did not as yet explicitly apply the Logos doctrine, it was\nimplicit in His thought, so that the discourses of the Fourth Gospel have\nan essential truth. All Messianic conceptions, the Kingdom of God, the\njudgment, the future world, are sublimated into the spiritual region. The\nresurrection of the dead becomes a present eternal life. The saying in\nJohn v. 24, \u201cHe that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me,\nhath eternal life and cometh not into judgment; but is passed from death\ninto life,\u201d is the only authentic part of that discourse. The reference\nwhich follows to the coming judgment and the resurrection of the dead is a\nJewish interpolation. Jesus did not believe that He Himself was to rise\nfrom the dead. Nevertheless, the \u201cresurrection\u201d is historic; Joseph of\nArimathea, a member of the Essene Order, whose tool Jesus unconsciously\nwas, had bribed the Romans to make the crucifixion of Jesus only a\npretence, and to crucify two others with Him in order to distract\nattention from Him. After He was taken down from the cross, Joseph removed\nHim to a tomb of his own which had been hewn out for the purpose in the\nneighbourhood of the cross, and succeeded in resuscitating Him. The\nChristian Church grew out of the Essene Order by giving a further\ndevelopment to its ideas, and it is impossible to explain the organisation\nof the Church without taking account of the regulations of the Order. The\nwork closes with a rhapsody on the Church and its development into the\nPapal system.\n\nGfr\u00f6rer thus works into Venturini\u2019s plan a quantity of material drawn from\nPhilo. His first volume would have led one to expect a more original and\nscientific result. But the author is one of those \u201cepileptics of\ncriticism\u201d for whom criticism is not a natural and healthy means of\narriving at a result, but who, in consequence of the fits of criticism to\nwhich they are subject, and which they even endeavour to intensify, fall\ninto a condition of exhaustion, in which the need for some fixed point\nbecomes so imperative that they create it for themselves by self\u2010\nsuggestion\u2014as they previously did their criticism\u2014and then flatter\nthemselves that they have really found it.\n\nThis need for a fixed point carried the former rival of Strauss into\nCatholicism, for which his \u201cGeneral History of the Church\u201d (1841\u20101846)\nalready shows a strong admiration. After the appearance of this work\nGfr\u00f6rer became Professor of History in the University of Freiburg. In 1848\nhe was active in the German Parliament in endeavouring to promote a\nreunion of the Protestants with the Catholics. In 1853 he went over to the\nRoman Church. His family had already gone over, at Strassburg, during the\nrevolutionary period. In the conflict of the church with the Baden\nGovernment he vehemently supported the claims of the Pope. He died in\n1861.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nIncomparably better and more thorough is the attempt to write a Life of\nJesus embodied in the \u201cTheological Letters to the Cultured Classes of the\nGerman Nation.\u201d Their writer takes Gfr\u00f6rer\u2019s studies as his starting\u2010\npoint, but instead of spiritualising unjustifiably he ventures to conceive\nthe Jewish world of thought in which Jesus lived in its simple realism. He\nwas the first to place the eschatology recognised by Strauss and Reimarus\nin an historical setting\u2014that of Venturini\u2019s plan\u2014and to write a Life of\nJesus entirely governed by the idea of eschatology.\n\nThe author, Friedrich Wilhelm Ghillany, was born in 1807 at Erlangen. His\nfirst studies were in theology. His rationalistic views, however,\ncompelled him to abandon the clerical profession. He became librarian at\nNuremberg in 1841 and engaged in controversial writing of an anti\u2010orthodox\ncharacter, but distinguished himself also by historical work of\noutstanding merit. A year after the publication of the \u201cTheological\nLetters,\u201d which he issued under the pseudonym of Richard von der Alm, he\npublished a collection of \u201cThe Opinions of Heathen and Christian Writers\nof the first Christian Centuries about Jesus Christ\u201d (1864), a work which\ngives evidence of a remarkable range of reading. In 1855 he removed to\nMunich in the hope of obtaining a post in the diplomatic service, but in\nspite of his solid acquirements he did not succeed. No one would venture\nto appoint a man of such outspoken anti\u2010ecclesiastical views. He died in\n1876.\n\nAs regards the question of the sources, Ghillany occupies very nearly the\nT\u00fcbingen standpoint, except that he holds Matthew to be later than Luke,\nand Mark to be extracted, not from these Gospels in their present form,\nbut from their sources. John is not authentic.\n\nThe worship offered to Jesus after His death by the Christian community\nis, according to Ghillany, not derived from pure Judaism, but from a\nJudaism influenced by oriental religions. The influence of the cult of\nMithra, for example, is unmistakable. In it, as in Christianity, we find\nthe virgin\u2010birth, the star, the wise men, the cross, and the resurrection.\nWere it not for the human sacrifice of the Mithra cult, the idea which is\noperative in the Supper, of eating and drinking the flesh and blood of the\nSon of Man, would be inexplicable.\n\nThe whole Eastern world was at that time impregnated with Gnostic ideas,\nwhich centred in the revelation of the Divine in the human. In this way\nthere arose, for example, a Samaritan Gnosis, independent of the\nChristian. Christianity itself is a species of Gnosis. In any case the\nmetaphysical conception of the Divine Sonship of Jesus is of secondary\norigin. If He was in any sense the Son of God for the disciples, they can\nonly have thought of this sonship in a Gnostic fashion, and supposed that\nthe \u201chighest angel,\u201d the Son of God, had taken up His abode in Him.\n\nJohn the Baptist had probably come forth from among the Essenes, and he\npreached a spiritualised Kingdom of Heaven. He held himself to be Elias.\nJesus\u2019 aims were originally similar; He came forward \u201cin the cause of\nsound religious teaching for the people.\u201d He made no claim to Davidic\ndescent; that is to be credited to dogmatic theology. Similarly Papias is\nwrong in ascribing to Jesus the crude eschatological expectations implied\nin the saying about the miraculous vine in the Messianic Kingdom.\n\nIt is certain, however, that Jesus held Himself to be Messiah and expected\nthe early coming of the Kingdom. His teaching is Rabbinic; all His ideas\nhave their source in contemporary Judaism, whose world of thought we can\nreconstruct from the Rabbinic writings; for even if these only became\nfixed at a later period, the thoughts on which they are based were already\ncurrent in the time of Jesus. Another source of great importance is\nJustin\u2019s \u201cDialogue with the Jew Trypho.\u201d\n\nThe starting\u2010point in interpreting the teaching of Jesus is the idea of\nrepentance. In the tractate \u201cSanhedrin\u201d we find: \u201cThe set time of the\nMessiah is already here; His coming depends now upon repentance and good\nworks. Rabbi Eleazer says, \u2018When the Jews repent they shall be\nredeemed.\u2019 \u201d The Targum of Jonathan observes, on Zech. x. 3, 4,(100) \u201cThe\nMessiah is already born, but remains in concealment because of the sins of\nthe Hebrews.\u201d We find the same thoughts put into the mouth of Trypho in\nJustin. In the same Targum of Jonathan, Isa. liii. is interpreted with\nreference to the sufferings of the Messiah. Judaism, therefore, was not\nunacquainted with the idea of a suffering Messiah. He was not identified,\nhowever, with the heavenly Messiah of Daniel. The Rabbis distinguished two\nMessiahs, one of Israel and one of Judah. First the Messiah of the Kingdom\nof Israel, denominated the Son of Joseph, was to come from Galilee to\nsuffer death at the hands of the Gentiles in order to make atonement for\nthe sins of the Hebrew nation. Only after that would the Messiah predicted\nby Daniel, the son of David, of the tribe of Judah, appear in glory upon\nthe clouds of heaven. Finally, He also, after two\u2010and\u2010sixty weeks of\nyears, should be taken away, since the Messianic Kingdom, even as\nconceived by Paul, was only a temporary supernatural condition of the\nworld.\n\nThe Messianic expectation, being directed to supernatural events, had no\npolitical character, and one who knew Himself to be the Messiah could\nnever dream of using earthly means for the attainment of His ends; He\nwould expect all things to be brought about by the Divine intervention. In\nthis respect Ghillany grasps clearly the character of the eschatology of\nJesus\u2014more clearly than any one had ever done before.\n\nThe r\u00f4le of the Messiah, who prior to His supernatural manifestation\nremains in concealment upon earth, is therefore passive. He who is\nconscious of a Messianic vocation does not seek to found a Kingdom among\nmen. He waits with confidence. He issues forth from His passivity with the\nsole purpose of making atonement, by vicarious suffering, for the sins of\nthe people, in order that it may be possible for God to bring about the\nnew condition of things. If, in spite of the repentance of the people and\nthe occurrence of the signs which pointed to its being at hand, the coming\nof the Kingdom should be delayed, the man who is conscious of a Messianic\nvocation must, by His death, compel the intervention of God. His vocation\nin this world is to die.\n\nBrought within the lines of these reflections the Life of Jesus shapes\nitself as follows.\n\nJesus was the tool of a mystical sect allied to the Essenes, the head of\nwhich was doubtless that Joseph of Arimathea who makes so sudden and\nstriking an appearance in the Gospel narrative. This party desired to\nbring about the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven by mystical means, whereas\nthe mass of the people, led astray by the Pharisees, thought to force on\nits coming by means of a rising. In the preacher of a spiritual Kingdom of\nHeaven, who was resolved to go to death for His cause, the mystical party\ndiscovered Messiah the son of Joseph, and they recognised that His death\nwas necessary to make possible the coming of the heavenly Messiah\npredicted by Daniel. That Jesus Himself was the Messiah of Daniel, that He\nwould immediately rise again in order to ascend to His heavenly throne,\nand would come thence with the hosts of heaven to establish the Kingdom of\nHeaven, these people did not themselves believe. But they encouraged Him\nin this belief, thinking that He would hardly commit Himself to a\nsacrificial death from which there was to be no resurrection. It was left\nuncertain to His mind whether Jehovah would be content with the repentance\nof the people, in so far as it had taken place, as realising the necessary\ncondition for the bringing in of the Kingdom of Heaven, or whether an\natonement by blood, offered by the death of Messiah the son of Joseph,\nwould be needful. It had been explained to Him that when the calculated\nyear of grace arrived, He must go up to Jerusalem and endeavour to rouse\nthe Jews to Messianic enthusiasm in order to compel Jehovah to come to\ntheir aid with His heavenly hosts. From the action of Jehovah it could\nthen be discovered whether the preaching of repentance and baptism would\nsuffice to make atonement for the people before God or not. If Jehovah did\nnot appear, a deeper atonement must be made; Jesus must pay the penalty of\ndeath for the sins of the Jews, but on the third day would rise again from\nthe dead and ascend to the throne of God and come again thence to found\nthe Kingdom of Heaven. \u201cAny one can see,\u201d concludes Ghillany, \u201cthat our\nview affords a very natural explanation of the anxiety of the disciples,\nthe suspense of Jesus Himself, and the prayer, \u2018If it be possible let this\ncup pass from me.\u2019 \u201d\n\n\u201cIt was apparently only towards the close of His life that Jesus revealed\nto the disciples the possibility that the Son of Man might have to suffer\nand die before He could found the Messianic Kingdom.\u201d\n\nWith this possibility before Him, He came to Jerusalem and there awaited\nthe Divine intervention. Meanwhile Joseph of Arimathea lent his aid\ntowards securing His condemnation in the Sanhedrin. He must die on the day\nof the Passover; on the day of the Preparation He must be at hand and\nready in Jerusalem. He held, with His disciples, a love\u2010feast after the\nEssene custom, not a Paschal meal, and in doing so associated thoughts of\nHis death with the breaking of bread and the pouring out of the wine. \u201cHe\ndid not lay upon His disciples any injunction to continue the celebration\nof a feast of this kind until the time of His return, because He thought\nof His resurrection and His heavenly glory as about to take place after\nthree days. But when His return was delayed the early Christians attached\nthese sayings of His about the bread and wine to their Essene love\u2010feast,\nand explained this common meal of the community as a commemoration of the\nLast Supper of Jesus and His disciples, a memorial Feast in honour of\ntheir Saviour, the celebration of which must be continued until His\ncoming.\u201d\n\nWhen the armed band came to arrest Him, Jesus surrendered to His fate.\nPilate almost set Him free, holding Him to be a mere enthusiast who placed\nHis hopes only in the Divine intervention. Joseph of Arimathea, however,\nsucceeded in averting this danger. \u201cEven on the cross Jesus seems to have\ncontinued to hope for the Divine intervention, as is evidenced by the cry,\n\u2018My God! My God! why hast thou forsaken me?\u2019 \u201d Joseph of Arimathea\nprovided for His burial.\n\nThe belief in His resurrection rests upon the visions of the disciples,\nwhich are to be explained by their intense desire for the Parousia, of\nwhich He had given them the promise. After setting their affairs in order\nin Galilee they returned at the Feast of Pentecost to Jerusalem, which\nthey had left in alarm, in order there to await the Parousia in company\nwith other Galilaean believers.\n\nThe confession of faith of the primitive Christian community was the\nsimplest conceivable: Jesus the Messiah had come, not as a temporal\nconqueror, but as the Son of Man foretold by Daniel, and had died for the\nsins of the people. In other respects they were strict Jews, kept the Law,\nand were constantly in the Temple. Only the community of goods and the\nbrotherhood\u2010meal are of an Essene character.\n\n\u201cThe Christianity of the original community in Jerusalem was thus a\nmixture of Zealotism and Mysticism which did not include any wholly new\nelement, and even in its conception of the Messiah had nothing peculiar to\nitself except the belief that the Son of Man predicted by Daniel had\nalready come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth ... that He was now\nenthroned at the right hand of God, and would again appear as the expected\nSon of Man upon the clouds of heaven according to Daniel\u2019s prophecy.\u201d\nJesus, therefore, had triumphed over the mystical party who desired to\nmake use of Him in the character of Messiah the son of Joseph\u2014their\nMessiah, the heavenly Son of Man, had not come. Jesus, in virtue of what\nHe had done, had taken His place both in heaven and in earth.\n\nHow much of Venturini\u2019s plan is here retained? Only the \u201cmystical part\u201d\nwhich serves the purpose of setting the action of the drama in motion. All\nthe rest of it, the rationalistic part, has been transmuted into an\nhistorical conception. Miracle and trickery, along with the stage\u2010play\nresurrection, have been purged away in the fires of Strauss\u2019s criticism.\nThere remains only a fundamental conception which has a certain\ngreatness\u2014a brotherhood which looks for the coming of the Kingdom of\nHeaven appoints one of its members to undergo as Messiah an atoning death,\nthat the coming of the Kingdom, for which the time is at hand, may not be\ndelayed. This brotherhood is the only fictitious element in the whole\nconstruction\u2014much as in the primitive steam\u2010engine the valves were still\nworked by hand while the rest of the machinery was actuated by its own\nmotive\u2010power. So in this Life of Jesus the motive\u2010power is drawn entirely\nfrom historical sources, and the want of an automatic starting arrangement\nis a mere anachronism. Strike out the superfluous r\u00f4le of Joseph of\nArimathea, and the distinction of the two Messiahs, which is not clear\neven in the Rabbis, and substitute the simple hypothesis that Jesus, in\nthe course of His Messianic vocation, when He thinks the time for the\ncoming of the Kingdom has arrived, goes freely to Jerusalem, and, as it\nwere, compels the secular power to put Him to death, in order by this act\nof atonement to win for the world the immediate coming of the Kingdom, and\nfor Himself the glory of the Son of Man\u2014make these changes, and you have a\nlife of Jesus in which the motive\u2010power is a purely historical force. It\nis impossible to indicate briefly all the parts of which the seemingly\ncomplicated, but in reality impressively simple, mechanism of this Life of\nJesus is composed. The conduct of Jesus, alike in its resolution and in\nits hesitation, becomes clear, and not less so that of the disciples. All\nfar\u2010fetched historical ingenuity is dispensed with. Jesus acts \u201cbecause\nHis hour is come.\u201d This decisive placing of the Life of Jesus in the \u201clast\ntime\u201d (_cf._ 1 Peter i. 20 \u03c6\u03b1\u03bd\u03b5\u03c1\u03c9\u03b8\u03ad\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b4\u1f72 \u1f10\u03c0\u1fbd \u1f10\u03c3\u03c7\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c7\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd \u03b4\u1f30 \u1f51\u03bc\u1fb6\u03c2)\nis an historical achievement without parallel. Not less so is the placing\nof the thought of the passion in its proper eschatological setting as an\nact of atonement. Where had the character and origin of the primitive\ncommunity ever been brought into such clear connexion with the death of\nJesus? Who had ever before so earnestly considered the problem why the\nChristian community arose in Jerusalem and not in Galilee? \u201cBut the\nsolution is too simple, and, moreover, is not founded on a severely\nscientific chain of reasoning, but on historical intuition and experiment,\nthe simple experiment of introducing the Life of Jesus into the Jewish\neschatological world of thought\u201d\u2014so the theologians replied, or so, at\nleast, they might have replied if they had taken this curious work\nseriously, if, indeed, they had read it at all. But how were they to\nsuspect that in a book which seemed to aim at founding a new Deistic\nChurch, and which went out with the Wolfenb\u00fcttel Fragmentist into the\ndesert of the most barren natural religion, a valuable historical\nconception might be found? It is true that no one suspected at that time\nthat in the forgotten work of Reimarus there lay a dangerous historical\ndiscovery, a kind of explosive material such as can only be collected by\nthose who stand free from every responsibility towards historical\nChristianity, who have abandoned every prejudice, in the good sense as\nwell as in the bad\u2014and whose one desire in regard to the Gospel history is\nto be \u201cspirits that constantly deny.\u201d(101) Such thinkers, if they have\nhistorical gifts, destroy artificial history in the cause of true history\nand, willing evil, do good\u2014if it be admitted that the discovery of truth\nis good. If this negative work is a good thing, the author of the \u201cLetters\nto the German People\u201d performed a distinguished service, for his negation\nis radical. The new Church which was to be founded on this historic\novercoming of historic Christianity was to combine \u201conly what was\naccording to reason in Judaism and Christianity.\u201d From Judaism it was to\ntake the belief in one sole, spiritual, perfect God; from Christianity the\nrequirement of brotherly love to all men. On the other hand, it was to\neliminate what was contrary to reason in each: from Judaism the ritual\nsystem and the sacrifices; from Christianity the deification of Jesus and\nthe teaching of redemption through His blood. How comes so completely\nunhistorical a temperament to be combined with so historical an intellect?\nHis Jesus, after all, has no individuality; He is a mere eschatological\nmachine.\n\nIn accordance with the confession of faith of the new Church of which\nGhillany dreamed, the calendar of the Feasts is to be transformed as\nfollows:\u2014\n\n1. Feast of the Deity, the first and second of January.\n\n2. Feast of the Dignity of Man and Brotherly Love, first and second of\nApril.\n\n3. Feast of the Divine Blessing in Nature, first and second of July.\n\n4. Feast of Immortality, first and second of October.\n\nApart from these eight Feast days, and the Sundays, all the other days of\nthe year are working days.\n\nFrom the order of divine service we may note the following: \u201cThe sermon,\nwhich should begin with instruction and exhortation and close with\nconsolation and encouragement, must not last longer than half an hour.\u201d\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe series of Lives of Jesus which combine criticism with fiction is\nclosed by Noack\u2019s Story of Jesus. A freethinker like Ghillany, but lacking\nthe financial independence which a kindly fate had conferred upon the\nlatter, Noack led a life which may properly be described as a constant\nmartyrdom, lightened only by his intense love of theological studies,\nwhich nevertheless were responsible for all his troubles. Born in 1819, of\na clerical family in Hesse, he became in 1842 Pastor\u2019s assistant and\nteacher of religion at Worms in the Hessian Palatinate. The Darmstadt\nreactionaries drove him out of this position in 1844 without his having\ngiven any ground of offence. In 1849 he became \u201cRepetent\u201d in Philosophy at\nthe University of Giessen at a salary of four hundred gulden. In 1855 he\nwas promoted to be Professor Extraordinary without having his salary\nraised. In 1870, at the age of 51, he was appointed assistant at the\nUniversity Library and received at the same time the title of Ordinary\nProfessor. He died in 1885. He was an extremely prolific writer, always\ningenious, and possessed of wide knowledge, but he never did anything of\nreal permanent value either in philosophy or theology. He was not without\ncritical acumen, but there was too much of the poet in him; a critical\ndiscovery was an incitement to an imaginative reconstruction of the\nhistory. In 1870\u20101871 he published, after many preliminary studies, his\nchief work, \u201cFrom the Jordan Uplands to Golgotha; four books on the Gospel\nand the Gospels.\u201d(102) It passed unnoticed. Attributing its failure to the\nexcitement aroused by the war, which ousted all other interests, he issued\na revised edition in 1876 under the title \u201cThe History of Jesus, on the\nBasis of Free Historical Inquiry concerning the Gospel and the\nGospels,\u201d(103) but with hardly greater success.\n\nAnd yet the fundamental critical ideas which can be detected beneath this\nnarrative, in spite of its having the form of fiction, give this work a\nsignificance such as the contemporary Lives of Jesus which won the\napplause of theologians did not possess. It is the only Life of Jesus\nhitherto produced which is written consistently from the Johannine point\nof view from beginning to end. Strauss had not, after all, in Noack\u2019s\nopinion, conclusively shown the absolute incompatibility of the Synoptics\nwith the Fourth Gospel; neither he nor any other critic had felt the full\ndifficulty of the question why the Fourth Evangelist should be at pains to\ninvent the numerous journeys to the Feasts, seeing that the development of\nthe Logos Christology did not necessarily involve any alteration of the\nscene of the ministry; on the contrary, it would, one might think, have\nbeen the first care of the Evangelist to inweave his novel theory with the\nfamiliar tradition in order to avoid discrediting his narrative in advance\nby his innovations. Noack\u2019s conclusion is that the inconsistency is not\ndue to a single author; it is the result of a long process of redaction in\nwhich various divergent tendencies have been at work. But as the Fourth\nGospel is not the logical terminus of the process of alteration, the only\nalternative is to place it at the beginning. What we have to seek in it is\nthe original Gospel from which the process of transforming the tradition\nstarted.\n\nThere is also another line of argument based on the contradictions in the\nGospel tradition which leads to the hypothesis that we have to do with\nredactions of the Gospels. Either Jesus was the Jewish Messiah of the\nSynoptics, or a Son of God in the Greek, spiritual sense, whose self\u2010\nconsciousness must be interpreted by means of the Logos doctrine: He\ncannot have been both at the same time. But it is inconceivable that a\nJewish claimant of the Messiahship would have been left unmolested up to\nthe last, and have had virtually to force the authorities to put him to\ndeath. On the other hand, if He were a simple enthusiast claiming to be a\nSon of God, a man who lived only for his own \u201cself\u2010consciousness,\u201d He\nmight from the beginning have taken up this attitude without being in any\nway molested, except by the scorn of men. In this respect also, therefore,\nthe primitive Gospel which we can recover from John has the advantage. It\nwas only later that this \u201cSon of God\u201d became the Jewish Messiah.\n\nWe arrive at the primitive Johannine writing when we cancel in the Fourth\nGospel all Jewish doctrine and all miracles.(104) Its date is the year 60\nand it was composed by\u2014Judas, the beloved disciple. This primitive Gospel\nreceived little modification and still shows clearly \u201cthe wonderful\nreality of its history.\u201d It aims only at giving a section of Jesus\u2019\nhistory, a representation of His attitude of mind and spirit. With \u201csimple\ningenuousness\u201d it gives, \u201calong with the kernel of the historical material\nof the Gospel, Jesus\u2019 thoughts about His own Person in the mysterious\noracular sayings and deeply thoughtful and moving discourses by which the\nNazarene stirred rather than enlightened the world.\u201d Events of a striking\ncharacter were, however, absent from it. The feeding of the multitude was\nrepresented in it as effected by natural means. It was a philanthropic\nfeeding of a multitude which certainly did not number thousands, the\nnumbers are a later insertion; Jesus fed them with bread and fish which He\npurchased from a \u201csutler\u2010lad.\u201d The healing of the lame man at the pool of\nBethesda was the unmasking of a malingerer, whom the Lord exposed and\nordered to depart. As He had bidden him carry his bed, and it was on the\nSabbath, this brought Him into conflict with the authorities. His only\n\u201cacts\u201d were acts of self\u2010revelation\u2014mystical sayings which He threw out to\nthe people. \u201cThe problem which meets us in His history is in truth a\npsychological problem, how, namely, His exalted view of Himself came to be\naccepted as the purest and highest truth\u2014in His lifetime, it is true, only\nby a limited circle of disciples, but after His departure by a constantly\ngrowing multitude of believing followers.\u201d The gospel of the beloved\ndisciple Judas made its way quietly into the world, understood by few,\neven as Jesus Himself had been understood by a few only.\n\nAbout ten years later, according to Noack, appeared the original form of\nLuke, which we can reconstruct from what is known of Marcion\u2019s Luke.(105)\nThis Evangelist is under Pauline influence, and writes with an apologetic\npurpose. He desires to refute the calumny that Jesus was \u201cpossessed of a\ndevil,\u201d and he does this by making Him cast out devils. It was in this way\nthat miracle forced itself into the Gospel history.\n\nBut this primitive Luke, as Noack reconstructs it by combining the\nstatements of the Fathers regarding Marcion\u2019s Gospel, knows nothing of\nJesus\u2019 journey to Jerusalem to die. This circumstance is of capital\nimportance to Noack, because in the course of his attempt to bring the\ntopography of the Fourth Gospel into harmony with that of the Synoptics he\nhad arrived at the remarkable result that the Johannine Christ worked in\nGalilee, not in Judaea. On the basis of the _Onomasticon_ of\nEusebius\u2014which Noack, with the aid of topographical traditions derived\nfrom the Crusaders and statements of Mohammedan writers, interprets with a\nrecklessness which is nothing short of criminal\u2014Cana and Bethany\n(Bethabara) were not in the latitude of Jerusalem, but \u201cnear the head\u2010\nwaters of the Jordan in the upper part of the Jordan valley before it\nflows into the lake of Huleh. There, in Coele\u2010Syria, on the southern slope\nof Hermon, was the scene of John the Baptist\u2019s labours; there Jesus began\nHis ministry; thither He returned to die.\u201d \u201cIt is in the Galilaean\ndistrict which forms the scene of the Song of Solomon that the reader of\nthis book must be prepared to find the Golgotha of the cross.\u201d That is the\nsentence with which Noack\u2019s account of the Life of Jesus opens. This\nalludes to an idea which had already been worked out in his \u201cStudies on\nthe Song of Solomon,\u201d(106) namely, that the mountain country surrounding\nthe upper Jordan was the pre\u2010exilic Judaea, and that the \u201ccity of David\u201d\nwas situated there. The Jews on their return from exile had at first\nendeavoured to rebuild that Coele\u2010Syrian city of David with the ruins of\nSolomon\u2019s Temple, but had been driven away from it and had then taken the\ndesperate resolution to build the temple of Zerubbabel upon the high\nplateau lying far to the south of ancient Israel. Ezra the Scribe\ninterpolated the forgery on the ground of which this site began to be\naccepted as the former city of David. Under the Syrian oppression all\nremembrance of the ancient city of David entirely disappeared.\n\nThis fantastic edifice, in the construction of which the wildest\netymologies play a part, is founded on the just recognition that a\nreconciliation of John with the Synoptists can only be effected by\ntransferring some of the Johannine localities to the North; but this\ninvolves not only finding Bethany, Arimathea and the other places, but\neven the scene of Jesus\u2019 death in this district. The brook Kedron\nconveniently becomes the \u201cbrook of Cedars.\u201d\n\nFor fifty years the two earliest Evangelists, in spite of their poverty of\nincident, sufficed for the needs of the Christians. The \u201cfire of Jesus\u201d\nwas fed chiefly by the Pauline Gospel. The original form of the Gospel of\nLuke accordingly became the starting\u2010point of the next stage of\ndevelopment. Thus arose the Gospel of Mark. Mark was not a native of\nPalestine, but a man of Roman extraction living in Decapolis, who had not\nthe slightest knowledge of the localities in which the life of Jesus was\nreally passed. He undertook, about the year 130, \u201cin the interest of the\nnew Christian settlement at Jerusalem in Hadrian\u2019s time, deliberately and\nconsciously to transform the original plan of the Gospel history and to\nrepresent the Lord as crucified at Jerusalem.\u201d The man who from the year\n132 onward, as Mark the Bishop, preached the word of the Crucified to a\nGentile Christian community amid the ruins of the holy city, had\npreviously, as Mark the Evangelist, taken care that a prophet should not\nperish out of Jerusalem. In composing his Gospel he made use, in addition\nto Luke, of a traditional source which he found in Decapolis. He\ndeliberately omitted the frequent journeys to Jerusalem which were still\nfound in the original Luke, and inserted instead Jesus\u2019 journey to His\ndeath. He it was, also, who made the Nazarite into the Nazarene, laying\nthe scene of Jesus\u2019 youth in Nazareth. To the cures of demoniacs he added\nmagical acts such as the feeding of the multitude and the resurrection.\n\nIn Matthew, who appeared about 135, legend and fiction riot unchecked. In\naddition, Jewish parables and sayings are put into the mouth of Jesus,\nwhereas He really had nothing to do with the Jewish world of ideas. For if\nanything is certain, it is that the moral maxims of the latest Gospel are\nof a distinctively Jewish origin. About the middle of the second century\nthe originals of John and Luke underwent redaction. The redaction of the\nLogos Gospel was completed by the addition of the twenty\u2010first chapter;\nthe last redaction of Luke was perhaps carried out by Justin Martyr, fresh\nfrom completing his \u201cDialogue with Trypho\u201d! Thus John and Luke are, in\nthis final form, which is full of contradictions, the latest Gospels, and\nthe saying is fulfilled about the first being last, and the last first.\n\nArbitrary as these suggestions are, there is nevertheless something\nimpressive in the attempt to explain the remarkable inconsistencies which\nare found within the Gospel tradition by considerations relating to its\norigin and development. Despite all his far\u2010fetched ideas, Noack really\nstands higher than some of his contemporaries who showed more prudence in\ntheir theological enterprises, and about that time were earning the\napplause of the faculty, and quieting the minds of the laity, by\nperforming once more the old conjuring trick\u2014assisted by some new feats of\nlegerdemain\u2014of harmonising John with the Synoptists in such a way as to\nproduce a Life of Jesus which could be turned to the service of\necclesiastical theology.\n\nThe outline of the public Life of Jesus, as reconstructed by Noack, is as\nfollows. It lasted from early in the year 35 to the 14th Nisan of the year\n37, and began in the moment when Jesus revealed His consciousness of what\nHe was. We do not know how long previously He had cherished it in secret.\nIt is certain that the Baptist helped to bring about this revelation. This\nis the only part which he plays in the Gospel of John. He was neither a\npreacher of repentance, nor an Elias, nor the forerunner of Jesus, nor a\nmere signpost pointing to the Messiah, such as the secondary tradition\nmakes him out to be.\n\nSimilarly everything that is Messianic in the consciousness of Jesus is\nsecondary. The lines of His thought were guided by the Greek ideas about\nsons of God, for the soil of northern Galilee was saturated with these\nideas. Other sources which contributed something were the personification\nof the Divine Wisdom in the \u201cWisdom Literature\u201d and some of Philo\u2019s\ndoctrines. Jesus became the son of God in an ecstatic trance! Had not\nPhilo recognised ecstasy as the last and highest means of rising to union\nwith the Divine?\n\nJesus\u2019 temperament, according to Noack, was pre\u2010disposed to ecstasy, since\nHe was born out of wedlock. One who had this burden upon His spirit may\nwell have early taken refuge in His own thoughts, above the clouds, in the\npresence of the God of His fathers. Assailed in a thousand ways by the\ncruelty of the world, it would seem to Him as though His Heavenly Father,\nthough unseen, was stretching out to Him the arms of consolation.\nImagination, which ever mercifully lightens for men the yoke of misery,\ncharmed the fatherless child out of His earthly sufferings and put into\nHis hand a coloured glass through which He saw the world and life in a\nfalse light. Ecstatic enthusiasm had carried Him up to the dizzy height of\nspiritual union with the Father in Heaven. A hundred times He was cast\ndown out of His dreams into the hard world of reality, to experience once\nmore His earthly distresses, but ever anew He won His way by fasting,\nvigil, and prayer to the starry heaven of ecstasy.\n\n\u201cJesus,\u201d Noack explains, \u201chad in thought projected Himself beyond His\nearthly nativity and risen to the conception that His ego had been in\nexistence before this earthly body in which He stood visibly upon the\nstage of the world. He felt that His ego had had being and life before He\nbecame incarnate upon earth.... This new conception of Himself, born of\nHis solitary musings, was incorporated into the very substance of His\nnatural personal ego. A new ego had superseded the old natural,\ncorporeally conditioned ego.\u201d\n\nAmbition, too, came into play\u2014the high ambition to do God a service by the\noffering up of Himself. The passion of self\u2010sacrifice is characteristic of\na consciousness such as this. According to the document which underlies\nthe Johannine Gospel it was not in consequence of outward events that\nJesus took His resolve to die. \u201cIt was the later Gospel tradition which\nexhibited His fate as an inevitable consequence of His conflict with a\nworld impervious to spiritual impression.\u201d In the original Gospel that\nfate was freely embraced from the outset as belonging to the vocation of\nthe Son of God. Only by the constant presence of the thought of death\ncould a life which for two years walked the razor edge of such dizzy\ndreams have been preserved from falling. The conviction, or perhaps rather\nthe instinctive feeling, that the r\u00f4le of a Son of God upon earth was not\none to be maintained for decades was the necessary counterpoise to the\nenthusiasm of Jesus\u2019 spirit. From the first He was as much at home with\nthe thought of death as with His Heavenly Father.\n\nThis Son of Man\u2014according to Noack\u2019s interpretation the title is\nequivalent to Son of Hope\u2014requires of the multitude that they shall take\nHis lofty dream for solid reality. \u201cHe revealed His message from heaven to\nthe world at the Paschal Feast of the year 35, by throwing out a challenge\nto the Sadducaean hierarchy in Jerusalem.\u201d In the time between John\u2019s\nremoval from the scene and John\u2019s death, there falls the visit of Jesus to\nSamaria and a sojourn in the neighbourhood of His Galilaean home. At the\nFeast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem in the autumn of that year, the healing\nof the lame man at the pool of Bethesda led to a breach with the Sabbatic\nregulations of the Pharisees. Later on, in consequence of His generous\nfeeding of the multitude in the Gaulonite table\u2010land, there is an attempt\nto make Him into a Messianic King; which He, however, repudiates. At the\ntime of the Passover in Galilee in the year 36, in the synagogue at\nCapernaum, He tests the spiritual insight of those who may, He hopes, be\nripe for the higher teaching concerning the Son of God made flesh, by the\ntouchstone of His mystical words about the bread of life. At the next\nFeast of Tabernacles, in the city of Zion, He makes a last desperate\nattempt to move men\u2019s hearts by the parable of the Good Shepherd who is\nready to lay down His life for His sheep, the people of Israel.\n\nBut His adversaries are remorseless; they wound Him to the very depths of\nHis spirit by bringing to Him the woman taken in adultery, and asking Him\nwhat they are to do with her. When this question was sprung upon Him, He\nsaw in a moment the public humiliation designed by His adversaries. All\neyes were turned upon Him, and for a few moments the embarrassment of One\nwho was usually so self\u2010possessed was patent to all. He stooped as though\nHe desired to write with His finger upon the ground. Was it shame at His\ndishonourable birth that compelled Him thus to lower His gaze? But the\npainful silence of expectation among the spectators did not last long. His\nadversaries repeated their question, He raised His head and spoke the\nundying words: \u201cLet him that is without sin among you cast the first stone\nat her.\u201d\n\nIncensed by His constant references to His heavenly Sonship, they\nendeavour at last to stone Him. He flees from the Temple and takes refuge\nin the Jordan uplands. His purpose is, at the next Passover, that of the\nyear 37, here in the mountains which were blessed as Joseph\u2019s portion, to\noffer His atoning death as that of the true paschal lamb, and with this\nact to quit the stage of the world\u2019s history. He remained in hiding in\norder to avoid the risk of assassination by the emissaries of the\nPharisees. In Bethany He receives the mysterious visit of the Greeks, who\ndoubtless desired to tempt Him to raise the standard of revolt as a\nclaimant of the Messiahship, but He refuses to be shaken in His\ndetermination to die. The washing of the disciples\u2019 feet signifies their\nbaptism with water, that they might thereafter receive the baptism of the\nHoly Spirit.\n\nJudas, the disciple whom Jesus loved, who was a man of much resource,\nhelped Him to avoid being arrested as a disturber of the peace by\narranging that the \u201cbetrayal\u201d should take place on the evening before the\nPassover, in order that Jesus might die, as He desired, on the day of the\nPassover. For this service of love he was, in the secondary tradition,\ntorn from the bosom of the Lord and branded as a traitor.\n\n\n\n\n\nXIII. RENAN\n\n\n    _Ernest Renan._ La Vie de J\u00e9sus. 1863. Paris, Michel L\u00e9vy Fr\u00e8res.\n    462 pp.\n\n    _E. de Pressens\u00e9._ J\u00e9sus\u2010Christ, son temps, sa vie, son \u0153uvre.\n    Paris, 1865. 684 pp.\n\n\nErnest Renan was born in 1823 at Tr\u00e9guier in Brittany. Intended for the\npriesthood, he entered the seminary of St. Sulpice in Paris, but there, in\nconsequence of reading the German critical theology, he began to doubt the\ntruth of Christianity and of its history. In October 1845, shortly before\nthe time arrived for him to be ordained a sub\u2010deacon, he left the seminary\nand began to work for his living as a private teacher. In 1849 he received\na government grant to enable him to make a journey to Italy for the\nprosecution of his studies, the fruits of which appeared in his _Averro\u00e8s\net l\u2019Averro\u00efsme_ (Paris, 1852); in 1856 he was made a member of the\nAcad\u00e9mie des Inscriptions; in 1860 he received from Napol\u00e9on III. the\nmeans to make a journey to Phoenicia and Syria. After his return in 1862\nhe obtained the professorship of Semitic Languages at the Coll\u00e8ge de\nFrance. But the widespread indignation aroused by his Life of Jesus, which\nappeared in the following year, forced the Government to remove him from\nhis office. He refused a post as Librarian of the Imperial Library, and\nlived in retirement until the Republic of 1871 restored him to his\nprofessorship. In politics, as in religion, his position was somewhat\nindefinite. In religion he was no longer a Catholic; avowed free\u2010thought\nwas too plebeian for his taste, and in Protestantism the multiplicity of\nsects repelled him. Similarly in politics, in the period immediately\nfollowing the fall of the Empire, he was in turn Royalist, Republican, and\nBonapartist. At bottom he was a sceptic. He died in 1892, already half\u2010\nforgotten by the public; until his imposing funeral and interment in the\nPanth\u00e9on recalled him to its memory.\n\nLike Strauss, Renan designed his Life of Jesus to form part of a complete\naccount of the history and dogma of the early Church. His purpose,\nhowever, was purely historical; it was no part of his project to set up,\non the basis of the history, a new system of dogma, as Strauss had desired\nto do. This plan was not only conceived, but carried out. _Les Ap\u00f4tres_\nappeared in 1866; _St. Paul_ in 1869; _L\u2019Ant\u00e9\u2010Christ_ in 1873; _Les\n\u00c9vangiles_ in 1877; _L\u2019\u00c9glise chr\u00e9tienne_ in 1879; _Marc\u2010Aur\u00e8le et la fin\ndu monde antique_ in 1881. Several of these works were more valuable than\nthe one which opened the series, but for the world Renan continued to be\nthe author of the _Vie de J\u00e9sus_, and of that alone.\n\nHe planned the work at Gaza, and he dedicated it to his sister Henriette,\nwho died soon after, in Syria, and lies buried at Byblus.\n\nThis was the first Life of Jesus for the Catholic world, which had\nscarcely been touched\u2014the Latin peoples least of all\u2014by the two and a half\ngenerations of critical study which had been devoted to the subject. It is\ntrue, Strauss\u2019s work had been translated into French,(107) but it had made\nonly a passing stir, and that only among a little circle of intellectuals.\nNow came a writer with the characteristic French mental accent, who gave\nto the Latin world in a single book the result of the whole process of\nGerman criticism.\n\nBut Renan\u2019s work marked an epoch, not for the Catholic world only, but for\ngeneral literature. He laid the problem which had hitherto occupied only\ntheologians before the whole cultured world. And not as a problem, but as\na question of which he, by means of his historical science and aesthetic\npower of reviving the past, could provide a solution. He offered his\nreaders a Jesus who was alive, whom he, with his artistic imagination, had\nmet under the blue heaven of Galilee, and whose lineaments his inspired\npencil had seized. Men\u2019s attention was arrested, and they thought to see\nJesus, because Renan had the skill to make them see blue skies, seas of\nwaving corn, distant mountains, gleaming lilies, in a landscape with the\nLake of Gennesareth for its centre, and to hear with him in the whispering\nof the reeds the eternal melody of the Sermon on the Mount.\n\nYet the aesthetic feeling for nature which gave birth to this Life of\nJesus was, it must be confessed, neither pure nor profound. It is a\nstanding enigma why French art, which in painting grasps nature with a\ndirectness and vigour, with an objectivity in the best sense of the word,\nsuch as is scarcely to be found in the art of any other nation, has in\npoetry treated it in a fashion which scarcely ever goes beyond the lyrical\nand sentimental, the artificial, the subjective, in the worst sense of the\nword. Renan is no exception to this rule, any more than Lamartine or\nPierre Loti. He looks at the landscape with the eye of a decorative\npainter seeking a _motif_ for a lyrical composition upon which he is\nengaged. But that was not noticed by the many, because they, after all,\nwere accustomed to have nature dressed up for them, and had had their\ntaste so corrupted by a certain kind of lyricism that they had lost the\npower of distinguishing between truth and artificiality. Even those who\nmight have noticed it were so astonished and delighted at being shown\nJesus in the Galilaean landscape that they were content to yield to the\nenchantment.\n\nAlong with this artificial feeling for nature a good many other things\nwere accepted without question. There is scarcely any other work on the\nsubject which so abounds in lapses of taste\u2014and those of the most\ndistressing kind\u2014as Renan\u2019s _Vie de J\u00e9sus_. It is Christian art in the\nworst sense of the term\u2014the art of the wax image. The gentle Jesus, the\nbeautiful Mary, the fair Galilaeans who formed the retinue of the \u201camiable\ncarpenter,\u201d might have been taken over in a body from the shop\u2010window of\nan ecclesiastical art emporium in the Place St. Sulpice. Nevertheless,\nthere is something magical about the work. It offends and yet it attracts.\nIt will never be quite forgotten, nor is it ever likely to be surpassed in\nits own line, for nature is not prodigal of masters of style, and rarely\nis a book so directly born of enthusiasm as that which Renan planned among\nthe Galilaean hills.\n\nThe essay on the sources of the Life of Jesus with which it opens is\nitself a literary masterpiece. With a kind of effortless ease he makes his\nreaders acquainted with the criticism of Strauss, of Baur, of Reuss, of\nColani. He does not argue, but simply sets the result vividly before the\nreader, who finds himself at once at home in the new world of ideas. He\navoids any hard or glaring effects; by means of that skilful transition\nfrom point to point which Wagner in one of his letters praises as the\nhighest art, everything is surrounded with atmosphere. But how much\ntrickery and illusion there is in this art! In a few strokes he indicates\nthe relation of John to the Synoptists; the dilemma is made clear, it\nseems as if one horn or the other must be chosen. Then he begins by artful\ntouches to soften down the contrast. The discourses of John are not\nauthentic; the historical Jesus cannot have spoken thus. But what about\nthe statements of fact? Here Renan declares himself convinced by the\ngraphic presentment of the passion story. Touches like \u201cit was night,\u201d\n\u201cthey had lighted a fire of coals,\u201d \u201cthe coat was without seam,\u201d cannot\nhave been invented. Therefore the Gospel must in some way go back to the\ndisciple whom Jesus loved. It is possible, nay certain, that when as an\nold man he read the other Gospels, he was displeased by certain\ninaccuracies, and perhaps vexed that he was given so small a place in the\nhistory. He began to dictate a number of things which he had better means\nof knowing than the others; partly, too, with the purpose of showing that\nin many cases where Peter only had been mentioned he also had played a\npart, and indeed the principal part. Sometimes his recollection was quite\nfresh, sometimes it had been modified by time. When he wrote down the\ndiscourses, he had forgotten the Lake of Gennesareth and the winsome words\nwhich he had listened to upon its shores. He was now living in quite a\ndifferent world. The events of the year 70 destroyed his hopes of the\nreturn of his Master. His Jewish prejudices fell away, and as he was still\nyoung, he adapted himself to the syncretistic, philosophic, gnostic\nenvironment amid which he found himself in Ephesus. Thus even Jesus\u2019 world\nof thought took on a new shape for him; although the discourses are\nperhaps rather to be referred to his school than to himself. But, when all\nis said, John remains the best biographer. Or, to put it more accurately,\nwhile all the Gospels are biographies, they are legendary biographies,\neven though they come down from the first century. Their texts need\ninterpretation, and the clue to the interpretation can be supplied by\naesthetic feeling. They must be subjected to a gentle pressure to bring\nthem together, and make them coalesce into a unity in which all the data\nare happily combined.\n\nHow this is to be done Renan shows later in his description of the death\nof Jesus. \u201cSuddenly,\u201d he says, \u201cJesus gave a terrible cry in which some\nthought they heard \u2018Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,\u2019 but which\nothers, whose thoughts were running on the fulfilment of prophecy,\nreported as \u2018It is finished.\u2019 \u201d\n\nThe authentic sayings of Jesus are more or less self\u2010evidencing. Coming in\ncontact with one of them amid the welter of heterogeneous traditions, you\nfeel a thrill of recognition. They leap forth and take their proper place,\nwhere their vivid power becomes apparent. For one who writes the life of\nJesus on His native soil, the Gospels are not so much sources of\ninformation as incentives to revelation. \u201cI had,\u201d Renan avows, \u201ca fifth\nGospel before my eyes, mutilated in parts, but still legible, and taking\nit for my guide I saw behind the narratives of Matthew and Mark, instead\nof an ideal Being of whom it might be maintained that He had never\nexisted, a glorious human countenance full of life and movement.\u201d It is\nthis Jesus of the fifth Gospel that he desires to portray.\n\nIn looking at the picture, the reader must not allow the vexed question of\nmiracle to distract him and disturb the proper frame of mind. The author\nrefuses to assert either the possibility or the impossibility of miracle,\nbut speaks only as an historian. \u201cWe do not say miracle is impossible, we\nsay only that there has never been a satisfactorily authenticated\nmiracle.\u201d\n\nIn view of the method of treatment adopted by Renan there can, of course,\nbe no question of an historical plan. He brings in each saying at the\npoint where it seems most appropriate. None of them is passed over, but\nnone of them appears in its historical setting. He shifts individual\nincidents hither and thither in the most arbitrary fashion. For example,\nthe coming of Jesus\u2019 mother to seek Him (in the belief that He is beside\nHimself) must belong to the later part of Jesus\u2019 life, since it is out of\ntone with the happy innocence of the earlier period. Certain scenes are\ntransposed from the later period to the earlier, because they are not\ngloomy enough for the later time. Others again are made the basis of an\nunwarranted generalisation. It is not enough that Jesus once rode upon an\nass while the disciples in the intoxication of joy cast their garments in\nthe way; according to Renan, He constantly rode about, even in Galilee,\nupon a mule, \u201cthat favourite riding\u2010animal of the East, which is so docile\nand sure\u2010footed and whose great dark eyes, shaded by long lashes, are full\nof gentleness.\u201d Sometimes the disciples surrounded Him with rustic pomp,\nusing their garments by way of carpeting. They laid them upon the mule\nwhich carried Him, or spread them before Him on the way.\n\nScenes of little significance are sometimes elaborately described by Renan\nwhile more important ones are barely touched on. \u201cOne day, indeed,\u201d he\nremarks in describing the first visit to Jerusalem, \u201canger seems to have,\nas the saying goes, overmastered Him; He struck some of the miserable\nchafferers with the scourge, and overthrew their tables.\u201d Such is the\nincidental fashion in which the cleansing of the temple was brought in. In\nthis way it is possible to smuggle in a miracle without giving any further\nexplanation of it. The miracle at Cana is brought, by means of the\nfollowing unobtrusive turn of phrase, into the account of the period of\nsuccess in Galilee. \u201cOne of His miracles was done by Jesus for the sole\npurpose of increasing the happiness of a wedding\u2010party in a little country\ntown.\u201d\n\nThis Life of Jesus is introduced by a kind of prelude. Jesus had been\nliving in Galilee before He came to the Baptist; when He heard of the\nlatter\u2019s success He went to him with His little company of followers. They\nwere both young, and Jesus became the imitator of the Baptist. Fortunately\nthe latter soon disappeared from the scene, for his influence on Jesus was\nin some respects injurious. The Galilaean teacher was on the verge of\nlosing the sunny religion which He had learned from His only teacher, the\nglorious natural scenery which surrounded His home, and of becoming a\ngloomy Jewish fanatic. But this influence fell away from Him again; when\nHe returned to Galilee He became Himself once more. The only thing which\nHe had gained from John was some knowledge of the art of preaching. He had\nlearned from him how to influence masses of men. From that time forward He\npreached with much more power and gained greater ascendancy over the\npeople.\n\nWith the return to Galilee begins the first act of the piece. The story of\nthe rise of Christianity is a pastoral play. Bauer, in his \u201cPhilo,\nStrauss, and Renan,\u201d writes with biting sarcasm: \u201cRenan, who is at once\nthe author of the play, the stage\u2010manager, and the director of the\ntheatre, gives the signal to begin, and at a sign from him the electric\nlights are put on full power, the Bengal fires flare up, the footlights\nare turned higher, and while the flutes and shawms of the orchestra strike\nup the overture, the people enter and take their places among the bushes\nand by the shore of the Lake.\u201d And how confiding they were, this gentle\nand peaceful company of Galilaean fisher folk! And He, the young\ncarpenter, conjured the Kingdom of Heaven down to earth for a year, by the\nspell of the infinite tenderness which radiated from Him. A company of men\nand women, all of the same youthful integrity and simple innocence, became\nHis followers and constantly repeated \u201cThou art the Messiah.\u201d By the women\nHe was more beloved than He Himself liked, but from His passion for the\nglory of His Father He was content to attract these \u201cfair creatures\u201d\n(_belles cr\u00e9atures_) and suffered them to serve Him, and God through Him.\nThree or four devoted Galilaean women constantly accompanied Him and\nstrove with one another for the pleasure (_le plaisir_) of listening to\nHis teaching and attending to His comfort. Some of them were wealthy and\nused their means to enable the \u201camiable\u201d (_charmant_) prophet to live\nwithout needing to practise His handicraft. The most devoted of all was\nMary Magdalene, whose disordered mind had been healed by the influence of\nthe pure and gracious beauty (_par la beaut\u00e9 pure et douce_) of the young\nRabbi.\n\nThus He rode, on His long\u2010eyelashed gentle mule, from village to village,\nfrom town to town. The sweet theology of love (_la d\u00e9licieuse th\u00e9ologie de\nl\u2019amour_) won Him all hearts. His preaching was gentle and mild (_suave et\ndouce_), full of nature and the fragrance of the country. Wherever He went\nthe people kept festival. At marriages He was a welcome guest; to the\nfeasts which He gave He invited women who were sinners, and publicans like\nthe good Zacchaeus.\n\n\u201cThe Frenchman,\u201d remarks Noack, \u201ctakes the mummied figure of the Galilaean\nRabbi, which criticism has exhumed, endows it with life and energy, and\nbrings Him upon the stage, first amid the lustre of the earthly happiness\nwhich it was His pleasure to bestow, and then in the moving aspect of one\ndoomed to suffer.\u201d\n\nWhen Jesus goes up to the Passover at the end of this first year, He comes\ninto conflict with the Rabbis of the capital. The \u201cwinsome teacher, who\noffered forgiveness to all on the sole condition of loving Him,\u201d found in\nthe capital people upon whom His charm had no effect. When He returned to\nGalilee He had entirely abandoned His Jewish beliefs, and a revolutionary\nardour glowed in His heart. The second act begins. \u201cThe action becomes\nmore serious and gloomy, and the pupil of Strauss turns down the\nfootlights of his stage.\u201d(108) The erstwhile \u201cwinsome moralist\u201d has become\na transcendental revolutionary. Up to this point He had thought to bring\nabout the triumph of the Kingdom of God by natural means, by teaching and\ninfluencing men. The Jewish eschatology stood vaguely in the background.\nNow it becomes prominent. The tension set up between His purely ethical\nideas and these eschatological expectations gives His words from this time\nforward a special force. The period of joyous simplicity is past.\n\nEven the character of the hero loses its simplicity. In the furtherance of\nHis cause He becomes a wonder\u2010worker. It is true that even before He had\nsometimes practised innocent arts such as Joan of Arc made use of\nlater.(109) He had, for instance, pretended to know the unspoken thoughts\nof one whom He desired to win, had reminded him, perhaps, of some\nexperience of which he cherished the memory. He allowed the people to\nbelieve that He received knowledge of certain matters through a kind of\nrevelation. Finally, it came to be whispered that He had spoken with Moses\nand Elias upon the mountains. But He now finds Himself compelled to adopt\nin earnest the r\u00f4le which He had formerly taken, as it were, in play.\nAgainst His will He is compelled to found His work upon miracle. He must\nface the alternative of either renouncing His mission or becoming a\nthaumaturge. He consented, therefore, to play an active part in many\nmiracles. In this astute friends gave Him their aid. At Bethany something\nhappened which could be regarded as a raising of the dead. Perhaps this\nmiracle was arranged by Lazarus himself. When very ill he had allowed\nhimself to be wrapped in the cerements of the dead and laid in the grave.\nHis sisters sent for Jesus and brought Him to the tomb. He desired to look\nonce more upon His friend, and when, overcome with grief, He cried his\nname aloud, Lazarus came forth from the grave. Why should the brother and\nsisters have hesitated to provide a miracle for the Master, in whose\nmiracle\u2010working power they, indeed, believed? Where, then, was Renan\u2019s\nallegiance to his \u201chonoured master\u201d Strauss, when he thus enrolled himself\namong the rationalists?\n\nOn these lines Jesus played His part for eighteen months, from the Easter\nof 31 to the Feast of Tabernacles of 32. How great is the change from the\ngentle teacher of the Sermon on the Mount! His discourse takes on a\ncertain hardness of tone. In the synagogue at Capernaum He drives many\nfrom Him, offended by the saying about eating and drinking His flesh and\nblood. The \u201cextreme materialism of the expression,\u201d which in Him had\nalways been the natural counterpoise to the \u201cextreme idealism of the\nthought,\u201d becomes more and more pronounced. His \u201cKingdom of God\u201d was\nindeed still essentially the kingdom of the poor, the kingdom of the soul,\nthe great spiritual kingdom; but He now preached it as the kingdom of the\napocalyptic writings. And yet in the very moment when He seems to be\nstaking everything upon a supernatural fulfilment of His hopes, He\nprovides with remarkable prescience the basis of a permanent Church. He\nappoints the Twelve Apostles and institutes the fellowship\u2010meal. It is\ncertain, Renan thinks, that the \u201cSupper\u201d was not first instituted on that\nlast evening; even in the second Galilaean period He must have practised\nwith His followers the mystic rite of the Breaking of Bread, which in some\nway symbolised His death.\n\nBy the end of this period He had cast off all earthly ambitions. Nothing\nof earth existed for Him any more. A strange longing for persecution and\nmartyrdom had taken possession of Him. It was not, however, the resolve to\noffer an atonement for the sins of His people which familiarised Him with\nthe thought of death; it was forced upon Him by the knowledge that He had\nentered upon a path in which it was impossible for Him to sustain His r\u00f4le\nfor more than a few months, or perhaps even weeks. So He sets out for\nJerusalem, outwardly a hero, inwardly half in despair because He has\nturned aside from His true path. The gentle, faithful, long\u2010eyelashed mule\nbears Him, amid the acclamations of the multitude, through the gate of the\ncapital.\n\nThe third act begins: the stage is dark and becomes constantly darker,\nuntil at last, through the darkness of the scene, there is faintly visible\nonly the figure of a woman\u2014of her who in her deep grief beside the grave\nwas by her vision to call to life again Him whom she loved. There was\ndarkness, too, in the souls of the disciples, and in that of the Master.\nThe bitter jealousy between Judas and John made one of them a traitor. As\nfor Jesus, He had His hour of gloom to fight through in Gethsemane. For a\nmoment His human nature awakened in Him; all that He thought He had slain\nand put behind Him for ever rose up and confronted Him as He knelt there\nupon the ground. \u201cDid He remember the clear brooks of Galilee at which He\nmight have slaked His thirst\u2014the vine and the fig\u2010tree beneath which He\nmight have rested\u2014the maidens who would perhaps have been willing to love\nHim? Did He regret His too exalted nature? Did He, a martyr to His own\ngreatness, weep that He had not remained the simple carpenter of Nazareth?\nWe do not know!\u201d\n\nHe is dead. Renan, as though he stood in P\u00e8re Lachaise, commissioned to\npronounce the final allocution over a member of the Academy, apostrophises\nHim thus: \u201cRest now, amid Thy glory, noble pioneer. Thou conqueror of\ndeath, take the sceptre of Thy Kingdom, into which so many centuries of\nThy worshippers shall follow Thee, by the highway which Thou hast opened\nup.\u201d\n\nThe bell rings; the curtain begins to fall; the swing\u2010seats tilt. The\nepilogue is scarcely heard: \u201cJesus will never have a rival. His religion\nwill again and again renew itself; His story will call forth endless\ntears: His sufferings will soften the hearts of the best; every successive\ncentury will proclaim that among the sons of men there hath not arisen a\ngreater than Jesus.\u201d\n\nThe book passed through eight editions in three months. The writings of\nthose who opposed it had an equal vogue. That of Freppel had reached its\ntwelfth edition in 1864.(110) Their name was legion. Whatever wore a\nsoutane and could wield a pen charged against Renan, the bishops leading\nthe van. The tone of these attacks was not always very elevated, nor their\nlogic very profound. In most cases the writers were only concerned to\ndefend the Deity of Christ,(111) and the miracles, and are satisfied that\nthey have done so when they have pointed out some of the glaring\ninconsistencies in Renan\u2019s work. Here and there, however, among these\nrefutations we catch the tone of a loftier ethical spirit which has\nrecognised the fundamental weakness of the work, the lack of any definite\nethical principles in the writer\u2019s outlook upon life.(112) There were some\nindeed who were not content with a refutation; they would gladly have seen\nactive measures taken against Renan. One of his most embittered\nadversaries, Amad\u00e9e Nicolas,(113) reckons up in an appendix to his work\nthe maximum penalties authorised by the existing enactments against free\u2010\nthought, and would welcome the application of the law of the 25th of March\n1822, according to which five years\u2019 imprisonment could be imposed for the\ncrime of \u201cinsulting or making ridiculous a religion recognised by the\nstate.\u201d\n\nRenan was defended by the _Si\u00e8cle_, the _D\u00e9bats_, at that time the leading\nFrench newspaper, and the _Temps_, in which Scherer published five\narticles upon the book. Even the _Revue des deux mondes_, which had\nformerly raised a warning voice against Strauss, allowed itself to go with\nthe stream, and published in its August number of 1863 a critical analysis\nby Havet(114) who hailed Renan\u2019s work as a great achievement, and\ncriticised only the inconsistencies by which he had endeavoured to soften\ndown the radical character of his undertaking. Later on the _Revue_\nchanged its attitude and sided with Renan\u2019s opponents. In the Protestant\ncamp there was an even keener sense of distaste than in the Catholic for\nthe sentimental gloss which Renan had spread over his work to make it\nattractive to the multitude by its iridescent colours. In four remarkable\nletters Athanase Coquerel the younger took the author to task for\nthis.(115) From the standpoint of orthodox scholarship E. de Pressens\u00e9\ncondemned him;(116) and proceeded without loss of time to refute him in a\nlarge\u2010scale Life of Jesus.(117) He was answered by Albert R\u00e9ville,(118)\nwho claims recognition for Renan\u2019s services to criticism.\n\nIn general, however, the rising French school of critical theology was\ndisappointed in Renan. Their spokesman was Colani. \u201cThis is not the Christ\nof history, the Christ of the Synoptics,\u201d he writes in 1864 in the _Revue\nde th\u00e9ologie_, \u201cbut the Christ of the Fourth Gospel, though without His\nmetaphysical halo, and painted over with a brush which has been dipped in\nthe melancholy blue of modern poetry, in the rose of the eighteenth\u2010\ncentury idyll, and in the grey of a moral philosophy which seems to be\nderived from La Rochefoucauld.\u201d \u201cIn expressing this opinion,\u201d he adds, \u201cI\nbelieve I am speaking in the name of those who belong to what is known as\nthe new Protestant theology, or the Strassburg school. We opened M.\nRenan\u2019s book with sympathetic interest; we closed it with deep\ndisappointment.\u201d(119)\n\nThe Strassburg school had good cause to complain of Renan, for he had\ntrampled their growing crops. They had just begun to arouse some interest,\nand slowly and surely to exercise an influence upon the whole spiritual\nlife of France. Sainte\u2010Beuve had called attention to the work of Reuss,\nColani, R\u00e9ville, and Scherer. Others of the school were Michel Nicolas of\nMontauban and Gustave d\u2019Eichthal. Nefftzer, the editor of the _Temps_, who\nwas at the same time a prophet of coming political events, defended their\ncause in the Parisian literary world. The _Revue germanique_ of that\nperiod, the influence of which upon French literature can hardly be over\u2010\nestimated, was their sworn ally. Then came Renan and threw public opinion\ninto a ferment of excitement. Everything in the nature of criticism, and\nof progress in religious thought, was associated with his name, and was\nthereby discredited. By his untimely and over\u2010easy popularisation of the\nideas of the critical school he ruined their quiet work. The excitement\nroused by his book swept away all that had been done by those noble and\nlofty spirits, who now found themselves involved in a struggle with the\noutraged orthodoxy of Paris, and were hard put to it to defend themselves.\nEven down to the present day Renan\u2019s work forms the greatest hindrance to\nany serious advance in French religious thought.\n\nThe excitement aroused upon the other side of the Rhine was scarcely less\nthan in Paris. Within a year there appeared five different German\ntranslations, and many of the French criticisms of Renan were also\ntranslated.(120) The German Catholic press was wildly excited;(121) the\nProtestant press was more restrained, more inclined to give the author a\nfair hearing, and even ventured to express admiration of the historical\nmerits of his performance. Beyschlag(122) saw in Renan an advance upon\nStrauss, inasmuch as for him the life of Jesus as narrated in the Gospels,\nwhile not, indeed, in any sense supernatural, is nevertheless historical.\nFor a certain school of theology, therefore, Renan was a deliverer from\nStrauss; they were especially grateful to him for his defence, sophistical\nthough it was, of the Fourth Gospel. Weizs\u00e4cker expressed his admiration.\nStrauss, far from directing his \u201cLife of Jesus for the German People,\u201d\nwith which he was then occupied, against the superficial and frivolous\nFrench treatment of the subject\u2014as has sometimes been alleged\u2014hailed Renan\nin his preface as a kindred spirit and ally, and \u201cshook hands with him\nacross the Rhine.\u201d Luthardt,(123) however, remained inexorable. \u201cWhat is\nthere lacking in Renan\u2019s work?\u201d he asks. And he replies, \u201cIt lacks\nconscience.\u201d\n\nThat is a just judgment. From this lack of conscience, Renan has not been\nscrupulous where he ought to have been so. There is a kind of insincerity\nin the book from beginning to end. Renan professes to depict the Christ of\nthe Fourth Gospel, though he does not believe in the authenticity or the\nmiracles of that Gospel. He professes to write a scientific work, and is\nalways thinking of the great public and how to interest it. He has thus\nfused together two works of disparate character. The historian finds it\nhard to forgive him for not going more deeply into the problem of the\ndevelopment in the thought of Jesus, with which he was brought face to\nface by the emphasis which he laid on eschatology, and for offering in\nplace of a solution the highly\u2010coloured phrases of the novelist.\n\nNevertheless, this work will always retain a certain interest, both for\nFrenchmen and for Germans. The German is often so completely fascinated by\nit as to lose his power of criticism, because he finds in it German\nthought in a novel and piquant form. Conversely the Frenchman discovers in\nit, behind the familiar form, which is here handled in such a masterly\nfashion, ideas belonging to a world which is foreign to him, ideas which\nhe can never completely assimilate, but which yet continually attract him.\nIn this double character of the work lies its imperishable charm.\n\nAnd its weakness? That it is written by one to whom the New Testament was\nto the last something foreign, who had not read it from his youth up in\nthe mother\u2010tongue, who was not accustomed to breathe freely in its simple\nand pure world, but must perfume it with sentimentality in order to feel\nhimself at home in it.\n\n\n\n\n\nXIV. THE \u201cLIBERAL\u201d LIVES OF JESUS\n\n\n    _David Friedrich Strauss._ Das Leben Jesu f\u00fcr das deutsche Volk\n    bearbeitet. (A Life of Jesus for the German People.) Leipzig,\n    1864. 631 pp.\n\n    Der Christus des Glaubens und der Jesus der Geschichte. Eine\n    Kritik des Schleiermacher\u2019schen Lebens Jesu. (The Christ of Faith\n    and the Jesus of History, a Criticism of Schleiermacher\u2019s Life of\n    Jesus.) Berlin, 1865. 223 pp. Appendix, pp. 224\u2010240.\n\n    Der Schenkel\u2019sche Handel in Baden. (The Schenkel Affair in Baden.)\n    A corrected reprint from No. 441 of the _National\u2010Zeitung_, of the\n    21st September 1864.\n\n    Die Halben und die Ganzen. (The Half\u2010way\u2010ers and the Whole\u2010way\u2010\n    ers.) 1865.\n\n    _Daniel Schenkel._ Das Charakterbild Jesu. (The Portrait of\n    Jesus.) Wiesbaden, 1864 (ed. 1 and 2). 405 pp. Fourth edition,\n    with a preface opposing Strauss\u2019s \u201cDer alte und der neue Glaube\u201d\n    (The Old Faith and the New), 1873.\n\n    _Karl Heinrich Weizs\u00e4cker._ Untersuchungen \u00fcber die evangelische\n    Geschichte, ihre Quellen und den Gang ihrer Entwicklung. (Studies\n    in the Gospel History, its Sources and the Progress of its\n    Development.) Gotha, 1864. 580 pp.\n\n    _Heinrich Julius Holtzmann._ Die synoptischen Evangelien. Ihr\n    Ursprung und geschichtlicher Charakter. (The Synoptic Gospels.\n    Their Origin and Historical Character.) Leipzig, 1863. 514 pp.\n\n    _Theodor Keim._ Die Geschichte Jesu von Nazara. (The History of\n    Jesus of Nazara.) 3 vols., Zurich; vol. i., 1867, 446 pp.; vol.\n    ii., 1871, 616 pp.; vol. iii., 1872, 667 pp.\n\n    Die Geschichte Jesu. Zurich, 1872. 398 pp.\n\n    _Karl Hase._ Geschichte Jesu. Nach akademischen Vorlesungen. (The\n    History of Jesus. Academic Lectures, revised.) Leipzig, 1876. 612\n    pp.\n\n    _Willibald Beyschlag._ Das Leben Jesu. First Part: Preliminary\n    Investigations, 1885, 450 pp. Second Part: Narrative, 1886, 495\n    pp.; 2nd ed., 1887\u20101888.\n\n    _Bernhard Weiss._ Das Leben Jesu. 1st ed., 2 vols., 1882; 2nd ed.,\n    1884. First vol., down to the Baptist\u2019s question, 556 pp. Second\n    vol., 617 pp.\n\n\n\u201cMy hope is,\u201d writes Strauss in concluding the preface of his new Life of\nJesus, \u201cthat I have written a book as thoroughly well adapted for Germans\nas Renan\u2019s is for Frenchmen.\u201d He was mistaken; in spite of its title the\nbook was not a book for the people. It had nothing new to offer, and what\nit did offer was not in a form calculated to become popular. It is true\nStrauss, like Renan, was an artist, but he did not write, like an\nimaginative novelist, with a constant eye to effect. His art was\nunpretentious, even austere, appealing to the few, not to the many. The\npeople demand a complete and vivid picture. Renan had given them a figure\nwhich was theatrical no doubt, but full of life and movement, and they had\nbeen grateful to him for it. Strauss could not do that.\n\nEven the arrangement of the work is thoroughly unfortunate. In the first\npart, which bears the title \u201cThe Life of Jesus,\u201d he attempts to combine\ninto a harmonious portrait such of the historical data as have some claim\nto be considered historical; in the second part he traces the \u201cOrigin and\nGrowth of the Mythical History of Jesus.\u201d First, therefore, he tears down\nfrom the tree the ivy and the rich growth of creepers, laying bare the\nworn and corroded bark; then he fastens the faded growths to the stem\nagain, and describes the nature, origin, and characteristics of each\ndistinct species.\n\nHow vastly different, how much more full of life, had been the work of\n1835! There Strauss had not divided the creepers from the stem. The\nstraining strength which upheld this wealth of creepers was but vaguely\nsuspected. Behind the billowy mists of legend we caught from time to time\na momentary glimpse of the gigantic figure of Jesus, as though lit up by a\nlightning\u2010flash. It was no complete and harmonious picture, but it was\nfull of suggestions, rich in thoughts thrown out carelessly, rich in\ncontradictions even, out of which the imagination could create a portrait\nof Jesus. It is just this wealth of suggestion that is lacking in the\nsecond picture. Strauss is trying now to give a definite portrait. In the\ninevitable process of harmonising and modelling to scale he is obliged to\nreject the finest thoughts of the previous work because they will not fit\nin exactly; some of them are altered out of recognition, some are filed\naway.\n\nThere is wanting, too, that perfect freshness as of the spring which is\nonly found when thoughts have but newly come into flower. The writing is\nno longer spontaneous; one feels that Strauss is setting forth thoughts\nwhich have ripened with his mind and grown old with it, and now along with\ntheir definiteness of form have taken on a certain stiffness. There are\nnow no hinted possibilities, full of promise, to dance gaily through the\nmovement of his dialectic; all is sober reason\u2014a thought too sober. Renan\nhad one advantage over Strauss in that he wrote when the material was\nfresh to him\u2014one might almost say strange to him\u2014and was capable of\ncalling up in him the response of vivid feeling.\n\nFor a popular book, too, it lacks that living interplay of reflection with\nnarration without which the ordinary reader fails to get a grip of the\nhistory. The first Life of Jesus had been rich in this respect, since it\nhad been steeped in the Hegelian theory regarding the realisation of the\nIdea. In the meantime Strauss had seen the Hegelian philosophy fall from\nits high estate, and himself had found no way of reconciling history and\nidea, so that his present Life of Jesus was a mere objective presentment\nof the history. It was, therefore, not adapted to make any impression upon\nthe popular mind.\n\nIn reality it is merely an exposition, in more or less popular form, of\nthe writer\u2019s estimate of what had been done in the study of the subject\nduring the past thirty years, and shows what he had learnt and what he had\nfailed to learn.\n\nAs regards the Synoptic question he had learnt nothing. In his opinion the\ncriticism of the Gospels has \u201crun to seed.\u201d He treats with a pitying\ncontempt both the earlier and the more recent defenders of the Marcan\nhypothesis. Weisse is a dilettante; Wilke had failed to make any\nimpression on him; Holtzmann\u2019s work was as yet unknown to him. But in the\nfollowing year he discharged the vials of his wrath upon the man who had\nboth strengthened the foundations and put on the coping\u2010stone of the new\nhypothesis. \u201cOur lions of St. Mark, older and younger,\u201d he says in the\nappendix to his criticism of Schleiermacher\u2019s Life of Jesus, \u201cmay roar as\nloud as they like, so long as there are six solid reasons against the\npriority of Mark to set against every one of their flimsy arguments in its\nfavour\u2014and they themselves supply us with a store of counter\u2010arguments in\nthe shape of admissions of later editing and so forth. The whole theory\nappears to me a temporary aberration, like the \u2019music of the future\u2019 or\nthe anti\u2010vaccination movement; and I seriously believe that it is the same\norder of mind which, in different circumstances, falls a victim to the one\ndelusion or the other.\u201d But he must not be supposed, he says, to take the\ncritical mole\u2010hills thrown up by Holtzmann for veritable mountains.\n\nAgainst such opponents he does not scruple to seek aid from\nSchleiermacher, whose unbiased but decided opinion had ascribed a tertiary\ncharacter to Mark. Even Gfr\u00f6rer\u2019s view that Mark adapted his Gospel to the\nneeds of the Church by leaving out everything which was open to objection\nin Matthew and Luke, is good enough to be brought to bear against the bat\u2010\neyed partisans of Mark. F. C. Baur is reproached for having given too much\nweight to the \u201ctendency\u201d theory in his criticism of the Gospels; and also\nfor having taken suggestions of Strauss\u2019s and worked them out, supposing\nthat he was offering something new when he was really only amplifying. In\nthe end he had only given a criticism of the Gospels, not of the Gospel\nhistory.\n\nBut this irritation against his old teacher is immediately allayed when he\ncomes to speak of the Fourth Gospel. Here the teacher has carried to a\nsuccessful issue the campaign which the pupil had begun. Strauss feels\ncompelled to \u201cexpress his gratitude for the work done by the T\u00fcbingen\nschool on the Johannine question.\u201d He himself had only been able to deal\nwith the negative side of the question\u2014to show that the Fourth Gospel was\nnot an historical source, but a theological invention; they had dealt with\nit positively, and had assigned the document to its proper place in the\nevolution of Christian thought. There is only one point with which he\nquarrels. Baur had made the Fourth Gospel too completely spiritual,\n\u201cwhereas the fact is,\u201d says Strauss, \u201cthat it is the most material of\nall.\u201d It is true, Strauss explains, that the Evangelist starts out to\ninterpret miracle and eschatology symbolically; but he halts half\u2010way and\nfalls back upon the miraculous, enhancing the professed fact in proportion\nas he makes it spiritually more significant. Beside the spiritual return\nof Jesus in the Paraclete he places His return in a material body, bearing\nthe marks of the wounds; beside the inward present judgment, a future\noutward judgment; and the fact that he sees the one in the other, finds\nthe one present and visible in the other, is just what constitutes the\nmystical character of his Gospel. This mysticism attracts the modern\nworld. \u201cThe Johannine Christ, who in His descriptions of Himself seems to\nbe always out\u2010doing Himself, is the counterpart of the modern believer,\nwho in order to remain a believer must continually out\u2010do himself; the\nJohannine miracles which are always being interpreted spiritually, and at\nthe same time raised to a higher pitch of the miraculous, which are\ncounted and documented in every possible way, and yet must not be\nconsidered the true ground of faith, are at once miracles and no miracles.\nWe must believe them, and yet can believe without them; in short they\nexactly meet the taste of the present day, which delights to involve\nitself in contradictions and is too lethargic and wanting in courage for\nany clear insight or decided opinion on religious matters.\u201d\n\nStrictly speaking, however, the Strauss of the second Life of Jesus has no\nright to criticise the Fourth Gospel for sublimating the history, for he\nhimself gives what is nothing else than a spiritualisation of the Jesus of\nthe Synoptics. And he does it in such an arbitrary fashion that one is\ncompelled to ask how far he does it with a good conscience. A typical case\nis the exposition of Jesus\u2019 answer to the Baptist\u2019s message. \u201cIs it\npossible,\u201d Jesus means, \u201cthat you fail to find in Me the miracles which\nyou expect from the Messiah? And yet I daily open the eyes of the\nspiritually blind and the ears of the spiritually deaf, make the lame walk\nerect and vigorous, and even give new life to those who are morally dead.\nAny one who understands how much greater these spiritual miracles are,\nwill not be offended at the absence of bodily miracles; only such an one\ncan receive, and is worthy of, the salvation which I am bringing to\nmankind.\u201d\n\nHere the fundamental weakness of his method is clearly shown. The vaunted\napparatus for the evaporation of the mythical does not work quite\nsatisfactorily. The ultimate product of this process was expected to be a\nJesus who should be essential man; the actual product, however, is Jesus\nthe historical man, a being whose looks and sayings are strange and\nunfamiliar. Strauss is too purely a critic, too little of the creative\nhistorian, to recognise this strange being. That Jesus really lived in a\nworld of Jewish ideas and held Himself to be Messiah in the Jewish sense\nis for the writer of the Life of Jesus an impossibility. The deposit which\nresists the chemical process for the elimination of myth, he must\ntherefore break up with the hammer.\n\nHow different from the Strauss of 1835! He had then recognised eschatology\nas the most important element in Jesus\u2019 world of thought, and in some\nincidental remarks had made striking applications of it. He had, for\nexample, proposed to regard the Last Supper not as the institution of a\nfeast for coming generations, but as a Paschal meal, at which Jesus\ndeclared that He would next partake of the Paschal bread and Paschal wine\nalong with His disciples in the heavenly kingdom. In the second Life of\nJesus this view is given up; Jesus did found a feast. \u201cIn order to give a\nliving centre of unity to the society which it was His purpose to found,\nJesus desired to institute this distribution of bread and wine as a feast\nto be constantly repeated.\u201d One might be reading Renan. This change of\nattitude is typical of much else.\n\nStrauss is not in the least disquieted by finding himself at one with\nSchleiermacher in these attempts to spiritualise. On the contrary, he\nappeals to him. He shares, he says, Schleiermacher\u2019s conviction \u201cthat the\nunique self\u2010consciousness of Jesus did not develop as a consequence of His\nconviction that He was the Messiah; on the contrary, it was a consequence\nof His self\u2010consciousness that He arrived at the view that the Messianic\nprophecies could point to no one but Himself.\u201d The moment eschatology\nentered into the consciousness of Jesus it came in contact with a higher\nprinciple which over\u2010mastered it and gradually dissolved it. \u201cHad Jesus\napplied the Messianic idea to Himself before He had had a profound\nreligious consciousness to which to relate it, doubtless it would have\ntaken possession of Him so powerfully that He could never have escaped\nfrom its influence.\u201d We must suppose the ideality, the concentration upon\nthat which was inward, the determination to separate religion, on the one\nhand, from politics, and on the other, from ritual, the serene\nconsciousness of being able to attain to peace with God and with Himself\nby purely spiritual means\u2014all this we must suppose to have reached a\ncertain ripeness, a certain security, in the mind of Jesus, before He\npermitted Himself to entertain the thought of His Messiahship, and this we\nmay believe is the reason why He grasped it in so independent and\nindividual a fashion. In this, therefore, Strauss has become the pupil of\nWeisse.\n\nEven in the Old Testament prophecies, he explains, we find two\nconceptions, a more ideal and a more practical. Jesus holds consistently\nto the first, He describes Himself as the Son of Man because this\ndesignation \u201ccontains the suggestion of humility and lowliness, of the\nhuman and natural.\u201d At Jerusalem, Jesus, in giving His interpretation of\nPsalm cx., \u201cmade merry over the Davidic descent of the Messiah.\u201d He\ndesired \u201cto be Messiah in the sense of a patient teacher exercising a\nquiet influence.\u201d As the opposition of the people grew more intense, He\ntook up some of the features of Isaiah liii. into His conception of the\nMessiah.\n\nOf His resurrection, Jesus can only have spoken in a metaphorical sense.\nIt is hardly credible that one who was pure man could have arrogated to\nhimself the position of judge of the world. Strauss would like best to\nascribe all the eschatology to the distorting medium of early\nChristianity, but he does not venture to carry this through with logical\nconsistency. He takes it as certain, however, that Jesus, even though it\nsometimes seems as if He did not expect the Kingdom to be realised in the\npresent, but in a future, world\u2010era, and to be brought about by God in a\nsupernatural fashion, nevertheless sets about the establishment of the\nKingdom by purely spiritual influence.\n\nWith this end in view He leaves Galilee, when He judges the time to be\nripe, in order to work on a larger scale. \u201cIn case of an unfavourable\nissue, He reckons on the influence which a martyr\u2010death has never failed\nto exercise in giving momentum to a lofty idea.\u201d How far He had advanced,\nwhen He entered on the fateful journey to Jerusalem, in shaping His plan,\nand especially in organising the company of adherents who had gathered\nabout Him, it is impossible to determine with any exactness. He permitted\nthe triumphal entry because He did not desire to decline the role of the\nMessiah in every aspect of it.\n\nOwing to this arbitrary spiritualisation of the Synoptic Jesus, Strauss\u2019s\npicture is in essence much more unhistorical than Renan\u2019s. The latter had\nnot needed to deny that Jesus had done miracles, and he had been able to\nsuggest an explanation of how Jesus came in the end to fall back upon the\neschatological system of ideas. But at what a price! By portraying Jesus\nas at variance with Himself, a hero broken in spirit. This price is too\nhigh for Strauss. Arbitrary as his treatment of history is, he never loses\nthe intuitive feeling that in Jesus\u2019 self\u2010consciousness there is a unique\nabsence of struggle; that He does not bear the scars which are found in\nthose natures which win their way to freedom and purity through strife and\nconflict, that in Him there is no trace of the hardness, harshness, and\ngloom which cleave to such natures throughout life, but that He \u201cis\nmanifestly a beautiful nature from the first.\u201d Thus, for all Strauss\u2019s\nawkward, arbitrary handling of the history he is greater than the\nrival(124) who could manufacture history with such skill.\n\nNevertheless, from the point of view of theological science, this work\nmarks a standstill. That was the net result of the thirty years of\ncritical study of the life of Jesus for the man who had inaugurated it so\nimpressively. This was the only fruit which followed those blossoms so\nfull of promise of the first Life of Jesus.\n\nIt is significant that in the same year there appeared Schleiermacher\u2019s\nlectures on the Life of Jesus, which had not seen the light for forty\nyears, because, as Strauss himself remarked in his criticism of the\nresurrected work, it had neither anodyne nor dressing for the wounds which\nhis first Life of Jesus had made.(125) The wounds, however, had cicatrised\nin the meantime. It is true Strauss is a just judge, and makes ample\nacknowledgment of the greatness of Schleiermacher\u2019s achievement.(126) He\nblames Schleiermacher for setting up his \u201cpresuppositions in regard to\nChrist\u201d as an historical canon, and considering it a proof that a\nstatement is unhistorical if it does not square with those\npresuppositions. But does not the purely human, but to a certain extent\nunhistorical, man, who is to be the ultimate product of the process of\neliminating myth, serve Strauss as his \u201ctheoretic Christ\u201d who determines\nthe presentment of his historical Jesus? Does he not share with\nSchleiermacher the erroneous, artificial, \u201cdouble\u201d construction of the\nconsciousness of Jesus? And what about their views of Mark? What\nfundamental difference is there, when all is said, between\nSchleiermacher\u2019s de\u2010rationalised Life of Jesus and Strauss\u2019s? Certainly\nthis second Life of Jesus would not have frightened Schleiermacher\u2019s away\ninto hiding for thirty years.\n\nSo Schleiermacher\u2019s Life of Jesus might now safely venture forth into the\nlight. There was no reason why it should feel itself a stranger at this\nperiod, and it had no need to be ashamed of itself. Its rationalistic\nbirth\u2010marks were concealed by its brilliant dialectic.(127) And the only\nreal advance in the meantime was the general recognition that the Life of\nJesus was not to be interpreted on rationalistic, but on historical lines.\nAll other, more definite, historical results had proved more or less\nillusory; there is no vitality in them. The works of Renan, Strauss,\nSchenkel, Weizs\u00e4cker, and Keim are in essence only different ways of\ncarrying out a single ground\u2010plan. To read them one after another is to be\nsimply appalled at the stereotyped uniformity of the world of thought in\nwhich they move. You feel that you have read exactly the same thing in the\nothers, almost in identical phrases. To obtain the works of Schenkel and\nWeizs\u00e4cker you only need to weaken down in Strauss the sharp\ndiscrimination between John and the Synoptists so far as to allow of the\nFourth Gospel being used to some extent as an historical source \u201cin the\nhigher sense,\u201d and to put the hypothesis of the priority of Mark in place\nof the T\u00fcbingen view adopted by Strauss. The latter is an external\noperation and does not essentially modify the view of the Life of Jesus,\nsince by admitting the Johannine scheme the Marcan plan is again\ndisturbed, and Strauss\u2019s arbitrary spiritualisation of the Synoptics comes\nto something not very different from the acceptance of that \u201cin a higher\nsense historical Gospel\u201d alongside of them. The whole discussion regarding\nthe sources is only loosely connected with the process of arriving at the\nportrait of Jesus, since this portrait is fixed from the first, being\ndetermined by the mental atmosphere and religious horizon of the \u2019sixties.\nThey all portray the Jesus of liberal theology; the only difference is\nthat one is a little more conscientious in his colouring than another, and\none perhaps has a little more taste than another, or is less concerned\nabout the consequences.\n\nThe desire to escape in some way from the alternative between the\nSynoptists and John was native to the Marcan hypothesis. Weisse had\nendeavoured to effect this by distinguishing between the sources in the\nFourth Gospel.(128) Schenkel and Weizs\u00e4cker are more modest. They do not\nfeel the need of any clear literary view of the Fourth Gospel, of any\ncritical discrimination between original and secondary elements in it;\nthey are content to use as historical whatever their instinct leads them\nto accept. \u201cApart from the fourth Gospel,\u201d says Schenkel, \u201cwe should miss\nin the portrait of the Redeemer the unfathomable depths and the\ninaccessible heights.\u201d \u201cJesus,\u201d to quote his aphorism, \u201cwas not always\nthus in reality, but He was so in truth.\u201d Since when have historians had\nthe right to distinguish between reality and truth? That was one of the\nbad habits which the author of this characterisation of Jesus brought with\nhim from his earlier dogmatic training.\n\nWeizs\u00e4cker(129) expresses himself with more circumspection. \u201cWe possess,\u201d\nhe says, \u201cin the Fourth Gospel genuine apostolic reminiscences as much as\nin any part of the first three Gospels; but between the facts on which the\nreminiscences are based and their reproduction in literary form there lies\nthe development of their possessor into a great mystic, and the influence\nof a philosophy which here for the first time united itself in this way\nwith the Gospel; they need, therefore, to be critically examined; and the\nhistorical truth of this gospel, great as it is, must not be measured with\na painful literality.\u201d\n\nOne wonders why both these writers appeal to Holtzmann, seeing that they\npractically abandon the Marcan plan which he had worked out at the end of\nhis very thorough examination of this Gospel. They do not accept as\nsufficient the controversy regarding the ceremonial regulations in Mark\nvii. which, with the rejection at Nazareth, constitute, in Holtzmann\u2019s\nview, the turning\u2010point of the Galilaean ministry, but find the cause of\nthe change of attitude on the part of the people rather in the Johannine\ndiscourse about eating and drinking the flesh and blood of the Son of Man.\nThe section Mark x.\u2010xv., which has a certain unity, they interpret in the\nlight of the Johannine tradition, finding in it traces of a previous\nministry of Jesus in Jerusalem and interweaving with it the Johannine\nstory of the Passion. According to Schenkel the last visit to Jerusalem\nmust have been of considerable duration. When confronted with John, the\nadmission may be wrung from the Synoptists that Jesus did not travel\nstraight through Jericho to the capital, but worked first for a\nconsiderable time in Judaea. Strauss tartly observes that he cannot see\nwhat the author of the \u201ccharacterisation\u201d stood to gain by underwriting\nHoltzmann\u2019s Marcan hypothesis.(130)\n\nWeizs\u00e4cker is still bolder in making interpolations from the Johannine\ntradition. He places the cleansing of the Temple, in contradiction to\nMark, in the early period of Jesus\u2019 ministry, on the ground that \u201cit bears\nthe character of a first appearance, a bold deed with which to open His\ncareer.\u201d He fails to observe, however, that if this act really took place\nat this point of time, the whole development of the life of Jesus which\nHoltzmann had so ingeniously traced in Mark, is at once thrown into\nconfusion. In describing the last visit to Jerusalem, Weizs\u00e4cker is not\ncontent to insert the Marcan stones into the Johannine cement; he goes\nfarther and expressly states that the great farewell discourses of Jesus\nto His disciples agree with the Synoptic discourses to the disciples\nspoken during the last days, however completely they of all others bear\nthe peculiar stamp of the Johannine diction.\n\nThus in the second period of the Marcan hypothesis the same spectacle\nmeets us as in the earlier. The hypothesis has a literary existence,\nindeed it is carried by Holtzmann to such a degree of demonstration that\nit can no longer be called a mere hypothesis, but it does not succeed in\nwinning an assured position in the critical study of the Life of Jesus. It\nis common\u2010land not yet taken into cultivation.\n\nThat is due in no small measure to the fact that Holtzmann did not work\nout the hypothesis from the historical side, but rather on literary lines,\nrecalling Wilke\u2014as a kind of problem in Synoptic arithmetic\u2014and in his\npreface expresses dissent from the T\u00fcbingen school, who desired to leave\nno alternative between John on the one side and the Synoptics on the\nother, whereas he approves the attempt to evade the dilemma in some way or\nother, and thinks he can find in the didactic narrative of the Fourth\nGospel the traces of a development of Jesus similar to that portrayed in\nthe Synoptics, and has therefore no fundamental objection to the use of\nJohn alongside of the Synoptics. In taking up this position, however, he\ndoes not desire to be understood as meaning that \u201cit would be to the\ninterests of science to throw Synoptic and Johannine passages together\nindiscriminately and thus construct a life of Jesus out of them.\u201d \u201cIt\nwould be much better first to reconstruct separately the Synoptic and\nJohannine pictures of Christ, composing each of its own distinctive\nmaterial. It is only when this has been done that it is possible to make a\nfruitful comparison of the two.\u201d Exactly the same position had been taken\nup sixty\u2010seven years before by Herder. In Holtzmann\u2019s case, however, the\nprinciple was stated with so many qualifications that the adherents of his\nview read into it the permission to combine, in a picture treated \u201cin the\ngrand style,\u201d Synoptic with Johannine passages.\n\nIn addition to this, the plan which Holtzmann finally evolved out of Mark\nwas much too fine\u2010drawn to bear the weight of the remainder of the\nSynoptic material. He distinguishes seven stages in the Galilaean\nministry,(131) of which the really decisive one is the sixth, in which\nJesus leaves Galilee and goes northward, so that Schenkel and Weizs\u00e4cker\nare justified in distinguishing practically only two great Galilaean\nperiods, the first of which\u2014down to the controversy about ceremonial\npurity\u2014they distinguish as the period of success, the second\u2014down to the\ndeparture from Judaea\u2014as the period of decline. What attracted these\nwriters to the Marcan hypothesis was not so much the authentification\nwhich it gave to the detail of Mark, though they were willing enough to\naccept that, but the way in which this Gospel lent itself to the a priori\nview of the course of the life of Jesus which they unconsciously brought\nwith them. They appealed to Holtzmann because he showed such wonderful\nskill in extracting from the Marcan narrative the view which commended\nitself to the spirit of the age as manifested in the \u2019sixties.\n\nHoltzmann read into this Gospel that Jesus had endeavoured in Galilee to\nfound the Kingdom of God in an ideal sense; that He concealed His\nconsciousness of being the Messiah, which was constantly growing more\nassured, until His followers should have attained by inner enlightenment\nto a higher view of the Kingdom of God and of the Messiah; that almost at\nthe end of His Galilaean ministry He declared Himself to them as the\nMessiah at Caesarea Philippi; that on the same occasion He at once began\nto picture to them a suffering Messiah, whose lineaments gradually became\nmore and more distinct in His mind amid the growing opposition which He\nencountered, until finally, He communicated to His disciples His decision\nto put the Messianic cause to the test in the capital, and that they\nfollowed Him thither and saw how His fate fulfilled itself. It was this\nfundamental view which made the success of the hypothesis. Holtzmann, not\nless than his followers, believed that he had discovered it in the Gospel\nitself, although Strauss, the passionate opponent of the Marcan\nhypothesis, took essentially the same view of the development of Jesus\u2019\nthought. But the way in which Holtzmann exhibited this characteristic view\nof the \u2019sixties as arising naturally out of the detail of Mark, was so\nperfect, so artistically charming, that this view appeared henceforward to\nbe inseparably bound up with the Marcan tradition. Scarcely ever has a\ndescription of the life of Jesus exercised so irresistible an influence as\nthat short outline\u2014it embraces scarcely twenty pages\u2014with which Holtzmann\ncloses his examination of the Synoptic Gospels. This chapter became the\ncreed and catechism of all who handled the subject during the following\ndecades. The treatment of the life of Jesus had to follow the lines here\nlaid down until the Marcan hypothesis was delivered from its bondage to\nthat a priori view of the development of Jesus. Until then any one might\nappeal to the Marcan hypothesis, meaning thereby only that general view of\nthe inward and outward course of development in the life of Jesus, and\nmight treat the remainder of the Synoptic material how he chose, combining\nwith it, at his pleasure, material drawn from John. The victory,\ntherefore, belonged, not to the Marcan hypothesis pure and simple, but to\nthe Marcan hypothesis as psychologically interpreted by a liberal\ntheology.\n\nThe points of distinction between the Weissian and the new interpretation\nare as follows:\u2014Weisse is sceptical as regards the detail; the new Marcan\nhypothesis ventures to base conclusions even upon incidental remarks in\nthe text. According to Weisse there were not distinct periods of success\nand failure in the ministry of Jesus; the new Marcan hypothesis\nconfidently affirms this distinction, and goes so far as to place the\nsojourn of Jesus in the parts beyond Galilee under the heading \u201cFlights\nand Retirements.\u201d(132) The earlier Marcan hypothesis expressly denies that\noutward circumstances influenced the resolve of Jesus to die; according to\nthe later, it was the opposition of the people, and the impossibility of\ncarrying out His mission on other lines which forced Him to enter on the\npath of suffering.(133) The Jesus of Weisse\u2019s view has completed His\ndevelopment at the time of His appearance; the Jesus of the new\ninterpretation of Mark continues to develop in the course of His public\nministry.\n\nThere is complete agreement, however, in the rejection of eschatology. For\nHoltzmann, Schenkel, and Weizs\u00e4cker, as for Weisse, Jesus desires \u201cto\nfound an inward kingdom of repentance.\u201d(134) It was Israel\u2019s duty,\naccording to Schenkel, to believe in the presence of the Kingdom which\nJesus proclaimed. John the Baptist was unable to believe in it, and it was\nfor this reason that Jesus censured him\u2014for it is in this sense that\nSchenkel understands the saying about the greatest among those born of\nwomen who is nevertheless the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. \u201cSo near the\nlight and yet shutting his eyes to its beams\u2014is there not some blame here,\nan undeniable lack of spiritual and moral receptivity?\u201d\n\nJesus makes Messianic claims only in a spiritual sense. He does not grasp\nat super\u2010human glory; it is His purpose to bear the sin of the whole\npeople, and He undergoes baptism \u201cas a humble member of the national\ncommunity.\u201d\n\nHis whole teaching consists, when once He Himself has attained to clear\nconsciousness of His vocation, in a constant struggle to root out from the\nhearts of His disciples their theocratic hopes and to effect a\ntransformation of their traditional Messianic ideas. When, on Simon\u2019s\nhailing Him as the Messiah, He declares that flesh and blood has not\nrevealed it to him, He means, according to Schenkel, \u201cthat Simon has at\nthis moment overcome the false Messianic ideas, and has recognised in Him\nthe ethical and spiritual deliverer of Israel.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat Jesus predicted a personal, bodily, Second Coming, in the brightness\nof His heavenly splendour and surrounded by the heavenly hosts, to\nestablish an earthly kingdom, is not only not proved, it is absolutely\nimpossible.\u201d His purpose is to establish a community of which His\ndisciples are to be the foundation, and by means of this community to\nbring about the coming of the Kingdom of God. He can, therefore, only have\nspoken of His return as an impersonal return in the Spirit. The later\nexponents of the Marcan view were no doubt generally inclined to regard\nthe return as personal and corporeal. For Schenkel, however, it is\nhistorically certain that the real meaning of the eschatological\ndiscourses is more faithfully preserved in the Fourth Gospel than in the\nSynoptics.\n\nIn his anxiety to eliminate any enthusiastic elements from the\nrepresentation of Jesus, he ends by drawing a bourgeois Messiah whom he\nmight have extracted from the old\u2010fashioned rationalistic work of the\nworthy Reinhard. He feels bound to save the credit of Jesus by showing\nthat the entry into Jerusalem was not intended as a provocation to the\ngovernment. \u201cIt is only by making this supposition,\u201d he explains, \u201cthat we\navoid casting a slur upon the character of Jesus. It was certainly a\nconstant trait in His character that He never unnecessarily exposed\nHimself to danger, and never, except for the most pressing reasons, did He\ngive any support to the suspicions which were arising against Him; He\navoided provoking His opponents to drastic measures by any overt act\ndirected against them.\u201d Even the cleansing of the Temple was not an act of\nviolence but merely an attempt at reform.\n\nSchenkel is able to give these explanations because he knows the most\nsecret thoughts of Jesus and is therefore no longer bound to the text. He\nknows, for example, that immediately after His baptism He attained to the\nknowledge \u201cthat the way of the Law was no longer the way of salvation for\nHis people.\u201d Jesus cannot therefore have uttered the saying about the\npermanence of the Law in Mark v. 18. In the controversies about the\nSabbath \u201cHe proclaims freedom of worship.\u201d\n\nAs time went on, He began to take the heathen world into the scope of His\npurpose. \u201cThe hard saying addressed to the Canaanite woman represents\nrather the proud and exclusive spirit of Pharisaism than the spirit of\nJesus.\u201d It was a test of faith, the success of which had a decisive\ninfluence upon Jesus\u2019 attitude towards the heathen. Henceforth it is\nobvious that He is favourably disposed towards them. He travels through\nSamaria and establishes a community there. In Jerusalem He openly calls\nthe heathen to Him. At certain feasts which they had arranged for that\npurpose, some of the leaders of the people set a trap for Him, and\nbetrayed Him into liberal sayings in regard to the Gentiles which sealed\nHis fate.\n\nThis was the course of development of the Master, who, according to\nSchenkel, \u201csaw with a clear eye into the future history of the world,\u201d and\nknew that the fall of Jerusalem must take place in order to close the\ntheocratic era and give the Gentiles free access to the universal\ncommunity of Christians which He was to found. \u201cThis period He described\nas the period of His coming, as in a sense His Second Advent upon earth.\u201d\n\nThe same general procedure is followed by Weizs\u00e4cker in his \u201cGospel\nHistory,\u201d though his work is of a much higher quality than Schenkel\u2019s. His\naccount of the sources is one of the clearest that has ever been written.\nIn the description of the life of Jesus, however, the unhesitating\ncombination of material from the Fourth Gospel with that of the Synoptics\nrather confuses the picture. And whereas Renan only offers the results of\nthe completed process, Weizs\u00e4cker works out his, it might almost be said,\nunder the eyes of the reader, which makes the arbitrary character of the\nproceeding only the more obvious. But in his attitude towards the sources\nWeizs\u00e4cker is wholly free from the irresponsible caprice in which Schenkel\nindulges. From time to time, too, he gives a hint of unsolved problems in\nthe background. For example, in treating of the declaration of Jesus to\nHis judges that He would come as the Son of Man upon the clouds of heaven,\nhe remarks how surprising it is that Jesus could so often have used the\ndesignation Son of Man on earlier occasions without being accused of\nclaiming the Messiahship. It is true that this is a mere scraping of the\nkeel upon a sandbank, by which the steersman does not allow himself to be\nturned from his course, for Weizs\u00e4cker concludes that the name Son of Man,\nin spite of its use in Daniel, \u201chad not become a generally current or\nreally popular designation of the Messiah.\u201d But even this faint suspicion\nof the difficulty is a welcome sign. Much emphasis, in fact, in practice\nrather too much emphasis, is laid on the principle that in the great\ndiscourses of Jesus the structure is not historical; they are only\ncollections of sayings formed to meet the needs of the Christian community\nin later times. In this Weizs\u00e4cker is sometimes not less arbitrary than\nSchenkel, who represents the Lord\u2019s Prayer as given by Jesus to the\ndisciples only in the last days at Jerusalem. It was an axiom of the\nschool that Jesus could not have delivered discourses such as the\nEvangelists record.\n\nIf Schenkel\u2019s picture of Jesus\u2019 character attracted much more attention\nthan Weizs\u00e4cker\u2019s work, that is mainly due to the art of lively popular\npresentation by which it is distinguished. The writer knows well how to\nkeep the reader\u2019s interest awake by the use of exciting headlines.\nCatchwords abound, and arrest the ear, for they are the catchwords about\nwhich the religious controversies of the time revolved. There is never far\nto look for the moral of the history, and the Jesus here portrayed can be\nimagined plunging into the midst of the debates in any ministerial\nconference. The moralising, it must be admitted, sometimes becomes the\noccasion of the feeblest ineptitudes. Jesus sent out His disciples two and\ntwo; this is for Schenkel a marvellous exhibition of wisdom. The Lord\ndesigned, thereby, to show that in His opinion \u201cnothing is more inimical\nto the interests of the Kingdom of God than individualism, self\u2010will,\nself\u2010pleasing.\u201d Schenkel entirely fails to recognise the superb irony of\nthe saying that in this life all that a man gives up for the sake of the\nKingdom of God is repaid a hundredfold in persecutions, in order that in\nthe Coming Age he may receive eternal life as his reward. He interpreted\nit as meaning that the sufferer shall be compensated by love; his fellow\u2010\nChristians will endeavour to make it up to him, and will offer him their\nown possessions so freely that, in consequence of this brotherly love, he\nwill soon have, for the house which he has lost, a hundred houses, for the\nlost sisters, brothers, and so forth, a hundred sisters, a hundred\nbrothers, a hundred fathers, a hundred mothers, a hundred farms. Schenkel\nforgets to add that, if this is to be the interpretation of the saying,\nthe persecuted man must also receive through this compensating love, a\nhundred wives.(135)\n\nThis want of insight into the largeness, the startling originality, the\nself\u2010contradictoriness, and the terrible irony in the thought of Jesus, is\nnot a peculiarity of Schenkel\u2019s; it is characteristic of all the liberal\nLives of Jesus from Strauss\u2019s down to Oskar Holtzmann\u2019s.(136) How could it\nbe otherwise? They had to transpose a way of envisaging the world which\nbelonged to a hero and a dreamer to the plane of thought of a rational\nbourgeois religion. But in Schenkel\u2019s representation, with its popular\nappeal, this banality is particularly obtrusive.\n\nIn the end, however, what made the success of the book was not its popular\ncharacteristics, whether good or bad, but the enmity which it drew down\nupon the author. The Basle Privat\u2010Docent who, in his work of 1839, had\ncongratulated the Zurichers on having rejected Strauss, now, as Professor\nand Director of the Seminary at Heidelberg, came very near being adjudged\nworthy of the martyr\u2019s crown himself. He had been at Heidelberg since\n1851, after holding for a short time De Wette\u2019s chair at Basle. At his\nfirst coming a mildly reactionary theology might have claimed him as its\nown. He gave it a right to do so by the way in which he worked against the\nphilosopher, Kuno Fischer, in the Higher Consistory. But in the struggles\nover the constitution of the Church he changed his position. As a defender\nof the rights of the laity he ranged himself on the more liberal side.\nAfter his great victory in the General Synod of 1861, in which the new\nconstitution of the Church was established, he called a German Protestant\nassembly at Frankfort, in order to set on foot a general movement for\nChurch reform. This assembly met in 1863, and led to the formation of the\nProtestant Association.\n\nWhen the _Charakterbild Jesu_ appeared, friend and foe were alike\nsurprised at the thoroughness with which Schenkel advocated the more\nliberal views. \u201cSchenkel\u2019s book,\u201d complained Luthardt, in a lecture at\nLeipzig,(137) \u201chas aroused a painful interest. We had learnt to know him\nin many aspects; we were not prepared for such an apostasy from his own\npast. How long is it since he brought about the dismissal of Kuno Fischer\nfrom Heidelberg because he saw in the pantheism of this philosopher a\ndanger to Church and State? It is still fresh in our memory that it was he\nwho in the year 1852 drew up the report of the Theological Faculty of\nHeidelberg upon the ecclesiastical controversy raised by Pastor D\u00fclon at\nBremen, in which he denied D\u00fclon\u2019s Christianity on the ground that he had\nassailed the doctrines of original sin, of justification by faith, of a\nliving and personal God, of the eternal Divine Sonship of Christ, of the\nKingdom of God, and of the credibility of the holy Scriptures.\u201d And now\nthis same Schenkel was misusing the Life of Jesus as a weapon in \u201cparty\npolemics\u201d!\n\nThe agitation against him was engineered from Berlin, where his successful\nattack upon the illiberal constitution of the Church had not been\nforgiven. One hundred and seventeen Baden clerics signed a protest\ndeclaring the author unfitted to hold office as a theological teacher in\nthe Baden Church. Throughout the whole of Germany the pastors agitated\nagainst him. It was especially demanded that he should be immediately\nremoved from his post as Director of the Seminary. A counter\u2010protest was\nissued by the Durlach Conference in the July of 1864, in which Bluntschli\nand Holtzmann vigorously defended him. The Ecclesiastical Council\nsupported him, and the storm gradually died away, especially when Schenkel\nin two \u201cDefences\u201d skilfully softened down the impression made by his work,\nand endeavoured to quiet the public mind by pointing out that he had only\nattempted to set forth one side of the truth.(138)\n\nThe position of the prospective martyr was not rendered any more easy by\nStrauss. In an appendix to his criticism of Schleiermacher\u2019s Life of Jesus\nhe settled accounts with his old antagonist.(139) He recognises no\nscientific value whatever in the work. None of the ideas developed in it\nare new. One might fairly say, he thinks, \u201cthat the conclusions which have\ngiven offence had been carried down the Neckar from T\u00fcbingen to\nHeidelberg, and had there been salvaged by Herr Schenkel\u2014in a somewhat\nsodden and deteriorated condition, it must be admitted\u2014and incorporated\ninto the edifice which he was constructing.\u201d Further, Strauss censures the\nbook for its want of frankness, its half\u2010and\u2010half character, which\nmanifests itself especially in the way in which the author clings to\northodox phraseology. \u201cOver and over again he gives criticism with one\nhand all that it can possibly ask, and then takes back with the other\nwhatever the interests of faith seem to demand; with the constant result\nthat what is taken back is far too much for criticism and not nearly\nenough for faith.\u201d \u201cIn the future,\u201d he concludes, \u201cit will be said of the\nseven hundred Durlachers that they fought like paladins to prevent the\nenemy from capturing a standard which was really nothing but a patched\ndish\u2010clout.\u201d\n\nSchenkel died in 1885 after severe sufferings. As a critic he lacked\nindependence, and was, therefore, always inclined to compromises; in\ncontroversy he was vehement. Though he did nothing remarkable in theology,\nGerman Protestantism owes him a vast debt for acting as its tribune in the\n\u2019sixties.\n\nThat was the last time that any popular excitement was aroused in\nconnexion with the critical study of the life of Jesus; and it was a mere\nstorm in a tea\u2010cup. Moreover, it was the man and not his work that aroused\nthe excitement. Henceforth public opinion was almost entirely indifferent\nto anything which appeared in this department. The great fundamental\nquestion whether historical criticism was to be applied to the life of\nJesus had been decided in connexion with Strauss\u2019s first work on the\nsubject. If here and there indignation aroused by a Life of Jesus brought\ninconveniences to the author and profit to the publisher, that was\nconnected in every case with purely external and incidental circumstances.\nPublic opinion was not disquieted for a moment by Volkmar and Wrede,\nalthough they are much more extreme than Schenkel.\n\nMost of the Lives of Jesus which followed had, it is true, nothing very\nexciting about them. They were mere variants of the type established\nduring the \u2019sixties, variants of which the minute differences were only\ndiscernible by theologians, and which were otherwise exactly alike in\narrangement and result. As a contribution to criticism, Keim\u2019s(140)\n\u201cHistory of Jesus of Nazara\u201d was the most important Life of Jesus which\nappeared in a long period.\n\nIt is not of much consequence that he believes in the priority of Matthew,\nsince his presentment of the history follows the general lines of the\nMarcan plan, which is preserved also in Matthew. He gives it as his\nopinion that the life of Jesus is to be reconstructed from the Synoptics,\nwhether Matthew has the first place or Mark. He sketches the development\nof Jesus in bold lines. As early as his inaugural address at Zurich,\ndelivered on the 17th of December 1860, which, short as it was, made a\npowerful impression upon Holtzmann as well as upon others, he had set up\nthe thesis that the Synoptics \u201cartlessly, almost against their will, show\nus unconsciously in incidental, unobtrusive traits the progressive\ndevelopment of Jesus as youth and man.\u201d(141) His later works are the\ndevelopment of this sketch.\n\nHis grandiose style gave the keynote for the artistic treatment of the\nportrait of Jesus in the \u2019sixties. His phrases and expressions became\nclassical. Every one follows him in speaking of the \u201cGalilaean spring\u2010\ntide\u201d in the ministry of Jesus.\n\nOn the Johannine question he takes up a clearly defined position, denying\nthe possibility of using the Fourth Gospel side by side with the Synoptics\nas an historical source. He goes very far in finding special significance\nin the details of the Synoptists, especially when he is anxious to\ndiscover traces of want of success in the second period of Jesus\u2019\nministry, since the plan of his Life of Jesus depends on the sharp\nantithesis between the periods of success and failure. The whole of the\nsecond half of the Galilaean period consists for him in \u201cflights and\nretirements.\u201d \u201cBeset by constantly renewed alarms and hindrances, Jesus\nleft the scene of His earlier work, left His dwelling\u2010place at Capernaum,\nand accompanied only by a few faithful followers, in the end only by the\nTwelve, sought in all directions for places of refuge for longer or\nshorter periods, in order to avoid and elude His enemies.\u201d Keim frankly\nadmits, indeed, that there is not a syllable in the Gospels to suggest\nthat these journeys are the journeys of a fugitive. But instead of\nallowing that to shake his conviction, he abuses the narrators and\nsuggests that they desired to conceal the truth. \u201cThese flights,\u201d he says,\n\u201cwere no doubt inconvenient to the Evangelists. Matthew is here the\nfrankest, but in order to restore the impression of Jesus\u2019 greatness he\ntransfers to this period the greatest miracles. The later Evangelists are\nalmost completely silent about these retirements, and leave us to suppose\nthat Jesus made His journeys to Caesarea Philippi and the neighbourhood of\nTyre and Sidon in the middle of winter from mere pleasure in travel, or\nfor the extension of the Gospel, and that He made His last journey to\nJerusalem without any external necessity, entirely in consequence of His\nfree decision, even though the expectation of death which they ascribe to\nHim goes far to counteract the impression of complete freedom.\u201d Why do\nthey thus correct the history? \u201cThe motive was the same difficulty which\ndraws from us also the question, \u2018Is it possible that Jesus should\nflee?\u2019 \u201d Keim answers \u201cYes.\u201d Here the liberal psychology comes clearly to\nlight. \u201cJesus fled,\u201d he explains, \u201cbecause He desired to preserve Himself\nfor God and man, to secure the continuance of His ministry to Israel, to\ndefeat as long as possible the dark designs of His enemies, to carry His\ncause to Jerusalem, and there, while acting, as it was His duty to do,\nwith prudence and foresight in his relations with men, to recognise\nclearly, by the Divine silence or the Divine action, what the Divine\npurpose really was, which could not be recognised in a moment. He acts\nlike a man who knows the duty both of examination and action, who knows\nHis own worth and what is due to Him and His obligations towards God and\nman.\u201d(142)\n\nIn regard to the question of eschatology, however, Keim does justice to\nthe texts.(143) He admits that eschatology, \u201ca Kingdom of God clothed with\nmaterial splendours,\u201d forms an integral part of the preaching of Jesus\nfrom the first; \u201cthat He never rejected it, and therefore never by a so\u2010\ncalled advance transformed the sensuous Messianic idea into a purely\nspiritual one.\u201d \u201cJesus does not uproot from the minds of the sons of\nZebedee their belief in the thrones on His right hand and His left; He\ndoes not hesitate to make His entry into Jerusalem in the character of the\nMessiah; He acknowledges His Messiahship before the Council without making\nany careful reservations; upon the cross His title is The King of the\nJews; He consoles Himself and His followers with the thought of His return\nas an earthly ruler, and leaves with His disciples, without making any\nattempt to check it, the belief, which long survived, in a future\nestablishment or restoration of the Kingdom in an Israel delivered from\nbondage.\u201d Keim remarks with much justice \u201cthat Strauss had been wrong in\nrejecting his own earlier and more correct formula,\u201d which combined the\neschatological and spiritual elements as operating side by side in the\nplan of Jesus.\n\nKeim, however, himself in the end allows the spiritual elements\npractically to cancel the eschatological. He admits, it is true, that the\nexpression Son of Man which Jesus uses designated the Messiah in the sense\nof Daniel\u2019s prophecy, but he thinks that these pictorial representations\nin Daniel did not repel Jesus because He interpreted them spiritually, and\n\u201cintended to describe Himself as belonging to mankind even in His\nMessianic office.\u201d To solve the difficulty Keim assumes a development.\nJesus\u2019 consciousness of His vocation had been strengthened both by success\nand by disappointment. As time went on He preached the Kingdom not as a\nfuture Kingdom, as at first, but as one which was present in Him and with\nHim, and He declares His Messiahship more and more openly before the\nworld. He thinks of the Kingdom as undergoing development, but not with an\nunlimited, infinite horizon as the moderns suppose; the horizon is bounded\nby the eschatology. \u201cFor however easy it may be to read modern ideas into\nthe parables of the draught of fishes, the mustard seed and the leaven,\nwhich, taken by themselves, seem to suggest the duration contemplated by\nthe modern view, it is nevertheless indubitable that Jesus, like Paul, by\nno means looks forward to so protracted an earthly development; on the\ncontrary, nothing appears more clearly from the sources than that He\nthought of its term as rapidly approaching, and of His victory as nigh at\nhand; and looked to the last decisive events, even to the day of judgment,\nas about to occur during the lifetime of the existing generation,\nincluding Himself and His apostles.\u201d \u201cIt was the overmastering pressure of\ncircumstances which held Him prisoner within the limitations of this\nobsolete belief.\u201d When His confidence in the development of His Kingdom\ncame into collision with barriers which He could not pass, when His belief\nin the presence of the Kingdom of God grew dim, the purely eschatological\nideas won the upper hand, \u201cand if we may suppose that it was precisely\nthis thought of the imminent decisive action of God, taking possession of\nHis mind with renewed force at this point, which steeled His human\ncourage, and roused Him to a passion of self\u2010sacrifice with the hope of\nsaving from the judgment whatever might still be saved, we may welcome His\nadoption of these narrower ideas as in accordance with the goodwill of\nGod, which could only by this means maintain the failing strength of its\nhuman instrument and secure the spoils of the Divine warfare\u2014the souls of\nmen subdued and conquered by Him.\u201d\n\nThe thought which had hovered before the mind of Renan, but which in his\nhands had become only the motive of a romance\u2014_une ficelle d\u00e9 roman_ as\nthe French express it\u2014was realised by Keim. Nothing deeper or more\nbeautiful has since been written about the development of Jesus.\n\nLess critical in character is Hase\u2019s \u201cHistory of Jesus,\u201d(144) which\nsuperseded in 1876 the various editions of the Handbook on the Life of\nJesus which had first appeared in 1829.\n\nThe question of the use of John\u2019s Gospel side by side with the Synoptics\nhe leaves in suspense, and speaks his last word on the subject in the form\nof a parable. \u201cIf I may be allowed to use an avowedly parabolic form of\nspeech, the relation of Jesus to the two streams of Gospel tradition may\nbe illustrated as follows. Once there appeared upon earth a heavenly\nBeing. According to His first three biographers He goes about more or less\nincognito, in the long garment of a Rabbi, a forceful popular figure,\nsomewhat Judaic in speech, only occasionally, almost unmarked by His\nbiographers, pointing with a smile beyond this brief interlude to His\nhome. In the description left by His favourite disciple, He has thrown off\nthe _talar_ of the Rabbi, and stands before us in His native character,\nbut in bitter and angry strife with those who took offence at His\nmagnificent simplicity, and then later\u2014it must be confessed, more\nattractively\u2014in deep emotion at parting with those whom, during His\npilgrimage on earth, He had made His friends, though they did not rightly\nunderstand His strange, unearthly speech.\u201d\n\nThis is Hase\u2019s way, always to avoid a final decision. The fifty years of\ncritical study of the subject which he had witnessed and taken part in had\nmade him circumspect, sometimes almost sceptical. But his notes of\ninterrogation do not represent a covert supernaturalism like those in the\nLife of Jesus of 1829. Hase had been penetrated by the influence of\nStrauss and had adopted from him the belief that the true life of Jesus\nlies beyond the reach of criticism. \u201cIt is not my business,\u201d he says to\nhis students in an introductory lecture, \u201cto recoil in horror from this or\nthat thought, or to express it with embarrassment as being dangerous; I\nwould not forbid even the enthusiasm of doubt and destruction which makes\nStrauss so strong and Renan so seductive.\u201d\n\nIt is left uncertain whether Jesus\u2019 consciousness of His Messiahship\nreaches back to the days of His childhood, or whether it arose in the\nethical development of His ripening manhood. The concealment of His\nMessianic claims is ascribed, as by Schenkel and others, to paedagogic\nmotives; it was necessary that Jesus should first educate the people and\nthe disciples up to a higher ethical view of His office. In the stress\nwhich he lays upon the eschatology Hase has points of affinity with Keim,\nfor whom he had prepared the way in his Life of Jesus of 1829, in which he\nhad been the first to assert a development in Jesus in the course of which\nHe at first fully shared the Jewish eschatological views, but later\nadvanced to a more spiritual conception. In his Life of Jesus of 1876 he\nis prepared to make the eschatology the dominant feature in the last\nperiod also, and does not hesitate to represent Jesus as dying in the\nenthusiastic expectation of returning upon the clouds of heaven. He feels\nhimself driven to this by the eschatological ideas in the last discourses.\n\u201cJesus\u2019 clear and definite sayings,\u201d he declares, \u201cwith the whole context\nof the circumstances in which they were spoken and understood, have been\nforcing me to this conclusion for years past.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat lofty Messianic dream must therefore continue to hold its place,\nsince Jesus, influenced as much by the idea of the Messianic glories taken\nover from the beliefs of His people as by His own religious exaltation,\ncould not think of the victory of His Kingdom except as closely connected\nwith His own personal action. But that was only a misunderstanding due to\nthe unconscious poesy of a high\u2010ranging religious imagination, the ethical\nmeaning of which could only be realised by a long historical development.\nChrist certainly came again as the greatest power on earth, and His power,\nalong with His word, is constantly judging the world. He faced the\nsufferings which lay immediately before Him with His eyes fixed upon this\ngreat future.\u201d\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe chief excellence of Beyschlag\u2019s Life of Jesus consists in its\narrangement.(145) He first, in the volume of preliminary investigations,\ndiscusses the problems, so that the narrative is disencumbered of all\nexplanations, and by virtue of the author\u2019s admirable style becomes a pure\nwork of art, which rivets the interest of the reader and almost causes the\nwant of a consistent historical conception to be overlooked. The fact is,\nhowever, that in regard to the two decisive questions Beyschlag is\ndeliberately inconsistent. Although he recognises that the Gospel of John\nhas not the character of an essentially historical source, \u201cbeing, rather,\na brilliant subjective portrait,\u201d \u201ca didactic, quite as much as an\nhistorical work,\u201d he produces his Life of Jesus by \u201ccombining and\nmortising together Synoptic and Johannine elements.\u201d The same uncertainty\nprevails in regard to the recognition of the definitely eschatological\ncharacter of Jesus\u2019 system of ideas. Beyschlag gives a very large place to\neschatology, so that in order to combine the spiritual with the\neschatological view his Jesus has to pass through three stages of\ndevelopment. In the first He preaches the Kingdom as something future, a\nsupernatural event which was to be looked forward to, much as the Baptist\npreached it. Then the response which was called forth on all hands by His\npreaching led Him to believe that the Kingdom was in some sense already\npresent, \u201cthat the Father, while He delays the outward manifestation of\nthe Kingdom, is causing it to come even now in quiet and unnoticed ways by\na humble gradual growth, and the great thought of His parables, which\ndominates the whole middle period of His public life, the resemblance of\nthe Kingdom to mustard seed or leaven, comes to birth in His mind.\u201d As His\nfailure becomes more and more certain, \u201cthe centre of gravity of His\nthought is shifted to the world beyond the grave, and the picture of a\nglorious return to conquer and to judge the world rises before Him.\u201d\n\nThe peculiar interweaving of Synoptic and Johannine ideas leads to the\nresult that, between the two, Beyschlag in the end forms no clear\nconception of the eschatology, and makes Jesus think in a half\u2010Johannine,\nhalf\u2010Synoptic fashion. \u201cIt is a consequence of Jesus\u2019 profound conception\nof the Kingdom of God as something essentially growing that He regards its\nfinal perfection not as a state of rest, but rather as a living movement,\nas a process of becoming, and since He regards this process as a cosmic\nand supernatural process in which history finds its consummation, and yet\nas arising entirely out of the ethical and historical process, He combines\nelements from each into the same prophetic conception.\u201d An eschatology of\nthis kind is not matter for history.\n\nIn the acceptance of the \u201cmiracles\u201d Beyschlag goes to the utmost limits\nallowed by criticism; in considering the possibility of one or another of\nthe recorded raisings from the dead he even finds himself within the\nborders of rationalist territory.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nWhether Bernhard Weiss\u2019s(146) is to be numbered with the liberal Lives of\nJesus is a question to which we may answer \u201cYes; but along with the faults\nof these it has some others in addition.\u201d Weiss shares with the authors of\nthe liberal \u201cLives\u201d the assumption that Mark designed to set forth a\ndefinite \u201cview of the course of development of the public ministry of\nJesus,\u201d and on the strength of that believes himself justified in giving a\nvery far\u2010reaching significance to the details offered by this Evangelist.\nThe arbitrariness with which he carries out this theory is quite as\nunbounded as Schenkel\u2019s, and in his fondness for the \u201cargument from\nsilence\u201d he even surpasses him. Although Mark never allows a single word\nto escape him about the motives of the northern journeys, Weiss is so\nclever at reading between the lines that the motives are \u201cquite\nsufficiently\u201d clear to him. The object of these journeys was, according to\nhis explanation, \u201cthat the people might have an opportunity, undistracted\nby the immediate impression of His words and actions, to make up their\nminds in regard to the questions which they had put to Him so pressingly\nand inescapably in the last days of His public ministry; they must\nthemselves draw their own conclusions alike from the declarations and from\nthe conduct of Jesus. Only by Jesus\u2019 removing Himself for a time from\ntheir midst could they come to a clear decision as to their attitude to\nJesus.\u201d This modern psychologising, however, is closely combined with a\ndialectic which seeks to show that there is no irreconcilable opposition\nbetween the belief in the Son of God and Son of Man which the Church of\nChrist has always confessed, and a critical investigation of the question\nhow far the details of His life have been accurately preserved by\ntradition, and how they are to be historically interpreted. That means\nthat Weiss is going to cover up the difficulties and stumbling\u2010blocks with\nthe mantle of Christian charity which he has woven out of the most\nplausible of the traditional sophistries. As a dialectical performance on\nthese lines his Life of Jesus rivals in importance any except\nSchleiermacher\u2019s. On points of detail there are many interesting\nhistorical observations. When all is said, one can only regret that so\nmuch knowledge and so much ability have been expended in the service of so\nhopeless a cause.\n\nWhat was the net result of these liberal Lives of Jesus? In the first\nplace the clearing up of the relation between John and the Synoptics. That\nseems surprising, since the chief representatives of this school,\nHoltzmann, Schenkel, Weizs\u00e4cker, and Hase, took up a mediating position on\nthis question, not to speak of Beyschlag and Weiss, for whom the\npossibility of reconciliation between the two lines of tradition is an\naccepted datum for ecclesiastical and apologetic reasons. But the very\nattempt to hold the position made clear its inherent untenability. The\ndefence of the combination of the two traditions exhausted itself in the\nefforts of these its critical champions, just as the acceptance of the\nsupernatural in history exhausted itself in the\u2014to judge from the approval\nof the many\u2014victorious struggle against Strauss. In the course of time\nWeizs\u00e4cker, like Holtzmann,(147) advanced to the rejection of any\npossibility of reconciliation, and gave up the Fourth Gospel as an\nhistorical source. The second demand of Strauss\u2019s first Life of Jesus was\nnow\u2014at last\u2014conceded by scientific criticism.\n\nThat does not mean, of course, that no further attempts at reconciliation\nappeared thenceforward. Was ever a street so closed by a cordon that one\nor two isolated individuals did not get through? And to dodge through\nneeds, after all, no special intelligence, or special courage. Must we\nnever speak of a victory so long as a single enemy remains alive?\nIndividual attempts to combine John with the Synoptics which appeared\nafter this decisive point are in some cases deserving of special\nattention, as for example, Wendt\u2019s(148) acute study of the \u201cTeaching of\nJesus,\u201d which has all the importance of a full treatment of the \u201cLife.\u201d\nBut the very way in which Wendt grapples with his task shows that the main\nissue is already decided. All he can do is to fight a skilful and\ndetermined rearguard action. It is not the Fourth Gospel as it stands, but\nonly a \u201cground\u2010document\u201d on which it is based, which he, in common with\nWeiss, Alexander Schweizer, and Renan, would have to be recognised\n\u201calongside of the Gospel of Mark and the Logia of Matthew as an\nhistorically trustworthy tradition regarding the teaching of Jesus,\u201d and\nwhich may be used along with those two writings in forming a picture of\nthe Life of Jesus. For Wendt there is no longer any question of an\ninterweaving and working up together of the individual sections of John\nand the Synoptists. He takes up much the same standpoint as Holtzmann\noccupied in 1863, but he provides a much more comprehensive and well\u2010\ntested basis for it.\n\nIn the end there is no such very great difference between Wendt and the\nwriters who had advanced to the conviction of the irreconcilability of the\ntwo traditions. Wendt refuses to give up the Fourth Gospel altogether;\nthey, on their part, won only a half victory because they did not as a\nmatter of fact escape from the Johannine interpretation of the Synoptics.\nBy means of their psychological interpretation of the first three Gospels\nthey make for themselves an ideal Fourth Gospel, in the interests of which\nthey reject the existing Fourth Gospel. They will hear nothing of the\nspiritualised Johannine Christ, and refuse to acknowledge even to\nthemselves that they have only deposed Him in order to put in His place a\nspiritualised Synoptic Jesus Christ, that is, a man who claimed to be the\nMessiah, but in a spiritual sense. All the development which they discover\nin Jesus is in the last analysis only an evidence of the tension between\nthe Synoptics, in their natural literal sense, and the \u201cFourth Gospel\u201d\nwhich is extracted from them by an artificial interpretation.\n\nThe fact is, the separation between the Synoptics and the Fourth Gospel is\nonly the first step to a larger result which necessarily follows from\nit\u2014the complete recognition of the fundamentally eschatological character\nof the teaching and influence of the Marcan and Matthaean Jesus. Inasmuch\nas they suppressed this consequence, Holtzmann, Schenkel, Hase, and\nWeizs\u00e4cker, even after their critical conversion, still lay under the\nspell of the Fourth Gospel, of a modern, ideal Fourth Gospel. It is only\nwhen the eschatological question is decided that the problem of the\nrelation of John to the Synoptics is finally laid to rest. The liberal\nLives of Jesus grasped their incompatibility only from a literary point of\nview, not in its full historical significance.\n\nThere is another result in the acceptance of which the critical school had\nstopped half\u2010way. If the Marcan plan be accepted, it follows that, setting\naside the references to the Son of Man in Mark ii. 10 and 28, Jesus had\nnever, previous to the incident at Caesarea Philippi, given Himself out to\nbe the Messiah or been recognised as such. The perception of this fact\nmarks one of the greatest advances in the study of the subject. This\nresult, once accepted, ought necessarily to have suggested two questions:\nin the first place, why Jesus down to that moment had made a secret of His\nMessiahship even to His disciples; in the second place, whether at any\ntime, and, if so, when and how, the people were made acquainted with His\nMessianic claims. As a fact, however, by the application of that ill\u2010\nstarred psychologising both questions were smothered; that is to say, a\nsham answer was given to them. It was regarded as self\u2010evident that Jesus\nhad concealed His Messiahship from His disciples for so long in order in\nthe meantime to bring them, without their being aware of it, to a higher\nspiritual conception of the Messiah; it was regarded as equally self\u2010\nevident that in the last weeks the Messianic claims of Jesus could no\nlonger be hidden from the people, but that He did not openly avow them,\nbut merely allowed them to be divined, in order to lead up the multitude\nto the recognition of the higher spiritual character of the office which\nHe claimed for Himself. These ingenious psychologists never seemed to\nperceive that there is not a word of all this in Mark; but that they had\nread it all into some of the most contradictory and inexplicable facts in\nthe Gospels, and had thus created a Messiah who both wished to be Messiah\nand did not wish it, and who in the end, so far as the people were\nconcerned, both was and was not the Messiah. Thus these writers had only\nrecognised the importance of the scene at Caesarea Philippi, they had not\nventured to attack the general problem of Jesus\u2019 attitude in regard to the\nMessiahship, and had not reflected further on the mutually contradictory\nfacts that Jesus purposed to be the Messiah and yet did not come forward\npublicly in that character.\n\nThus they had side\u2010tracked the study of the subject, and based all their\nhopes of progress on an intensive exegesis of the detail of Mark. They\nthought they had nothing to do but to occupy a conquered territory, and\nnever suspected that along the whole line they had only won a half\nvictory, never having thought out to the end either the eschatological\nquestion or the fundamental historical question of the attitude of Jesus\nto the Messiahship.\n\nThey were not disquieted by the obstinate persistence of the discussion on\nthe eschatological question. They thought it was merely a skirmish with a\nfew unorganised guerrillas; in reality it was the advance\u2010guard of the\narmy with which Reimarus was threatening their flank, and which under the\nleadership of Johannes Weiss was to bring them to so dangerous a pass. And\nwhile they were endeavouring to avoid this turning movement they fell into\nthe ambush which Bruno Bauer had laid in their rear: Wrede held up the\nMarcan hypothesis and demanded the pass\u2010word for the theory of the\nMessianic consciousness and claims of Jesus to which it was acting as\nconvoy.\n\nThe eschatological and the literary school, finding themselves thus\nopposed to a common enemy, naturally formed an alliance. The object of\ntheir combined attack was not the Marcan outline of the life of Jesus,\nwhich, in fact, they both accept, but the modern \u201cpsychological\u201d method of\nreading between the lines of the Marcan narrative. Under the cross fire of\nthese allies that idea of development which had been the strongest\nentrenchment of the liberal critical Lives of Jesus, and which they had\nbeen desperately endeavouring to strengthen down to the very last, was\nfinally blown to atoms.\n\nBut the striking thing about these liberal critical Lives of Jesus was\nthat they unconsciously prepared the way for a deeper historical view\nwhich could not have been reached apart from them. A deeper understanding\nof a subject is only brought to pass when a theory is carried to its\nutmost limit and finally proves its own inadequacy.\n\nThere is this in common between rationalism and the liberal critical\nmethod, that each had followed out a theory to its ultimate consequences.\nThe liberal critical school had carried to its limit the explanation of\nthe connexion of the actions of Jesus, and of the events of His life, by a\n\u201cnatural\u201d psychology; and the conclusions to which they had been driven\nhad prepared the way for the recognition that the natural psychology is\nnot here the historical psychology, but that the latter must be deduced\nfrom certain historical data. Thus through the meritorious and\nmagnificently sincere work of the liberal critical school the a priori\n\u201cnatural\u201d psychology gave way to the eschatological. That is the net\nresult, from the historical point of view, of the study of the life of\nJesus in the post\u2010Straussian period.\n\n\n\n\n\nXV. THE ESCHATOLOGICAL QUESTION\n\n\n    _Timoth\u00e9e Colani._ J\u00e9sus\u2010Christ et les croyances messianiques de\n    son temps. Strassburg, 1864. 255 pp.\n\n    _Gustav Volkmar._ Jesus Nazarenus und die erste christliche Zeit,\n    mit den beiden ersten Erz\u00e4hlern. (Jesus the Nazarene and the\n    Beginnings of Christianity, with the two earliest narrators of His\n    life.) Zurich, 1882. 403 pp.\n\n    _Wilhelm Weiffenbach._ Der Wiederkunftsgedanke Jesu. (Jesus\u2019\n    Conception of His Second Coming.) 1873. 424 pp.\n\n    _W. Baldensperger._ Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu im Lichte der\n    messianischen Hoffnungen seiner Zeit. (The Self\u2010consciousness of\n    Jesus in the Light of the Messianic Hopes of His time.)\n    Strassburg, 1888. 2nd ed., 1892, 282 pp.; 3rd ed. pt. i. 240 pp.\n\n    _Johannes Weiss._ Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes. (The\n    Preaching of Jesus concerning the Kingdom of God.) 1892.\n    G\u00f6ttingen. 67 pp. Second revised and enlarged edition, 1900, 210\n    pp.\n\n\nSo long as it was merely a question of establishing the distinctive\ncharacter of the thought of Jesus as compared with the ancient prophetic\nand Danielic conceptions, and so long as the only available storehouse of\nRabbinic and Late\u2010Jewish ideas was Lightfoot\u2019s _Horae Hebraicae et\nTalmudicae in quatuor Evangelistas_,(149) it was still possible to cherish\nthe belief that the preaching of Jesus could be conceived as something\nwhich was, in the last analysis, independent of all contemporary ideas.\nBut after the studies of Hilgenfeld and Dillmann(150) had made known the\nJewish apocalyptic in its fundamental characteristics, and the Jewish\npseudepigrapha were no longer looked on as \u201cforgeries,\u201d but as\nrepresentative documents of the last stage of Jewish thought, the\nnecessity of taking account of them in interpreting the thought of Jesus\nbecame more and more emphatic. Almost two decades were to pass, however,\nbefore the full significance of this material was realised.\n\nIt might almost have seemed as if it was to meet this attack by\nanticipation that Colani wrote in 1864 his work, _J\u00e9sus\u2010Christ et les\ncroyances messianiques de son temps_.\n\nTimoth\u00e9e Colani was born in 1824 at Lem\u00e9 (Aisne), studied in Strassburg\nand became pastor there in 1851. In the year 1864 he was appointed\nProfessor of Pastoral Theology in Strassburg in spite of some attempted\nopposition to the appointment on the part of the orthodox party in Paris,\nwhich was then growing in strength. The events of the year 1870 left him\nwithout a post. As he had no prospect of being called to a pastorate in\nFrance, he became a merchant. In consequence of some unfortunate business\noperations he lost all his property. In 1875 he obtained a post as\nlibrarian at the Sorbonne. He died in 1888.\n\nHow far was Jesus a Jew? That was the starting\u2010point of Colani\u2019s study.\nAccording to him there was a complete lack of homogeneity in the Messianic\nhopes cherished by the Jewish people in the time of Jesus, since the\nprophetic conception, according to which the Kingdom of the Messiah\nbelonged to the present world\u2010order, and the apocalyptic, which\ntransferred it to the future age, had not yet been brought into any kind\nof unity. The general expectation was focused rather upon the Forerunner\nthan upon the Messiah. Jesus Himself in the first period of His public\nministry, up to Mark viii., had never designated Himself as the Messiah,\nfor the expression Son of Man carried no Messianic associations for the\nmultitude. His fundamental thought was that of perfect communion with God;\nonly little by little, as the success of the preaching of the Kingdom more\nand more impressed His mind, did His consciousness take on a Messianic\ncolouring. In face of the undisciplined expectations of the people He\nconstantly repeats in His parables of the growth of the Kingdom, the word\n\u201cpatience.\u201d By revealing Himself as the Lord of this spiritual kingdom He\nmakes an end of the oscillation between the sensuous and the spiritual in\nthe current expectations of the future blessedness. He points to mankind\nas a whole, not merely to the chosen people, as the people of the Kingdom,\nand substitutes for the apocalyptic catastrophe an organic development. By\nHis interpretation of Psalm cx., in Mark xii. 35\u201037, He makes known that\nthe Messiah has nothing whatever to do with the Davidic kingship. It was\nonly with difficulty that He came to resolve to accept the title of\nMessiah; He knew what a weight of national prejudices and national hopes\nhung upon it.\n\nBut He is \u201cMessiah the Son of Man\u201d; He created this expression in order\nthereby to make known His lowliness. In the moment in which He accepted\nthe office He registered the resolve to suffer. His purpose is, to be the\nsuffering, not the triumphant, Messiah. It is to the influence which His\nPassion exercises upon the souls of men that He looks for the firm\nestablishment of His Kingdom.\n\nThis spiritual conception of the Kingdom cannot possibly be combined with\nthe thought of a glorious Second Coming, for if Jesus had held this latter\nview He must necessarily have thought of the present life as only a kind\nof prologue to that second existence. Neither the Jewish, nor the Jewish\u2010\nChristian eschatology as represented in the eschatological discourses in\nthe Gospels, can, therefore, in Colani\u2019s opinion, belong to the preaching\nof Jesus. That He should sometimes have made use of the imagery associated\nwith the Jewish expectations of the future is, of course, only natural.\nBut the eschatology occupies far too important a place in the tradition of\nthe preaching of Jesus to be explained as a mere symbolical mode of\nexpression. It forms a substantial element of that preaching. A\nspiritualisation of it will not meet the case. Therefore, if the\nconviction has been arrived at on other grounds that Jesus\u2019 preaching did\nnot follow the lines of Jewish eschatology, there is only one possible way\nof dealing with it, and that is by excising it from the text on critical\ngrounds.\n\nThe only element in the preaching of Jesus which can, in Colani\u2019s opinion,\nbe called in any sense \u201ceschatological\u201d was the conviction that there\nwould be a wide extension of the Gospel even within the existing\ngeneration, that Gentiles should be admitted to the Kingdom, and that in\nconsequence of the general want of receptivity towards the message of\nsalvation, judgment should come upon the nations.\n\nThese views of Colani furnish him with a basis upon which to decide on the\ngenuineness or otherwise of the eschatological discourses. Among the\nsayings put into the mouth of Jesus which must be rejected as impossible\nare: the promise, in the discourse at the sending forth of the Twelve, of\nthe imminent coming of the Son of Man, Matt. x. 23; the promise to the\ndisciples that they should sit upon twelve thrones judging the tribes of\nIsrael, Matt. xix. 28; the saying about His return in Matt. xxiii. 39; the\nfinal eschatological saying at the Last Supper, Matt. xxvi. 29, \u201cthe\nPapias\u2010like Chiliasm of which is unworthy of Jesus\u201d; and the prediction of\nHis coming on the clouds of heaven with which He closes His Messianic\nconfession before the Council. The apocalyptic discourses in Mark xiii.,\nMatt. xxiv., and Luke xxi. are interpolated. A Jewish\u2010Christian apocalypse\nof the first century, probably composed before the destruction of\nJerusalem, has been interwoven with a short exhortation which Jesus gave\non the occasion when He predicted the destruction of the temple.\n\nAccording to Colani, therefore, Jesus did not expect to come again from\nHeaven to complete His work. It was completed by His death, and the\npurpose of the coming of the Spirit was to make manifest its completion.\nStrauss and Renan had entered upon the path of explaining Jesus\u2019 preaching\nfrom the history of the time by the assumption of an intermixture in it of\nJewish ideas, but it was now recognised \u201cthat this path is a cul\u2010de\u2010sac,\nand that criticism must turn round and get out of it as quickly as\npossible.\u201d\n\nThe new feature of Colani\u2019s view was not so much the uncompromising\nrejection of eschatology as the clear recognition that its rejection was\nnot a matter to be disposed of in a phrase or two, but necessitated a\ncritical analysis of the text.\n\nThe systematic investigation of the Synoptic apocalypse was a contribution\nto criticism of the utmost importance.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nIn the year 1882 Volkmar took up this attempt afresh, at least in its main\nfeatures.(151) His construction rests upon two main points of support;\nupon his view of the sources and his conception of the eschatology of the\ntime of Jesus. In his view the sole source for the Life of Jesus is the\nGospel of Mark, which was \u201cprobably written exactly in the year 73,\u201d five\nyears after the Johannine apocalypse.\n\nThe other two of the first three Gospels belong to the second century, and\ncan only be used by way of supplement. Luke dates from the beginning of\nthe first decade of the century; while Matthew is regarded by Volkmar, as\nby Wilke, as being a combination of Mark and Luke, and is relegated to the\nend of this first decade. The work is in his opinion a revision of the\nGospel tradition \u201cin the spirit of that primitive Christianity which,\nwhile constantly opposing the tendency of the apostle of the Gentiles to\nmake light of the Law, was nevertheless so far universalistic that,\nstarting from the old legal ground, it made the first steps towards a\ncatholic unity.\u201d Once Matthew has been set aside in this way, the literary\nelimination of the eschatology follows as a matter of course; the much\nsmaller element of discourse in Mark can offer no serious resistance.\n\nAs regards the Messianic expectations of the time, they were, in Volkmar\u2019s\nopinion, such that Jesus could not possibly have come forward with\nMessianic claims. The Messianic Son of Man, whose aim was to found a\nsuper\u2010earthly Kingdom, only arose in Judaism under the influence of\nChristian dogma. The contemporaries of Jesus knew only the political ideal\nof the Messianic King. And woe to any one who conjured up these hopes! The\nBaptist had done so by his too fervent preaching about repentance and the\nKingdom, and had been promptly put out of the way by the Tetrarch. The\nversion found even in Mark, which represents that it was on Herodias\u2019\naccount, and at her daughter\u2019s petition, that John was beheaded, is a\nlater interpretation which, according to Volkmar, is evidently false on\nchronological grounds, since the Baptist was dead before Herod took\nHerodias as his wife. Had Jesus desired the Messiahship, He could only\nhave claimed it in this political sense. The alternative is to suppose\nthat He did not desire it.\n\nVolkmar\u2019s contribution to the subject consists in the formulating of this\nclean\u2010cut alternative. Colani had indeed recognised the alternative, but\nhad not taken up a consistent attitude in regard to it. Here, that way of\nescape from the difficulty is barred, which suggests that Jesus set\nHimself up as Messiah, but in another than the popular sense. What may be\ncalled Jesus\u2019 Messianic consciousness consisted solely \u201cin knowing Himself\nto be first\u2010born among many brethren, the Son of God after the Spirit, and\nconsequently feeling Himself enabled and impelled to bring about that\nregeneration of His people which alone could make it worthy of\ndeliverance.\u201d It is in any case clearly evident from Paul, from the\nApocalypse, and from Mark, \u201cthe three documentary witnesses emanating from\nthe circle of the followers of Jesus during the first century, that it was\nonly after His crucifixion that Jesus was hailed as the Christ; never\nduring His earthly life.\u201d The elimination of the eschatology thus leads\nalso to the elimination of the Messiahship of Jesus.\n\nIf we are told in Mark viii. 29 that Simon Peter was the first among men\nto hail Jesus as the Messiah, it is to be noticed, Volkmar points out,\nthat the Evangelist places this confession at a time when Jesus\u2019 work was\nover and the thought of His Passion first appears; and if we desire fully\nto understand the author\u2019s purpose we must fix our attention on the Lord\u2019s\ncommand not to make known His Messiahship until after His resurrection\n(Mark viii. 30, ix. 9 and 10), which is a hint that we are to date Jesus\u2019\nMessiahship from His death. For Mark is no mere na\u00efve chronicler, but a\nconscious artist interpreting the history; sometimes, indeed, a powerful\nepic writer in whose work the historical and the poetic are intermingled.\n\nThus the conclusion is that Mark, in agreement with Paul, represents Jesus\nas becoming the Messiah only as a consequence of His resurrection. He\nreally appeared, and His first appearance was to Peter. When Peter on that\nnight of terror fled from Jerusalem to take refuge in Galilee, Jesus,\naccording to the mystic prediction of Mark xiv. 28 and xvi. 7, went before\nhim. \u201cHe was constantly present to his spirit, until on the third day He\nmanifested Himself before his eyes, in the heavenly appearance which was\nalso vouchsafed to the last of the apostles \u2019as he was in the way\u2019\u2014and\nPeter, enraptured, gave expression to the clear conviction with which the\nwhole life of Jesus had inspired him in the cry \u2019Thou art the Christ.\u2019\u201d\n\nThe historical Jesus therefore founded a community of followers without\nadvancing any claims to the Messiahship. He desired only to be a reformer,\nthe spiritual deliverer of the people of God, to realise upon earth the\nKingdom of God which they were all seeking in the beyond, and to extend\nthe reign of God over all nations. \u201cThe Kingdom of God is doubtless to win\nits final and decisive victory by the almighty aid of God; our duty is to\nsee to its beginnings\u201d\u2014that is, according to Volkmar, the lesson which\nJesus teaches us in the parable of the Sower. The ethic of this Kingdom\nwas not yet confused by any eschatological ideas. It was only when, as the\nyears went on, the expectation of the Parousia rose to a high pitch of\nintensity that \u201cmarriage and the bringing up of children came to be\nregarded as superfluous, and were consequently thought of as signs of an\nabsorption in earthly interests which was out of harmony with the near\napproach to the goal of these hopes.\u201d Jesus had renewed the foundations on\nwhich \u201cthe family\u201d was based and had made it, in turn, a corner stone of\nthe Kingdom of God, even as He had consecrated the common meal by making\nit a love feast.\n\nIn most things Jesus was conservative. The ritual worship of the God of\nIsrael remained for Him always a sacred thing. But in spite of that He\nwithdrew more and more from the synagogue, the scene of His earliest\npreaching, and taught in the houses of His disciples. \u201cHe had learned to\nfulfil the law as implicit in one highest commandment and supreme\nprinciple, therefore \u2019in spirit and in truth\u2019; but He never, as appears\nfrom all the evidence, declared it to be abolished.\u201d \u201cWe may be equally\ncertain, however, that Jesus, while He asserted the abiding validity of\nthe Ten Commandments, never explicitly declared that of the Mosaic Law as\na whole. The absence of any such saying from the tradition regarding Jesus\nmade it possible for Paul to take his decisive step forward.\u201d\n\nAs regards the Gospel discourses about the Parousia, it is easy to\nrecognise that, even in Mark, these \u201care one and all the work of the\nnarrator, whose purpose is edification. He connects his work as closely as\npossible with the Apocalypse, which had appeared some five years earlier,\nin order to emphasise, in contrast to it, the higher truth.\u201d Jesus\u2019 own\nhope, in all its clearness and complete originality, is recorded in the\nparables of the seed growing secretly and the grain of mustard seed, and\nin the saying about the immortality of His words. Nothing beyond this is\nin any way certain, however remarkable the saying in Mark ix. 1 may be,\nthat the looked\u2010for consummation is to take place during the lifetime of\nthe existing generation.\n\n\u201cIt is only the fact that Mark is preceded by \u2019the book of the Birth (and\nHistory) of Christ according to Matthew\u2019\u2014not only in the Scriptures, but\nalso in men\u2019s minds, which were dominated by it as the \u2018first\nGospel\u2019\u2014which has caused it to be taken as self\u2010evident that Jesus,\nknowing Himself from the first to be the Messiah, expected His Parousia\nsolely from heaven, and therefore with, or in, the clouds of heaven....\nBut since He who was thought of as by birth the Son of God, is now thought\nof as the Son of Man, born an Israelite, and becoming the Son of God after\nthe spirit only at His baptism, the hope that looks to the clouds of\nheaven cannot be, or at least ought not to be, any longer explained\notherwise than as an enthusiastic dream.\u201d\n\nIf, even at the beginning of the \u2019eighties, a so extreme theory on the\nother side could, without opposition, occupy all the points of vantage, it\nis evident that the theory which gave eschatology its due place was making\nbut slow progress. It was not that any one had been disputing the ground\nwith it, but that all its operations were characterised by a nervous\ntimidity. And these hesitations are not to be laid to the account of those\nwho did not perceive the approach of the decisive conflict, or refused to\naccept battle, like the followers of Reuss, for instance, who were\nsatisfied with the hypothesis that thoughts about the Last Judgment had\nforced their way into the authentic discourses of Jesus about the\ndestruction of the city;(152) even those who like Weiffenbach are fully\nconvinced that \u201cthe eschatological question, and in particular the\nquestion of the Second Coming, which in many quarters has up to the\npresent been treated as a _noli me tangere_, must sooner or later become\nthe battle\u2010ground of the greatest and most decisive of theological\ncontroversies\u201d\u2014even those who shared this conviction stopped half\u2010way on\nthe road on which they had entered.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nWeiffenbach\u2019s(153) work, \u201cJesus\u2019 Conception of His Second Coming,\u201d\npublished in 1873, sums up the results of the previous discussions of the\nsubject. He names as among those who ascribe the expectation of the\nParousia, in the sensuous form in which it meets us in the documents, to a\nmisunderstanding of the teaching of Jesus on the part of the disciples and\nthe writers who were dependent upon them\u2014Schleiermacher, Bleek, Holtzmann,\nSchenkel, Colani, Baur, Hase, and Meyer. Among those who maintained that\nthe Parousia formed an integral part of Jesus\u2019 teaching, he cites Keim,\nWeizs\u00e4cker, Strauss, and Renan. He considers that the readiest way to\nadvance the discussion will be by undertaking a critical review of the\nattempt to analyse the great Synoptic discourse about the future in which\nColani had led the way.\n\nThe question of the Parousia is like, Weiffenbach suggests, a vessel which\nhas become firmly wedged between rocks. Any attempt to get it afloat again\nwill be useless until a new channel is found for it. His detailed\ndiscussions are devoted to endeavouring to discover the relation between\nthe declarations regarding the Second Coming and the predictions of the\nPassion. In the course of his analysis of the great prophetic discourse he\nrejects the suggestion made by Weisse in his _Evangelienfrage_ of 1856,\nthat the eschatological character of the discourse results from the way in\nwhich it is put together; that while the sayings in their present mosaic\u2010\nlike combination certainly have a reference to the last things, each of\nthem individually in its original context might well bear a natural sense.\nIn Colani\u2019s hypothesis of conflation the suggestion was to be rejected\nthat it was not \u201cUr\u2010Markus,\u201d but the author of the Synoptic apocalypse who\nwas responsible for the working in of the \u201cLittle Apocalypse.\u201d(154) It was\nan unsatisfactory feature of Weizs\u00e4cker\u2019s position(155) that he insisted\non regarding the \u201cLittle Apocalypse\u201d as Jewish, not Jewish\u2010Christian;\nPfleiderer had distinguished sharply what belongs to the Evangelist from\nthe \u201cLittle Apocalypse,\u201d and had sought to prove that the purpose of the\nEvangelist in thus breaking up the latter and working it into a discourse\nof Jesus was to tone down the eschatological hopes expressed in the\ndiscourse, because they had remained unfulfilled even at the fall of\nJerusalem, and to retard the rapid development of the apocalyptic process\nby inserting between its successive phases passages from a different\ndiscourse.(156) Weiffenbach carries this series of tentative suggestions\nto its logical conclusion, advancing the view that the link of connexion\nbetween the Jewish\u2010Christian Apocalypse and the Gospel material in which\nit is embedded is the thought of the Second Coming. This was the thought\nwhich gave the impulse from without towards the transmutation of Jewish\ninto Jewish\u2010Christian eschatology. Jesus must have given expression to the\nthought of His near return; and Jewish\u2010Christianity subsequently painted\nit over with the colours of Jewish eschatology.\n\nIn developing this theory, Weiffenbach thought that he had succeeded in\nsolving the problem which had been first critically formulated by Keim,\nwho is constantly emphasising the idea that the eschatological hopes of\nthe disciples could not be explained merely from their Judaic pre\u2010\nsuppositions, but that some incentive to the formation of these hopes must\nbe sought in the preaching of Jesus; otherwise primitive Christianity and\nthe life of Jesus would stand side by side unconnected and unexplained,\nand in that case we must give up all hope \u201cof distinguishing the sure word\nof the Lord from Israel\u2019s restless speculations about the future.\u201d\n\nWhen the Jewish\u2010Christian Apocalypse has been eliminated, we arrive at a\ndiscourse, spoken on the Mount of Olives, in which Jesus exhorted His\ndisciples to watchfulness, in view of the near, but nevertheless\nundefined, hour of the return of \u201cthe Master of the House.\u201d\n\nIn this discourse, therefore, we have a standard by which criticism may\ntest all the eschatological sayings and discourses. Weiffenbach has the\nmerit of having gathered together all the eschatological material of the\nSynoptics and examined it in the light of a definite principle. In Colani\nthe material was incomplete, and instead of a critical principle he\noffered only an arbitrary exegesis which permitted him, for example, to\nconceive the watchfulness on which the eschatological parables constantly\ninsist as only a vivid expression for the sense of responsibility \u201cwhich\nweighs upon the life of man.\u201d\n\nAnd yet the outcome of this attempt of Weiffenbach\u2019s, which begins with so\nmuch real promise, is in the end wholly unsatisfactory. The \u201cauthentic\nthought of the return\u201d which he takes as his standard has for its sole\ncontent the expectation of a visible personal return in the near future\n\u201cfree from all more or less fantastic apocalyptic and Jewish\u2010Christian\nspeculations about the future.\u201d That is to say, the whole of the\neschatological discourses of Jesus are to be judged by the standard of a\ncolourless, unreal figment of theology. Whatever cannot be squared with\nthat is to be declared spurious and cut away! Accordingly the\neschatological closing saying at the Last Supper is stigmatised as a\n\u201cChiliastic\u2010Capernaitic\u201d(157) distortion of a \u201cnormal\u201d promise of the\nSecond Coming; the idea of the \u03c0\u03b1\u03bb\u03b9\u03b3\u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03b5\u03c3\u03af\u03b1, Matt. xix. 28, is said to be\nwholly foreign to Jesus\u2019 world of thought; it is impossible, too, that\nJesus can have thought of Himself as the Judge of the world, for the\nJewish and Jewish\u2010Christian eschatology does not ascribe the conduct of\nthe Last Judgment to the Messiah; that is first done by Gentile\nChristians, and especially by Paul. It was, therefore, the later\neschatology which set the Son of Man on the throne of His glory and\nprepared \u201cthe twelve thrones of judgment for the disciples.\u201d The historian\nought only to admit such of the sayings about bearing rule in the\nMessianic Kingdom as can be interpreted in a spiritual, non\u2010sensuous\nfashion.\n\nIn the end Weiffenbach\u2019s critical principle proves to be merely a bludgeon\nwith which he goes seal\u2010hunting and clubs the defenceless Synoptic sayings\nright and left. When his work is done you see before you a desert island\nstrewn with quivering corpses. Nevertheless the slaughter was not aimless,\nor at least it was not without result.\n\nIn the first place, it did really appear, as a by\u2010product of the critical\nprocesses, that Jesus\u2019 discourses about the future had nothing to do with\nan historical prevision of the destruction of Jerusalem, whereas the\nsupposition that they had, had hitherto been taken as self\u2010evident, the\nprediction of the destruction of Jerusalem being regarded as the historic\nnucleus of Jesus\u2019 discourses regarding the future, to which the idea of\nthe Last Judgment had subsequently attached itself.\n\nHere, then, we have the introduction of the converse opinion, which was\nsubsequently established as correct; namely, that Jesus foresaw, indeed,\nthe Last Judgment, but not the historical destruction of Jerusalem.\n\nIn the next place, in the course of his critical examination of the\neschatological material, Weiffenbach stumbles upon the discourse at the\nsending forth of the Twelve in Matt. x., and finds himself face to face\nwith the fact that the discourse which he was expected to regard as a\ndiscourse of instruction was really nothing of the kind, but a collection\nof eschatological sayings. As he had taken over along with the Marcan\nhypothesis the closely connected view of the composite character of the\nSynoptic discourses, he does not allow himself to be misled, but regards\nthis inappropriate charge to the Twelve as nothing else than an impossible\nanticipation and a bold anachronism. He knows that he is at one in this\nwith Holtzmann, Colani, Bleek, Scholten, Meyer, and Keim, who also made\nthe discourse of instruction end at the point beyond which they find it\nimpossible to explain it, and regard the predictions of persecution as\nonly possible in the later period of the life of Jesus. \u201cFor these\npredictions,\u201d to express Weiffenbach\u2019s view in the words of Keim, \u201care too\nmuch at variance with the essentially gracious and happy mood which\nsuggested the sending forth of the disciples, and reflect instead the\nlurid gloom of the fierce conflicts of the later period and the sadness of\nthe farewell discourses.\u201d\n\nIt was a good thing that Bruno Bauer did not hear this chorus. If he had,\nhe would have asked Weiffenbach and his allies whether the poor fragment\nthat remained after the critical dissection of the \u201ccharge to the Twelve\u201d\nwas \u201ca discourse of instruction,\u201d and if in view of these difficulties\nthey could not realise why he had refused, thirty years before, to believe\nin the \u201cdiscourse of instruction.\u201d But Bruno Bauer heard nothing: and so\ntheir blissful unconsciousness lasted for nearly a generation longer.\n\nThe expectation of His Second Coming, repeatedly expressed by Jesus\ntowards the close of His life, is on this hypothesis authentic; it was\npainted over by the primitive Christian community with the colours of its\nown eschatology, in consequence of the delay of the Parousia; and in view\nof the mission to the Gentiles a more cautious conception of the nearness\nof the time commended itself; nay, when Jerusalem had fallen and the\n\u201csigns of the end\u201d which had been supposed to be discovered in the horrors\nof the years 68 and 69 had passed without result, the return of Jesus was\nrelegated to a distant future by the aid of the doctrine that the Gospel\nmust first be preached to all the heathen. Thus the Parousia, which\naccording to the Jewish\u2010Christian eschatology belonged to the present age,\nwas transferred to the future. \u201cWith this combination and making\ncoincident\u2014they were not so at the first\u2014of the Second Coming, the end of\nthe world, and the final Judgment, the idea of the Second Coming reached\nthe last and highest stage of its development.\u201d\n\nWeiffenbach\u2019s view, as we have seen, empties Jesus\u2019 expectation of His\nreturn of almost all its content, and to that is due the fact that his\ninvestigation did not prove so useful as it might have done. His purpose\nis, following suggestions thrown out by Schleiermacher and Weisse, to\nprove the identity of the predictions of the Second Coming and of the\nResurrection, and he takes as his starting\u2010point the observation that the\nconduct of the disciples after the death of Jesus forbids us to suppose\nthat the Resurrection had been predicted in clear and unambiguous sayings,\nand that, on the other hand, the announcement of the Second Coming\ncoincides in point of time with the predictions of the Resurrection, and\nthe predictions both of the Second Coming and of the Resurrection stand in\norganic connexion with the announcement of His approaching death. The two\nare therefore identical.\n\nIt was only after the death of their Master that the disciples\ndifferentiated the thought of the Resurrection from that of the Second\nComing. The Resurrection did not bring them that which the Second Coming\nhad promised; but it produced the result that the eschatological hopes,\nwhich Jesus had with difficulty succeeded in damping, flamed up again in\nthe hearts of His disciples. The spiritual presence of the Deliverer who\nhad manifested Himself to them did not seem to them to be the fulfilment\nof the promise of the Second Coming; but the expectation of the latter,\nbeing brought into contact with the flame of eschatological hope with\nwhich their hearts were a\u2010fire, was fused, and cast into a form quite\ndifferent from that in which it had been derived from the words of Jesus.\n\nThat is all finely observed. For the first time it had dawned upon\nhistorical criticism that the great question is that concerning the\nidentity or difference of the Parousia and the Resurrection. But the man\nwho had been the first to grasp that thought, and who had undertaken his\nwhole study with the special purpose of working it out, was too much under\nthe influence of the spiritualised eschatology of Schleiermacher and\nWeisse to be able to assign the right values in the solution of his\nequation. And, withal, he is too much inclined to play the apologist as a\nsubsidiary r\u00f4le. He is not content merely to render the history\nintelligible; he is, by his own confession, urged on by the hope that\nperhaps a way may be found of causing that \u201cerror\u201d of Jesus to disappear\nand proving it to be an illusion due to the want of a sufficiently close\nstudy of His discourses. But the historian simply must not be an\napologist; he must leave that to those who come after him and he may do so\nwith a quiet mind, for the apologists, as we learn from the history of the\nLives of Jesus, can get the better of any historical result whatever. It\nis, therefore, quite unnecessary that the historian should allow himself\nto be led astray by following an apologetic will\u2010o\u2019\u2010the\u2010wisp.\n\nTechnically regarded, the mistake on which Weiffenbach\u2019s investigation\nmade shipwreck was the failure to bring the Jewish apocalyptic material\ninto relation with the Synoptic data. If he had done this, it would have\nbeen impossible for him to extract an absolutely unreal and unhistorical\nconception of the Second Coming out of the discourses of Jesus.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe task which Weiffenbach had neglected remained undone\u2014to the detriment\nof theology\u2014until Baldensperger(158) repaired the omission. His book, \u201cThe\nSelf\u2010consciousness of Jesus in the Light of the Messianic Hopes of His\nTime,\u201d(159) published in 1888, made its impression by reason of the\nfullness of its material. Whereas Colani and Volkmar had still been able\nto deny the existence of a fully formed Messianic expectation in the time\nof Jesus, the genesis of the expectation was now fully traced out, and it\nwas shown that the world of thought which meets us in Daniel had won the\nvictory, that the \u201cSon of Man\u201d Messiah of the Similitudes of Enoch was the\nlast product of the Messianic hope prior to the time of Jesus; and that\ntherefore the fully developed Danielic scheme with its unbridgeable chasm\nbetween the present and the future world furnished the outline within\nwhich all further and more detailed traits were inserted. The honour of\nhaving effectively pioneered the way for this discovery belongs to\nSch\u00fcrer.(160) Baldensperger adopts his ideas, but sets them forth in a\nmuch more direct way, because he, in contrast with Sch\u00fcrer, gives no\n_system_ of Messianic expectation\u2014and there never in reality was a\nsystem\u2014but is content to picture its many\u2010sided growth.\n\nHe does not, it is true, escape some minor inconsistencies. For example,\nthe idea of a \u201cpolitical Messiahship,\u201d which is really set aside by his\nhistorical treatment, crops up here and there, as though the author had\nnot entirely got rid of it himself. But the impression made by the book as\na whole was overpowering.\n\nNevertheless this book does not exactly fulfil the promise of its title,\nany more than Weiffenbach\u2019s. The reader expects that now at last Jesus\u2019\nsayings about Himself will be consistently explained in the light of the\nJewish Messianic ideas, but that is not done. For Baldensperger, instead\nof tracing down and working out the conception of the Kingdom of God held\nby Jesus as a product of the Jewish eschatology, at least by way of trying\nwhether that method would suffice, takes it over direct from modern\nhistorical theology. He assumes as self\u2010evident that Jesus\u2019 conception of\nthe Kingdom of God had a double character, that the eschatological and\nspiritual elements were equally represented in it and mutually conditioned\none another, and that Jesus therefore began, in pursuance of this\nconception, to found a spiritual invisible Kingdom, although He expected\nits fulfilment to be effected by supernatural means. Consequently there\nmust also have been a duality in His religious consciousness, in which\nthese two conceptions had to be combined. Jesus\u2019 Messianic consciousness\nsprang, according to Baldensperger, \u201cfrom a religious root\u201d; that is to\nsay, the Messianic consciousness was a special modification of a self\u2010\nconsciousness in which a pure, spiritual, unique relation to God was the\nfundamental element; and from this arises the possibility of a spiritual\ntransformation of the Jewish\u2010Messianic self\u2010consciousness. In making these\nassumptions, Baldensperger does not ask himself whether it is not possible\nthat for Jesus the purely Jewish consciousness of a transcendental\nMessiahship may itself have been religious, nay even spiritual, just as\nwell as the Messiahship resting on a vague, indefinite, colourless sense\nof union with God which modern theologians arbitrarily attribute to Him.\n\nAgain, instead of arriving at the two conceptions, Kingdom of God and\nMessianic consciousness, purely empirically, by an unbiased comparison of\nthe Synoptic passages with the Late\u2010Jewish conceptions, Baldensperger, in\nthis following Holtzmann, brings them into his theory in the dual form in\nwhich contemporary theology, now becoming faintly tinged with eschatology,\noffered them to him. Consequently, everything has to be adapted to this\nduality. Jesus, for example, in applying to Himself the title Son of Man,\nthinks not only of the transcendental significance which it has in the\nJewish apocalyptic, but gives it at the same time an ethico\u2010religious\ncolouring.\n\nFinally, the duality is explained by an application of the genetic method,\nin which the \u201ccourse of the development of the self\u2010consciousness of\nJesus\u201d is traced out. The historical psychology of the Marcan hypothesis\nhere shows its power of adapting itself to eschatology. From the first, to\nfollow the course of Baldensperger\u2019s exposition, the eschatological view\ninfluenced Jesus\u2019 expectation of the Kingdom and His Messianic\nconsciousness. In the wilderness, after the dawn of His Messianic\nconsciousness at His baptism, He had rejected the ideal of the Messianic\nking of David\u2019s line and put away all warlike thoughts. Then He began to\nfound the Kingdom of God by preaching. For a time the spiritualised idea\nof the Kingdom was dominant in His mind, the Messianic eschatological idea\nfalling rather into the background.\n\nBut His silence regarding His Messianic office was partly due to\npaedagogic reasons, \u201csince He desired to lead His hearers to a more\nspiritual conception of the Kingdom and so to obviate a possible political\nmovement on their part and the consequent intervention of the Roman\ngovernment.\u201d In addition to this He had also personal reasons for not\nrevealing Himself which only disappeared in the moment when His death and\nSecond Coming became part of His plan; previous to that He did not know\nhow and when the Kingdom was to come. Prior to the confession at Caesarea\nPhilippi, the disciples \u201chad only a faint and vague suspicion of the\nMessianic dignity of their Master.\u201d\n\nThis was \u201crather the preparatory stage of His Messianic work.\u201d\nObjectively, it may be described \u201cas the period of growing emphasis upon\nthe spiritual characteristics of the Kingdom, and of resigned waiting and\nwatching for its outward manifestation in glory; subjectively, from the\npoint of view of the self\u2010consciousness of Jesus, it may be characterised\nas the period of the struggle between His religious conviction of His\nMessiahship and the traditional rationalistic Messianic belief.\u201d\n\nThis first period opens out into a second in which He had attained to\nperfect clearness of vision and complete inner harmony. By the acceptance\nof the idea of suffering, Jesus\u2019 inner peace is enhanced to the highest\ndegree conceivable. \u201cBy throwing Himself upon the thought of death He\nescaped the lingering uncertainty as to when and how God would fulfil His\npromise....\u201d \u201cThe coming of the Kingdom was fixed down to the Second\nComing of the Messiah. Now He ventured to regard Himself as the Son of Man\nwho was to be the future Judge of the world, for the suffering and dying\nSon of Man was closely associated with the Son of Man surrounded by the\nhost of heaven. Would the people accept Him as Messiah? He now, in\nJerusalem, put the question to them in all its sharpness and burning\nactuality; and the people were moved to enthusiasm. But so soon as they\nsaw that He whom they had hailed with such acclamation was neither able\nnor willing to fulfil their ambitious dreams, a reaction set in.\u201d\n\nThus, according to Baldensperger, there was an interaction between the\nhistorical and the psychological events. And that is right!\u2014if only the\nmachinery were not so complicated, and a \u201cdevelopment\u201d had not to be\nground out of it at whatever cost. But this, and the whole manner of\ntreatment in the second part, encumbered as it is with parenthetic\nqualifications, was rendered inevitable by the adoption of the two\naforesaid not purely historical conceptions. Sometimes, too, one gets the\nimpression that the author felt that he owed it to the school to which he\nbelonged to advance no assertion without adding the limitations which\nscientifically secure it against attack. Thus on every page he digs\nhimself into an entrenched position, with palisades of footnotes\u2014in fact\nthe book actually ends with a footnote. But the conception which underlay\nthe whole was so full of vigour that in spite of the thoughts not being\nalways completely worked out, it produced a powerful impression.\nBaldensperger had persuaded theology at least to admit the\nhypothesis\u2014whether it took up a positive or negative position in regard to\nit\u2014that Jesus possessed a fully\u2010developed eschatology. He thus provided a\nnew basis for discussion and gave an impulse to the study of the subject\nsuch as it had not received since the \u2019sixties, at least not in the same\ndegree of energy. Perhaps the very limitations of the work, due as they\nwere to its introduction of modern ideas, rendered it better adapted to\nthe spirit of the age, and consequently more influential, than if it had\nbeen characterised by that rigorous maintenance of a single point of view\nwhich was abstractly requisite for the proper treatment of the subject. It\nwas precisely the rejection of this rigorous consistency which enabled it\nto gain ground for the cause of eschatology.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nBut the consistent treatment from a single point of view was bound to\ncome; and it came four years later. In passing from Weiffenbach and\nBaldensperger to Johannes Weiss(161) the reader feels like an explorer who\nafter weary wanderings through billowy seas of reed\u2010grass at length\nreaches a wooded tract, and instead of swamp feels firm ground beneath his\nfeet, instead of yielding rushes sees around him the steadfast trees. At\nlast there is an end of \u201cqualifying clause\u201d theology, of the \u201cand yet,\u201d\nthe \u201con the other hand,\u201d the \u201cnotwithstanding\u201d! The reader had to follow\nthe others step by step, making his way over every footbridge and gang\u2010\nplank which they laid down, following all the meanderings in which they\nindulged, and must never let go their hands if he wished to come safely\nthrough the labyrinth of spiritual and eschatological ideas which they\nsupposed to be found in the thought of Jesus.\n\nIn Weiss there are none of these devious paths: \u201cbehold the land lies\nbefore thee.\u201d\n\nHis \u201cPreaching of Jesus concerning the Kingdom of God,\u201d(162) published in\n1892, has, on its own lines, an importance equal to that of Strauss\u2019s\nfirst Life of Jesus. He lays down the third great alternative which the\nstudy of the life of Jesus had to meet. The first was laid down by\nStrauss: _either_ purely historical _or_ purely supernatural. The second\nhad been worked out by the T\u00fcbingen school and Holtzmann: _either_\nSynoptic _or_ Johannine. Now came the third: _either_ eschatological _or_\nnon\u2010eschatological!\n\nProgress always consists in taking one or other of two alternatives, in\nabandoning the attempt to combine them. The pioneers of progress have\ntherefore always to reckon with the law of mental inertia which manifests\nitself in the majority\u2014who always go on believing that it is possible to\ncombine that which can no longer be combined, and in fact claim it as a\nspecial merit that they, in contrast with the \u201cone\u2010sided\u201d writers, can do\njustice to the other side of the question. One must just let them be, till\ntheir time is over, and resign oneself not to see the end of it, since it\nis found by experience that the complete victory of one of two historical\nalternatives is a matter of two full theological generations.\n\nThis remark is made in order to explain why the work of Johannes Weiss did\nnot immediately make an end of the mediating views. Another reason perhaps\nwas that, according to the usual canons of theological authorship, the\nbook was much too short\u2014only sixty\u2010seven pages\u2014and too simple to allow its\nfull significance to be realised. And yet it is precisely this simplicity\nwhich makes it one of the most important works in historical theology. It\nseems to break a spell. It closes one epoch and begins another.\n\nWeiffenbach had failed to solve the problem of the Second Coming,\nBaldensperger that of the Messianic consciousness of Jesus, because both\nof them allowed a false conception of the Kingdom of God to keep its place\namong the data. The general conception of the Kingdom was first rightly\ngrasped by Johannes Weiss. All modern ideas, he insists, even in their\nsubtlest forms, must be eliminated from it; when this is done, we arrive\nat a Kingdom of God which is wholly future; as is indeed implied by the\npetition in the Lord\u2019s prayer, \u201cThy Kingdom come.\u201d Being still to come, it\nis at present purely supra\u2010mundane. It is present only as a cloud may be\nsaid to be present which throws its shadow upon the earth; its nearness,\nthat is to say, is recognised by the paralysis of the Kingdom of Satan. In\nthe fact that Jesus casts out the demons, the Pharisees are bidden to\nrecognise, according to Matt. xii. 25\u201028, that the Kingdom of God is\nalready come upon them.\n\nThis is the only sense in which Jesus thinks of the Kingdom as present. He\ndoes not \u201cestablish it,\u201d He only proclaims its coming. He exercises no\n\u201cMessianic functions,\u201d but waits, like others, for God to bring about the\ncoming of the Kingdom by supernatural means. He does not even know the day\nand hour when this shall come to pass. The missionary journey of the\ndisciples was not designed for the extension of the Kingdom of God, but\nonly as a means of rapidly and widely making known its nearness. But it\nwas not so near as Jesus thought. The impenitence and hardness of heart of\na great part of the people, and the implacable enmity of His opponents, at\nlength convinced Him that the establishment of the Kingdom of God could\nnot yet take place, that such penitence as had been shown hitherto was not\nsufficient, and that a mighty obstacle, the guilt of the people, must\nfirst be put away. It becomes clear to Him that His own death must be the\nransom\u2010price. He dies, not for the community of His followers only, but\nfor the nation; that is why He always speaks of His atoning death as \u201cfor\nmany,\u201d not \u201cfor you.\u201d After His death He would come again in all the\nsplendour and glory with which, since the days of Daniel, men\u2019s\nimaginations had surrounded the Messiah, and He was to come, moreover,\nwithin the lifetime of the generation to which He had proclaimed the\nnearness of the Kingdom of God.\n\nThe setting up of the Kingdom was to be preceded by the Day of Judgment.\nIn describing the Messianic glory Jesus makes use of the traditional\npicture, but He does so with modesty, restraint, and sobriety. Therein\nconsists His greatness.\n\nWith political expectations this Kingdom has nothing whatever to do. \u201cTo\nhope for the Kingdom of God in the transcendental sense which Jesus\nattaches to it, and to raise a revolution, are two things as different as\nfire and water.\u201d The transcendental character of the expectation consists\nprecisely in this, that the State and all earthly institutions,\nconditions, and benefits, as belonging to the present age, shall either\nnot exist at all in the coming Kingdom, or shall exist only in a\nsublimated form. Hence Jesus cannot preach to men a special ethic of the\nKingdom of God, but only an ethic which in this world makes men free from\nthe world and prepared to enter unimpeded into the Kingdom. That is why\nHis ethic is of so completely negative a character; it is, in fact, not so\nmuch an ethic as a penitential discipline.\n\nThe ministry of Jesus is therefore not in principle different from that of\nJohn the Baptist: there can be no question of a founding and development\nof the Kingdom within the hearts of men. What distinguishes the work of\nJesus from that of the Baptist is only His consciousness of being the\nMessiah. He awoke to this consciousness at His baptism. But the\nMessiahship which He claims is not a present office; its exercise belongs\nto the future. On earth He is only a man, a prophet, as in the view\nimplied in the speeches in the Acts of the Apostles. \u201cSon of Man\u201d is\ntherefore, in the passages where it is authentic, a purely eschatological\ndesignation of the Messiah, though we cannot tell whether His hearers\nunderstood Him as speaking of Himself in His future rank and dignity, or\nwhether they thought of the Son of Man as a being quite distinct from\nHimself, whose coming He was only proclaiming in advance.\n\n\u201cThe sole object of this argument is to prove that the Messianic self\u2010\nconsciousness of Jesus, as expressed in the title \u2018Son of Man,\u2019 shares in\nthe transcendental apocalyptic character of Jesus\u2019 idea of the Kingdom of\nGod, and cannot be separated from that idea.\u201d The only partially correct\nevaluation of the factors in the problem of the Life of Jesus which\nBaldensperger had taken over from contemporary theology, and which had\nhitherto prevented historical science from obtaining a solution of that\nproblem, had now been corrected from the history itself, and it was now\nonly necessary to insert the corrected data into the calculation.\n\nHere is the point at which it is fitting to recall Reimarus. He was the\nfirst, and indeed, before Johannes Weiss, the only writer who recognised\nand pointed out that the preaching of Jesus was purely eschatological. It\nis true that his conception of the eschatology was primitive, and that he\napplied it not as a constructive, but as a destructive principle of\ncriticism. But read his statement of the problem \u201cwith the signs changed,\u201d\nand with the necessary deduction for the primitive character of the\neschatology, and you have the view of Weiss.\n\nGhillany, too, has a claim to be remembered. When Weiss asserts that the\npart played by Jesus was not the active r\u00f4le of establishing the Kingdom,\nbut the passive r\u00f4le of waiting for the coming of the Kingdom; and that it\nwas, in a sense, only by the acceptance of His sufferings that He emerged\nfrom that passivity; he is only asserting what Ghillany had maintained\nthirty years before with the same arguments and with the same\ndecisiveness. But Weiss places the assertion on a scientifically\nunassailable basis.\n\n\n\n\n\nXVI. THE STRUGGLE AGAINST ESCHATOLOGY\n\n\n    _Wilhelm Bousset._ Jesu Predigt in ihrem Gegensatz zum Judentum.\n    Ein religionsgeschichtlicher Vergleich. (The Antithesis between\n    Jesus\u2019 Preaching and Judaism. A Religious\u2010Historical Comparison.)\n    G\u00f6ttingen, 1892. 130 pp.\n\n    _Erich Haupt._ Die eschatologischen Aussagen Jesu in den\n    synoptischen Evangelien. (The Eschatological Sayings of Jesus in\n    the Synoptic Gospels.) 1895. 167 pp.\n\n    _Paul Wernle._ Die Anf\u00e4nge unserer Religion. T\u00fcbingen\u2010Leipzig,\n    1901; 2nd ed., 1904, 410 pp.\n\n    _Emil Sch\u00fcrer._ Das messianische Selbstbewusstsein Jesu\u2010Christi.\n    1903. Akademische Festrede. (The Messianic Self\u2010consciousness of\n    Jesus Christ.) 24 pp.\n\n    _Wilhelm Brandt._ Die evangelische Geschichte und der Ursprung des\n    Christentums auf Grund einer Kritik der Berichte \u00fcber das Leiden\n    und die Auferstehung Jesu. (The Gospel History and the Origin of\n    Christianity. Based upon a Critical Study of the Narratives of the\n    Sufferings and Resurrection of Jesus.) Leipzig, 1893. 591 pp.\n\n    _Adolf J\u00fclicher._ Die Gleichnisreden Jesu. (The Parables of\n    Jesus.) Vol. i., 1888, 291 pp.; vol. ii., 1899, 643 pp.\n\n\nIn this period the important books are short. The sixty\u2010seven pages of\nJohannes Weiss are answered by Bousset(163) in a bare hundred and thirty.\nPeople began to see that the elaborate Lives of Jesus which had hitherto\nheld the field, and enjoyed an immortality of revised editions, only\nmasked the fact that the study of the subject was at a standstill; and\nthat the tedious re\u2010handling of problems which had been solved so far as\nthey were capable of solution only served as an excuse for not grappling\nwith those which still remained unsolved.\n\nThis conviction is expressed by Bousset at the beginning of his work. The\ncriticism of the sources, he says, is finished, and its results may be\nregarded, so far as the Life of Jesus is concerned, as provisionally\ncomplete. The separation between John and the Synoptists has been secured.\nFor the Synoptists, the two\u2010document hypothesis has been established,\naccording to which the sources are a primitive form of Mark, and a\ncollection of \u201clogia.\u201d A certain interest might still attach to the\nattempt to arrive at the primitive kernel of Mark; but the attempt has a\npriori so little prospect of success that it was almost a waste of time to\ncontinue to work at it. It would be a much more important thing to get rid\nof the feeling of uncertainty and artificiality in the Lives of Jesus.\nWhat is now chiefly wanted, Bousset thinks, is \u201ca firmly\u2010drawn and life\u2010\nlike portrait which, with a few bold strokes, should bring out clearly the\noriginality, the force, the personality of Jesus.\u201d\n\nIt is evident that the centre of the problem has now been reached. That is\nwhy the writing becomes so terse. The masses of thought can only be\nman\u0153uvred here in a close formation such as Weiss gives them. The loose\norder of discursive exegetical discussions of separate passages is now no\nlonger in place. The first step towards further progress was the simple\none of marshalling the passages in such a way as to gain a single\nconsistent impression from them.\n\nIn the first instance Bousset is as ready as Johannes Weiss to admit the\nimportance for the mind of Jesus of the eschatological \u201cthen\u201d and \u201cnow.\u201d\nThe realistic school, he thinks, are perfectly right in endeavouring to\nrelate Jesus, without apologetic or theological inconsistencies, to the\nbackground of contemporary ideas. Later, in 1901, he was to make it a\nreproach against Harnack\u2019s \u201cWhat is Christianity?\u201d (_Das Wesen des\nChristentums_) that it did not give sufficient importance to the\nbackground of contemporary thought in its account of the preaching of\nJesus.(164)\n\nHe goes on to ask, however, whether the first enthusiasm over the\ndiscovery of this genuinely historical way of looking at things should not\nbe followed by some \u201csecond thoughts\u201d of a deeper character. Accepting the\nposition laid down by Johannes Weiss, we must ask, he thinks, whether this\npurely historical criticism, by the exclusive emphasis which it has laid\nupon eschatology, has not allowed the \u201cessential originality and power of\nthe personality of Jesus to slip through its fingers,\u201d and closed its\ngrasp instead upon contemporary conceptions and imaginations which are\noften of a quite special character.\n\nThe Late\u2010Jewish eschatology was, according to Bousset, by no means a\nhomogeneous system of thought. Realistic and transcendental elements stand\nside by side in it, unreconciled. The genuine popular belief of Late\nJudaism still clung quite naively to the earthly realistic hopes of former\ntimes, and had never been able to rise to the purely transcendental\nregions which are the characteristic habitat of apocalyptic. The rejection\nof the world is never carried out consistently; something of the Jewish\nnational ideal always remains. And for this reason Late Judaism made no\nprogress towards the overcoming of particularism.\n\nProbably, Bousset holds, this Apocalyptic thought is not even genuinely\nJewish; as he ably argued in another work, there was a considerable strain\nof Persian influence in it.(165) The dualism, the transference to the\ntranscendental region of the future hope, the conception of the world\nwhich appears in Jewish apocalyptic, are of Iranian rather than Jewish\norigin.\n\nTwo thoughts are especially characteristic of Bousset\u2019s position; first,\nthat this transcendentalising of the future implied a spiritualisation of\nit; secondly, that in post\u2010exilic Judaism there was always an undercurrent\nof a purer and more spontaneous piety, the presence of which is especially\nto be traced in the Psalms.\n\nInto a dead world, where a kind of incubus seems to stifle all naturalness\nand spontaneity, there comes a living Man. According to the formulae of\nHis preaching and the designations which He applies to Himself, He seems\nat first sight to identify Himself with this world rather than to oppose\nit. But these conceptions and titles, especially the Kingdom of God and\nthe Son of Man, must be provisionally left in the background, since they,\nas being conceptions taken over from the past, conceal rather than reveal\nwhat is most essential in His personality. The primary need is to\ndiscover, behind the phenomenal, the real character of the personality and\npreaching of Jesus. The starting\u2010point must therefore be the simple fact\nthat Jesus came as a living Man into a dead world. He is living, because\nin contrast with His contemporaries He has a living idea of God. His faith\nin the Fatherhood of God is Jesus\u2019 most essential act. It signifies a\nbreach with the transcendental Jewish idea of God, and an unconscious\ninner negation of the Jewish eschatology. Jesus, therefore, walks through\na world which denies His own eschatology like a man who has firm ground\nunder his feet.\n\nThat which on a superficial view appears to be eschatological preaching\nturns out to be essentially a renewal of the old prophetic preaching with\nits positive ethical emphasis. Jesus is a manifestation of that ancient\nspontaneous piety of which Bousset had shown the existence in Late\nJudaism.\n\nThe most characteristic thing in the character of Jesus, according to\nBousset, is His joy in life. It is true that if, in endeavouring to\nunderstand Him, we take primitive Christianity as our starting\u2010point, we\nmight conceive of this joy in life as the complement of the eschatological\nmood, as the extreme expression of indifference to the world, which can as\nwell enjoy the world as flee it. But the purely eschatological attitude,\nthough it reappears in early Christianity, does not give the right clue\nfor the interpretation of the character of Jesus as a whole. His joy in\nthe world was real, a genuine outcome of His new type of piety. It\nprevented the eudaemonistic eschatological idea of reward, which some\nthink they find in Jesus\u2019 preaching, from ever really becoming an element\nin it.\n\nJesus is best understood by contrasting Him with the Baptist. John was a\npreacher of repentance whose eyes were fixed upon the future. Jesus did\nnot allow the thought of the nearness of the end to rob Him of His\nsimplicity and spontaneity, and was not crippled by the reflection that\neverything was transitory, preparatory, a mere means to an end. His\npreaching of repentance was not gloomy and forbidding; it was the\nproclamation of a new righteousness, of which the watchword was, \u201cYe shall\nbe perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect.\u201d He desires to communicate\nthis personal piety by personal influence. In contrast with the Baptist He\nnever aims at influencing masses of men, but rather avoids it. His work\nwas accomplished mainly among little groups and individuals. He left the\ntask of carrying the Gospel far and wide as a legacy to the community of\nHis followers. The mission of the Twelve, conceived as a mission for the\nrapid and widespread extension of the Gospel, is not to be used to explain\nJesus\u2019 methods of teaching; the narrative of it rests on an \u201cobscure and\nunintelligible tradition.\u201d\n\nThis genuine joy in life was not unnoticed by the contemporaries of Jesus\nwho contrasted Him as \u201ca gluttonous man and a wine\u2010bibber,\u201d with the\nBaptist. They were vaguely conscious that the whole life of Jesus was\n\u201csustained by the feeling of an absolute antithesis between Himself and\nHis times.\u201d He lived not in anxious expectation, but in cheerful gladness,\nbecause by the native strength of His piety He had brought present and\nfuture into one. Free from all extravagant Jewish delusions about the\nfuture, He was not paralysed by the conditions which must be fulfilled to\nmake this future present. He has a peculiar conviction of its coming which\ngives Him courage to \u201cmarry\u201d the present with the future. The present as\ncontrasted with the beyond is for Him no mere shadow, but truth and\nreality; life is not for Him a mere illusion, but is charged with a real\nand valuable meaning. His own time is the Messianic time, as His answer to\nthe Baptist\u2019s question shows. \u201cAnd it is among the most certain things in\nthe Gospel that Jesus in His earthly life acknowledged Himself as Messiah\nboth to His disciples and to the High\u2010Priest, and made His entry into\nJerusalem as such.\u201d\n\nHe can, therefore, fully recognise the worth of the present. It is not\ntrue that He taught that this world\u2019s goods were in themselves bad; what\nHe said was only that they must not be put first. Indeed He gives a new\nvalue to life by teaching that man cannot be righteous in isolation, but\nonly in the fellowship of love. And as, moreover, the righteousness which\nHe preaches is one of the goods of the Kingdom of God, He cannot have\nthought of the Kingdom as wholly transcendental. The Reign of God begins\nfor Him in the present era. His consciousness of being able to cast out\ndemons in the spirit of God because Satan\u2019s kingdom on earth is at an end\nis only the supernaturalistic expression for something of which He also\npossesses an ethical consciousness, namely, that in the new social\nrighteousness the Kingdom of God is already present.\n\nThis presence of the Kingdom was not, however, clearly explained by Jesus,\nbut was set forth in paradoxes and parables, especially in the parables of\nMark iv. When we find the Evangelist, in immediate connexion with these\nparables, asserting that the aim of the parables was to mystify and\nconceal, we may conclude that the basis of this theory is the fact that\nthese parables concerning the presence of the Kingdom of God were not\nunderstood.\n\nIn effecting this tacit transformation Jesus is acting in accordance with\na tendency of the time. Apocalyptic is itself a spiritualisation of the\nancient Israelitish hopes of the future, and Jesus only carries this\nprocess to its completion. He raises Late Judaism above the limitations in\nwhich it was involved, separates out the remnant of national, political,\nand sensuous ideas which still clung to the expectation of the future in\nspite of its having been spiritualised by apocalyptic, and breaks with the\nJewish particularism, though without providing a theoretical basis for\nthis step.\n\nThus, in spite of, nay even because of, His opposition to it, Jesus was\nthe fulfiller of Judaism. In Him were united the ancient and vigorous\nprophetic religion and the impulse which Judaism itself had begun to feel\ntowards the spiritualisation of the future hope. The transcendental and\nthe actual meet in a unity which is full of life and strength, creative\nnot reflective, and therefore not needing to set aside the ancient\ntraditional ideas by didactic explanations, but overcoming them almost\nunconsciously by the truth which lies in this paradoxical union. The\nhistorical formula embodied in Bousset\u2019s closing sentence runs thus: \u201cThe\nGospel develops some of the deeper\u2010lying _motifs_ of the Old Testament,\nbut it protests against the prevailing tendency of Judaism.\u201d\n\nSuch of the underlying assumptions of this construction as invite\nchallenge lie open to inspection, and do not need to be painfully\ndisentangled from a web of exegesis; that is one of the merits of the\nbook. The chief points to be queried are as follows:\u2014\n\nIs it the case that the apocalypses mark the introduction of a process of\nspiritualisation applied to the ancient Israelitish hopes? A picture of\nthe future is not spiritualised simply by being projected upon the clouds.\nThis elevation to the transcendental region signifies, on the contrary,\nthe transference to a place of safety of the eudaemonistic aspirations\nwhich have not been fulfilled in the present, and which are expected, by\nway of compensation, from the other world. The apocalyptic conception is\nso far from being a spiritualisation of the future expectations, that it\nrepresents on the contrary the last desperate effort of a strongly\neudaemonistic popular religion to raise to heaven the earthly goods from\nwhich it cannot make up its mind to part.\n\nNext we must ask: Is it really necessary to assume the existence of so\nwide reaching a Persian influence in Jewish eschatology? The Jewish\ndualism and the sublimation of its hope have become historical just\nbecause, owing to the fate of the nation, the religious life of the\npresent and the fair future which was logically bound up with it became\nmore and more widely separated, temporally and locally, until at last only\nits dualism and the sublimation of its hope enabled the nation to survive\nits disappointment.\n\nAgain, is it historically permissible to treat the leading ideas of the\npreaching of Jesus, which bear so clearly the marks of the contemporary\nmould of thought, as of secondary importance for the investigation, and to\nendeavour to trace Jesus\u2019 thoughts from within outwards and not from\nwithout inwards?\n\nFurther, is there really in Judaism no tendency towards the overcoming of\nparticularism? Has not its eschatology, as shaped by the deutero\u2010prophetic\nliterature, a universalistic outlook? Did Jesus overcome particularism in\nprinciple otherwise than it is overcome in Jewish eschatology, that is to\nsay, with reference to the future?\n\nWhat is there to prove that Jesus\u2019 distinctive faith in the Fatherhood of\nGod ever existed independently, and not as an alternative form of the\nhistorically\u2010conditioned Messianic consciousness? In other words, what is\nthere to show that the \u201creligious attitude\u201d of Jesus and His Messianic\nconsciousness are anything else than identical, temporally and\nconceptually, so that the first must always be understood as conditioned\nby the second?\n\nAgain, is the saying about the gluttonous man and wine\u2010bibber a sufficient\nbasis for the contrast between Jesus and the Baptist? Is not Jesus\u2019\npreaching of repentance gloomy as well as the Baptist\u2019s? Where do we read\nthat He, in contrast with the Baptist, avoided dealing with masses of men?\nWhere did He give \u201cthe community of His disciples\u201d marching orders to go\nfar and wide in the sense required by Bousset\u2019s argument? Where is there a\nword to tell us that He thought of His work among individuals and little\ngroups of men as the most important feature of His ministry? Are we not\ntold the exact contrary, that He \u201ctaught\u201d His disciples as little as He\ndid the people? Is there any justification for characterising the\nmissionary journey of the Twelve, just because it directly contradicts\nthis view, as \u201can obscure and unintelligible tradition?\u201d\n\nIs it so certain that Jesus made a Messianic entry into Jerusalem, and\nthat, accordingly, He declared Himself to the disciples and to the High\nPriest as Messiah in the present, and not in a purely future sense?\n\nWhat are the sayings which justify us in making the attitude of opposition\nwhich He took up towards the Rabbinic legalism into a \u201csense of the\nabsolute opposition between Himself and His people\u201d? The very \u201cabsolute,\u201d\nwith its ring of Schleiermacher, is suspicious.\n\nAll these, however, are subsidiary positions. The decisive point is: Can\nBousset make good the assertion that Jesus\u2019 joy in life was a more or less\nunconscious inner protest against the purely eschatological world\u2010\nrenouncing religious attitude, the primal expression of that \u201cabsolute\u201d\nantithesis to Judaism? Is it not the case that His attitude towards\nearthly goods was wholly conditioned by eschatology? That is to say, were\nnot earthly goods emptied of any essential value in such a way that joy in\nthe world and indifference to the world were simply the final expression\nof an ironic attitude which had been sublimated into pure serenity. That\nis the question upon the answer to which depends the decision whether\nBousset\u2019s position is tenable or not.\n\nIt is not in fact tenable, for the opposite view has at its disposal\ninexhaustible reserves of world\u2010renouncing, world\u2010contemning sayings, and\nthe few utterances which might possibly be interpreted as expressing a\npurely positive joy in the world, desert and go over to the enemy, because\nthey textually and logically belong to the other set of sayings. Finally,\nthe promise of earthly happiness as a reward, to which Bousset had denied\na position in the teaching of Jesus, also falls upon his rear, and that in\nthe very moment when he is seeking to prove from the saying, \u201cSeek ye\nfirst the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall\nbe added unto you,\u201d that for Jesus this world\u2019s goods are not in\nthemselves evil, but are only to be given a secondary place. Here the\neudaemonism is written on the forehead of the saying, since the receiving\nof these things\u2014we must remember, too, the \u201chundredfold\u201d in another\npassage\u2014is future, not present, and will only \u201ccome\u201d at the same time as\nthe Kingdom of God. All present goods, on the other hand, serve only to\nsupport life and render possible an undistracted attitude of waiting in\npious hope for that future, and therefore are not thought of as gains, but\npurely as a gift of God, to be cheerfully and freely enjoyed as a\nforetaste of those blessings which the elect are to enjoy in the future\nDivine dispensation.\n\nThe loss of this position decides the further point that if there is any\nsuggestion in the teaching of Jesus that the future Kingdom of God is in\nsome sense present, it is not to be understood as implying an anti\u2010\neschatological acceptance of the world, but merely as a phenomenon\nindicative of the extreme tension of the eschatological consciousness,\njust in the same way as His joy in the world. Bousset has a kind of\nindirect recognition of this in his remark that the presence of the\nKingdom of God is only asserted by Jesus as a kind of paradox. If the\nassertion of its presence indicated that acceptance of the world formed\npart of Jesus\u2019 system of thought, it would be at variance with His\neschatology. But the paradoxical character of the assertion is due\nprecisely to the fact that His acceptance of the world is but the last\nexpression of the completeness with which He rejects it.\n\nBut what do critical cavils matter in the case of a book of which the\nforce, the influence, the greatness, depends upon its spirit? It is great\nbecause it recognises\u2014what is so rarely recognised in theological\nworks\u2014the point where the main issue really lies; in the question, namely,\nwhether Jesus preached and worked as Messiah, or whether, as follows if a\nprominent place is given to eschatology, as Colani had long ago\nrecognised, His career, historically regarded, was only the career of a\nprophet with an undercurrent of Messianic consciousness.\n\nAs a consequence of grasping the question in its full significance,\nBousset rejects all the little devices by which previous writers had\nendeavoured to relate Jesus\u2019 ministry to His times, each one prescribing\nat what point He was to connect Himself with it, and of course proceeding\nin his book to represent Him as connecting Himself with it in precisely\nthat way. Bousset recognises that the supreme importance of eschatology in\nthe teaching of Jesus is not to be got rid of by whittling away a little\npoint here and there, and rubbing it smooth with critical sandpaper until\nit is capable of reflecting a different thought, but only by fully\nadmitting it, while at the same time counteracting it by asserting a\nmysterious element of world\u2010acceptance in the thought of Jesus, and\nconceiving His whole teaching as a kind of alternating current between\npositive and negative poles.\n\nThis is the last possible sincere attempt to limit the exclusive\nimportance of eschatology in the preaching of Jesus, an attempt so\ngallant, so brilliant, that its failure is almost tragic; one could have\nwished success to the book, to which Carlyle might have stood sponsor.\nThat it is inspired by the spirit of Carlyle, that it vindicates the\noriginal force of a great Personality against the attempt to dissolve it\ninto a congeries of contemporary conceptions, therein lies at once its\ngreatness and its weakness. Bousset vindicates Jesus, not for history, but\nfor Protestantism, by making Him the heroic representative of a deeply\nreligious acceptance of the goods of life amid an apocalyptic world. His\nstudy is not unhistorical, but supra\u2010historical. The spirit of Jesus was\nin fact world\u2010accepting in the sense that through the experience of\ncenturies it advanced historically to the acceptance of the world, since\nnothing can appear phenomenally which is not in some sense ideally present\nfrom the first. But the teaching of the historical Jesus was purely and\nexclusively world\u2010renouncing. If, therefore, the problem which Bousset has\nput on the blackboard for the eschatological school to solve is to be\nsuccessfully solved, the solution is to be sought on other, more\nobjectively historical, lines.\n\nThat the decision of the question whether Jesus\u2019 preaching of the Kingdom\nof God is wholly eschatological or only partly eschatological, is\nprimarily to be sought in His ethical teaching, is recognised by all the\ncritics of Baldensperger and Weiss. They differ only in the importance\nwhich they assign to eschatology. But no other writer has grasped the\nproblem as clearly as Bousset.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe Parisian Ehrhardt emphasises eschatology very strongly in his work\n\u201cThe Fundamental Character of the Preaching of Jesus in Relation to the\nMessianic Hopes of His People and His own Messianic Consciousness.\u201d(166)\nNevertheless he asserts the presence of a twofold ethic in Jesus\u2019\nteaching: eschatology did not attempt to evacuate everything else of all\nvalue, but allowed the natural and ethical goods of this world to hold\ntheir place, as belonging to a world of thought which resisted its\nencroachments.\n\nA much more negative attitude is taken up by Albert R\u00e9ville in his _J\u00e9sus\nde Nazareth_.(167) According to him both Apocalyptic and Messianism are\nforeign bodies in the teaching of Jesus which have been forced into it by\nthe pressure of contemporary thought. Jesus would never of His own motion\nhave taken up the r\u00f4le of Messiah.\n\nWendt, too, in the second edition of his _Lehre Jesu_, which appeared in\n1903, held in the main to the fundamental idea of the first, the 1890,\nedition; namely, that Jesus in view of His purely religious relation to\nGod could not do otherwise than transform, from within outwards, the\ntraditional conceptions, even though they seem to be traceable in their\nactual contemporary form on the surface of His teaching. He had already,\nin 1893, in the _Christliche Welt_ clearly expounded, and defended against\nWeiss, his view of the Kingdom of God as already present for the thought\nof Jesus.\n\nThe effect which Baldensperger and Weiss had upon Weiffenbach(168) was to\ncause him to bring out in full strength the apologetic aspect which had\nbeen somewhat held in check in his work of 1873 by the thoroughness of his\nexegesis. The apocalyptic of this younger school, which was no longer\nwilling to believe that in the mouth of Jesus the Parousia meant nothing\nmore than an issuing from death clothed with power, is on all grounds to\nbe rejected. It assumes, since this expectation was not fulfilled, an\nerror on the part of Jesus. It is better to rest content with not being\nable to see quite clearly.\n\nProtected by a similar armour, the successive editions of Bernhard Weiss\u2019s\nLife of Jesus went their way unmolested down to 1902.\n\nNot with an apologetic purpose, but on the basis of an original religious\nview, Titius, in his work on the New Testament doctrine of blessedness,\ndevelops the teaching of Jesus concerning the Kingdom of God as a present\ngood.(169)\n\nIn the same year, 1895, appeared E. Haupt\u2019s work on \u201cThe Eschatological\nSayings of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels.\u201d(170) In contradistinction to\nBousset he takes as his starting\u2010point the eschatological passages,\nexamining each separately and modulating them back to the Johannine key.\nIt is so delicately and ingeniously done that the reading of the book is\nan aesthetic pleasure which makes one in the end quite forget the\napologetic _motif_ in order to surrender oneself completely to the\nauthor\u2019s mystical system of religious thought.\n\nIt is, indeed, not the least service of the eschatological school that it\ncompels modern theology, which is so much preoccupied with history, to\nreveal what is its own as its own. Eschatology makes it impossible to\nattribute modern ideas to Jesus and then by way of \u201cNew Testament\nTheology\u201d take them back from Him as a loan, as even Ritschl not so long\nago did with such _na\u00efvet\u00e9_. Johannes Weiss, in cutting himself loose, as\nan historian, from Ritschl, and recognising that \u201cthe real roots of\nRitschl\u2019s ideas are to be found in Kant and the illuminist theology,\u201d(171)\nintroduced the last decisive phase of the process of separation between\nhistorical and \u201cmodern\u201d theology. Before the advent of eschatology,\ncritical theology was, in the last resort, without a principle of\ndiscrimination, since it possessed no reagent capable of infallibly\nseparating out modern ideas on the one hand and genuinely ancient New\nTestament ideas on the other. The application of the criterion has now\nbegun. What will be the issue, the future alone can show.\n\nBut even now we can recognise that the separation was not only of\nadvantage to historical theology; for modern theology, the manifestation\nof the modern spirit as it really is, was still more important. Only when\nit became conscious of its own inmost essence and of its right to exist,\nonly when it freed itself from its illegitimate historical justification,\nwhich, leaping over the centuries, appealed directly to an historical\nexposition of the New Testament, only then could it unfold its full wealth\nof ideas, which had been hitherto root\u2010bound by a false historicity. It\nwas not by chance that in Bousset\u2019s reply a certain affirmation of life,\nsomething expressive of the genius of Protestantism, cries aloud as never\nbefore in any theological work of this generation, or that in Haupt\u2019s work\nGerman mysticism interweaves its mysterious harmonies with the Johannine\n_motif_. The contribution of Protestantism to the interpretation of the\nworld had never been made so manifest in any work prior to Weiss\u2019s. The\nmodern spirit is here breaking in wreaths of foam upon the sharp cliffs of\nthe rock\u2010bound eschatological world\u2010view of Jesus. To put it more\nprosaically, modern theology is at last about to become sincere. But this\nis so far only a prophecy of the future.\n\nIf we are to speak of the present it must be fully admitted that even\nhistorical science, when it desires to continue the history of\nChristianity beyond the life of Jesus, cannot help protesting against the\none\u2010sidedness of the eschatological world of thought of the \u201cFounder.\u201d It\nfinds itself obliged to distinguish in the thought of Jesus \u201cpermanent\nelements and transitory elements\u201d which, being interpreted, means\neschatological and not essentially eschatological materials; otherwise it\ncan get no farther. For if Jesus\u2019 world of thought was wholly and\nexclusively eschatological, there can only have arisen out of it, as\nReimarus long ago maintained, an exclusively eschatological primitive\nChristianity. But how a community of that kind could give birth to the\nGreek non\u2010eschatological theology no Church history and no history of\ndogma has so far shown. Instead of that they all\u2014Harnack, with the most\nconsummate historical ability\u2014lay down from the very first, alongside of\nthe main line intended for \u201ccontemporary views\u201d traffic, a relief line for\nthe accommodation of through trains of \u201cnon\u2010temporally limited ideas\u201d; and\nat the point where primitive Christian eschatology becomes of less\nimportance they switch off the train to the relief line, after slipping\nthe carriages which are not intended to go beyond that station.\n\nThis procedure has now been rendered impossible for them by Weiss, who\nleaves no place in the teaching of Jesus for anything but the single\u2010line\ntraffic of eschatology. If, during the last fifteen years, any one had\nattempted to carry out in a work on a large scale the plan of Strauss and\nRenan, linking up the history of the life of Jesus with the history of\nearly Christianity, and New Testament theology with the early history of\ndogma, the immense difficulties which Weiss had raised without suspecting\nit, in the course of his sixty\u2010seven pages, would have become clearly\napparent. The problem of the Hellenisation of Christianity took on quite a\nnew aspect when the trestle bridge of modern ideas connecting the\neschatological early Christianity with Greek theology broke down under the\nweight of the newly\u2010discovered material, and it became necessary to seek\nwithin the history itself an explanation of the way in which an\nexclusively eschatological system of ideas came to admit Greek influences,\nand\u2014what is much more difficult to explain\u2014how Hellenism, on its part,\nfound any point of contact with an eschatological sect.\n\nThe new problem is as yet hardly recognised, much less grappled with. The\nfew who since Weiss\u2019s time have sought to pass over from the life of Jesus\nto early Christianity, have acted like men who find themselves on an ice\u2010\nfloe which is slowly dividing into two pieces, and who leap from one to\nthe other before the cleft grows too wide. Harnack, in his \u201cWhat is\nChristianity?\u201d almost entirely ignores the contemporary limitations of\nJesus\u2019 teaching, and starts out with a Gospel which carries him down\nwithout difficulty to the year 1899. The anti\u2010historical violence of this\nprocedure is, if possible, still more pronounced in Wernle. The\n\u201cBeginnings of our Religion\u201d(172) begins by putting the Jewish eschatology\nin a convenient posture for the coming operation by urging that the idea\nof the Messiah, since there was no appropriate place for it in connexion\nwith the Kingdom of God or the new Earth, had become obsolete for the Jews\nthemselves.\n\nThe inadequateness of the Messianic idea for the purposes of Jesus is\ntherefore self\u2010evident. \u201cHis whole life long\u201d\u2014as if we knew any more of it\nthan the few months of His public ministry!\u2014\u201cHe laboured to give a new and\nhigher content to the Messianic title which He had adopted.\u201d In the course\nof this endeavour He discarded \u201cthe Messiah of the Zealots\u201d\u2014by that is\nmeant the political non\u2010transcendent Messianic ideal. As if we had any\nknowledge of the existence of such an ideal in the time of Jesus! The\nstatements of Josephus suggest, and the conduct of Pilate at the trial of\nJesus confirms the conclusion, that in none of the risings did a claimant\nof the Messiahship come forward, and this should be proof enough that\nthere did not exist at that time a political eschatology alongside of the\ntranscendental, and indeed it could not on inner grounds subsist alongside\nof it. That was, after all, the thing which Weiss had shown most clearly!\n\nJesus, therefore, had dismissed the Messiah of the Zealots; He had now to\nturn Himself into the \u201cwaiting\u201d Messiah of the Rabbis. Yet He does not\naltogether accept this r\u00f4le, for He works actively as Messiah. His\nstruggle with the Messianic conception could not but end in transforming\nit. This transformed conception is introduced by Jesus to the people at\nHis entry into Jerusalem, since His choice of the ass to bear Him\ninscribed as a motto, so to speak, over the demonstration the prophecy of\nthe Messiah who should be a bringer of peace. A few days later He gives\nthe Scribes to understand by His enigmatic words with reference to Mark\nxii. 37, that His Messiahship has nothing to do with Davidic descent and\nall that that implied.\n\nThe Kingdom of God was not, of course, for Him, according to Wernle, a\npurely eschatological entity; He saw in many events evidence that it had\nalready dawned. Wernle\u2019s only real concession to the eschatological school\nis the admission that the Kingdom always remained for Jesus a supernatural\nentity.\n\nThe belief in the presence of the Kingdom was, it seems, only a phase in\nthe development of Jesus. When confronted with growing opposition He\nabandoned this belief again, and the super\u2010earthly future character of the\nKingdom was all that remained. At the end of His career Jesus establishes\na connexion between the Messianic conception, in its final transformation,\nand the Kingdom, which had retained its eschatological character; He goes\nto His death for the Messiahship in its new significance, but He goes on\nbelieving in His speedy return as the Son of Man. This expectation of His\nParousia as Son of Man, which only emerges immediately before His exit\nfrom the world\u2014when it can no longer embarrass the author in his account\nof the preaching of Jesus\u2014is the only point in which Jesus does not\novercome the inadequacy of the Messianic idea with which He had to deal.\n\u201cAt this point the fantastic conception of Late Judaism, the magically\ntransformed world of the ancient popular belief, thrusts itself\nincongruously into Jesus\u2019 great and simple consciousness of His vocation.\u201d\n\nThus Wernle takes with him only so much of Apocalyptic as he can safely\ncarry over into early Christianity. Once he has got safely across, he\ndrags the rest over after him. He shows that in and with the titles and\nexpressions borrowed from apocalyptic thought, Messiah, Son of God, Son of\nMan, which were all at bottom so inappropriate to Jesus, early\nChristianity slipped in again \u201ceither the old ideas or new ones\nmisunderstood.\u201d In pointing this out he cannot refrain from the customary\nsigh of regret\u2014these apocalyptic titles and expressions \u201cwere from the\nfirst a misfortune for the new religion.\u201d One may well ask how Wernle has\ndiscovered in the preaching of Jesus anything that can be called,\nhistorically, a new religion, and what would have become of this new\nreligion apart from its apocalyptic hopes and its apocalyptic dogma? We\nanswer: without its intense eschatological hope the Gospel would have\nperished from the earth, crushed by the weight of historic catastrophes.\nBut, as it was, by the mighty power of evoking faith which lay in it,\neschatology made good in the darkest times Jesus\u2019 sayings about the\nimperishability of His words, and died as soon as these sayings had\nbrought forth new life upon a new soil. Why then make such a complaint\nagainst it?\n\nThe tragedy does not consist in the modification of primitive Christianity\nby eschatology, but in the fate of eschatology itself, which has preserved\nfor us all that is most precious in Jesus, but must itself wither, because\nHe died upon the cross with a loud cry, despairing of bringing in the new\nheaven and the new earth\u2014that is the real tragedy. And not a tragedy to be\ndismissed with a theologian\u2019s sigh, but a liberating and life\u2010giving\ninfluence, like every great tragedy. For in its death\u2010pangs eschatology\nbore to the Greek genius a wonder\u2010child, the mystic, sensuous, Early\u2010\nChristian doctrine of immortality, and consecrated Christianity as the\nreligion of immortality to take the place of the slowly dying civilisation\nof the ancient world.\n\nBut it is not only those who want to find a way from the preaching of\nJesus to early Christianity who are conscious of the peculiar difficulties\nraised by the recognition of its purely Jewish eschatological character,\nbut also those who wish to reconstruct the connexion backwards from Jesus\nto Judaism. For example, Wellhausen and Sch\u00fcrer repudiate the results\narrived at by the eschatological school, which, on its part, bases itself\nupon their researches into Late Judaism. Wellhausen, in his \u201cIsraelitish\nand Jewish History,\u201d(173) gives a picture of Jesus which lifts Him out of\nthe Jewish frame altogether. The Kingdom which He desires to found becomes\na present spiritual entity. To the Jewish eschatology His preaching stands\nin a quite external relation, for what was in His mind was rather a\nfellowship of spiritual men engaged in seeking a higher righteousness. He\ndid not really desire to be the Messiah, and in His inmost heart had\nrenounced the hopes of His people. If He called Himself Messiah, it was in\nview of a higher Messianic ideal. For the people His acceptance of the\nMessiahship denoted the supersession of their own very differently\ncoloured expectation. The transcendental events become immanent. In regard\nto the apocalyptic Judgment of the World, he retains only the sermon\npreserved by John about the inward and constant process of separation.\n\nAlthough not to the same extent, Sch\u00fcrer also, in his view of the teaching\nof Jesus, is strongly influenced by the Fourth Gospel. In an inaugural\ndiscourse of 1903(174) he declares that in his opinion there is a certain\nopposition between Judaism and the preaching of Jesus, since the latter\ncontains something absolutely new. His Messiahship is only the temporally\nlimited expression of a unique, generally ethical, consciousness of being\na child of God, which has a certain analogy with the relation of all God\u2019s\nchildren to their Heavenly Father. The reason for His reserve in regard to\nHis Messiahship was, according to Sch\u00fcrer, Jesus\u2019 fear of kindling\n\u201cpolitical enthusiasm\u201d; from the same motive He repudiates in Mark xii. 37\nall claim to be the Messiah of David\u2019s line. The ideas of the Messiah and\nthe Kingdom of God at least underwent a transformation in His use of them.\nIf in His earlier preaching He only announces the Kingdom as something\nfuture, in His later preaching He emphasises the thought that in its\nbeginnings it is already present.\n\nThat it is precisely the representatives of the study of Late Judaism who\nlift Jesus out of the Late\u2010Jewish world of thought, is not in itself a\nsurprising phenomenon. It is only an expression of the fact that here\nsomething new and creative enters into an uncreative age, and of the clear\nconsciousness that this Personality cannot be resolved into a complex of\ncontemporary ideas. The problem of which they are conscious is the same as\nBousset\u2019s. But the question cannot be avoided whether the violent\nseparation of Jesus from Late Judaism is a real solution, or whether the\nvery essence of Jesus\u2019 creative power does not consist, not in taking out\none or other of the parts of the eschatological machinery, but in doing\nwhat no one had previously done, namely, in setting the whole machinery in\nmotion by the application of an ethico\u2010religious motive power. To perceive\nthe unsatisfactoriness of the transformation hypothesis it is only\nnecessary to think of all the conditions which would have to be realised\nin order to make it possible to trace, even in general outline, the\nevidence of such a transformation in the Gospel narrative.\n\nAll these solutions of the eschatological question start from the teaching\nof Jesus, and it was, indeed, from this point of view that Johannes Weiss\nhad stated the problem. The final decision of the question is not,\nhowever, to be found here, but in the examination of the whole course of\nJesus\u2019 life. On which of the two presuppositions, the assumption that His\nlife was completely dominated by eschatology, or the assumption that He\nrepudiated it, do we find it easiest to understand the connexion of events\nin the life of Jesus, His fate, and the emergence of the expectation of\nthe Parousia in the community of His disciples?\n\nThe works which in the examination of the connexion of events follow a\ncritical procedure are few and far between. The average \u201cLife of Jesus\u201d\nshows in this respect an inconceivable stupidity. The first, after Bruno\nBauer, to apply critical methods to this point was Volkmar; between\nVolkmar and Wrede the only writer who here showed himself critical, that\nis sceptical, was W. Brandt. His work on the \u201cGospel History\u201d(175)\nappeared in 1893, a year after Johannes Weiss\u2019s work and in the same year\nas Bousset\u2019s reply. In this book the question of the absolute, or only\npartial, dominance of eschatology is answered on the ground of the general\ncourse of Jesus\u2019 life.\n\nBrandt goes to work with a truly Cartesian scepticism. He first examines\nall the possibilities that the reported event did not happen in the way in\nwhich it is reported before he is satisfied that it really did happen in\nthat way. Before he can accept the statement that Jesus died with a loud\noutcry, he has to satisfy his critical conscience by the following\nconsideration: \u201cThe statement regarding this cry, is, so far as I can see,\nto be best explained by supposing that it was really uttered.\u201d The burial\nof Jesus owes its acceptance as history to the following reflection. \u201cWe\nhold Joseph of Arimathea to be an historical person; but the only reason\nwhich the narrative has for preserving his name is that he buried Jesus.\nTherefore the name guarantees the fact.\u201d\n\nBut the moment the slightest possibility presents itself that the event\nhappened in a different way, Brandt declines to be held by any seductions\nof the text, and makes his own \u201cprobably\u201d into an historical fact. For\ninstance, he thinks it unlikely that Peter was the only one to smite with\nthe sword; so the history is immediately rectified by the phrase \u201cthat\nsword\u2010stroke was doubtless not the only one, other disciples also must\nhave pressed to the front.\u201d That Jesus was first condemned by the\nSanhedrin at a night\u2010sitting, and that Pilate in the morning confirmed the\nsentence, seems to him on various grounds impossible. It is therefore\ndecided that we have here to do only with a combination devised by \u201ca\nChristian from among the Gentiles.\u201d In this way the \u201cmust have been\u2019s\u201d and\n\u201cmay have been\u2019s\u201d exercise a veritable reign of terror throughout the\nbook.\n\nYet that does not prevent the general contribution of the book to\ncriticism from being a very remarkable one. Especially in regard to the\ntrial of Jesus, it brings to light a whole series of previously\nunsuspected problems. Brandt is the first writer since Bauer who dares to\nassert that it is an historical absurdity to suppose that Pilate, when the\npeople demanded from him the _condemnation_ of Jesus, answered: \u201cNo, but I\nwill _release_ you another instead of Him.\u201d\n\nAs his starting\u2010point he takes the complete contrast between the Johannine\nand Synoptic traditions, and the inherent impossibility of the former is\nproved in detail. The Synoptic tradition goes back to Mark alone. His\nGospel is, as was also held by Bruno Bauer, and afterwards by Wrede, a\nsufficient basis for the whole tradition. But this Gospel is not a purely\nhistorical source, it is also, and in a very much larger degree, poetic\ninvention. Of the real history of Jesus but little is preserved in the\nGospels. Many of the so\u2010called sayings of the Lord are certainly to be\npronounced spurious, a few are probably to be recognised as genuine. But\nthe theory of the \u201cpoetic invention\u201d of the earliest Evangelist is not\nconsistently carried out, because Brandt does not take as his criterion,\nas Wrede did later, a definite principle on which Mark is supposed to have\nconstructed his Gospel, but decides each case separately. Consequently the\nmost important feature of the work lies in the examination of detail.\n\nJesus died and was believed to have risen again: this is the only\nabsolutely certain information that we have regarding His \u201cLife.\u201d And\naccordingly this is the crucial instance for testing the worth of the\nGospel tradition. It is only on the basis of an elaborate criticism of the\naccounts of the suffering and resurrection of Jesus that Brandt undertakes\nto give a sketch of the life of Jesus as it really was.\n\nWhat was, then, so far as appears from His life, Jesus\u2019 attitude towards\neschatology? It was, according to Brandt, a self\u2010contradictory attitude.\n\u201cHe believed in the near approach of the Kingdom of God, and yet, as\nthough its time were still far distant, He undertakes the training of\ndisciples. He was a teacher and yet is said to have held Himself to be the\nMessiah.\u201d The duality lies not so much in the teaching itself; it is\nrather a cleavage between His conviction and consciousness on the one\nhand, and His public attitude on the other.\n\nTo this observation we have to add a second, namely, that Jesus cannot\npossibly during the last few days at Jerusalem have come forward as\nMessiah. Critics, with the exception, of course, of Bruno Bauer, had only\ncursorily touched on this question. The course of events in the last few\ndays in Jerusalem does not at all suggest a Messianic claim on the part of\nJesus, indeed it directly contradicts it. Only imagine what would have\nhappened if Jesus had come before the people with such claims, or even if\nsuch thoughts had been so much as attributed to Him! On the other side, of\ncourse, we have the report of the Messianic entry, in which Jesus not only\naccepted the homage offered to Him as Messiah, but went out of His way to\ninvite it; and the people must therefore from that point onwards have\nregarded him as Messiah. In consequence of this contradiction in the\nnarrative, all Lives of Jesus slur over the passage, and seem to represent\nthat the people sometimes suspected Jesus\u2019 Messiahship, sometimes did not\nsuspect it, or they adopt some other similar expedient. Brandt, however,\nrigorously drew the logical inference. Since Jesus did not stand and\npreach in the temple as Messiah, He cannot have entered Jerusalem as\nMessiah. Therefore \u201cthe well\u2010known Messianic entry is not historical.\u201d\nThat is also implied by the manner of His arrest. If Jesus had come\nforward as a Messianic claimant, He would not simply have been arrested by\nthe civil police; Pilate would have had to suppress a revolt by military\nforce.\n\nThis admission implies the surrender of one of the most cherished\nprejudices of the anti\u2010eschatological school, namely, that Jesus raised\nthe thoughts of the people to a higher conception of His Messiahship, and\nconsequently to a spiritual view of the Kingdom of God, or at least tried\nso to raise them. But we cannot assume this to have been His intention,\nsince He does not allow the multitude to suspect His Messiahship. Thus the\nconception of a \u201ctransformation\u201d becomes untenable as a means of\nreconciling eschatological and non\u2010eschatological elements. And as a\nmatter of fact\u2014that is the stroke of critical genius in the book\u2014Brandt\nlets the two go forward side by side without any attempt at\nreconciliation; for the reconciliation which would be possible if one had\nonly to deal with the teaching of Jesus becomes impossible when one has to\ntake in His life as well. For Brandt the life of Jesus is the life of a\nGalilaean teacher who, in consequence of the eschatology with which the\nperiod was so fully charged, was for a time and to a certain extent set at\nvariance with Himself and who met His fate for that reason. This\nconception is at bottom identical with Renan\u2019s. But the stroke of genius\nin leaving the gap between eschatological and non\u2010eschatological elements\nunbridged sets this work, as regards its critical foundation and\nhistorical presentment, high above the smooth romance of the latter.\n\nThe course of Jesus\u2019 life, according to Brandt, was therefore as follows:\nJesus was a teacher; not only so, but He took disciples in order to train\nthem to be teachers. \u201cThis is in itself sufficient to show there was a\nperiod in His life in which His work was not determined by the thought of\nthe immediate nearness of the decisive moment. He sought men, therefore,\nwho might become His fellow\u2010workers. He began to train disciples who, if\nHe did not Himself live to see the Day of the Lord, would be able after\nHis death to carry on the work of educating the people along the lines\nwhich He had laid down.\u201d \u201cThen there occurred in Judaea an event of which\nthe rumour spread like wildfire throughout Palestine. A prophet arose\u2014a\nthing which had not happened for centuries\u2014a man who came forward as an\nenvoy of God; and this prophet proclaimed the immediate coming of the\nreign of God: \u2018Repent that ye may escape the wrath of God.\u2019 \u201d The\nBaptist\u2019s great sermon on repentance falls, according to Brandt, in the\nlast period of the life of Jesus. We must assume, he thinks, that before\nJohn came forward in this dramatic fashion he had been a teacher, and at\nthat period of his life had numbered Jesus among his pupils. Nevertheless\nhis life previous to his public appearance must have been a rather obscure\none. When he suddenly launched out into this eschatological preaching of\nrepentance \u201che seemed like an Elijah who had long ago been rapt away from\nthe earth and now appeared once more.\u201d\n\nFrom this point onwards Jesus had to concentrate His activity, for the\ntime was short. If He desired to effect anything and so far as possible to\nmake the people, before the coming of the end, obedient to the will of\nGod, He must make Jerusalem the starting\u2010point of His work. \u201cOnly from\nthis central position, and only with the help of an authority which had at\nits disposal the whole synagogal system, could He effect within a short\ntime much, perhaps all, of what was needful. So He determined on\njourneying to Jerusalem with this end in view, and with the fixed resolve\nthere to carry into effect the will of God.\u201d\n\nThe journey to Jerusalem was not therefore a pilgrimage of death. \u201cSo long\nas we are obliged to take the Gospels as a true reflection of the history\nof Jesus we must recognise with Weizs\u00e4cker that Jesus did not go to\nJerusalem in order to be put to death there, nor did He go to keep the\nFeast. Both suppositions are excluded by the vigour of his action in\nJerusalem, and the bright colours of hope with which the picture of that\nperiod was painted in the recollection of those who had witnessed it.\u201d We\ncannot therefore regard the predictions of the Passion as historical, or\n\u201cat most we might perhaps suppose that Jesus in the consciousness of His\ninnocence may have said to His disciples: \u2019If I should die, may God for\nthe sake of My blood be merciful to you and to the people.\u2019\u201d\n\nHe went to Jerusalem, then, to fulfil the will of God. \u201cIt was God\u2019s will\nthat the preaching by which alone the people could be inwardly renewed and\nmade into a real people of God should be recognised and organised by the\nnational and religious authorities. To effect this through the existing\nauthorities, or to realise it in some other way, such was the task which\nJesus felt Himself called on to perform.\u201d With his eyes upon this goal,\nbehind which lay the near approach of the Kingdom of God, He set His face\ntowards Jerusalem.\n\n\u201cBut nothing could be more natural than that out of the belief that He was\nengaged in a work which God had willed, there should arise an ever\nstronger belief in His personal vocation.\u201d It was thus that the Messianic\nconsciousness entered into Jesus\u2019 thoughts. His conviction of His vocation\nhad nothing to do with a political Messiahship, it was only gradually from\nthe development of events that He was able to draw the inference that He\nwas destined to the Messianic sovereignty, \u201cit may have become more and\nmore clear to Him, but it did not become a matter of absolute certainty.\u201d\nIt was only amid opposition, in deep dejection, in consequence of a\npowerful inner reaction against circumstances, that He came to recognise\nHimself with full conviction as the anointed of God.\n\nWhen it began to be bruited about that He was the Messiah, the rulers had\nHim arrested and handed Him over to the Procurator. Judas the traitor \u201chad\nonly been a short time among His followers, and only in those unquiet days\nat Jerusalem when the Master had scarcely any opportunity for private\nintercourse with him and for learning really to know him. He had not been\nwith Jesus during the Galilaean days, and Jesus was consequently nothing\nmore to him than the future ruler of the Kingdom of God.\u201d\n\nAfter His death the disciples \u201ccould not, unless something occurred to\nrestore their faith, continue to believe in His Messiahship.\u201d Jesus had\ntaken away with Him in His death the hopes which they had set upon Him,\nespecially as He had not foretold His death, much less His resurrection.\n\u201cAt first, therefore, it would be all in favour of His memory if the\ndisciples remembered that He Himself had never openly and definitely\ndeclared Himself to be the Messiah.\u201d They returned to Galilee. \u201cSimon\nPeter, and perhaps the son of Zebedee, who afterwards ranked along with\nhim as a pillar of the Church, resolved to continue that preparation for\ntheir work which had been interrupted by their journey to Jerusalem. It\nseemed to them that if they were once more on Galilaean soil the days\nwhich they had spent in the inhospitable Jerusalem would cease to oppress\ntheir spirits with the leaden weight of sorrowful recollection.... One\nmight almost say that they had to make up their minds to give up Jesus the\nauthor of the attempt to take Jerusalem by storm; but for Jesus the\ngracious gentle Galilaean teacher they kept a warm place in their hearts.\u201d\nSo love watched over the dead until hope was rekindled by the Old\nTestament promises and came to reawaken Him. \u201cThe first who, in an\nenthusiastic vision, saw this wish fulfilled was Simon Peter.\u201d This\n\u201cresurrection\u201d has nothing to do with the empty grave, which, like the\nwhole narrative of the Jerusalem appearances, only came into the tradition\nlater. The first appearances took place in Galilee. It was there that the\nChurch was founded.\n\nThis attempt to grasp the connexion of events in the life of Jesus from a\npurely historical point of view is one of the most important that have\never been made in this department of study. If it had been put in a purely\nconstructive form, this criticism would have made an impression unequalled\nby any other Life of Jesus since Renan\u2019s. But in that case it would have\nlost that free play of ideas which the critical recognition of the\nunbridged gap admits. The eschatological question is not, it is true,\ndecided by this investigation. It shows the impossibility of the previous\nattempts to establish a present Messiahship of Jesus, but it shows, too,\nthat the questions, which are really historical questions, concerning the\npublic attitude of Jesus, are far from being solved by asserting the\nexclusively eschatological character of His preaching, but that new\ndifficulties are always presenting themselves.\n\nIt was perhaps not so much through these general ethico\u2010religious\nhistorical discussions as in consequence of certain exegetical problems\nwhich unexpectedly came to light that theologians became conscious that\nthe old conception of the teaching of Jesus was not tenable, or was only\ntenable by violent means. On the assumption of the modified eschatological\ncharacter of His teaching, Jesus is still a teacher; that is to say, He\nspeaks in order to be understood, in order to explain, and has no secrets.\nBut if His teaching is throughout eschatological, then He is a prophet,\nwho points in mysterious speech to a coming age, whose words conceal\nsecrets and offer enigmas, and are not intended to be understood always\nand by everybody. Attention was now turned to a number of passages in\nwhich the question arises whether Jesus had any secrets to keep or not.\n\nThis question presents itself in connexion with the very earliest of the\nparables. In Mark iv. 11, 12 it is distinctly stated that the parables\nspoken in the immediate context embody the mystery of the Kingdom of God\nin an obscure and unintelligible form, in order that those for whom it is\nnot intended may hear without understanding. But this is not borne out by\nthe character of the parables themselves, since _we_ at least find in them\nthe thought of the constant and victorious development of the Kingdom from\nsmall beginnings to its perfect development. After the passage had had to\nsuffer many things from constantly renewed attempts to weaken down or\nexplain away the statement, J\u00fclicher, in his work upon the Parables,(176)\nreleased it from these tortures, left Jesus the parables in their natural\nmeaning, and put down this unintelligible saying about the purpose of the\nparabolic form of discourse to the account of the Evangelist. He would\nrather, to use his own expression, remove a little stone from the masonry\nof tradition than a diamond from the imperishable crown of honour which\nbelongs to Jesus. Yes, but, for all that, it is an arbitrary assumption\nwhich damages the Marcan hypothesis more than will be readily admitted.\nWhat was the reason, or what was the mistake which led the earliest\nEvangelist to form so repellent a theory regarding the purpose of the\nparables? Is the progressive exaggeration of the contrast between veiled\nand open speech, to which J\u00fclicher often appeals, sufficient to account\nfor it? How can the Evangelist have invented such a theory, when he\nimmediately proceeds to invalidate it by the rationalising, rather\ncommonplace explanation of the parable of the Sower?\n\nBernhard Weiss, not being so much under the influence of modern theology\nas to feel bound to recognise the paedagogic purpose in Jesus, gives the\ntext its due, and admits that Jesus intended to use the parabolic form of\ndiscourse as a means of separating receptive from unreceptive hearers. He\ndoes not say, however, what kind of secret, intelligible only to the\npredestined, was concealed in these parables which seem clear as daylight.\n\nThat was before Johannes Weiss had stated the eschatological question.\nBousset, in his criticism of the eschatological theory,(177) is obliged to\nfall back upon J\u00fclicher\u2019s method in order to justify the rationalising\nmodern way of explaining these parables as pointing to a Kingdom of God\nactually present. It is true J\u00fclicher\u2019s explanation of the way in which\nthe theory arose does not satisfy him; he prefers to assume that the basis\nof this false theory of Mark\u2019s is to be found in the fact that the\nparables concerning the presence of the Kingdom remained unintelligible to\nthe contemporaries of Jesus. But we may fairly ask that he should point\nout the connecting link between that failure to understand and the\ninvention of a saying like this, which implies so very much more!\n\nIf there are no better grounds than that for calling in question Mark\u2019s\ntheory of the parables, then the parables of Mark iv., the only ones from\nwhich it is possible to extract the admission of a present Kingdom of God,\nremain what they were before, namely, mysteries.\n\nThe second volume of J\u00fclicher\u2019s \u201cParables\u201d(178) found the eschatological\nquestion already in possession of the field. And, as a matter of fact,\nJ\u00fclicher does abandon \u201cthe heretofore current method of modernising the\nparables,\u201d which finds in one after another of them only its own favourite\nconception of the slow and gradual development of the Kingdom of God. The\nKingdom of Heaven is for J\u00fclicher a completely supernatural idea; it is to\nbe realised without human help and independently of the attitude of men,\nby the sole power of God. The parables of the mustard seed and the leaven\nare not intended to teach the disciples the necessity and wisdom of a\ndevelopment occupying a considerable time, but are designed to make clear\nand vivid to them the idea that the period of perfecting and fulfilment\nwill follow with super\u2010earthly necessity upon that of imperfection.\n\nBut in general the new problem plays no very special part in J\u00fclicher\u2019s\nexposition. He takes up, it might almost be said, in relation to the\nparables, too independent a position as a religious thinker to care to\nunderstand them against the background of a wholly different world\u2010view,\nand does not hesitate to exclude from the authentic discourses of Jesus\nwhatever does not suit him. This is the fate, for instance, of the parable\nof the wicked husbandmen in Mark xii. He finds in it traits which read\nlike _vaticinia ex eventu_, and sees therefore in the whole thing only a\nprophetically expressed \u201cview of the history as it presented itself to an\naverage man who had been present at the crucifixion of Jesus and\nnevertheless believed in Him as the Son of God.\u201d\n\nBut this absolute method of explanation, independent of any traditional\norder of time or events, makes it impossible for the author to draw from\nthe parables any general system of teaching. He makes no distinction\nbetween the Galilaean mystical parables and the polemical, menacing\nJerusalem parables. For instance, he supposes the parable of the Sower,\nwhich according to Mark was the very first of Jesus\u2019 parabolic discourses,\nto have been spoken as the result of a melancholy review of a preceding\nperiod of work, and as expressing the conviction, stamped upon His mind by\nthe facts, \u201cthat it was in accordance with higher laws that the word of\nGod should have to reckon with defeats as well as victories.\u201d Accordingly\nhe adopts in the main the explanation which the Evangelist gives in Mark\niv. 13\u201020. The parable of the seed growing secretly is turned to account\nin favour of the \u201cpresent\u201d Kingdom of God.\n\nJ\u00fclicher has an incomparable power of striking fire out of every one of\nthe parables, but the flame is of a different colour from that which it\nshowed when Jesus pronounced the parables before the enchanted multitude.\nThe problem posed by Johannes Weiss in connexion with the teaching of\nJesus is treated by J\u00fclicher only so far as it has a direct interest for\nthe creative independence of his own religious thought.\n\nAlongside of the parabolic discourses of Mark iv. we have now to place, as\na newly discovered problem, the discourse at the sending out of the Twelve\nin Matt. x. Up to the time of Johannes Weiss it had been possible to rest\ncontent with transplanting the gloomy sayings regarding persecutions to\nthe last period of Jesus\u2019 life; but now there was the further difficulty\nto be met that while so hasty a proclamation of the Kingdom of God is\nquite reconcilable with an exclusively eschatological character of the\npreaching of the Kingdom, the moment this is at all minimised it becomes\nunintelligible, not to mention the fact that in this case nothing can be\nmade of the saying about the immediate coming of the Son of Man in Matt.\nx. 23. As though he felt the stern eye of old Reimarus upon him, Bousset\nhastens in a footnote to throw overboard the whole report of the mission\nof the Twelve as an \u201cobscure and unintelligible tradition.\u201d Not content\nwith that, he adds: \u201cPerhaps the whole narrative is merely an expansion of\nsome direction about missionising given by Jesus to the disciples in view\nof a later time.\u201d Before, it was only the discourse which was\nunhistorical; now it is the whole account of the mission\u2014at least if we\nmay assume that here, as is usual with theologians of all times, the\nauthor\u2019s real opinion is expressed in the footnote, and his most cherished\nopinion of all introduced with \u201cperhaps.\u201d But how much historical material\nwill remain to modern theologians in the Gospels if they are forced to\nabandon it wholesale from their objection to pure eschatology? If all the\npronouncements of this kind to which the representatives of the Marcan\nhypothesis have committed themselves were collected together, they would\nmake a book which would be much more damaging even than that book of\nWrede\u2019s which dropped a bomb into their midst.\n\nA third problem is offered by the saying in Matt. xi. 12, about \u201cthe\nviolent\u201d who, since the time of John the Baptist, \u201ctake the Kingdom of\nHeaven by force,\u201d which raises fresh difficulties for the exegetical art.\nIt is true that if art sufficed, we should not have long to wait for the\nsolution in this case. We should be asked to content ourselves with one or\nother of the artificial solutions with which exegetes have been accustomed\nfrom of old to find a way round this difficulty. Usually the saying is\nclaimed as supporting the \u201cpresence\u201d of the Kingdom. This is the line\ntaken by Wendt, Wernle, and Arnold Meyer.(179) According to the last named\nit means: \u201cFrom the days of John the Baptist it has been possible to get\npossession of the Kingdom of God; yea, the righteous are every day earning\nit for their own.\u201d But no explanation has heretofore succeeded in making\nit in any degree intelligible how Jesus could date the presence of the\nKingdom from the Baptist, whom in the same breath He places outside of the\nKingdom, or why, in order to express so simple an idea, He uses such\nentirely unnatural and inappropriate expressions as \u201crape\u201d and \u201cwrest to\nthemselves.\u201d\n\nThe full difficulties of the passage are first exhibited by Johannes\nWeiss.(180) He restores it to its natural sense, according to which it\nmeans that since that time the Kingdom suffers, or is subjected to,\nviolence, and in order to be able to understand it literally he has to\ntake it in a condemnatory sense. Following Alexander Schweizer,(181) he\nsums up his interpretation in the following sentence: Jesus describes, and\nin the form of the description shows His condemnation of, a violent\nZealotistic Messianic movement which has been in progress since the days\nof the Baptist.(182) But this explanation again makes Jesus express a very\nsimple meaning in a very obscure phrase. And what indication is there that\nthe sense is condemnatory? Where do we hear anything more about a Zealotic\nMessianic movement, of which the Baptist formed the starting\u2010point? His\npreaching certainly offered no incentive to such a movement, and Jesus\u2019\nattitude towards the Baptist is elsewhere, even in Jerusalem, entirely one\nof approval. Moreover, a condemnatory saying of this kind would not have\nbeen closed with the distinctive formula: \u201cHe that hath ears to hear let\nhim hear\u201d (Matt. xi. 15), which elsewhere, cf. Mark iv. 9, indicates a\nmystery.\n\nWe must, therefore, accept the conclusion that we really do not understand\nthe saying, that we \u201chave not ears to hear it,\u201d that we do not know\nsufficiently well the essential character of the Kingdom of God, to\nunderstand why Jesus describes the coming of the Kingdom as a doing\u2010\nviolence\u2010to\u2010it, which has been in progress since the days of the Baptist,\nespecially as the hearers themselves do not seem to have cared, or been\nable, to understand what was the connexion of the coming with the\nviolence; nor do we know why He expects them to understand how the Baptist\nis identical with Elias.\n\nBut the problem which became most prominent of all the new problems raised\nby eschatology, was the question concerning the Son of Man. It had become\na dogma of theology that Jesus used the term Son of Man to veil His\nMessiahship; that is to say, every theologian found in this term whatever\nmeaning he attached to the Messiahship of Jesus, the human, humble,\nethical, unpolitical, unapocalyptic, or whatever other character was held\nto be appropriate to the orthodox \u201ctransformed\u201d Messiahship. The Danielic\nSon of Man entered into the conception only so far as it could do so\nwithout endangering the other characteristics. Confronted with the\nSimilitudes of Enoch, theologians fell back upon the expedient of assuming\nthem to be spurious, or at least worked\u2010over in a Christian sense in the\nSon of Man passages, just as the older history of dogma got rid of the\nIgnatian letters, of which it could make nothing, by denying their\ngenuineness. But once the Jewish eschatology was seriously applied to the\nexplanation of the Son of Man conception, all was changed. A new dilemma\npresented itself; either Jesus used the expression, and used it in a\npurely Jewish apocalyptic sense, or He did not use it at all.\n\nAlthough Baldensperger did not state the dilemma in its full trenchancy,\nHilgenfeld thought it necessary to defend Jesus against the suspicion of\nhaving borrowed His system of thought and His self\u2010designation from Jewish\nApocalypses.(183) Orello Cone, too, will not admit that the expression Son\nof Man has only apocalyptic suggestion in the mouth of Jesus, but will\nhave it interpreted according to Mark ii. 10 and 28, where His pure\nhumanity is the idea which is emphasised.(184) Oort holds, more logically,\nthat Jesus did not use it, but that the disciples took the expression from\n\u201cthe Gospel\u201d and put it into the mouth of Jesus.(185)\n\nJohannes Weiss formulated the problem clearly, and proposed that, with the\nexception of the two passages where Son of Man means man in general, only\nthose should be recognised in which the significance attached to the term\nin Daniel and the Apocalypses is demanded by the context. By so doing he\nset theology a problem calculated to keep it occupied for many years. Not\nmany indeed at first recognised the problem. Charles, however, meets it in\na bold fashion, proposing to regard the Son of Man, in Jesus\u2019 usage of the\ntitle, as a conception in which the Messiah of the Book of Enoch and the\nServant of the Lord in Isaiah are united into one.(186) Most writers,\nhowever, did not free themselves from inconsistencies. They wanted at one\nand the same time to make the apocalyptic element dominant in the\nexpression, and to hold that Jesus could not have taken the conception\nover unaltered, but must have transformed it in some way. These\ninconsistencies necessarily result from the assumption of Weiss\u2019s\nopponents that Jesus intended to designate Himself as Messiah in the\nactual present. For since the expression Son of Man has in itself only an\napocalyptic sense referring to the future, they had to invent another\nsense applicable to the present, which Jesus might have inserted into it.\nIn all these learned discussions of the title Son of Man this operation is\nassumed to have been performed.\n\nAccording to Bousset, Jesus created, and embodied in this term, a new form\nof the Messianic ideal which united the super\u2010earthly with the human and\nlowly. In any case, he thinks, the term has a meaning applicable in this\npresent world. Jesus uses it at once to conceal and to suggest His\nMessianic dignity. How conscious Bousset, nevertheless, is of the\ndifficulty is evident from the fact that in discussing the meaning of the\ntitle he remarks that the Messianic significance must have been of\nsubordinate importance in the estimation of Jesus, and cannot have formed\nthe basis of His actions, otherwise He would have laid more stress upon it\nin His preaching. As if the term Son of Man had not meant for His\ncontemporaries all He needed to say!\n\nBousset\u2019s essay on Jewish Apocalyptic,(187) published in 1903, seeks the\nsolution in a rather different direction, by postponing, namely, to the\nvery last possible moment the adoption of this self\u2010designation. \u201cIn all\nprobability Jesus in a few isolated sayings towards the close of His life\nhit upon this title Son of Man as a means of expressing, in the face of\nthe thought of defeat and death, which forced itself upon Him, His\nconfidence in the abiding victory of His person and His cause.\u201d If this is\nso, the emphasis must be principally on the triumphant apocalyptic aspects\nof the title.\n\nEven this belated adoption of the title Son of Man is more than Brandt is\nwilling to admit, and he holds it to be improbable that Jesus used the\nexpression at all. It would be more natural, he thinks, to suppose that\nthe Evangelist Mark introduced this self\u2010designation, as he introduced so\nmuch else, into the Gospel on the ground of the figurative apocalyptic\ndiscourses in the Gospel.\n\nJust when ingenuity appeared to have exhausted itself in attempts to solve\nthe most difficult of the problems raised by the eschatological school,\nthe historical discussion suddenly seemed about to be rendered objectless.\nPhilology entered a _caveat_. In 1896 appeared Lietzmann\u2019s essay upon \u201cThe\nSon of Man,\u201d which consisted of an investigation of the linguistic basis\nof the enigmatic self\u2010designation.\n\n\n\n\n\nXVII. QUESTIONS REGARDING THE ARAMAIC LANGUAGE, RABBINIC PARALLELS, AND\nBUDDHISTIC INFLUENCE\n\n\n    _Arnold Meyer._ Jesu Muttersprache. (The Mother Tongue of Jesus.)\n    Leipzig, 1896. 166 pp.\n\n    _Hans Lietzmann._ Der Menschensohn. Ein Beitrag zur\n    neutestamentlichen Theologie. (The Son of Man. A Contribution to\n    New Testament Theology.) Freiburg, 1896. 95 pp.\n\n    _J. Wellhausen._ Israelitische und j\u00fcdische Geschichte. (History\n    of Israel and the Jews.) 3rd ed., 1897; 4th ed., 1901. 394 pp.\n\n    _Gustaf Dalman._ Grammatik des j\u00fcdisch\u2010pal\u00e4stinensischen\n    Aram\u00e4isch. (Grammar of Jewish\u2010Palestinian Aramaic.) Leipzig, 1894.\n    Die Worte Jesu. Mit Ber\u00fccksichtigung des nachkanonischen j\u00fcdischen\n    Schrifttums und der aram\u00e4ischen Sprache. (The Sayings of Jesus\n    considered in connexion with the post\u2010canonical Jewish writings\n    and the Aramaic Language.) I. Introduction and certain leading\n    conceptions: with an appendix on Messianic texts. Leipzig, 1898.\n    309 pp.\n\n    _A. W\u00fcnsche._ Neue Beitr\u00e4ge zur Erl\u00e4uterung der Evangelien aus\n    Talmud und Midrasch. (New Contributions to the Explanation of the\n    Gospels, from Talmud and Midrash.) G\u00f6ttingen, 1878. 566 pp.\n\n    _Ferdinand Weber._ System der altsynagogalen pal\u00e4stinensischen\n    Theologie. (System of Theology of the Ancient Palestinian\n    Synagogue.) Leipzig, 1880. 399 pp. 2nd ed., 1897.\n\n    _Rudolf Seydel._ Das Evangelium Jesu in seinen Verh\u00e4ltnissen zur\n    Buddha\u2010Sage und Buddha\u2010Lehre. (The Gospel of Jesus in its\n    relations to the Buddha\u2010Legend and the Teaching of Buddha.)\n    Leipzig, 1882. 337 pp. Die Buddha\u2010Legende und das Leben Jesu nach\n    den Evangelien. Erneute Pr\u00fcfung ihres gegenseitigen Verh\u00e4ltnisses.\n    (The Buddha\u2010Legend and the Life of Jesus in the Gospels. A New\n    Examination of their Mutual Relations.) 2nd ed., 1897. 129 pp.\n\n\nOnly since the appearance of Dalman\u2019s Grammar of Jewish Palestinian\nAramaic in 1894 have we really known what was the dialect in which the\nBeatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount were spoken. This work closes a\ndiscussion which had been proceeding for centuries on a line parallel to\nthat of theology proper, and which, according to the clear description of\nArnold Meyer, ran its course somewhat as follows.(188)\n\nThe question regarding the language spoken by Jesus had been vigorously\ndiscussed in the sixteenth century. Up till that time no one had known\nwhat to make of the tradition recorded by Eusebius that the speech of the\napostles had been \u201cSyrian\u201d since the distinction between Syrian, Hebrew,\nand \u201cChaldee\u201d was not understood and all three designations were used\nindiscriminately. Light was first thrown upon the question by Joseph\nJustus Scaliger (\u2020 1609). In the year 1555, Joh. Alb. Widmanstadt,\nChancellor of Ferdinand I., had published the Syriac translation of the\nBible in fulfilment of the wishes of an old scholar of Bologna, Theseus\nAmbrosius, who had left him the manuscript as a sacred legacy. He himself\nand his contemporaries believed that in this they had the Gospel in the\nmother\u2010tongue of Jesus, until Scaliger, in one of his letters, gave a\nclear sketch of the Syrian dialects, distinguished Syriac from Chaldee,\nand further drew a distinction between the Babylonian Chaldee and Jewish\nChaldee of the Targums, and in the language of the Targums itself\ndistinguished an earlier from a later stratum. The apostles spoke,\naccording to Scaliger, a Galilaean dialect of Chaldaic, or according to\nthe more correct nomenclature introduced later, following a suggestion of\nScaliger\u2019s, a dialect of Aramaic, and, in addition to that, the Syriac of\nAntioch. Next, Hugo Grotius put in a strong plea for a distinction between\nJewish and Antiochian Syriac. Into the confusion caused at that time by\nthe use of the term \u201cHebrew\u201d some order was introduced by the Leyden\nCalvinistic professor Claude Saumaise, who, writing in French, emphasised\nthe point that the New Testament, and the Early Fathers, when they speak\nof Hebrew, mean Syriac, since Hebrew had become completely unknown to the\nJews of that period. Brian Walton, the editor of the London polyglot,\nwhich was completed in 1657, supposed that the dialect of Onkelos and\nJonathan was the language of Jesus, being under the impression that both\nthese Targums were written in the time of Jesus.\n\nThe growing knowledge of the distinction between Hebrew and Aramaic did\nnot prevent the Vienna Jesuit Inchofer (\u2020 1648) from maintaining that\nJesus spoke\u2014Latin! The Lord cannot have used any other language upon\nearth, since this is the language of the saints in heaven. On the\nProtestant side, Vossius, opposing Richard Simon, endeavoured to establish\nthe thesis that Greek was the language of Jesus, being partly inspired by\nthe apologetic purpose of preventing the authenticity of the discourses\nand sayings of Jesus from being weakened by supposing them to have been\ntranslated from Aramaic into Greek, but also rightly recognising the\nimportance which the Greek language must have assumed at that time in\nnorthern Palestine, through which there passed such important trade\nroutes.\n\nThis view was brought up again by the Neapolitan legal scholar, Dominicus\nDiodati, in his book _De Christo Graece loquente_, 1767, who added some\ninteresting material concerning the importance of the Greek language at\nthe period and in the native district of Jesus. But five years later, in\n1772, this view was thoroughly refuted by Giambernardo de Rossi,(189) who\nargued convincingly that among a people so separate and so conservative as\nthe Jews the native language cannot possibly have been wholly driven out.\nThe apostles wrote Greek for the sake of foreign readers. In the year\n1792, Johann Adrian Bolten, \u201cfirst collegiate pastor at the principal\nchurch in Altona\u201d (\u2020 1807), made the first attempt to re\u2010translate the\nsayings of Jesus into the original tongue.(190)\n\nThe certainly original Greek of the Epistles and the Johannine literature\nwas a strong argument against the attempt to recognise no language save\nAramaic as known to Jesus and His disciples. Paulus the rationalist,\ntherefore, sought a middle path, and explained that while the Aramaic\ndialect was indeed the native language of Jesus, Greek had become so\ngenerally current among the population of Galilee, and still more of\nJerusalem, that the founders of Christianity could use this language when\nthey found it needful to do so. His Catholic contemporary, Hug, came to a\nsimilar conclusion.\n\nIn the course of the nineteenth century Aramaic\u2014known down to the time of\nMichaelis as \u201cChaldee\u201d(191)\u2014was more thoroughly studied. The various\nbranches of this language and the history of its progress became more or\nless clearly recognisable. Kautzsch\u2019s grammar of Biblical Aramaic(192)\n(1884) and Dalman\u2019s(193) work embody the result of these studies. \u201cThe\nAramaic language,\u201d explains Meyer, \u201cis a branch of the North Semitic, the\nlinguistic stock to which also belong the Assyrio\u2010Babylonian language in\nthe East, and the Canaanitish languages, including Hebrew, in the West,\nwhile the South Semitic languages\u2014the Arabic and Aethiopic\u2014form a group by\nthemselves.\u201d The users of these languages, the Aramaeans, were seated in\nhistoric times between the Babylonians and Canaanites, the area of their\ndistribution extending from the foot of Lebanon and Hermon in a north\u2010\neasterly direction as far as Mesopotamia, where \u201cAram of the two rivers\u201d\nforms their easternmost province. Their immigration into these regions\nforms the third epoch of the Semitic migrations, which probably lasted\nfrom 1600 B.C. down to 600.\n\nThe Aramaic states had no great stability. The most important of them was\nthe kingdom of Damascus, which at a certain period was so dangerous an\nenemy to northern Israel. In the end, however, the Aramaean dynasties were\ncrushed, like the two Israelitish kingdoms, between the upper and nether\nmillstones of Babylon and Egypt. In the time of the successors of\nAlexander, there arose in these regions the Syrian kingdom; which in turn\ngave place to the Roman power.\n\nBut linguistically the Aramaeans conquered the whole of Western Asia. In\nthe course of the first millennium B.C. Aramaic became the language of\ncommerce and diplomacy, as Babylonian had been during the second. It was\nonly the rise of Greek as a universal language which put a term to these\nconquests of the Aramaic.\n\nIn the year 701 B.C. Aramaic had not yet penetrated to Judaea. When the\n_rabshakeh_ (officer) sent by Sennacherib addressed the envoys of Hezekiah\nin Hebrew, they begged him to speak Aramaic in order that the men upon the\nwall might not understand.(194) For the post\u2010exilic period the Aramaic\nedicts in the Book of Ezra and inscriptions on Persian coins show that\nthroughout wide districts of the new empire Aramaic had made good its\nposition as the language of common intercourse. Its domain extended from\nthe Euxine southwards as far as Egypt, and even into Egypt itself. Samaria\nand the Hauran adopted it. Only the Greek towns and Phoenicia resisted.\n\nThe influence of Aramaic upon Jewish literature begins to be noticeable\nabout the year 600. Jeremiah and Ezekiel, writing in a foreign land in an\nAramaic environment, are the first witnesses to its supremacy. In the\nnorthern part of the country, owing to the immigration of foreign\ncolonists after the destruction of the northern kingdom, it had already\ngained a hold upon the common people. In the Book of Daniel, written in\nthe year 167 B.C., the Hebrew and Aramaic languages alternate. Perhaps,\nindeed, we ought to assume an Aramaic ground\u2010document as the basis of this\nwork.\n\nAt what time Aramaic became the common popular speech in the post\u2010exilic\ncommunity we cannot exactly discover. Under Nehemiah \u201cJudaean,\u201d that is to\nsay, Hebrew, was still spoken in Jerusalem; in the time of the Maccabees\nAramaic seems to have wholly driven out the ancient national language.\nEvidence for this is to be found in the occurrence of Aramaic passages in\nthe Talmud, from which it is evident that the Rabbis used this language in\nthe religious instruction of the people. The provision that the text,\nafter being read in Hebrew, should be interpreted to the people, may quite\nwell reach back into the time of Jesus. The first evidence for the\npractice is in the Mishna, about A.D. 150.\n\nIn the time of Jesus three languages met in Galilee\u2014Hebrew, Aramaic, and\nGreek. In what relation they stood to each other we do not know, since\nJosephus, the only writer who could have told us, fails us in this point,\nas he so often does elsewhere. He informs us that when acting as an envoy\nof Titus he spoke to the people of Jerusalem in the ancestral language,\nand the word he uses is \u1f11\u03b2\u03c1\u03b1\u0390\u03b6\u03c9\u03bd. But the very thing we should like to\nknow\u2014whether, namely, this language was Aramaic or Hebrew, he does not\ntell us. We are left in the same uncertainty by the passage in Acts (xxii.\n2) which says that Paul spoke to the people \u1f19\u03b2\u03c1\u03b1\u0390\u03b4\u03b9 \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03bb\u03ad\u03ba\u03c4\u1ff3, thereby\ngaining their attention, for there is no indication whether the language\nwas Aramaic or Hebrew. For the writers of that period \u201cHebrew\u201d simply\nmeans Jewish.\n\nWe cannot, therefore, be sure in what relation the ancient Hebrew sacred\nlanguage and the Aramaic of ordinary intercourse stood to one another as\nregards religious writings and religious instruction. Did the ordinary man\nmerely learn by heart a few verses, prayers, and psalms? Or was Hebrew, as\nthe language of the cultus, also current in wider circles?\n\nDalman gives a number of examples of works written in Hebrew in the\ncentury which witnessed the birth of Christ: \u201cA Hebrew original,\u201d he says,\n\u201cmust be assumed in the case of the main part of the Aethiopic book of\nEnoch, the Assumption of Moses, the Apocalypse of Baruch, Fourth Ezra, the\nBook of Jubilees, and for the Jewish ground\u2010document of the Testament of\nthe Twelve Patriarchs, of which M. Gaster has discovered a Hebrew\nmanuscript.\u201d The first Book of Maccabees, too, seems to him to go back to\na Hebrew original. Nevertheless, he holds it to be impossible that\nsynagogue discourses intended for the people can have been delivered in\nHebrew, or that Jesus taught otherwise than in Aramaic.\n\nFranz Delitzsch\u2019s view, on the other hand, is that Jesus and the disciples\ntaught in Hebrew; and that is the opinion of Resch also. Adolf\nNeubauer,(195) Reader in Rabbinical Hebrew at Oxford, attempted a\ncompromise. It was certainly the case, he thought, that in the time of\nJesus Aramaic was spoken throughout Palestine; but whereas in Galilee this\nlanguage had an exclusive dominance, and the knowledge of Hebrew was\nconfined to texts learned by heart, in Jerusalem Hebrew had renewed itself\nby the adoption of Aramaic elements, and a kind of Neo\u2010Hebraic language\nhad arisen. This solution at least testifies to the difficulty of the\nquestion. The fact is that from the language of the New Testament it is\noften difficult to make out whether the underlying words are Hebrew or\nAramaic. Thus, for instance, Dalman remarks\u2014with reference to the question\nwhether the statement of Papias refers to a Hebrew or an Aramaic\n\u201cprimitive Matthew\u201d\u2014that it is difficult \u201cto produce proof of an Aramaic\nas distinct from a Hebrew source, because it is often the case in Biblical\nHebrew, and still more often in the idiom of the Mishna, that the same\nexpressions and forms of phrase are possible as in Aramaic.\u201d\nDelitzsch\u2019s(196) \u201cretranslation\u201d of the New Testament into Hebrew is\ntherefore historically justified.\n\nBut the question about the language of Jesus must not be confused with the\nproblem of the original language of the primitive form of Matthew\u2019s\nGospel. In reference to the latter, Dalman thinks that the tradition of\nthe Early Church regarding an earlier Aramaic form of the Gospel must be\nconsidered as lacking confirmation. \u201cIt is only in the case of Jesus\u2019 own\nwords that an Aramaic original form is undeniable, and it is only for\nthese that Early Church tradition asserted the existence of a Semitic\ndocumentary source. It is, therefore, the right and duty of Biblical\nscholarship to investigate the form which the sayings of Jesus must have\ntaken in the original and the sense which in this form they must have\nconveyed to Jewish hearers.\u201d\n\nThat Jesus spoke Aramaic, Meyer has shown by collecting all the Aramaic\nexpressions which occur in His preaching.(197) He considers the \u201cAbba\u201d in\nGethsemane decisive, for this means that Jesus prayed in Aramaic in His\nhour of bitterest need. Again the cry from the cross was, according to\nMark xv. 34, also Aramaic: \u1f19\u03bb\u03c9\u0390, \u1f11\u03bb\u03c9\u0390, \u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u1f70 \u03c3\u03b1\u03b2\u03b1\u03c7\u03b8\u03b1\u03bd\u03b5\u1f76. The Old Testament\nwas therefore most familiar to Him in an Aramaic translation, otherwise\nthis form of the Psalm passage would not have come to His lips at the\nmoment of death.\n\nIt is a quite independent question whether Jesus could speak, or at least\nunderstand, Greek. According to Josephus the knowledge of Greek in\nPalestine at that time, even among educated Jews, can only have been of a\nquite elementary character. He himself had to learn it laboriously in\norder to be able to write in it. His \u201cJewish War\u201d was first written in\nAramaic for his fellow\u2010countrymen; the Greek edition was, by his own\navowal, not intended for them. In another passage, it is true, he seems to\nimply a knowledge of, and interest in, foreign languages even among people\nin humble life.(198)\n\nAn analogy, which is in many respects very close, to the linguistic\nconditions in Palestine was offered by Alsace under French rule in the\n\u2019sixties of the nineteenth century. Here, too, three languages met in the\nsame district. The High\u2010German of Luther\u2019s translation of the Bible was\nthe language of the Church, the Alemannic dialect was the usual speech of\nthe people, while French was the language of culture and of government\nadministration. This remarkable analogy would be rather in favour\u2014if\nanalogy can be admitted to have any weight in the question\u2014of Delitzsch\nand Resch, since the Biblical High\u2010German, although never spoken in social\nintercourse, strongly influenced the Alemannic dialect\u2014although this was,\non the other hand, quite uninfluenced by Modern High\u2010German\u2014but did not\nallow it to penetrate into Church or school, there maintaining for itself\nan undivided sway. French made some progress, but only in certain circles,\nand remained entirely excluded from the religious sphere. The Alsatians of\nthe poorer classes who could at that time have repeated the Lord\u2019s Prayer\nor the Beatitudes in French would not have been difficult to count. The\nLutheran translation still holds its own to some extent against the French\ntranslation with the older generation of the Alsatian community in Paris,\nwhich has in other respects become completely French\u2014so strong is the\ninfluence of a former ecclesiastical language even among those who have\nleft their native home. There is one factor, however, which is not\nrepresented in the analogy; the influence of the Greek\u2010speaking Jews of\nthe Diaspora, who gathered to the Feasts at Jerusalem, upon the extension\nof the Greek language in the mother\u2010country.\n\nJesus, then, spoke Galilaean Aramaic, which is known to us as a separate\ndialect from writings of the fourth to the seventh century. For the\nJudaean dialect we have more and earlier evidence. We have literary\nmonuments in it from the first to the third century. \u201cIt is very\nprobable,\u201d Dalman thinks, \u201cthat the popular dialect of Northern Palestine,\nafter the final fall of the Judaean centre of the Aramaic\u2010Jewish culture,\nwhich followed on the Bar\u2010Cochba rising, spread over almost the whole of\nPalestine.\u201d\n\nThe retranslations into Aramaic are therefore justified. After J. A.\nBolten\u2019s attempt had remained for nearly a hundred years the only one of\nits kind, the experiment has been renewed in our own time by J. T.\nMarshall, E. Nestle, J. Wellhausen, Arnold Meyer, and Gustaf Dalman; in\nthe case of Marshall and Nestle with the subsidiary purpose of\nendeavouring to prove the existence of an Aramaic documentary source.\nThese retranslations first attracted their due meed of attention from\ntheologians in connexion with the Son\u2010of\u2010Man question. Rarely, if ever,\nhave theologians experienced such a surprise as was sprung upon them by\nHans Lietzmann\u2019s essay in 1896.(199) Jesus had never, so ran the thesis of\nthe Bonn candidate in theology, applied to Himself the title Son of Man,\nbecause in the Aramaic the title did not exist, and on linguistic grounds\ncould not have existed. In the language which He used, \u05d1\u05df \u05d0\u05e0\u05e9 was merely a\nperiphrasis for \u201ca man.\u201d That Jesus meant Himself when He spoke of the Son\nof Man, none of His hearers could have suspected.\n\nLietzmann had not been without predecessors.(200) Gilbert G\u00e9n\u00e9brard, who\ndied Archbishop of Aix as long ago as 1597, had emphasised the point that\nthe term Son of Man should not be interpreted with reference solely to\nChrist, but to the race of mankind. Hugo Grotius maintained the same\nposition even more emphatically. With a quite modern one\u2010sidedness, Paulus\nthe rationalist maintained in his commentaries and in his Life of Jesus\nthat according to Ezek. ii. 1 \u201cBarnash\u201d meant man in general. Jesus, he\nthought, whenever He used the expression the Son of Man, pointed to\nHimself and thus gave it the sense of \u201cthis man.\u201d In taking this line he\ngives up the general reference to mankind as a whole for which Mark ii. 28\nis generally cited as the classical passage. The suggestion that the term\nSon of Man in its apocalyptic signification was first attributed to Jesus\nat a later time and that the passages where it occurs in this sense are\ntherefore suspicious, was first put forward by Fr. Aug. Fritzsche. He\nhoped in this way to get rid of Matt. x. 23. De Lagarde, like Paulus,\nemphatically asserted that Son of Man only meant man. But instead of the\nclumsy explanation of the rationalist he gave another and a more pleasing\none, namely, that Jesus by choosing this title designed to ennoble\nmankind. Wellhausen, in his \u201cHistory of Israel and of the Jews\u201d (1894),\nremarked on it as strange that Jesus should have called Himself \u201cthe Man.\u201d\nB. D. Eerdmans, taking the apocalyptic significance of the term as his\nstarting\u2010point, attempted to carry out consistently the theory of the\nlater interpolation of this title into the sayings of Jesus.(201)\n\nThus Lietzmann had predecessors; but they were not so in any real sense.\nThey had either started out from the Marcan passage where the Son of Man\nis described as the Lord of the Sabbath, and endeavoured arbitrarily to\ninterpret all the Son\u2010of\u2010Man passages in the same sense; or they assumed\nwithout sufficient grounds that the title Son of Man was a later\ninterpolation. The new idea consisted in combining the two attempts, and\ndeclaring the passages about the Son of Man to be linguistically and\nhistorically impossible, seeing that, on linguistic grounds, \u201cson of man\u201d\nmeans \u201cman.\u201d\n\nArnold Meyer and Wellhausen expressed themselves in the same sense as\nLietzmann. The passages where Jesus uses the expression in an unmistakably\nMessianic sense are, according to them, to be put down to the account of\nEarly Christian theology. The only passages which in their opinion are\nhistorically tenable are the two or three in which the expression denotes\nman in general, or is equivalent to the simple \u201cI.\u201d These latter were felt\nto be a difficulty by the Church when it came to think in Greek, since\nthis way of speaking of oneself was strange to them; consequently the\nexpression appeared to them deliberately enigmatic and only capable of\nbeing interpreted in the sense which it bears in Daniel. The Son\u2010of\u2010Man\nconception, argued Lietzmann, when he again approached the question two\nyears later, had arisen in a Hellenistic environment,(202) on the basis of\nDan. vii. 13; N. Schmidt,(203) too, saw in the apocalyptic Bar\u2010Nasha\npassages which follow the revelation of the Messiahship at Caesarea\nPhilippi an interpolation from the later apocalyptic theology. On the\nother hand, P. Schmiedel still wished to make it a Messianic designation,\nand to take it as being historical in this sense even in passages in which\nthe term man \u201cgave a possible sense.\u201d(204) H. Gunkel thought that it was\npossible to translate Bar\u2010Nasha simply by \u201cman,\u201d and nevertheless hold to\nthe historicity of the expression as a self\u2010designation of Jesus. Jesus,\nhe suggests, had borrowed this enigmatic term, which goes back to Dan.\nvii. 13, from the mystical apocalyptic literature, meaning thereby to\nindicate that He was the Man of God in contrast to the Man of Sin.(205)\n\nHoltzmann felt a kind of relief in handing over to the philologists the\nobstinate problem which since the time of Baldensperger and Weiss had\ncaused so much trouble to theologians, and wanted to postpone the\nhistorical discussion until the Aramaic experts had settled the linguistic\nquestion. That happened sooner than was expected. In 1898 Dalman declared\nin his epoch\u2010making work (_Die Worte Jesu_) that he could not admit the\nlinguistic objections to the use of the expression Son of Man by Jesus.\n\u201cBiblical Aramaic,\u201d he says, \u201cdoes not differ in this respect from Hebrew.\nThe simple \u05d0\u05e0\u05e9 and not \u05d1\u05df \u05d0\u05e0\u05e9 is the term for man.\u201d... It was only later\nthat the Jewish\u2010Galilaean dialect, like the Palestinian\u2010Christian dialect,\nused \u05d1\u05df \u05d0\u05e0\u05e9 for man, though in both idioms the simple \u05d0\u05e0\u05e9 occurs in the\nsense of \u201csome one.\u201d \u201cIn view of the whole facts of the case,\u201d he\ncontinues, \u201cwhat has to be said is that Jewish\u2010Palestinian Aramaic of the\nearlier period used \u05d0\u05e0\u05e9 for \u2018man,\u2019 and occasionally to designate a\nplurality of men makes use of the expression \u05d1\u05e0\u05d9 \u05d0\u05e0\u05e9\u05d0. The singular \u05d1\u05df \u05d0\u05e0\u05e9\nwas not current, and was only used in imitation of the Hebrew text of the\nBible, where \u05d1\u05df \u05d0\u05d3\u05dd belongs to the poetic diction, and is, moreover, not\nof very frequent occurrence.\u201d \u201cIt is,\u201d he says elsewhere, \u201cby no means a\nsign of a sound historical method, instead of working patiently at the\nsolution of the problem, to hasten like Oort and Lietzmann to the\nconclusion that the absence of the expression in the New Testament\nEpistles is a proof that Jesus did not use it either, but that there was\nsomewhere or other a Hellenistic community in the Early Church which had a\npredilection for this name, and often made Jesus speak of Himself in the\nGospel narrative in the third person, in order to find an opportunity of\nbringing it in.\u201d\n\nSo the oxen turned back with the ark into the land of the Philistines. It\nwas a case of returning to the starting\u2010point and deciding on historical\ngrounds in what sense Jesus had used the expression.(206) But the\npossibilities were reduced by the way in which Lietzmann had posed the\nproblem, since the interpretations according to which Jesus had used it in\na veiled ethical Messianic sense, to indicate the ethical and spiritual\ntransformation of all the eschatological conceptions, were now manifestly\nincapable of offering any convincing argument against the radical denial\nof the use of the expression. Baldensperger rightly remarked in a review\nof the whole discussion that the question which was ultimately at stake in\nthe combat over the title Son of Man was the question whether Jesus was\nthe Messiah or no, and that Dalman, by his proof of its linguistic\npossibility, had saved the Messiahship of Jesus.(207)\n\nBut what kind of Messiahship? Is it any other kind than the future\nMessiahship of the apocalyptic Son of Man which Johannes Weiss had\nasserted? Did Jesus mean anything different by the Son of Man from that\nwhich was meant by the apocalyptic writers? To put it otherwise: behind\nthe Son\u2010of\u2010Man problem there lies the general question whether Jesus can\nhave described Himself as a present Messiah; for the fundamental\ndifficulty is that He, a man upon earth, should give Himself out to be the\nSon of Man, and at the same time apparently give to that title a quite\ndifferent sense from that which it previously possessed.\n\nThe champion of the linguistic possibility of this self\u2010designation made\nthe last serious attempt to render the transformation of the conception\nhistorically conceivable. He argues that Jesus cannot have used it as a\nmere meaningless expression, a periphrasis for the simple I.(208) On the\nother hand, the term cannot have been understood by the disciples as an\nexalted title, or at least only in the sense that the title indicative of\nexaltation is paradoxically connected with the title indicative of\nhumility. \u201cWe shall be justified in saying, that, for the Synoptic\nEvangelists, \u2018Man\u2019s Son\u2019 was no title of honour for the Messiah, but\u2014as it\nmust necessarily appear to a Hellenist\u2014a veiling of His Messiahship under\na name which emphasises the humanity of its bearer.\u201d For them it was not\nthe references to the sufferings of \u201cMan\u2019s Son\u201d that were paradoxical, but\nthe references to His exaltation: that \u201cMan\u2019s Son\u201d should be put to death\nis not wonderful; what is wonderful is His \u201ccoming again upon the clouds\nof heaven.\u201d\n\nIf Jesus called Himself the Son of Man, the only conclusion which could be\ndrawn by those that heard Him was, \u201cthat for some reason or other He\ndesired to describe Himself as a Man _par excellence_.\u201d There is no reason\nto think of the Heavenly Son of Man of the Similitudes of Enoch and Fourth\nEzra; that conception could hardly be present to the minds of His\nauditors.\n\n\u201cHow was one who was now walking upon earth, to come from heaven? He would\nhave needed first to be translated thither. One who had died or been rapt\naway from earth might be brought back to earth again in this way, or a\nbeing who had never before been upon earth, might be conceived as\ndescending thither.\u201d\n\nBut if, on the one hand, the title Son of Man was not to be understood\napart from the reference to the passage in Daniel, while on the other\nJesus so designated Himself as a man actually present upon earth, \u201cwhat\nwas really implied was that He was the man in whom Daniel\u2019s vision of \u2018one\nlike unto a Son of Man\u2019 was being fulfilled.\u201d He could not certainly\nexpect from His hearers a complete understanding of the self\u2010designation.\n\u201cWe are doubtless justified in saying that in using it, He intentionally\noffered them an enigma which challenged further reflection upon His\nPerson.\u201d\n\nAccording to Peter\u2019s confession the name was intelligible to the disciples\nas coming from Dan. vii. 13, and obviously indicating Him who was destined\nto the sovereignty of the world. Jesus calls Himself the Son of Man, \u201cnot\nas meaning the lowly one, but as a scion of the human race with its human\nweakness, whom nevertheless God will make Lord of the world; and it is\nvery probable that Jesus found the Son of Man of Dan. vii. in Ps. viii. 5\nff. also.\u201d Sayings regarding humiliation and suffering could be attached\nto the title just as well as references to exaltation. For since the\n\u201cChild of Man\u201d has placed Himself upon the throne of God, He is in reality\nno longer a mere man, but ruler over heaven and earth, \u201cthe Lord.\u201d\n\nThis attempt of Dalman\u2019s has the same significance in regard to the\nquestion of the Messiahship as Bousset\u2019s had for the ethical question.\nJust as in Bousset\u2019s view the Kingdom of God was, in a paradoxical way,\nafter all proclaimed as present, so here the self\u2010designation \u201cSon of Man\u201d\nis retained by a paradox as conveying the sense of a present Messiahship.\nBut the documents do not give any support to this assumption; on the\ncontrary they contradict it at every point. According to Dalman it was not\nthe predictions of the passion of the Son of Man which sounded paradoxical\nto the disciples, but the predictions of His exaltation. But we are\ndistinctly told that when He spoke of His passion they did not understand\nthe saying. The predictions of His exaltation, however, they understood so\nwell that without troubling themselves further about the predictions of\nthe sufferings, they began to dispute who should be greatest in the\nKingdom of Heaven, and who should have his throne closest to the Son of\nMan. And if it is once admitted that Jesus took the designation from\nDaniel, what ground is there for asserting that the purely eschatological\ntranscendental significance which the term had taken on in the Similitudes\nof Enoch and retains in Fourth Ezra had no existence for Jesus? Thus, by a\nlong round\u2010about, criticism has come back to Johannes Weiss.(209) His\neschatological solution of the Son\u2010of\u2010Man question\u2014the elements of which\nare to be found in Strauss\u2019s first Life of Jesus\u2014is the only possible one.\nDalman expresses the same idea in the form of a question. \u201cHow could one\nwho was actually walking the earth come down from heaven? He would have\nneeded first to be translated thither. One who had died or been rapt away\nfrom earth might possibly be brought back to earth in this way.\u201d Having\nreached this point we have only to observe further that Jesus, from the\n\u201cconfession of Peter\u201d onwards, always speaks of the Son of Man in\nconnexion with death and resurrection. That is to say, that once the\ndisciples know in what relation He stands to the Son of Man, He uses this\ntitle to suggest the manner of His return: as the sequel to His death and\nresurrection He will return to the world again as a superhuman\nPersonality. Thus the purely transcendental use of the term suggested by\nDalman as a possibility turns out to be the historical reality.\n\nBroadly speaking, therefore, the Son\u2010of\u2010Man problem is both historically\nsolvable and has been solved. The authentic passages are those in which\nthe expression is used in that apocalyptic sense which goes back to\nDaniel. But we have to distinguish two different uses of the term\naccording to the degree of knowledge assumed in the hearers. If the secret\nof Jesus is unknown to them, then in that case they understand simply that\nJesus is speaking of the \u201cSon of Man\u201d and His coming without having any\nsuspicion that He and the Son of Man have any connexion. It would be thus,\nfor instance, when in sending out the disciples in Matt. x. 23, He\nannounced the imminence of the appearing of the Son of Man; or when He\npictured the judgment which the Son of Man would hold (Matt. xxv. 31\u201046),\nif we may imagine it to have been spoken to the people at Jerusalem. Or,\non the other hand, the secret is known to the hearers. In that case they\nunderstand that the term Son of Man points to the position to which He\nHimself is to be exalted when the present era passes into the age to come.\nIt was thus, no doubt, in the case of the disciples at Caesarea Philippi,\nand of the High Priest to whom Jesus, after answering his demand with the\nsimple \u201cYea\u201d (Mark xiv. 62), goes on immediately to speak of the\nexaltation of the Son of Man to the right hand of God, and of His coming\nupon the clouds of heaven.\n\nJesus did not, therefore, veil His Messiahship by using the expression Son\nof Man, much less did He transform it, but He used the expression to\nrefer, in the only possible way, to His Messianic office as destined to be\nrealised at His \u201ccoming,\u201d and did so in such a manner that only the\ninitiated understood that He was speaking of His own coming, while others\nunderstood Him as referring to the coming of a Son of Man who was other\nthan Himself.\n\nThe passages where the title has not this apocalyptic reference, or where,\nprevious to the incident at Caesarea Philippi, Jesus in speaking to the\ndisciples equates the Son of Man with His own \u201cego,\u201d are to be explained\nas of literary origin. This set of secondary occurrences of the title has\nnothing to do with \u201cEarly Church theology\u201d; it is merely a question of\nphenomena of translation and tradition. In the saying about the Sabbath in\nMark ii. 28, and perhaps also in the saying about the right to forgive\nsins in Mark ii. 10, Son of Man doubtless stood in the original in the\ngeneral sense of \u201cman,\u201d but was later, certainly by our Evangelists,\nunderstood as referring to Jesus as the Son of Man. In other passages\ntradition, following the analogy of those passages in which the title is\nauthentic, put in place of the simple I\u2014expressed in the Aramaic by \u201cthe\nman\u201d\u2014the self\u2010designation \u201cSon of Man,\u201d as we can clearly show by\ncomparing Matt. xvi. 13, \u201cWho do men say that the Son of Man is?\u201d with\nMark viii. 27, \u201cWho do men say that I am?\u201d\n\nThree passages call for special discussion. In the statement that a man\nmay be forgiven for blasphemy against the Son of Man, but not for\nblasphemy against the Holy Spirit, in Matt. xii. 32, the \u201cSon of Man\u201d may\nbe authentic. But of course it would not, even in that case, give any hint\nthat \u201cSon of Man designates the Messiah in His humiliation\u201d as Dalman\nwished to infer from the passage, but would mean that Jesus was speaking\nof the Son of Man, here as elsewhere, in the third person without\nreference to Himself, and was thinking of a contemptuous denial of the\nParousia such as might have been uttered by a Sadducee. But if we take\ninto account the parallel in Mark iii. 28 and 29, where blasphemy against\nthe Holy Ghost is spoken of without any mention of blasphemy against the\nSon of Man, it seems more natural to take the mention of the Son of Man as\na secondary interpolation, derived from the same line of tradition,\nperhaps from the same hand, as the \u201cSon of Man\u201d in the question to the\ndisciples at Caesarea Philippi.\n\nThe two other sayings, the one about the Son of Man \u201cwho hath not where to\nlay His head,\u201d Matt. viii. 20, and that about the Son of Man who must\nsubmit to the reproach of being a glutton and a wine\u2010bibber, Matt. xi. 19,\nbelong together. If we assume it to be possible, in conformity with the\nsaying about the purpose of the parables in Mark iv. 11 and 12, that Jesus\nsometimes spoke words which He did not intend to be understood, we may\u2014if\nwe are unwilling to accept the supposition of a later periphrasis for the\nego, which would certainly be the most natural explanation\u2014recognise in\nthese sayings two obscure declarations regarding the Son of Man. They\nwould then be supposed to have meant in the original form, which is no\nlonger clearly recognisable, that the Son of Man would in some way justify\nthe conduct of Jesus of Nazareth. But the way in which this idea is\nexpressed was not such as to make it easy for His hearers to identify Him\nwith the Son of Man. Moreover, it was for them a conception impossible to\nrealise, since Jesus was a natural, and the Son of Man a supernatural,\nbeing; and the eschatological scheme of things had not provided for a man\nwho at the end of the existing era should hint to others that at the great\ntransformation of all things He would be manifested as the Son of Man.\nThis case presented itself only in the course of history, and it created a\npreparatory stage of eschatology which does not answer to any traditional\nscheme.\n\nThat act of the self\u2010consciousness of Jesus by which He recognised Himself\nin His earthly existence as the future Messiah is the act in which\neschatology supremely affirms itself. At the same time, since it brings,\nspiritually, that which is to come, into the unaltered present, into the\nexisting era, it is the end of eschatology. For it is its\n\u201cspiritualisation,\u201d a spiritualisation of which the ultimate consequence\nwas to be that all its \u201csupersensuous\u201d elements were to be realised only\nspiritually in the present earthly conditions, and all that is affirmed as\nsupersensuous in the transcendental sense was to be regarded as only the\nruined remains of an eschatological world\u2010view. The Messianic secret of\nJesus is the basis of Christianity, since it involves the de\u2010nationalising\nand the spiritualisation of Jewish eschatology.\n\nYet more. It is the primal fact, the starting\u2010point, of a process which\nmanifests itself, indeed, in Christianity, but cannot fully work itself\nout even here, of a movement in the direction of inwardness which brings\nall religious magnitudes into the one indivisible spiritual present, and\nwhich Christian dogmatic has not ventured to carry to its completion. The\nMessianic consciousness of the uniquely great Man of Nazareth sets up a\nstruggle between the present and the beyond, and introduces that resolute\nabsorption of the beyond by the present, which in looking back we\nrecognise as the history of Christianity, and of which we are conscious in\nourselves as the essence of religious progress and experience\u2014a process of\nwhich the end is not yet in sight.\n\nIn this sense Jesus did \u201caccept the world\u201d and did stand in conflict with\nJudaism. Protestantism was a step\u2014a step on which hung weighty\nconsequences\u2014in the progress of that \u201cacceptance of the world\u201d which was\nconstantly developing itself from within. By a mighty revolution which was\nin harmony with the spirit of that great primal act of the consciousness\nof Jesus, though in opposition to some of the most certain of His sayings,\nethics became world\u2010accepting. But it will be a mightier revolution still\nwhen the last remaining ruins of the supersensuous other\u2010worldly system of\nthought are swept away in order to clear the site for a new spiritual,\npurely real and present world. All the inconsistent compromises and\nconstructions of modern theology are merely an attempt to stave off the\nfinal expulsion of eschatology from religion, an inevitable but a hopeless\nattempt. That proleptic Messianic consciousness of Jesus, which was in\nreality the only possible actualisation of the Messianic idea, carries\nthese consequences with it inexorably and unfailingly. At that last cry\nupon the cross the whole eschatological supersensuous world fell in upon\nitself in ruins, and there remained as a spiritual reality only that\npresent spiritual world, bound as it is to sense, which Jesus by His all\u2010\npowerful word had called into being within the world which He contemned.\nThat last cry, with its despairing abandonment of the eschatological\nfuture, is His real acceptance of the world. The \u201cSon of Man\u201d was buried\nin the ruins of the falling eschatological world; there remained alive\nonly Jesus \u201cthe Man.\u201d Thus these two Aramaic synonyms include in\nthemselves, as in a symbol of reality, all that was to come.\n\nIf theology has found it so hard a task to arrive at an historical\ncomprehension of the secret of this self\u2010designation, this is due to the\nfact that the question is not a purely historical one. In this word there\nlies the transformation of a whole system of thought, the inexorable\nconsequence of the elimination of eschatology from religion. It was only\nin this future form, not as actual, that Jesus spoke of His Messiahship.\nModern theology keeps on endeavouring to discover in the title of Son of\nMan, which is bound up with the future, a humanised present Messiahship.\nIt does so in the conviction that the recognition of a purely future\nreference in the Messianic consciousness of Jesus would lead in the last\nresult to a modification of the historic basis of our faith, which has\nitself become historical, and therefore true and self\u2010justifying. The\nrecognition of the claims of eschatology signifies for our dogmatic a\nburning of the boats by which it felt itself able to return at any moment\nfrom the time of Jesus direct to the present.\n\nOne point that is worthy of notice in this connexion is the\ntrustworthiness of the tradition. The Evangelists, writing in Greek, and\nthe Greek\u2010speaking Early Church, can hardly have retained an understanding\nof the purely eschatological character of that self\u2010designation of Jesus.\nIt had become for them merely an indirect method of self\u2010designation. And\nnevertheless the Evangelists, especially Mark, record the sayings of Jesus\nin such a way that the original significance and application of the\ndesignation in His mouth is still clearly recognisable, and we are able to\ndetermine with certainty the isolated cases in which this self\u2010designation\nin His discourses is of a secondary origin.\n\nThus the use of the term Son of Man\u2014which, if we admitted the sweeping\nproposal of Lietzmann and Wellhausen to cancel it everywhere as an\ninterpolation of Greek Early Church theology, would throw doubt on the\nwhole of the Gospel tradition\u2014becomes a proof of the certainty and\ntrustworthiness of that tradition. We may, in fact, say that the\nprogressive recognition of the eschatological character of the teaching\nand action of Jesus carries with it a progressive justification of the\nGospel tradition. A series of passages and discourses which had been\nendangered because from the modern theological point of view which had\nbeen made the criterion of the tradition they appeared to be without\nmeaning, are now secured. The stone which the critics rejected has become\nthe corner\u2010stone of the tradition.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nIf Aramaic scholarship appears in regard to the Son\u2010of\u2010Man question among\nthe opponents of the thorough\u2010going eschatological view, it takes no other\nposition in connexion with the retranslations and in the application of\nillustrative parallels from the Rabbinic literature.\n\nIn looking at the earlier works in this department, one is struck with the\nsmallness of the result in proportion to the labour expended. The names\nthat call for mention here are those of John Lightfoot, Christian\nSch\u00f6ttgen, Joh. Gerh. Meuschen, J. Jak. Wettstein, F. Nork, Franz\nDelitzsch, Carl Siegfried, and A. W\u00fcnsche.(210) But even a work like F.\nWeber\u2019s _System der altsynagogalen __ pal\u00e4stinensischen Theologie_,(211)\nwhich does not confine itself to single sayings and thoughts, but aims at\nexhibiting the Rabbinic system of thought as a whole, throws, in the main,\nbut little light on the thoughts of Jesus. The Rabbinic parables supply,\naccording to J\u00fclicher, but little of value for the explanation of the\nparables of Jesus.(212) In this method of discourse, Jesus is so pre\u2010\neminently original, that any other productions of the Jewish parabolic\nliterature are like stunted undergrowth beside a great tree; though that\nhas not prevented His originality from being challenged in this very\ndepartment, both in earlier times and at the present. As early as 1648,\nRobert Sheringham, of Cambridge,(213) suggested that the parables in Matt.\nxx. 1 ff., xxv. 1 ff., and Luke xvi., were derived from Talmudic sources,\nan opinion against which J. B. Carpzov, the younger, raised a protest; in\n1839, F. Nork asserted, in his work on \u201cRabbinic Sources and Parallels for\nthe New Testament Writings,\u201d that the best thoughts in the discourses of\nJesus are to be attributed to His Jewish teachers; in 1880 the Dutch\nRabbi, T. Tal, maintained the thesis that the parables of the New\nTestament are all borrowed from the Talmud.(214) Theories of this kind\ncannot be refuted, because they lack the foundation necessary to any\ntheory which is to be capable of being rationally discussed\u2014that of plain\ncommon sense.(215)\n\nWe possess, however, really scientific attempts to define more closely the\nthoughts of Jesus by the aid of the Rabbinic language and Rabbinic ideas\nin the works of Arnold Meyer and Dalman. It cannot indeed be said that the\nobscure sayings which form the problem of present\u2010day exegesis are in all\ncases made clearer by them, much as we may admire the comprehensive\nknowledge of these scholars. Sometimes, indeed, they become more obscure\nthan before. According to Meyer, for instance, the question of Jesus\nwhether His disciples can drink of His cup, and be baptized with His\nbaptism means, if put back into Aramaic, \u201cCan you drink as bitter a drink\nas I; can you eat as sharply salted meat as I?\u201d(216) Nor does Dalman\u2019s\nAramaic retranslation help us much with the saying about the violent who\ntake the Kingdom of Heaven by force. According to him, it is not spoken of\nthe faithful, but of the rulers of this world, and refers to the epoch of\nthe Divine rule which has been introduced by the imprisonment of the\nBaptist. No one can violently possess himself of the Divine reign, and\nJesus can therefore only mean that violence is done to it in the person of\nits subjects.\n\nOn this it must be remarked, that if the saying really means this, it is\nabout as appropriate to its setting as a rock in the sky. Jesus is not\nspeaking of the imprisonment of the Baptist. By the days of John the\nBaptist He means the time of his public ministry.\n\nIt is equally open to question whether in putting that crucial question\nregarding the Messiah in Mark xii. 37 He really intended to show, as\nDalman thinks, \u201cthat physical descent from David was not of decisive\nimportance\u2014it did not belong to the essence of the Messiahship.\u201d\n\nBut a point in regard to which Dalman\u2019s remarks are of great value for the\nreconstruction of the life of Jesus is the entry into Jerusalem. Dalman\nthinks that the simple \u201cHosanna, blessed be he that cometh in the name of\nthe Lord\u201d (Mark xi. 9) was what the people really shouted in acclamation,\nand that the additional words in Mark and Matthew are simply an\ninterpretative expansion. This acclamation did not itself contain any\nMessianic reference. This explains \u201cwhy the entry into Jerusalem was not\nmade a count in the charge urged against Him before Pilate.\u201d The events of\n\u201cPalm Sunday\u201d only received their distinctively Messianic colour later. It\nwas not the Messiah, but the prophet and wonder\u2010worker of Galilee whom the\npeople hailed with rejoicing and accompanied with invocations of\nblessing.(217)\n\nGenerally speaking, the value of Dalman\u2019s work lies less in the solutions\nwhich it offers than in the problems which it raises. By its very thorough\ndiscussions it challenges historical theology to test its most cherished\nassumptions regarding the teaching of Jesus, and make sure whether they\nare really so certain and self\u2010evident. Thus, in opposition to Sch\u00fcrer, he\ndenies that the thought of the pre\u2010existence in heaven of all the good\nthings belonging to the Kingdom of God was at all generally current in the\nLate\u2010Jewish world of ideas, and thinks that the occasional references(218)\nto a pre\u2010existing Jerusalem, which shall finally be brought down to the\nearth, do not suffice to establish the theory. Similarly, he thinks it\ndoubtful whether Jesus used the terms \u201cthis world (age),\u201d \u201cthe world (age)\nto come\u201d in the eschatological sense which is generally attached to them,\nand doubts, on linguistic grounds, whether they can have been used at all.\nEven the use of \u05e2\u05dc\u05dd or \u05e2\u05d5\u05dc\u05dd for \u201cworld\u201d cannot be proved. In the pre\u2010\nChristian period there is much reason to doubt its occurrence, though in\nlater Jewish literature it is frequent. The expression \u1f10\u03bd \u03c4\u1fc7 \u03c0\u03b1\u03bb\u03b9\u03b3\u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03b5\u03c3\u03af\u1fb3\nin Matt. xix. 28, is specifically Greek and cannot be reproduced in either\nHebrew or Aramaic. It is very strange that the use which Jesus makes of\n_Amen_ is unknown in the whole of Jewish literature. According to the\nproper idiom of the language \u201c\u05d0\u05de\u05df is never used to emphasise one\u2019s own\nspeech, but always with reference to the speech, prayer, benediction,\noath, or curse of another.\u201d Jesus, therefore, if He used the expression in\nthis sense, must have given it a new meaning as a formula of asseveration,\nin place of the oath which He forbade.\n\nAll these acute observations are marked by the general tendency which was\nobservable in the interpretation of the term Son of Man, that is, by the\nendeavour so to weaken down the eschatological conceptions of the Kingdom\nand the Messiah, that the hypothesis of a making\u2010present and\nspiritualising of these conceptions in the teaching of Jesus might appear\ninherently and linguistically possible and natural. The polemic against\nthe pre\u2010existent realities of the Kingdom of God is intended to show that\nfor Jesus the Reign of God is a present benefit, which can be sought\nafter, given, possessed, and taken. Even before the time of Jesus,\naccording to Dalman, a tendency had shown itself to lay less emphasis, in\nconnexion with the hope of the future, upon the national Jewish element.\nJesus forced this element still farther into the background, and gave a\nmore decided prominence to the purely religious element. \u201cFor Him the\nreign of God was the Divine power, which from this time onward was\nsteadily to carry forward the renewal of the world, and also the renewed\nworld, into which men shall one day enter, which even now offers itself,\nand therefore can be grasped and received as a present good.\u201d The\nsupernatural coming of the Kingdom is only the final stage of the coming\nwhich is now being inwardly spiritually brought about by the preaching of\nJesus. Though He may perhaps have spoken of \u201cthis\u201d world and the \u201cworld to\ncome,\u201d these expressions had in His use of them no very special\nimportance. It is for Him less a question of an antithesis between \u201cthen\u201d\nand \u201cnow,\u201d than of establishing a connexion between them by which the\ntransition from one to the other is to be effected.\n\nIt is the same in regard to Jesus\u2019 consciousness of His Messiahship. \u201cIn\nJesus\u2019 view,\u201d says Dalman, \u201cthe period before the commencement of the\nReign of God was organically connected with the actual period of His\nReign.\u201d He was the Messiah because He knew Himself to stand in a unique\nethico\u2010religious relation to God. His Messiahship was not something wholly\nincomprehensible to those about Him. If redemption was regarded as being\nclose at hand, the Messiah must be assumed to be in some sense already\npresent. Therefore Jesus is both directly and indirectly spoken of as\nMessiah.\n\nThus the most important work in the department of Aramaic scholarship\nshows clearly the anti\u2010eschatological tendency which characterised it from\nthe beginning. The work of Lietzmann, Meyer, Wellhausen, and Dalman, forms\na distinct episode in the general resistance to eschatology. That Aramaic\nscholarship should have taken up a hostile attitude towards the\neschatological system of thought of Jesus lies in the nature of things.\nThe thoughts which it takes as its standard of comparison were only\nreduced to writing long after the period of Jesus, and, moreover, in a\nlifeless and distorted form, at a time when the apocalyptic temper no\nlonger existed as the living counterpoise to the legal righteousness, and\nthis legal righteousness had allowed only so much of Apocalyptic to\nsurvive as could be brought into direct connexion with it. In fact, the\ndistance between Jesus\u2019 world of thought and this form of Judaism is as\ngreat as that which separates it from modern ideas. Thus in Dalman\nmodernising tendencies and Aramaic scholarship were able to combine in\nconducting a criticism of the eschatology in the teaching of Jesus in\nwhich the modern man thought the thoughts and the expert in Aramaic\nformulated and supported them, yet without being able in the end to make\nany impression upon the well\u2010rounded whole formed by Jesus\u2019 eschatological\npreaching of the Kingdom.\n\nWhether Aramaic scholarship will contribute to the investigation of the\nlife and teaching of Jesus along other lines and in a direct and positive\nfashion, only the future can show. But certainly if theologians will give\nheed to the question\u2010marks so acutely placed by Dalman, and recognise it\nas one of their first duties to test carefully whether a thought or a\nconnexion of thought is linguistically or inherently Greek, and only\nGreek, in character, they will derive a notable advantage from what has\nalready been done in the department of Aramaic study.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nBut if the service rendered by Aramaic studies has been hitherto mainly\nindirect, no success whatever has attended, or seems likely to attend, the\nattempt to apply Buddhist ideas to the explanation of the thoughts of\nJesus. It could only indeed appear to have some prospect of success if we\ncould make up our minds to follow the example of the author of one of the\nmost recent of fictitious lives of Christ in putting Jesus to school to\nthe Buddhist priests; in which case the six years which Monsieur Nicolas\nNotowitsch allots to this purpose, would certainly be none too much for\nthe completion of the course.(219) If imagination boggles at this, there\nremains no possibility of showing that Buddhist ideas exercised any direct\ninfluence upon Jesus. That Buddhism may have had some kind of influence\nupon Late Judaism and thus indirectly upon Jesus is not inherently\nimpossible, if we are prepared to recognise Buddhistic influence on the\nBabylonian and Persian civilisations. But it is unproved, unprovable, and\nunthinkable, that Jesus derived the suggestion of the new and creative\nideas which emerge in His teaching from Buddhism. The most that can be\ndone in this direction is to point to certain analogies. For the parables\nof Jesus, Buddhist parallels were suggested by Renan and Havet.(220)\n\nHow little these analogies mean in the eyes of a cautious observer is\nevident from the attitude which Max M\u00fcller took up towards the question.\n\u201cThat there are startling coincidences between Buddhism and Christianity,\u201d\nhe remarks in one passage,(221) \u201ccannot be denied; and it must likewise be\nadmitted that Buddhism existed at least four hundred years before\nChristianity. I go even further and say that I should be extremely\ngrateful if anybody would point out to me the historical channels through\nwhich Buddhism had influenced early Christianity. I have been looking for\nsuch channels all my life, but hitherto I have found none. What I have\nfound is that for some of the most startling coincidences there are\nhistorical antecedents on both sides; and if we once know these\nantecedents the coincidences become far less startling.\u201d\n\nA year before Max M\u00fcller formulated his impression in these terms, Rudolf\nSeydel(222) had endeavoured to explain the analogies which had been\nnoticed by supposing Christianity to have been influenced by Buddhism. He\ndistinguishes three distinct classes of analogies:\n\n1. Those of which the points of resemblance can without difficulty be\nexplained as due to the influence of similar sources and motives in the\ntwo cases.\n\n2. Those which show a so special and unexpected agreement that it appears\nartificial to explain it from the action of similar causes, and the\ndependence of one upon the other commends itself as the most natural\nexplanation.\n\n3. Those in which there exists a reason for the occurrence of the idea\nonly within the sphere of one of the two religions, or in which at least\nit can very much more easily be conceived as originating within the one\nthan within the other, so that the inexplicability of the phenomenon\nwithin the one domain gives ground for seeking its source within the\nother.\n\nThis last class demands a literary explanation of the analogy. Seydel\ntherefore postulates, alongside of primitive forms of Matthew and Luke, a\nthird source, \u201ca poetic\u2010apocalyptic Gospel of very early date which fitted\nits Christian material into the frame of a Buddhist type of Gospel,\ntransforming, purifying, and ennobling the material taken from the foreign\nbut related literature by a kind of rebirth inspired by the Christian\nSpirit.\u201d Matthew and Luke, especially Luke, follow this poetic Gospel up\nto the point where historic sources become more abundant, and the\nprimitive form of Mark begins to dominate their narrative. But even in\nlater parts the influence of this poetical source, which as an independent\ndocument was subsequently lost, continued to make itself felt.\n\nThe strongest point of support for this hypothesis, if a mere conjecture\ncan be described as such, is found by Seydel in the introductory\nnarratives in Luke. Now it is not inherently impossible that Buddhist\nlegends, which in one form or another were widely current in the East, may\nhave contributed more or less to the formation of the mythical preliminary\nhistory. Who knows the laws of the formation of legend? Who can follow the\ncourse of the wind which carries the seed over land and sea? But in\ngeneral it may be said that Seydel actually refutes the hypothesis which\nhe is defending. If the material which he brings forward is all that there\nis to suggest a relation between Buddhism and Christianity, we are\njustified in waiting until new discoveries are made in that quarter before\nasserting the necessity of a Buddhist primitive Gospel. That will not\nprevent a succession of theosophic Lives of Jesus from finding their\naccount in Seydel\u2019s classical work. Seydel indeed delivered himself into\ntheir hands, because he did not entirely avoid the rash assumption of\ntheosophic \u201chistorical science\u201d that Jewish eschatology can be equated\nwith Buddhistic.\n\nEduard von Hartmann, in the second edition of his work, \u201cThe Christianity\nof the New Testament,\u201d(223) roundly asserts that there can be no question\nof any relation of Jesus to Buddha, nor of any indebtedness either in His\nteaching or in the later moulding of the story of His life, but only of a\nparallel formation of myth.\n\n\n\n\n\nXVIII. THE POSITION OF THE SUBJECT AT THE CLOSE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY\n\n\n    _Oskar Holtzmann._ Das Leben Jesu. T\u00fcbingen, 1901. 417 pp.\n\n    Das Messianit\u00e4tsbewusstsein Jesu und seine neueste Bestreitung.\n    Vortrag. (The Messianic Consciousness of Jesus and the most recent\n    denial of it. A Lecture.) 1902. 26 pp. (Against Wrede.)\n\n    War Jesus Ekstatiker? (Was Jesus an ecstatic?) T\u00fcbingen, 1903. 139\n    pp.\n\n    _Paul Wilhelm Schmidt._ Die Geschichte Jesu. (The History of\n    Jesus.) Freiburg. 1899. 175 pp. (4th impression.)\n\n    Die Geschichte Jesu. Erl\u00e4utert. Mit drei Karten von Prof. K.\n    Furrer (Z\u00fcrich). (The History of Jesus. Preliminary Discussions.\n    With three maps by Prof. K. Furrer of Zurich.) T\u00fcbingen, 1904. 414\n    pp.\n\n    _Otto Schmiedel._ Die Hauptprobleme der Leben\u2010Jesu\u2010Forschung. (The\n    main Problems in the Study of the Life of Jesus.) T\u00fcbingen, 1902.\n    71 pp. 2nd ed., 1906.\n\n    _Hermann Freiherr von Soden._ Die wichtigsten Fragen im Leben\n    Jesu. (The most important Questions about the Life of Jesus.)\n    Vacation Lectures. Berlin, 1904. 111 pp.\n\n    _Gustav Frenssen._ Hilligenlei. Berlin, 1905, pp. 462\u2010593: \u201cDie\n    Handschrift.\u201d (\u201cThe Manuscript\u201d\u2014in which a Life of Jesus, written\n    by one of the characters of the story, is given in full.)\n\n    _Otto Pfleiderer._ Das Urchristentum, seine Schriften und Lehren\n    in geschichtlichem Zusammenhang beschrieben. (Primitive\n    Christianity. Its Documents and Doctrines in their Historical\n    Context.) 2nd ed. Berlin, 1902. Vol. i., 696 pp.\n\n    Die Entstehung des Urchristentums. (How Primitive Christianity\n    arose.) Munich, 1905. 255 pp.\n\n    _Albert Kalthoff._ Das Christus\u2010Problem. Grundlinien zu einer\n    Sozialtheologie. (The Christ\u2010problem. The Ground\u2010plan of a Social\n    Theology.) Leipzig, 1902. 87 pp.\n\n    Die Entstehung des Christentums. Neue Beitr\u00e4ge zum Christus\u2010\n    Problem. (How Christianity arose. New contributions to the Christ\u2010\n    problem.) Leipzig, 1904. 155 pp.\n\n    _Eduard von Hartmann._ Das Christentum des Neuen Testaments. (The\n    Christianity of the New Testament.) 2nd revised edition of\n    \u201cLetters on the Christian Religion.\u201d Sachsa\u2010in\u2010the\u2010Harz, 1905. 311\n    pp.\n\n    _De Jonge._ Jeschua. Der klassische j\u00fcdische Mann. Zerst\u00f6rung des\n    kirchlichen, Enth\u00fcllung des j\u00fcdischen Jesus\u2010Bildes. Berlin, 1904.\n    112 pp. (Jeshua. The Classical Jewish Man. In which the Jewish\n    picture of Jesus is unveiled, and the ecclesiastical picture\n    destroyed.)\n\n    _Wolfgang Kirchbach._ Was lehrte Jesus? Zwei Urevangelien. (What\n    was the teaching of Jesus? Two Primitive Gospels.) Berlin, 1897.\n    248 pp. 2nd revised and greatly enlarged edition, 1902, 339 pp.\n\n    _Albert Dulk._ Der Irrgang des Lebens Jesu. In geschichtlicher\n    Auffassung dargestellt. (The Error of the Life of Jesus. An\n    Historical View.) 1st part, 1884, 395 pp.; 2nd part, 1885, 302 pp.\n\n    _Paul de R\u00e9gla._ Jesus von Nazareth. German by A. Just. Leipzig,\n    1894. 435 pp.\n\n    _Ernest Bosc._ La Vie \u00e9sot\u00e9rique de J\u00e9sus de Nazareth et les\n    origines orientales du christianisme. (The secret Life of Jesus of\n    Nazareth, and the Oriental Origins of Christianity.) Paris, 1902.\n\n\nThe ideal Life of Jesus of the close of the nineteenth century is the Life\nwhich Heinrich Julius Holtzmann did not write\u2014but which can be pieced\ntogether from his commentary on the Synoptic Gospels and his New Testament\nTheology.(224) It is ideal because, for one thing, it is unwritten, and\narises only in the idea of the reader by the aid of his own imagination,\nand, for another, because it is traced only in the most general outline.\nWhat Holtzmann gives us is a sketch of the public ministry, a critical\nexamination of details, and a full account of the teaching of Jesus. He\nprovides, therefore, the plan and the prepared building material, so that\nany one can carry out the construction in his own way and on his own\nresponsibility. The cement and the mortar are not provided by Holtzmann;\nevery one must decide for himself how he will combine the teaching and the\nlife, and arrange the details within each.\n\nWe may recall the fact that Weisse, too, the other founder of the Marcan\nhypothesis, avoided writing a Life of Jesus, because the difficulty of\nfitting the details into the ground\u2010plan appeared to him so great, not to\nsay insuperable. It is just this modesty which constitutes his greatness\nand Holtzmann\u2019s. Thus the Marcan hypothesis ends, as it had begun, with a\ncertain historical scepticism.(225)\n\nThe subordinates, it is true, do not allow themselves to be disturbed by\nthe change of attitude at head\u2010quarters. They keep busily at work. That is\ntheir right, and therein consists their significance. By keeping on trying\nto take the positions, and constantly failing, they furnish a practical\nproof that the plan of operations worked out by the general staff is not\ncapable of being carried out, and show why it is so, and what kind of new\ntactics will have to be evolved.\n\nThe credit of having written a life of Christ which is strictly\nscientific, in its own way very remarkable, and yet foredoomed to failure,\nbelongs to Oskar Holtzmann.(226) He has complete confidence in the Marcan\nplan, and makes it his task to fit all the sayings of Jesus into this\nframework, to show \u201cwhat can belong to each period of the preaching of\nJesus, and what cannot.\u201d His method is to give free play to the magnetic\npower of the most important passages in the Marcan text, making other\nsayings of similar import detach themselves from their present connexion\nand come and group themselves round the main passages.\n\nFor example, the controversy with the scribes at Jerusalem regarding the\ncharge of doing miracles by the help of Satan (Mark iii. 22\u201030) belongs,\naccording to Holtzmann, as regards content and chronology, to the same\nperiod as the controversy, in Mark vii., about the ordinances of men which\nresults in Jesus being \u201cobliged to take to flight\u201d; the woes pronounced\nupon Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, which now follow on the eulogy\nupon the Baptist (Matt. xi. 21\u201023), and are accordingly represented as\nhaving been spoken at the time of the sending forth of the Twelve, are\ndrawn by the same kind of magnetic force into the neighbourhood of Mark\nvii., and \u201cexpress very clearly the attitude of Jesus at the time of His\nwithdrawal from the scene of His earlier ministry.\u201d The saying in Matt.\nvii. 6 about not giving that which is holy to the dogs or casting pearls\nbefore swine, does not belong to the Sermon on the Mount, but to the time\nwhen Jesus, after Caesarea Philippi, forbids the disciples to reveal the\nsecret of His Messiahship to the multitude; Jesus\u2019 action in cursing the\nfig\u2010tree so that it should henceforth bring no fruit to its owner, who was\nperhaps a poor man, is to be brought into relation with the words spoken\non the evening before, with reference to the lavish expenditure involved\nin His anointing, \u201cThe poor ye have always with you,\u201d the point being that\nJesus now, \u201cin the clear consciousness of His approaching death, feels His\nown worth,\u201d and dismisses \u201cthe contingency of even the poor having to lose\nsomething for His sake\u201d with the words \u201cit does not matter.\u201d(227)\n\nAll these transpositions and new connexions mean, it is clear, a great\ndeal of internal and external violence to the text.\n\nA further service rendered by this very thorough work of Oskar\nHoltzmann\u2019s, is that of showing how much reading between the lines is\nnecessary in order to construct a Life of Jesus on the basis of the Marcan\nhypothesis in its modern interpretation. It is thus, for instance, that\nthe author must have acquired the knowledge that the controversy about the\nordinances of purification in Mark vii. forced the people \u201cto choose\nbetween the old and the new religion\u201d\u2014in which case it is no wonder that\nmany \u201cturned back from following Jesus.\u201d\n\nWhere are we told that there was any question of an old and a new\n\u201creligion\u201d? The disciples certainly did not think of things in this way,\nas is shown by their conduct at the time of His death and the discourses\nof Peter in Acts. Where do we read that the people turned away from Jesus?\nIn Mark vii. 17 and 24 all that is said is, that Jesus left the people,\nand in Mark vii. 33 the same multitude is still assembled when Jesus\nreturns from the \u201cbanishment\u201d into which Holtzmann relegates Him.\n\nOskar Holtzmann declares that we cannot tell what was the size of the\nfollowing which accompanied Jesus in His journey northwards, and is\ninclined to assume that others besides the Twelve shared His exile. The\nEvangelists, however, say clearly that it was only the \u03bc\u03b1\u03b8\u03b7\u03c4\u03b1\u03af, that is,\nthe Twelve, who were with Him. The value which this special knowledge,\nindependent of the text, has for the author, becomes evident a little\nfarther on. After Peter\u2019s confession Jesus calls the \u201cmultitude\u201d to Him\n(Mark viii. 34) and speaks to them of His sufferings and of taking up the\ncross and following Him. This \u201cmultitude\u201d Holtzmann wants to make \u201cthe\nwhole company of Jesus\u2019 followers,\u201d \u201cto which belonged, not only the\nTwelve whom Jesus had formerly sent out to preach, but many others also.\u201d\nThe knowledge drawn from outside the text is therefore required to solve a\ndifficulty in the text.\n\nBut how did His companions in exile, the remnant of the previous\nmultitude, themselves become a multitude, the same multitude as before?\nWould it not be better to admit that we do not know how, in a Gentile\ncountry, a multitude could suddenly rise out of the ground as it were,\ncontinue with Him until Mark ix. 30, and then disappear into the earth as\nsuddenly as they came, leaving Him to pursue His journey towards Galilee\nand Jerusalem alone?\n\nAnother thing which Oskar Holtzmann knows is that it required a good deal\nof courage for Peter to hail Jesus as Messiah, since the \u201cexile wandering\nabout with his small following in a Gentile country\u201d answered \u201cso badly to\nthe general picture which people had formed of the coming of the Messiah.\u201d\nHe knows too, that in the moment of Peter\u2019s confession, \u201cChristianity was\ncomplete\u201d in the sense that \u201ca community separate from Judaism and\ncentring about a new ideal, then arose.\u201d This \u201ccommunity\u201d frequently\nappears from this point onwards. There is nothing about it in the\nnarratives, which know only the Twelve and the people.\n\nOskar Holtzmann\u2019s knowledge even extends to dialogues which are not\nreported in the Gospels. After the incident at Caesarea Philippi, the\nminds of the disciples were, according to him, preoccupied by two\nquestions. \u201cHow did Jesus know that He was the Messiah?\u201d and \u201cWhat will be\nthe future fate of this Messiah?\u201d The Lord answered both questions. He\nspoke to them of His baptism, and \u201cdoubtless in close connexion with that\u201d\nHe told them the story of His temptation, during which He had laid down\nthe lines which He was determined to follow as Messiah.\n\nOf the transfiguration, Oskar Holtzmann can state with confidence, \u201cthat\nit merely represents the inner experience of the disciples at the moment\nof Peter\u2019s confession.\u201d How is it then that Mark expressly dates that\nscene, placing it (ix. 2) six days after the discourse of Jesus about\ntaking up the cross and following Him? The fact is that the time\u2010\nindications of the text are treated as non\u2010existent whenever the Marcan\nhypothesis requires an order determined by inner connexion. The statement\nof Luke that the transfiguration took place eight days after, is dismissed\nin the remark \u201cthe motive of this indication of time is doubtless to be\nfound in the use of the Gospel narratives for reading in public worship;\nthe idea was that the section about the transfiguration should be read on\nthe Sunday following that on which the confession of Peter formed the\nlesson.\u201d Where did Oskar Holtzmann suddenly discover this information\nabout the order of the \u201cSunday lessons\u201d at the time when Luke\u2019s Gospel was\nwritten?\n\nIt was doubtless from the same private source of information that the\nauthor derived his knowledge regarding the gradual development of the\nthought of the Passion in the consciousness of Jesus. \u201cAfter the\nconfession of Peter at Caesarea Philippi,\u201d he explains, \u201cJesus\u2019 death\nbecame for Him only the necessary point of transition to the glory beyond.\nIn the discourse of Jesus to which the request of Salome gave occasion,\nthe death of Jesus already appears as the means of saving many from death,\nbecause His death makes possible the coming of the Kingdom of God. At the\ninstitution of the Supper, Jesus regards His imminent death as the\nmeritorious deed by which the blessings of the New Covenant, the\nforgiveness of sins and victory over sin, are permanently secured to His\n\u2018community.\u2019 We see Jesus constantly becoming more and more at home with\nthe idea of His death and constantly giving it a deeper interpretation.\u201d\n\nAny one who is less skilled in reading the thoughts of Jesus, and more\nsimple and natural in his reading of the text of Mark, cannot fail to\nobserve that Jesus speaks in Mark x. 45 of His death as an expiation, not\nas a means of saving others from death, and that at the Lord\u2019s Supper\nthere was no reference to His \u201ccommunity,\u201d but only to the inexplicable\n\u201cmany,\u201d which is also the word in Mark x. 45. We ought to admit freely\nthat we do not know what the thoughts of Jesus about His death were at the\ntime of the first prediction of the Passion after Peter\u2019s confession; and\nto be on our guard against the \u201coriginal sin\u201d of theology, that of\nexalting the argument from silence, when it happens to be useful, to the\nrank of positive realities.\n\nIs there not a certain irony in the fact that the application of \u201cnatural\u201d\npsychology to the explanation of the thoughts of Jesus compels the\nassumption of supra\u2010historical private information such as this? Bahrdt\nand Venturini hardly read more subjective interpretations into the text\nthan many modern Lives of Jesus; and the hypothesis of the secret society,\nwhich after all did recognise and do justice to the inexplicability from\nan external standpoint of the relation of events and of the conduct of\nJesus, was in many respects more historical than the psychological links\nof connexion which our modernising historians discover without having any\nfoundation for them in the text.\n\nIn the end this supplementary knowledge destroys the historicity of the\nsimplest sections. Oskar Holtzmann ventures to conjecture that the healing\nof the blind man at Jericho \u201cis to be understood as a symbolical\nrepresentation of the conversion of Zacchaeus,\u201d which, of course, is found\nonly in Luke. Here then the defender of the Marcan hypothesis rejects the\nincident by which the Evangelist explains the enthusiasm of the entry into\nJerusalem, not to mention that Luke tells us nothing whatever about a\nconversion of Zacchaeus, but only that Jesus was invited to his house and\ngraciously accepted the invitation.\n\nIt would be something if this almost Alexandrian symbolical exegesis\ncontributed in some way to the removal of difficulties and to the solution\nof the main question, that, namely, of the present or future Messiah, the\npresent or future Kingdom. Oskar Holtzmann lays great stress upon the\neschatological character of the preaching of Jesus regarding the Kingdom,\nand assumes that, at least at the beginning, it would not have been\nnatural for His hearers to understand that Jesus, the herald of the\nMessiah, was Himself the Messiah. Nevertheless, he is of opinion that, in\na certain sense, the presence of Jesus implied the presence of the\nKingdom, that Peter and the rest of the disciples, advancing beyond the\nideas of the multitude, recognised Him as Messiah, that this recognition\nought to have been possible for the people also, and, in that case, would\nhave been \u201cthe strongest incentive to abandon evil ways,\u201d and \u201cthat Jesus\nat the time of His entry into Jerusalem seems to have felt that in Isa.\nlxii. 11(228) there was a direct command not to withhold the knowledge of\nHis Messiahship from the inhabitants of Jerusalem.\u201d\n\nBut if Jesus made a Messianic entry He must thereafter have given Himself\nout as Messiah, and the whole controversy would necessarily have turned\nupon this claim. This, however, was not the case. According to Holtzmann,\nall that the hearers could make out of that crucial question for the\nMessiahship in Mark xii. 35\u201037 was only \u201cthat Jesus clearly showed from\nthe Scriptures that the Messiah was not in reality the son of David.\u201d(229)\n\nBut how was it that the Messianic enthusiasm on the part of the people did\nnot lead to a Messianic controversy, in spite of the fact that Jesus \u201cfrom\nthe first came forward in Jerusalem as Messiah\u201d? This difficulty O.\nHoltzmann seems to be trying to provide against when he remarks in a\nfootnote: \u201cWe have no evidence that Jesus, even during the last sojourn in\nJerusalem, was recognised as Messiah except by those who belonged to the\ninner circle of disciples. The repetition by the children of the\nacclamations of the disciples (Matt. xxi. 15 and 16) can hardly be\nconsidered of much importance in this connexion.\u201d According to this, Jesus\nentered Jerusalem as Messiah, but except for the disciples and a few\nchildren no one recognised His entry as having a Messianic significance!\nBut Mark states that many spread their garments upon the way, and others\nplucked down branches from the trees and strewed them in the way, and that\nthose that went before and those that followed after, cried \u201cHosanna!\u201d The\nMarcan narrative must therefore be kept out of sight for the moment in\norder that the Life of Jesus as conceived by the modern Marcan hypothesis\nmay not be endangered.\n\nWe should not, however, regard the evidence of supernatural knowledge and\nthe self\u2010contradictions of this Life of Jesus as a matter for censure, but\nrather as a proof of the merits of O. Holtzmann\u2019s work.(230) He has\nwritten the last large\u2010scale Life of Jesus, the only one which the Marcan\nhypothesis has produced, and aims at providing a scientific basis for the\nassumptions which the general lines of that hypothesis compel him to make;\nand in this process it becomes clearly apparent that the connexion of\nevents can only be carried through at the decisive passages by violent\ntreatment, or even by rejection of the Marcan text in the interests of the\nMarcan hypothesis.\n\nThese merits do not belong in the same measure to the other modern Lives\nof Jesus, which follow more or less the same lines. They are short\nsketches, in some cases based on lectures, and their brevity makes them\nperhaps more lively and convincing than Holtzmann\u2019s work; but they take\nfor granted just what he felt it necessary to prove. P. W. Schmidt\u2019s(231)\n_Geschichte Jesu_ (1899), which as a work of literary art has few rivals\namong theological works of recent years, confines itself to pure\nnarrative. The volume of prolegomena which appeared in 1904, and is\nintended to exhibit the foundations of the narrative, treats of the\nsources, of the Kingdom of God, of the Son of Man, and of the Law. It\nmakes the most of the weakening of the eschatological standpoint which is\nmanifested in the second edition of Johannes Weiss\u2019s \u201cPreaching of Jesus,\u201d\nbut it does not give sufficient prominence to the difficulties of\nreconstructing the public ministry of Jesus.\n\nNeither Otto Schmiedel\u2019s \u201cThe Principal Problems of the Study of the Life\nof Jesus,\u201d nor von Soden\u2019s \u201cVacation Lectures\u201d on \u201cThe Principal Questions\nin the Life of Jesus\u201d fulfils the promise of its title.(232) They both aim\nrather at solving new problems proposed by themselves than at restating\nthe old ones and adding new. They hope to meet the views of Johannes Weiss\nby strongly emphasising the eschatology, and think they can escape the\ncritical scepticism of writers like Volkmar and Brand by assuming an \u201cUr\u2010\nMarkus.\u201d Their view is, therefore, that with a few modifications dictated\nby the eschatological and sceptical school, the traditional conception of\nthe Life of Jesus is still tenable, whereas it is just the a priori\npresuppositions of this conception, hitherto held to be self\u2010evident,\nwhich constitute the main problems.\n\n\u201cIt is self\u2010evident,\u201d says von Soden in one passage, \u201cin view of the inner\nconnexion in which the Kingdom of God and the Messiah stood in the\nthoughts of the people ... that in all classes the question must have been\ndiscussed, so that Jesus could not permanently have avoided their\nquestion, \u2018What of the Messiah? Art thou not He?\u2019 \u201d Where, in the\nSynoptics, is there a word to show that this is \u201cself\u2010evident\u201d? When the\ndisciples in Mark viii. tell Jesus \u201cwhom men held Him to be,\u201d none of them\nsuggests that any one had been tempted to regard Him as the Messiah. And\nthat was shortly before Jesus set out for Jerusalem.\n\nFrom the day when the envoys of the Scribes from Jerusalem first appeared\nin the north, the easily influenced Galilaean multitude began, according\nto von Soden, \u201cto waver.\u201d How does he know that the Galilaeans were easily\ninfluenced? How does he know they \u201cwavered\u201d? The Gospels tell us neither\none nor the other. The demand for a sign was, to quote von Soden again, a\ndemand for a proof of His Messiahship. \u201cYet another indication,\u201d adds the\nauthor, \u201cthat later Christianity, in putting so high a value on the\nmiracles of Jesus as a proof of His Messiahship, departed widely from the\nthoughts of Jesus.\u201d\n\nBefore levelling reproaches of this kind against later Christianity, it\nwould be well to point to some passage of Mark or Matthew in which there\nis mention of a demand for a sign as a proof of His Messiahship.\n\nWhen the appearance of Jesus in the south\u2014we are still following von\nSoden\u2014aroused the Messianic expectations of the people, as they had\nformerly been aroused in His native country, \u201cthey once more failed to\nunderstand the correction of them which Jesus had made by the manner of\nHis entry and His conduct in Jerusalem.\u201d They are unable to understand\nthis \u201ctransvaluation of values,\u201d and as often as the impression made by\nHis personality suggested the thought that He was the Messiah, they became\ndoubtful again. Wherein consisted the correction of the Messianic\nexpectation given at the triumphal entry? Was it that He rode upon an ass?\nWould it not be better if modern historical theology, instead of always\nmaking the people \u201cgrow doubtful,\u201d were to grow a little doubtful of\nitself, and begin to look for the evidence of that \u201ctransvaluation of\nvalues\u201d which, according to them, the contemporaries of Jesus were not\nable to follow?\n\nVon Soden also possesses special information about the \u201cpeculiar history\nof the origin\u201d of the Messianic consciousness of Jesus. He knows that it\nwas subsidiary to a primary general religious consciousness of Sonship.\nThe rise of this Messianic consciousness implies, in its turn, the\n\u201ctransformation of the conception of the Kingdom of God, and explains how\nin the mind of Jesus this conception was both present and future.\u201d The\ngreatness of Jesus is, he thinks, to be found in the fact that for Him\nthis Kingdom of God was only a \u201climiting conception\u201d\u2014the ultimate goal of\na gradual process of approximation. \u201cTo the question whether it was to be\nrealised here or in the beyond Jesus would have answered, as He answered a\nsimilar question, \u2018That, no man knoweth; no, not the Son.\u2019 \u201d\n\nAs if He had not answered that question in the petition \u201cThy Kingdom\ncome\u201d\u2014supposing that such a question could ever have occurred to a\ncontemporary\u2014in the sense that the Kingdom was to pass from the beyond\ninto the present!\n\nThis modern historical theology will not allow Jesus to have formed a\n\u201ctheory\u201d to explain His thoughts about His passion. \u201cFor Him the certainty\nwas amply sufficient; \u2018My death will effect what My life has not been able\nto accomplish.\u2019 \u201d\n\nIs there then no theory implied in the saying about the \u201cransom for many,\u201d\nand in that about \u201cMy blood which is shed for many for the forgiveness of\nsins,\u201d although Jesus does not explain it? How does von Soden know what\nwas \u201camply sufficient\u201d for Jesus or what was not?\n\nOtto Schmiedel goes so far as to deny that Jesus gave distinct expression\nto an expectation of suffering; the most He can have done\u2014and this is only\na \u201cperhaps\u201d\u2014is to have hinted at it in His discourses.\n\nIn strong contrast with this confidence in committing themselves to\nhistorical conjectures stands the scepticism with which von Soden and\nSchmiedel approach the Gospels. \u201cIt is at once evident,\u201d says Schmiedel,\n\u201cthat the great groups of discourses in Matthew, such as the Sermon on the\nMount, the Seven Parables of the Kingdom, and so forth, were not arranged\nin this order in the source (the _Logia_), still less by Jesus Himself.\nThe order is, doubtless, due to the Evangelist. But what is the answer to\nthe question, \u2018On what grounds is this \u201cat once\u201d clear?\u2019 \u201d(233)\n\nVon Soden\u2019s pronouncement is even more radical. \u201cIn the composition of the\ndiscourses,\u201d he says, \u201cno regard is paid in Matthew, any more than in\nJohn, to the supposed audience, or to the point of time in the life of\nJesus to which they are attributed.\u201d As early as the Sermon on the Mount\nwe find references to persecutions, and warnings against false prophets.\nSimilarly, in the charge to the Twelve, there are also warnings, which\nundoubtedly belong to a later time. Intimate sayings, evidently intended\nfor the inner circle of disciples, have the widest publicity given to\nthem.\n\nBut why should whatever is incomprehensible to us be unhistorical? Would\nit not be better simply to admit that we do not understand certain\nconnexions of ideas and turns of expression in the discourses of Jesus?\n\nBut instead even of making an analytical examination of the apparent\nconnexions, and stating them as problems, the discourses of Jesus and the\nsections of the Gospels are tricked out with ingenious headings which have\nnothing to do with them. Thus, for instance, von Soden heads the\nBeatitudes (Matt. v. 3\u201012), \u201cWhat Jesus brings to men,\u201d the following\nverses (Matt. v. 13\u201016), \u201cWhat He makes of men.\u201d P. W. Schmidt, in his\n\u201cHistory of Jesus,\u201d shows himself a past master in this art. \u201cThe rights\nof the wife\u201d is the title of the dialogue about divorce, as if the\nquestion at stake had been for Jesus the equality of the sexes, and not\nsimply and solely the sanctity of marriage. \u201cSunshine for the children\u201d is\nhis heading for the scene where Jesus takes the children in His arms\u2014as if\nthe purpose of Jesus had been to protest against severity in the\nupbringing of children. Again, he brings together the stories of the man\nwho must first bury his father, of the rich young man, of the dispute\nabout precedence, of Zacchaeus, and others which have equally little\nconnexion under the heading \u201cDiscipline for Jesus\u2019 followers.\u201d These often\nbrilliant creations of artificial connexions of thought give a curious\nattractiveness to the works of Schmidt and von Soden. The latter\u2019s survey\nof the Gospels is a really delightful performance. But this kind of thing\nis not consistent with pure objective history.\n\nDisposing in this lofty fashion of the connexion of events, Schmiedel and\nvon Soden do not find it difficult to distinguish between Mark and \u201cUr\u2010\nMarkus\u201d; that is, to retain just so much of the Gospel as will fit in to\ntheir construction. Schmiedel feels sure that Mark was a skilful writer,\nand that the redactor was \u201ca Christian of Pauline sympathies.\u201d According\nto \u201cUr\u2010Markus,\u201d to which Mark iv. 33 belongs, the Lord speaks in parables\nin order that the people may understand Him the better; \u201cit was only by\nthe redactor that the Pauline theory about hardening their hearts (Rom.\nix.\u2010xi.) was interpolated, in Mark iv. 10 ff., and the meaning of Mark iv.\n33 was thus obscured.\u201d\n\nIt is high time that instead of merely asserting Pauline influences in\nMark some proof of the assertion should be given. What kind of appearance\nwould Mark have presented if it had really passed through the hands of a\nPauline Christian?\n\nVon Soden\u2019s analysis is no less confident. The three outstanding miracles,\nthe stilling of the storm, the casting out of the legion of devils, the\novercoming of death (Mark iv. 35\u2010v. 43), the romantically told story of\nthe death of the Baptist (Mark vi. 17\u201029), the story of the feeding of the\nmultitudes in the desert, of Jesus\u2019 walking on the water, and of the\ntransfiguration upon an high mountain, and the healing of the lunatic\nboy\u2014all these are dashed in with a broad brush, and offer many analogies\nto Old Testament stories, and some suggestions of Pauline conceptions, and\nreflections of experiences of individual believers and of the Christian\ncommunity. \u201cAll these passages were, doubtless, first written down by the\ncompiler of our Gospel.\u201d\n\nBut how can Schmiedel and von Soden fail to see that they are heading\nstraight for Bruno Bauer\u2019s position? They assert that there is no\ndistinction of principle between the way in which the Johannine and the\nSynoptic discourses are composed: the recognition of this was Bruno\nBauer\u2019s starting\u2010point. They propose to find experiences of the Christian\ncommunity and Pauline teaching reflected in the Gospel of Mark; Bruno\nBauer asserted the same. The only difference is that he was consistent,\nand extended his criticism to those portions of the Gospel which do not\npresent the stumbling\u2010block of the supernatural. Why should these not also\ncontain the theology and the experiences of the community transformed into\nhistory? Is it only because they remain within the limits of the natural?\n\nThe real difficulty consists in the fact that all the passages which von\nSoden ascribes to the redactor stand, in spite of their mythical\ncolouring, in a closely\u2010knit historical connexion; in fact, the historical\nconnexion is nowhere so close. How can any one cut out the feeding of the\nmultitudes and the transfiguration as narratives of secondary origin\nwithout destroying the whole of the historical fabric of the Gospel of\nMark? Or was it the redactor who created the plan of the Gospel of Mark,\nas von Soden seems to imply?(234)\n\nBut in that case how can a modern Life of Jesus be founded on the Marcan\nplan? How much of Mark is, in the end, historical? Why should not Peter\u2019s\nconfession at Caesarea Philippi have been derived from the theology of the\nprimitive Church, just as well as the transfiguration? The only difference\nis that the incident at Caesarea Philippi is more within the limits of the\npossible, whereas the scene upon the mountain has a supernatural\ncolouring. But is the incident at Philippi so entirely natural? Whence\ndoes Peter know that Jesus is the Messiah?\n\nThis semi\u2010scepticism is therefore quite unjustifiable, since in Mark\nnatural and supernatural both stand in an equally good and close\nhistorical connexion. Either, then, one must be completely sceptical like\nBruno Bauer, and challenge without exception all the facts and connexions\nof events asserted by Mark; or, if one means to found an historical Life\nof Jesus upon Mark, one must take the Gospel as a whole because of the\nplan which runs right through it, accepting it as historical and then\nendeavouring to explain why certain narratives, like the feeding of the\nmultitude and the transfiguration, are bathed in a supernatural light, and\nwhat is the historical basis which underlies them. A division between the\nnatural and supernatural in Mark is purely arbitrary, because the\nsupernatural is an essential part of the history. The mere fact that he\nhas not adopted the mythical material of the childhood stories and the\npost\u2010resurrection scenes ought to have been accepted as evidence that the\nsupernatural material which he does embody belongs to a category of its\nown and cannot be simply rejected as due to the invention of the primitive\nChristian community. It must belong in some way to the original tradition.\n\nOskar Holtzmann realises that to a certain extent. According to him Mark\nis a writer \u201cwho embodied the materials which he received from the\ntradition more faithfully than discriminatingly.\u201d \u201cThat which was related\nas a symbol of inner events, he takes as history\u2014in the case, for example,\nof the temptation, the walking on the sea, the transfiguration of Jesus.\u201d\n\u201cAgain in other cases he has made a remarkable occurrence into a\nsupernatural miracle, as in the case of the feeding of the multitude,\nwhere Jesus\u2019 courageous love and ready organising skill overcame a\nmomentary difficulty, whereas the Evangelist represents it as an amazing\nmiracle of Divine omnipotence.\u201d\n\nOskar Holtzmann is thus more cautious than von Soden. He is inclined to\nsee in the material which he wishes to exclude from the history, not so\nmuch inventions of the Church as mistaken shaping of history by Mark, and\nin this way he gets back to genuine old\u2010fashioned rationalism. In the\nfeeding of the multitude Jesus showed \u201cthe confidence of a courageous\nhousewife who knows how to provide skilfully for a great crowd of children\nfrom small resources.\u201d Perhaps in a future work Oskar Holtzmann will be\nless reserved, not for the sake of theology, but of national well\u2010being,\nand will inform his contemporaries what kind of domestic economy it was\nwhich made it possible for the Lord to satisfy with five loaves and two\nfishes several thousand hungry men.\n\nModern historical theology, therefore, with its three\u2010quarters scepticism,\nis left at last with only a torn and tattered Gospel of Mark in its hands.\nOne would naturally suppose that these preliminary operations upon the\nsource would lead to the production of a Life of Jesus of a similarly\nfragmentary character. Nothing of the kind. The outline is still the same\nas in Schenkel\u2019s day, and the confidence with which the construction is\ncarried out is not less complete. Only the catch\u2010words with which the\nnarrative is enlivened have been changed, being now taken in part from\nNietzsche. The liberal Jesus has given place to the Germanic Jesus. This\nis a figure which has as little to do with the Marcan hypothesis as the\n\u201cliberal\u201d Jesus had which preceded it; otherwise it could not so easily\nhave survived the downfall of the Gospel of Mark as an historical source.\nIt is evident, therefore, that this professedly historical Jesus is not a\npurely historical figure, but one which has been artificially transplanted\ninto history. As formerly in Renan the romantic spirit created the\npersonality of Jesus in its own image, so at the present day the Germanic\nspirit is making a Jesus after its own likeness. What is admitted as\nhistoric is just what the Spirit of the time can take out of the records\nin order to assimilate it to itself and bring out of it a living form.\n\nFrenssen betrays the secret of his teachers when in _Hilligenlei_ he\nconfidently superscribes the narrative drawn from the \u201clatest critical\ninvestigations\u201d with the title \u201cThe Life of the Saviour portrayed\naccording to German research as the basis for a spiritual re\u2010birth of the\nGerman nation.\u201d(235)\n\nAs a matter of fact the Life of Jesus of the \u201cManuscript\u201d(236) is\nunsatisfactory both scientifically and artistically, just because it aims\nat being at once scientific and artistic. If only Frenssen, with his\nstrongly life\u2010accepting instinct, which gives to his thinking, at least in\nhis earliest writings where he reveals himself without artificiality, such\na wonderful simplicity and force, had dared to read his Jesus boldly from\nthe original records, without following modern historical theology in all\nits meanderings! He would have been able to force his way through the\nunderwood well enough if only he had been content to break the branches\nthat got in his way, instead of always waiting until some one went in\nfront to disentwine them for him. The dependence to which he surrenders\nhimself is really distressing. In reading almost every paragraph one can\ntell whether Kai Jans was looking, as he wrote it, into Oskar Holtzmann or\nP. W. Schmidt or von Soden. Frenssen resigns the dramatic scene of the\nhealing of the blind man at Jericho. Why? Because at this point he was\nlistening to Holtzmann, who proposes to regard the healing of the blind\nman as only a symbolical representation of the \u201cconversion of Zacchaeus.\u201d\nFrenssen\u2019s masters have robbed him of all creative spontaneity. He does\nnot permit himself to discover _motifs_ for himself, but confines himself\nto working over and treating in cruder colours those which he finds in his\nteachers.\n\nAnd since he cannot veil his assumptions in the cautious, carefully\nmodulated language of the theologians, the faults of the modern treatment\nof the life of Jesus appear in him exaggerated an hundredfold. The violent\ndislocation of narratives from their connexion, and the forcing upon them\nof a modern interpretation, becomes a mania with the writer and a torture\nto the reader. The range of knowledge not drawn from the text is\ninfinitely increased. Kai Jans sees Jesus after the temptation cowering\nbeneath the brow of the hill \u201ca poor lonely man, torn by fearful doubts, a\nman in the deepest distress.\u201d He knows too that there was often great\ndanger that Jesus would \u201cbetray the \u2019Father in heaven\u2019 and go back to His\nvillage to take up His handicraft again, but now as a man with a torn and\ndistracted soul and a conscience tortured by the gnawings of remorse.\u201d\n\nThe pupil is not content, as his teachers had been, merely to make the\npeople sometimes believe in Jesus and sometimes doubt Him; he makes the\nenthusiastic earthly Messianic belief of the people \u201ctug and tear\u201d at\nJesus Himself. Sometimes one is tempted to ask whether the author in his\nzeal \u201cto use conscientiously the results of the whole range of scientific\ncriticism\u201d has not forgotten the main thing, the study of the Gospels\nthemselves.\n\nAnd is all this science supposed to be new?(237) Is this picture of Jesus\nreally the outcome of the latest criticism? Has it not been in existence\nsince the beginning of the \u2019forties, since Weisse\u2019s criticism of the\nGospel history? Is it not in principle the same as Renan\u2019s, only that\nGermanic lapses of taste here take the place of Gallic, and \u201cGerman art\nfor German people,\u201d(238) here quite out of place, has done its best to\nremove from the picture every trace of fidelity?\n\nKai Jans\u2019 \u201cManuscript\u201d represents the limit of the process of diminishing\nthe personality of Jesus. Weisse left Him still some greatness, something\nunexplained, and did not venture to apply to everything the petty\nstandards of inquisitive modern psychology. In the \u2019sixties psychology\nbecame more confident and Jesus smaller; at the close of the century the\nconfidence of psychology is at its greatest and the figure of Jesus at its\nsmallest\u2014so small, that Frenssen ventures to let His life be projected and\nwritten by one who is in the midst of a love affair!\n\nThis human life of Jesus is to be \u201cheart\u2010stirring\u201d from beginning to end,\nand \u201cin no respect to go beyond human standards\u201d! And this Jesus who\n\u201cracks His brains and shapes His plans\u201d is to contribute to bring about a\nre\u2010birth of the German people. How could He? He is Himself only a phantom\ncreated by the Germanic mind in pursuit of a religious will\u2010o\u2019\u2010the\u2010wisp.\n\nIt is possible, however, to do injustice to Frenssen\u2019s presentation, and\nto the whole of the confident, unconsciously modernising criticism of\nwhich he here acts as the mouthpiece. These writers have the great merit\nof having brought certain cultured circles nearer to Jesus and made them\nmore sympathetic towards Him. Their fault lies in their confidence, which\nhas blinded them to what Jesus is and is not, what He can and cannot do,\nso that in the end they fail to understand \u201cthe signs of the times\u201d either\nas historians or as men of the present.\n\nIf the Jesus who owes His birth to the Marcan hypothesis and modern\npsychology were capable of regenerating the world He would have done it\nlong ago, for He is nearly sixty years old and his latest portraits are\nmuch less life\u2010like than those drawn by Weisse, Schenkel, and Renan, or by\nKeim, the most brilliant painter of them all.\n\nFor the last ten years modern historical theology has more and more\nadapted itself to the needs of the man in the street. More and more, even\nin the best class of works, it makes use of attractive head\u2010lines as a\nmeans of presenting its results in a lively form to the masses.\nIntoxicated with its own ingenuity in inventing these, it becomes more and\nmore confident in its cause, and has come to believe that the world\u2019s\nsalvation depends in no small measure upon the spreading of its own\n\u201cassured results\u201d broad\u2010cast among the people. It is time that it should\nbegin to doubt itself, to doubt its \u201chistorical\u201d Jesus, to doubt the\nconfidence with which it has looked to its own construction for the moral\nand religious regeneration of our time. Its Jesus is not alive, however\nGermanic they may make Him.\n\nIt was no accident that the chief priest of \u201cGerman art for German people\u201d\nfound himself at one with the modern theologians and offered them his\nalliance. Since the \u2019sixties the critical study of the Life of Jesus in\nGermany has been unconsciously under the influence of an imposing modern\u2010\nreligious nationalism in art. It has been deflected by it as by an\nunderground magnetic current. It was in vain that a few purely historical\ninvestigators uplifted their voices in protest. The process had to work\nitself out. For historical criticism had become, in the hands of most of\nthose who practised it, a secret struggle to reconcile the Germanic\nreligious spirit with the Spirit of Jesus of Nazareth.(239) It was\nconcerned for the religious interests of the present. Therefore its error\nhad a kind of greatness, it was in fact the greatest thing about it; and\nthe severity with which the pure historian treats it is in proportion to\nhis respect for its spirit. For this German critical study of the Life of\nJesus is an essential part of German religion. As of old Jacob wrestled\nwith the angel, so German theology wrestles with Jesus of Nazareth and\nwill not let Him go until He bless it\u2014that is, until He will consent to\nserve it and will suffer Himself to be drawn by the Germanic spirit into\nthe midst of our time and our civilisation. But when the day breaks, the\nwrestler must let Him go. He will not cross the ford with us. Jesus of\nNazareth will not suffer Himself to be modernised. As an historic figure\nHe refuses to be detached from His own time. He has no answer for the\nquestion, \u201cTell us Thy name in our speech and for our day!\u201d But He does\nbless those who have wrestled with Him, so that, though they cannot take\nHim with them, yet, like men who have seen God face to face and received\nstrength in their souls, they go on their way with renewed courage, ready\nto do battle with the world and its powers.\n\nBut the historic Jesus and the Germanic spirit cannot be brought together\nexcept by an act of historic violence which in the end injures both\nreligion and history. A time will come when our theology, with its pride\nin its historical character, will get rid of its rationalistic bias. This\nbias leads it to project back into history what belongs to our own time,\nthe eager struggle of the modern religious spirit with the Spirit of\nJesus, and seek in history justification and authority for its beginning.\nThe consequence is that it creates the historical Jesus in its own image,\nso that it is not the modern spirit influenced by the Spirit of Jesus, but\nthe Jesus of Nazareth constructed by modern historical theology, that is\nset to work upon our race.\n\nTherefore both the theology and its picture of Jesus are poor and weak.\nIts Jesus, because He has been measured by the petty standard of the\nmodern man, at variance with himself, not to say of the modern candidate\nin theology who has made shipwreck; the theologians themselves, because\ninstead of seeking, for themselves and others, how they may best bring the\nSpirit of Jesus in living power into our world, they keep continually\nforging new portraits of the historical Jesus, and think they have\naccomplished something great when they have drawn an Oh! of astonishment\nfrom the multitude, such as the crowds of a great city emit on catching\nsight of a new advertisement in coloured lights.\n\nAnyone who, admiring the force and authority of genuine rationalism, has\ngot rid of the na\u00efve self\u2010satisfaction of modern theology, which is in\nessence only the degenerate offspring of rationalism with a tincture of\nhistory, rejoices in the feebleness and smallness of its professedly\nhistorical Jesus, rejoices in all those who are beginning to doubt the\ntruth of this portrait, rejoices in the over\u2010severity with which it is\nattacked, rejoices to take a share in its destruction.\n\nThose who have begun to doubt are many, but most of them only make known\ntheir doubts by their silence. There is one, however, who has spoken out,\nand one of the greatest\u2014Otto Pfleiderer.(240)\n\nIn the first edition of his _Urchristentum_, published in 1887, he still\nshared the current conceptions and constructions, except that he held the\ncredibility of Mark to be more affected than was usually supposed by\nhypothetical Pauline influences. In the second edition(241) his positive\nknowledge has been ground down in the struggle with the sceptics\u2014it is\nBrandt who has especially affected him\u2014and with the partisans of\neschatology. This is the first advance\u2010guard action of modern theology\ncoming into touch with the troops of Reimarus and Bruno Bauer.\n\nPfleiderer accepts the purely eschatological conception of the Kingdom of\nGod and holds also that the ethics of Jesus were wholly conditioned by\neschatology. But in regard to the question of the Messiahship of Jesus he\ntakes his stand with the sceptics. He rejects the hypothesis of a Messiah\nwho, as being a \u201cspiritual Messiah,\u201d conceals His claim, but on the other\nhand, he cannot accept the eschatological Son\u2010of\u2010Man Messiahship having\nreference to the future, which the eschatological school finds in the\nutterances of Jesus, since it implies prophecies of His suffering, death,\nand resurrection which criticism cannot admit. \u201cInstead of finding the\nexplanation of how the Messianic title arose in the reflections of Jesus\nabout the death which lay before Him,\u201d he is inclined to find it \u201crather\nin the reflection of the Christian community upon the catastrophic death\nand exaltation of its Lord after this had actually taken place.\u201d\n\nEven the Marcan narrative is not history. The scepticism in regard to the\nmain source, with which writers like Oskar Holtzmann, Schmiedel, and von\nSoden conduct a kind of intellectual flirtation, is here erected into a\nprinciple. \u201cIt must be recognised,\u201d says Pfleiderer, \u201cthat in respect of\nthe recasting of the history under theological influences, the whole of\nour Gospels stand in principle on the same footing. The distinction\nbetween Mark, the other two Synoptists, and John is only relative\u2014a\ndistinction of degree corresponding to different stages of theological\nreflection and the development of the ecclesiastical consciousness.\u201d If\nonly Bruno Bauer could have lived to see this triumph of his opinions!\n\nPfleiderer, however, is conscious that scepticism, too, has its\ndifficulties. He wishes, indeed, to reject the confession of Jesus before\nthe Sanhedrin \u201cbecause its historicity is not well established (none of\nthe disciples were present to hear it, and the apocalyptic prophecy which\nis added, Mark xiv. 62, is certainly derived from the ideas of the\nprimitive Church)\u201d; on the other hand, he is inclined to admit as\npossibilities\u2014though marking them with a note of interrogation\u2014that Jesus\nmay have accepted the homage of the Passover pilgrims, and that the\ncontroversy with the Scribes about the Son of David had some kind of\nreference to Jesus Himself.\n\nOn the other hand, he takes it for granted that Jesus did not prophesy His\ndeath, on the ground that the arrest, trial, and betrayal must have lain\noutside all possibility of calculation even for Him. All these, he thinks,\ncame upon Jesus quite unexpectedly. The only thing that He might have\napprehended was \u201can attack by hired assassins,\u201d and it is to this that He\nrefers in the saying about the two swords in Luke xxii. 36 and 38, seeing\nthat two swords would have sufficed as a protection against such an attack\nas that, though hardly for anything further. When, however, he remarks in\nthis connexion that \u201cthis has been constantly overlooked\u201d in the romances\ndealing with the Life of Jesus, he does injustice to Bahrdt and Venturini,\nsince according to them the chief concern of the secret society in the\nlater period of the life of Jesus was to protect Jesus from the\nassassination with which He was menaced, and to secure His formal arrest\nand trial by the Sanhedrin. Their view of the historical situation is\ntherefore identical with Pfleiderer\u2019s, viz. that assassination was\npossible, but that administrative action was unexpected and is\ninexplicable.\n\nBut how is this Jesus to be connected with primitive Christianity? How did\nthe primitive Church\u2019s belief in the Messiahship of Jesus arise? To that\nquestion Pfleiderer can give no other answer than that of Volkmar and\nBrandt, that is to say, none. He laboriously brings together wood, straw,\nand stubble, but where he gets the fire from to kindle the whole into the\nardent faith of primitive Christianity he is unable to make clear.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nAccording to Albert Kalthoff,(242) the fire lighted itself\u2014Christianity\narose\u2014by spontaneous combustion, when the inflammable material, religious\nand social, which had collected together in the Roman Empire, came in\ncontact with the Jewish Messianic expectations. Jesus of Nazareth never\nexisted; and even supposing He had been one of the numerous Jewish\nMessiahs who were put to death by crucifixion, He certainly did not found\nChristianity. The story of Jesus which lies before us in the Gospels is in\nreality only the story of the way in which the picture of Christ arose,\nthat is to say, the story of the growth of the Christian community. There\nis therefore no problem of the Life of Jesus, but only a problem of the\nChrist.\n\nKalthoff has not indeed always been so negative. When in the year 1880 he\ngave a series of lectures on the Life of Jesus he felt himself justified\n\u201cin taking as his basis without further argument the generally accepted\nresults of modern theology.\u201d Afterwards he became so completely doubtful\nabout the Christ after the flesh whom he had at that time depicted before\nhis hearers that he wished to exclude Him even from the register of\ntheological literature, and omitted to enter these lectures in the list of\nhis writings, although they had appeared in print.(243)\n\nHis quarrel with the historical Jesus of modern theology was that he could\nfind no connecting link between the Life of Jesus constructed by the\nlatter and primitive Christianity. Modern theology, he remarks in one\npassage, with great justice, finds itself obliged to assume, at the point\nwhere the history of the Church begins, \u201can immediate declension from, and\nfalsification of, a pure original principle,\u201d and that in so doing \u201cit is\ndeserting the recognised methods of historical science.\u201d If then we cannot\ntrace the path from its beginning onwards, we had better try to work\nbackwards, endeavouring first to define in the theology of the primitive\nChurch the values which we shall look to find again in the Life of Jesus.\n\nIn that he is right. Modern historical theology will not have refuted him\nuntil it has explained how Christianity arose out of the life of Jesus\nwithout calling in that theory of an initial \u201cFall\u201d of which Harnack,\nWernle, and all the rest make use. Until this modern theology has made it\nin some measure intelligible how, under the influence of the Jewish\nMessiah\u2010sect, in the twinkling of an eye, in every direction at once,\nGraeco\u2010Roman popular Christianity arose; until at least it has described\nthe popular Christianity of the first three generations, it must concede\nto all hypotheses which fairly face this problem and endeavour to solve it\ntheir formal right of existence.\n\nThe criticism which Kalthoff directs against the \u201cpositive\u201d accounts of\nthe Life of Jesus is, in part, very much to the point. \u201cJesus,\u201d he says in\none place, \u201chas been made the receptacle into which every theologian pours\nhis own ideas.\u201d He rightly remarks that if we follow \u201cthe Christ\u201d\nbackwards from the Epistles and Gospels of the New Testament right to the\napocalyptic vision of Daniel, we always find in Him superhuman traits\nalongside of the human. \u201cNever and nowhere,\u201d he insists, \u201cis He that which\ncritical theology has endeavoured to make out of Him, a purely natural\nman, an indivisible historical unit.\u201d \u201cThe title of \u2019Christ\u2019 had been\nraised by the Messianic apocalyptic writings so completely into the sphere\nof the heroic that it had become impossible to apply it to a mere\nhistorical man.\u201d Bruno Bauer had urged the same considerations upon the\ntheology of his time, declaring it to be unthinkable that a man could have\narisen among the Jews and declared \u201cI am the Messiah.\u201d\n\nBut the unfortunate thing is that Kalthoff has not worked through Bruno\nBauer\u2019s criticism, and does not appear to assume it as a basis, but\nremains standing half\u2010way instead of thinking the questions through to the\nend as that keen critic did. According to Kalthoff it would appear that,\nyear in year out, there was a constant succession of Messianic\ndisturbances among the Jews and of crucified claimants of the Messiahship.\n\u201cThere had been many a \u2019Christ,\u2019\u201d he says in one place, \u201cbefore there was\nany question of a Jesus in connexion with this title.\u201d\n\nHow does Kalthoff know that? If he had fairly considered and felt the\nforce of Bruno Bauer\u2019s arguments, he would never have ventured on this\nassertion; he would have learned that it is not only historically\nunproved, but intrinsically impossible.\n\nBut Kalthoff was in far too great a hurry to present to his readers a\ndescription of the growth of Christianity, and therewith of the picture of\nthe Christ, to absorb thoroughly the criticism of his great predecessor.\nHe soon leads his reader away from the high road of criticism into a\nmorass of speculation, in order to arrive by a short cut at Graeco\u2010Roman\nprimitive Christianity. But the trouble is that while the guide walks\nlightly and safely, the ordinary man, weighed down by the pressure of\nhistorical considerations, sinks to rise no more.\n\nThe conjectural argument which Kalthoff follows out is in itself acute,\nand forms a suitable pendant to Bauer\u2019s reconstruction of the course of\nevents. Bauer proposed to derive Christianity from the Graeco\u2010Roman\nphilosophy; Kalthoff, recognising that the origin of popular Christianity\nconstitutes the main question, takes as his starting\u2010point the social\nmovements of the time.\n\nIn the Roman Empire, so runs his argument, among the oppressed masses of\nthe slaves and the populace, eruptive forces were concentrated under high\ntension. A communistic movement arose, to which the influence of the\nJewish element in the proletariat gave a Messianic\u2010Apocalyptic colouring.\nThe Jewish synagogue influenced Roman social conditions so that \u201cthe crude\nsocial ferment at work in the Roman Empire amalgamated itself with the\nreligious and philosophical forces of the time to form the new Christian\nsocial movement.\u201d Early Christian writers had learned in the synagogue to\nconstruct \u201cpersonifications.\u201d The whole Late\u2010Jewish literature rests upon\nthis principle. Thus \u201cthe Christ\u201d became the ideal hero of the Christian\ncommunity, \u201cfrom the socio\u2010religious standpoint the figure of Christ is\nthe sublimated religious expression for the sum of the social and ethical\nforces which were at work at a certain period.\u201d The Lord\u2019s Supper was the\nmemorial feast of this ideal hero.\n\n\u201cAs the Christ to whose Parousia the community looks forward this Hero\u2010god\nof the community bears within Himself the capacity for expansion into the\nGod of the universe, into the Christ of the Church, who is identical in\nessential nature with God the Father. Thus the belief in the Christ\nbrought the Messianic hope of the future into the minds of the masses, who\nhad already a certain organisation, and by directing their thoughts\ntowards the future it won all those who were sick of the past and\ndespairing about the present.\u201d\n\nThe death and resurrection of Jesus represent experiences of the\ncommunity. \u201cFor a Jew crucified under Pontius Pilate there was certainly\nno resurrection. All that is possible is a vague hypothesis of a vision\nlacking all historical reality, or an escape into the vaguenesses of\ntheological phraseology. But for the Christian community the resurrection\nwas something real, a matter of fact. For the community as such was not\nannihilated in that persecution: it drew from it, rather, new strength and\nlife.\u201d\n\nBut what about the foundations of this imposing structure?\n\nFor what he has to tell us about the condition of the Roman Empire and the\nsocial organisation of the proletariat in the time of Trajan\u2014for it was\nthen that the Church first came out into the light\u2014we may leave the\nresponsibility with Kalthoff. But we must inquire more closely how he\nbrings the Jewish apocalyptic into contact with the Roman proletariat.\n\nCommunism, he says, was common to both. It was the bond which united the\napocalyptic \u201cother\u2010worldliness\u201d with reality. The only difficulty is that\nKalthoff omits to produce any proof out of the Jewish apocalypses that\ncommunism was \u201cthe fundamental economic idea of the apocalyptic writers.\u201d\nHe operates from the first with a special preparation of apocalyptic\nthought, of a socialistic or Hellenistic character. Messianism is supposed\nto have taken its rise from the Deuteronomic reform as \u201ca social theory\nwhich strives to realise itself in practice.\u201d The apocalyptic of Daniel\narose, according to him, under Platonic influence. \u201cThe figure of the\nMessiah thus became a human figure; it lost its specifically Jewish\ntraits.\u201d He is the heavenly proto\u2010typal ideal man. Along with this\nthought, and similarly derived from Plato, the conception of immortality\nmakes its appearance in apocalyptic.(244) This Platonic apocalyptic never\nhad any existence, or at least, to speak with the utmost possible caution,\nits existence must not be asserted in the absence of all proof.\n\nBut, supposing it were admitted that Jewish apocalyptic had some affinity\nfor the Hellenic world, that it was Platonic and communistic, how are we\nto explain the fact that the Gospels, which describe the genesis of Christ\nand Christianity, imply a Galilaean and not a Roman environment?\n\nAs a matter of fact, Kalthoff says, they do imply a Roman environment. The\nscene of the Gospel history is laid in Palestine, but it is drawn in Rome.\nThe agrarian conditions implied in the narratives and parables are Roman.\nA vineyard with a wine\u2010press of its own could only be found, according to\nKalthoff, on the large Roman estates. So, too, the legal conditions. The\nright of the creditor to sell the debtor, with his wife and children, is a\nfeature of Roman, not of Jewish law.\n\nPeter everywhere symbolises the Church at Rome. The confession of Peter\nhad to be transferred to Caesarea Philippi because this town, \u201cas the seat\nof the Roman administration,\u201d symbolised for Palestine the political\npresence of Rome.\n\nThe woman with the issue was perhaps Poppaea Sabina, the wife of Nero,\n\u201cwho in view of her strong leaning towards Judaism might well be described\nin the symbolical style of the apocalyptic writings as the woman who\ntouched the hem of Jesus\u2019 garment.\u201d\n\nThe story of the unfaithful steward alludes to Pope Callixtus, who, when\nthe slave of a Christian in high position, was condemned to the mines for\nthe crime of embezzlement; that of the woman who was a sinner refers to\nMarcia, the powerful mistress of Commodus, at whose intercession Callixtus\nwas released, to be advanced soon afterwards to the bishopric of Rome.\n\u201cThese two narratives, therefore,\u201d Kalthoff suggests, \u201cwhich very clearly\nallude to events well known at that time, and doubtless much discussed in\nthe Christian community, were admitted into the Gospel to express the\nviews of the Church regarding the life\u2010story of a Roman bishop which had\nrun its course under the eyes of the community, and thereby to give to the\nevents themselves the Church\u2019s sanction and interpretation.\u201d\n\nKalthoff does not, unfortunately, mention whether this is a case of\nsimple, ingenuous, or of conscious, didactic, Early Christian imagination.\n\nThat kind of criticism is a casting out of Satan by the aid of Beelzebub.\nIf he was going to invent on this scale, Kalthoff need not have found any\ndifficulty in accepting the figure of Jesus evolved by modern theology.\nOne feels annoyed with him because, while his thesis is ingenious, and, as\nagainst \u201cmodern theology\u201d has a considerable measure of justification, he\nhas worked it out in so uninteresting a fashion. He has no one but himself\nto blame for the fact that instead of leading to the right explanation, it\nonly introduced a wearisome and unproductive controversy.(245)\n\nIn the end there remains scarcely a shade of distinction between Kalthoff\nand his opponents. They want to bring their \u201chistorical Jesus\u201d into the\nmidst of our time. He wants to do the same with his \u201cChrist.\u201d \u201cA\nsecularised Christ,\u201d he says, \u201cas the type of the self\u2010determined man who\namid strife and suffering carries through victoriously, and fully\nrealises, His own personality in order to give the infinite fullness of\nlove which He bears within Himself as a blessing to mankind\u2014a Christ such\nas that can awaken to new life the antique Christ\u2010type of the Church. He\nis no longer the Christ of the scholar, of the abstract theological\nthinker with his scholastic rules and methods. He is the people\u2019s Christ,\nthe Christ of the ordinary man, the figure in which all those powers of\nthe human soul which are most natural and simple\u2014and therefore most\nexalted and divine\u2014find an expression at once sensible and spiritual.\u201d But\nthat is precisely the description of the Jesus of modern historical\ntheology; why, then, make this long roundabout through scepticism? The\nChrist of Kalthoff is nothing else than the Jesus of those whom he combats\nin such a lofty fashion; the only difference is that he draws his figure\nof Christ in red ink on blotting\u2010paper, and because it is red in colour\nand smudgy in outline, wants to make out that it is something new.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nIt is on ethical grounds that Eduard von Hartmann(246) refuses to accept\nthe Jesus of modern theology. He finds fault with it because in its\nanxiety to retain a personality which would be of value to religion it\ndoes not sufficiently distinguish between the authentic and the\n\u201chistorical\u201d Jesus. When criticism has removed the paintings\u2010over and\nretouchings to which this authentic portrait of Jesus has been subjected,\nit reaches, according to him, an unrecognisable painting below, in which\nit is impossible to discover any clear likeness, least of all one of any\nreligious use and value.\n\nWere it not for the tenacity and the simple fidelity of the epic\ntradition, nothing whatever would have remained of the historic Jesus.\nWhat has remained is merely of historical and psychological interest.\n\nAt His first appearance the historic Jesus was, according to Eduard von\nHartmann, almost \u201can impersonal being,\u201d since He regarded Himself so\nexclusively as the vehicle of His message that His personality hardly came\ninto the question. As time went on, however, He developed a taste for\nglory and for wonderful deeds, and fell at last into a condition of\n\u201cabnormal exaltation of personality.\u201d In the end He declares Himself to\nHis disciples and before the council as Messiah. \u201cWhen He felt His death\ndrawing nigh He struck the balance of His life, found His mission a\nfailure, His person and His cause abandoned by God, and died with the\nunanswered question on His lips, \u2018My God, why hast thou forsaken me?\u2019 \u201d\n\nIt is significant that Eduard von Hartmann has not fallen into the mistake\nof Schopenhauer and many other philosophers, of identifying the pessimism\nof Jesus with the Indian speculative pessimism of Buddha. The pessimism of\nJesus, he says, is not metaphysical, it is \u201ca pessimism of indignation,\u201d\nborn of the intolerable social and political conditions of the time. Von\nHartmann also clearly recognises the significance of eschatology, but he\ndoes not define its character quite correctly, since he bases his\nimpressions solely on the Talmud, hardly making any use of the Old\nTestament, of Enoch, the Psalms of Solomon, Baruch, or Fourth Ezra. He has\nan irritating way of still using the name \u201cJehovah.\u201d\n\nLike Reimarus\u2014von Hartmann\u2019s positions are simply modernised Reimarus\u2014he\nis anxious to show that Christian theology has lost the right \u201cto treat\nthe ideal Kingdom of God as belonging to itself.\u201d Jesus and His teaching,\nso far as they have been preserved, belong to Judaism. His ethic is for us\nstrange and full of stumbling\u2010blocks. He despises work, property, and the\nduties of family life. His gospel is fundamentally plebeian, and\ncompletely excludes the idea of any aristocracy except in so far as it\nconsents to plebeianise itself, and this is true not only as regards the\naristocracy of rank, property, and fortune, but also the aristocracy of\nintellect. Von Hartmann cannot resist the temptation to accuse Jesus of\n\u201cSemitic harshness,\u201d finding the evidence of this chiefly in Mark iv. 12,\nwhere Jesus declares that the purpose of His parables was to obscure His\nteaching and cause the hearts of the people to be hardened.\n\nHis judgment upon Jesus is: \u201cHe had no genius, but a certain talent which,\nin the complete absence of any sound education, produced in general only\nmoderate results, and was not sufficient to preserve Him from numerous\nweaknesses and serious errors; at heart a fanatic and a transcendental\nenthusiast, who in spite of an inborn kindliness of disposition hates and\ndespises the world and everything it contains, and holds any interest in\nit to be injurious to the sole true, transcendental interest; an amiable\nand modest youth who, through a remarkable concatenation of circumstances\narrived at the idea, which was at that time epidemic,(247) that He was\nHimself the expected Messiah, and in consequence of this met His fate.\u201d\n\nIt is to be regretted that a mind like Eduard von Hartmann\u2019s should not\nhave got beyond the externals of the history, and made an effort to grasp\nthe simple and impressive greatness of the figure of Jesus in its\neschatological setting; and that he should imagine he has disposed of the\nstrangeness which he finds in Jesus when he has made it as small as\npossible. And yet in another respect there is something satisfactory about\nhis book. It is the open struggle of the Germanic spirit with Jesus. In\nthis battle the victory will rest with true greatness. Others wanted to\nmake peace before the struggle, or thought that theologians could fight\nthe battle alone, and spare their contemporaries the doubts about the\nhistorical Jesus through which it was necessary to pass in order to reach\nthe eternal Jesus\u2014and to this end they kept preaching reconciliation while\nfighting the battle. They could only preach it on a basis of postulates,\nand postulates make poor preaching! Thus, J\u00fclicher, for example, in his\nlatest sketches of the Life of Jesus(248) distinguishes between \u201cJewish\nand supra\u2010Jewish\u201d in Jesus, and holds that Jesus transferred the ideal of\nthe Kingdom of God \u201cto the solid ground of the present, bringing it into\nthe course of historical events,\u201d and further \u201cassociated with the Kingdom\nof God\u201d the idea of development which was utterly opposed to all Jewish\nideas about the Kingdom. J\u00fclicher also desires to raise \u201cthe strongest\nprotest against the poor little definition of His preaching which makes it\nconsist in nothing further than an announcement of the nearness of the\nKingdom, and an exhortation to the repentance necessary as a condition for\nattaining the Kingdom.\u201d\n\nBut when has a protest against the pure truth of history ever been of any\navail? Why proclaim peace where there is no peace, and attempt to put back\nthe clock of time? Is it not enough that Schleiermacher and Ritschl\nsucceeded again and again in making theology send on earth peace instead\nof a sword, and does not the weakness of Christian thought as compared\nwith the general culture of our time result from the fact that it did not\nface the battle when it ought to have faced it, but persisted in appealing\nto a court of arbitration on which all the sciences were represented, but\nwhich it had successfully bribed in advance?\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nNow there comes to join the philosophers a jurist. Herr Doctor jur. De\nJonge lends his aid to Eduard von Hartmann in \u201cdestroying the\necclesiastical,\u201d and \u201cunveiling the Jewish picture of Jesus.\u201d(249)\n\nDe Jonge is a Jew by birth, baptized in 1889, who on the 22nd of November\n1902 again separated himself from the Christian communion and was desirous\nof being received back \u201cwith certain evangelical reservations\u201d into the\nJewish community. In spite of his faithful observance of the Law, this was\nrefused. Now he is waiting \u201cuntil in the Synagogue of the twentieth\ncentury a freedom of conscience is accorded to him equal to that which in\nthe first century was enjoyed by John, the beloved disciple of Jeschua of\nNazareth.\u201d In the meantime he beguiles the period of waiting by describing\nJesus and His earliest followers in the character of pattern Jews, and\nsets them to work in the interest of his \u201cJewish views with evangelical\nreservations.\u201d\n\nIt is the colourless, characterless Jesus of the Superintendents and\nKonsistorialrats which especially arouses his enmity. With this figure he\ncontrasts his own Jesus, the man of holy anger, the man of holy calm, the\nman of holy melancholy, the master of dialectic, the imperious ruler, the\nman of high gifts and practical ability, the man of inexorable consistency\nand reforming vigour.\n\nJesus was, according to De Jonge, a pupil of Hillel. He demanded voluntary\npoverty only in special cases, not as a general principle. In the case of\nthe rich young man, He knew \u201cthat the property which he had inherited was\nderived in this particular case from impure sources which must be cut off\nat once and for ever.\u201d\n\nBut how does De Jonge know that Jesus knew this?\n\nA writer who is attacking the common theological picture of Jesus, and who\ndisplays in the process, as De Jonge does, not only wit and address, but\nhistorical intuition, ought not to fall into the error of the theology\nwith which he is at feud; he ought to use sober history as his weapon\nagainst the supplementary knowledge which his opponents seem to find\nbetween the lines, instead of meeting it with an esoteric historical\nknowledge of his own.\n\nDe Jonge knows that Jesus possessed property inherited from His father:\n\u201cOne proof may serve where many might be given\u2014the hasty flight into Egypt\nwith his whole family to escape from Herod, and the long sojourn in that\ncountry.\u201d\n\nDe Jonge knows\u2014he is here, however, following the Gospel of John, to which\nhe everywhere gives the preference\u2014that Jesus was between forty and fifty\nyears old at the time of His first coming forward publicly. The statement\nin Luke iii. 23, that He was \u1f61\u03c3\u03b5\u03af thirty years old, can only mislead those\nwho do not remember that Luke was a portrait painter and only meant that\n\u201cJeschua, in consequence of His glorious beauty and His ever\u2010youthful\nappearance, looked ten years younger than He really was.\u201d\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nDe Jonge knows also that Jesus, at the time when He first emerged from\nobscurity, was a widower and had a little son\u2014the \u201clad\u201d of John vi. 9, who\nhad the five barley loaves and two fishes, was in fact His son. This and\nmany other things the author finds in \u201cthe glorious John.\u201d According to De\nJonge too we ought to think of Jesus as the aristocratic Jew, more\naccustomed to a dress coat than to a workman\u2019s blouse, something of an\nexpert, as appears from some of the parables, in matters of the table, and\nconning the menu with interest when He dined with \u201cprivy\u2010finance\u2010\ncouncillor\u201d Zacchaeus.\n\nBut this is to modernise more distressingly than even the theologians!\n\nDe Jonge\u2019s one\u2010sided preference for the Fourth Gospel is shared by\nKirchbach\u2019s book, \u201cWhat did Jesus teach?\u201d(250) but here everything,\ninstead of being judaised, is spiritualised. Kirchbach does not seem to\nhave been acquainted with Noack\u2019s \u201cHistory of Jesus,\u201d otherwise he would\nhardly have ventured to repeat the same experiment without the latter\u2019s\ntouch of genius and with much less skill and knowledge.\n\nThe teaching of Jesus is interpreted on the lines of the Kantian\nphilosophy. The saying, \u201cNo man hath seen God at any time,\u201d is to be\nunderstood as if it were derived from the same system of thought as the\n\u201cCritique of Pure Reason.\u201d Jesus always used the words \u201cdeath\u201d and \u201clife\u201d\nin a purely metaphorical sense. Eternal life is for Him not a life in\nanother world, but in the present. He speaks of Himself as the Son of God,\nnot as the Jewish Messiah. Son of Man is only the ethical explanation of\nSon of God. The only reason why a Son\u2010of\u2010Man problem has arisen, is\nbecause Matthew translated the ancient term Son of Man in the original\ncollection of Logia \u201cwith extreme literality.\u201d\n\nThe great discourse of Matt. xxiii. with its warnings and threatenings is,\naccording to Kirchbach, merely \u201ca patriotic oration in which Jesus gives\nexpression in moving words to His opposition to the Pharisees and His\ninborn love of His native land.\u201d\n\nThe teaching of Jesus is not ascetic, it closely resembles the real\nteaching of Epicurus, \u201cthat is, the rejection of all false metaphysics,\nand the resulting condition of blessedness, of _makaria_.\u201d The only\npurpose of the demand addressed to the rich young man was to try him. \u201cIf\nthe youth, instead of slinking away dejectedly because he was called upon\nto sell all his goods, had replied, confident in the possession of a rich\nfund of courage, energy, ability, and knowledge, \u2018Right gladly. It will\nnot go to my heart to part with my little bit of property; if I\u2019m not to\nhave it, why then I can do without it,\u2019 the Rabbi would probably in that\ncase not have taken him at his word, but would have said, \u2018Young man, I\nlike you. You have a good chance before you, you may do something in the\nKingdom of God, and in any case for My sake you may attach yourself to Me\nby way of trial. We can talk about your stocks and bonds later.\u2019 \u201d\n\nFinally, Kirchbach succeeds, though only, it must be admitted, by the aid\nof some rather awkward phraseology, in spiritualising John vi. \u201cIt is not\nthe body,\u201d he explains, \u201cof the long departed thinker, who apparently\nattached no importance whatever to the question of personal survival, that\nwe, who understand Him in the right Greek sense, \u2018eat\u2019; in the sense which\nHe intended, we eat and drink, and absorb into ourselves, His teaching,\nHis spirit, His sublime conception of life, by constantly recalling them\nin connexion with the symbol of bread and flesh, the symbol of blood, the\nsymbol of water.\u201d(251)\n\nWorthless as Kirchbach\u2019s Life of Jesus is from an historical point of\nview, it is quite comprehensible as a phase in the struggle between the\nmodern view of the world and Jesus. The aim of the work is to retain His\nsignificance for a metaphysical and non\u2010ascetic time; and since it is not\npossible to do this in the case of the historical Jesus, the author denies\nHis existence in favour of an apocryphal Jesus.\n\nIt is, in fact, the characteristic feature of the Life\u2010of\u2010Jesus literature\non the threshold of the new century even in the productions of professedly\nhistorical and scientific theology, to subordinate the historical interest\nto the interest of the general world\u2010view. And those who \u201cwrest the\nKingdom of Heaven\u201d are beginning to wrest Jesus Himself along with it. Men\nwho have no qualifications for the task, whose ignorance is nothing less\nthan criminal, who loftily anathematise scientific theology instead of\nmaking themselves in some measure acquainted with the researches which it\nhas carried out, feel impelled to write a Life of Jesus, in order to set\nforth their general religious view in a portrait of Jesus which has not\nthe faintest claim to be historical, and the most far\u2010fetched of these\nfind favour, and are eagerly absorbed by the multitude.\n\nIt would be something to be thankful for if all these Lives of Jesus were\nbased on as definite an idea and as acute historical observation as we\nfind in Albert Dulk\u2019s \u201cThe Error of the Life of Jesus.\u201d(252) In Dulk the\nstory of the fate of Jesus is also the story of the fate of religion. The\nGalilaean teacher, whose true character was marked by deep religious\ninwardness, was doomed to destruction from the moment when He set Himself\nupon the dizzy heights of the divine sonship and the eschatological\nexpectation. He died in despair, having vainly expected, down to the very\nlast, a \u201ctelegram from heaven.\u201d Religion as a whole can only avoid the\nsame fate by renouncing all transcendental elements.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe vast numbers of imaginative Lives of Jesus shrink into remarkably\nsmall compass on a close examination. When one knows two or three of them,\none knows them all. They have scarcely altered since Venturini\u2019s time,\nexcept that some of the cures performed by Jesus are handled in the modern\nLives from the point of view of the recent investigations in hypnotism and\nsuggestion.(253)\n\nAccording to Paul de R\u00e9gla(254) Jesus was born out of wedlock. Joseph,\nhowever, gave shelter and protection to the mother. De R\u00e9gla dwells on the\nbeauty of the child. \u201cHis eyes were not exceptionally large, but were\nwell\u2010opened, and were shaded by long, silky, dark\u2010brown eyelashes, and\nrather deep\u2010set. They were of a blue\u2010grey colour, which changed with\nchanging emotions, taking on various shades, especially blue and brownish\u2010\ngrey.\u201d\n\nHe and His disciples were Essenes, as was also the Baptist. That implies\nthat He was no longer a Jew in the strict sense. His preaching dealt with\nthe rights of man, and put forward socialistic and communistic demands:\nHis religion in the pure consciousness of communion with God. With\neschatology He had nothing whatever to do, it was first interpolated into\nHis teaching by Matthew.\n\nThe miracles are all to be explained by suggestion and hypnotism. At the\nmarriage at Cana, Jesus noticed that the guests were taking too much, and\ntherefore secretly bade the servants pour out water instead of wine while\nHe Himself said, \u201cDrink, this is better wine.\u201d In this way He succeeded in\nsuggesting to a part of the company that they were really drinking wine.\nThe feeding of the multitude is explained by striking out a couple of\nnoughts from the numbers; the raising of Lazarus by supposing it a case of\npremature burial. Jesus Himself when taken down from the cross was not\ndead, and the Essenes succeeded in reanimating Him. His work is inspired\nwith hatred against Catholicism, but with a real reverence for Jesus.\n\nAnother mere variant of the plan of Venturini is the fictitious Life of\nJesus of Pierre Nahor.(255) The sentimental descriptions of nature and the\nlong dialogues characteristic of the Lives of Jesus of a hundred years ago\nare here again in full force. After John had already begun to preach in\nthe neighbourhood of the Dead Sea, Jesus, in company with a distinguished\nBrahmin who possessed property at Nazareth and had an influential\nfollowing in Jerusalem, made a journey to Egypt and was there\nindoctrinated into all kinds of Egyptian, Essene, and Indian philosophy,\nthus giving the author, or rather the authoress, an opportunity to develop\nher ideas on the philosophy of religion in didactic dialogues. When He\nsoon afterwards begins to work in Galilee the young teacher is much aided\nby the fact that, at the instance of His fellow\u2010traveller, He had acquired\nfrom Egyptian mendicants a practical acquaintance with the secrets of\nhypnotism. By His skill He healed Mary of Magdala, a distinguished\ncourtesan of Tiberias. They had met before at Alexandria. After being\ncured she left Tiberias and went to live in a small house, inherited from\nher mother, at Magdala.\n\nJesus Himself never went to Tiberias, but the social world of that place\ntook an interest in Him, and often had itself rowed to the beach when He\nwas preaching. Rich and pious ladies used to inquire of Him where He\nthought of preaching to the people on a given day, and sent baskets of\nbread and dried fish to the spot which He indicated, that the multitude\nmight not suffer hunger. This is the explanation of the stories about the\nfeeding of the multitudes; the people had no idea whence Jesus suddenly\nobtained the supplies which He caused His disciples to distribute.\n\nWhen he became aware that the priests had resolved upon His death, He made\nHis friend Joseph of Arimathea, a leading man among the Essenes, promise\nthat he would take Him down from the cross as soon as possible and lay Him\nin the grave without other witnesses. Only Nicodemus was to be present. On\nthe cross He put Himself into a cataleptic trance; He was taken down from\nthe cross seemingly dead, and came to Himself again in the grave. After\nappearing several times to His disciples he set out for Nazareth and\ndragged His way painfully thither. With a last effort He reaches the house\nof His mysterious old Indian teacher. At the door He falls helpless, just\nas the morning dawns. The old slave\u2010woman recognises Him and carries Him\ninto the house, where He dies. \u201cThe serene solemn night withdrew and day\nbroke in blinding splendour behind Tiberias.\u201d\n\nNikolas Notowitsch(256) finds in Luke i. 80 (\u201cAnd the child grew ... and\nwas in the deserts until the day of his shewing unto Israel\u201d) a \u201cgap in\nthe life of Jesus,\u201d in spite of the fact that this passage refers to the\nBaptist, and proposes to fill it by putting Jesus to school with the\nBrahmins and Buddhists from His thirteenth to His twenty\u2010ninth year. As\nevidence for this he refers to statements about Buddhist worship of a\ncertain Issa which he professes to have found in the monasteries of Little\nThibet. The whole thing is, as was shown by the experts, a barefaced\nswindle and an impudent invention.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nTo the fictitious Lives of Jesus belong also in the main the theosophical\n\u201cLives,\u201d which equally play fast and loose with the history, though here\nwith a view to proving that Jesus had absorbed the Egyptian and Indian\ntheosophy, and had been indoctrinated with \u201coccult science.\u201d The\ntheosophists, however, have the advantage of escaping the dilemma between\nreanimation after a trance and resurrection, since they are convinced that\nit was possible for Jesus to reassume His body after He had really died.\nBut in the touching up and embellishment of the Gospel narratives they\nout\u2010do even the romancers.\n\nErnest Bosc,(257) writing as a theosophist, makes it the chief aim of his\nwork to describe the oriental origin of Christianity, and ventures to\nassert that Jesus was not a Semite, but an Aryan. The Fourth Gospel is, of\ncourse, the basis of his representation. He does not hesitate, however, to\nappeal also to the anonymous \u201cRevelations\u201d published in 1849, which are a\nmere plagiarism from Venturini.\n\nA work which is written with some ability and with much out\u2010of\u2010the\u2010way\nlearning is \u201cDid Jesus live 100 B.C.?\u201d(258) The author compares the\nChristian tradition with the Jewish, and finds in the latter a\nreminiscence of a Jesus who lived in the time of Alexander Jannaeus\n(104\u201076 B.C.). This person was transferred by the earliest Evangelist to\nthe later period, the attempt being facilitated by the fact that during\nthe procuratorship of Pilate a false prophet had attracted some attention.\nThe author, however, only professes to offer it as a hypothesis, and\napologises in advance for the offence which it is likely to cause.\n\n\n\n\n\nXIX. THOROUGHGOING SCEPTICISM AND THOROUGHGOING ESCHATOLOGY\n\n\n    _W. Wrede._ Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien. Zugleich ein\n    Beitrag zum Verst\u00e4ndnis des Markusevangeliums. (The Messianic\n    Secret in the Gospels. Forming a contribution also to the\n    understanding of the Gospel of Mark.) G\u00f6ttingen, 1901. 286 pp.\n\n    _Albert Schweitzer._ Das Messianit\u00e4ts\u2010 und Leidensgeheimnis. Eine\n    Skizze des Lebens Jesu. (The Secret of the Messiahship and the\n    Passion. A Sketch of the Life of Jesus.) T\u00fcbingen and Leipzig,\n    1901. 109 pp.\n\n\nThe coincidence between the work of Wrede(259) and the \u201cSketch of the Life\nof Jesus\u201d is not more surprising in regard to the time of their appearance\nthan in regard to the character of their contents. They appeared upon the\nself\u2010same day, their titles are almost identical, and their agreement in\nthe criticism of the modern historical conception of the life of Jesus\nextends sometimes to the very phraseology. And yet they are written from\nquite different standpoints, one from the point of view of literary\ncriticism, the other from that of the historical recognition of\neschatology. It seems to be the fate of the Marcan hypothesis that at the\ndecisive periods its problems should always be attacked simultaneously and\nindependently from the literary and the historical sides, and the results\ndeclared in two different forms which corroborate each other. So it was in\nthe case of Weisse and Wilke; so it is again now, when, retaining the\nassumption of the priority of Mark, the historicity of the hitherto\naccepted view of the life of Jesus, based upon the Marcan narrative, is\ncalled in question.\n\nThe meaning of that is that the literary and the eschatological view,\nwhich have hitherto been marching parallel, on either flank, to the\nadvance of modern theology, have now united their forces, brought theology\nto a halt, surrounded it, and compelled it to give battle.\n\nThat in the last three or four years so much has been written in which\nthis enveloping movement has been ignored does not alter the real position\nof modern historical theology in the least. The fact is deserving of\nnotice that during this period the study of the subject has not made a\nstep in advance, but has kept moving to and fro upon the old lines with\nwearisome iteration, and has thrown itself with excessive zeal into the\nwork of popularisation, simply because it was incapable of advancing.\n\nAnd even if it professes gratitude to Wrede for the very interesting\nhistorical point which he has brought into the discussion, and is also\nwilling to admit that thoroughgoing eschatology has advanced the solution\nof many problems, these are mere demonstrations which are quite inadequate\nto raise the blockade of modern theology by the allied forces. Supposing\nthat only a half\u2014nay, only a third\u2014of the critical arguments which are\ncommon to Wrede and the \u201cSketch of the Life of Jesus\u201d are sound, then the\nmodern historical view of the history is wholly ruined.\n\nThe reader of Wrede\u2019s book cannot help feeling that here no quarter is\ngiven; and any one who goes carefully through the present writer\u2019s\n\u201cSketch\u201d must come to see that between the modern historical and the\neschatological Life of Jesus no compromise is possible.\n\nThoroughgoing scepticism and thoroughgoing eschatology may, in their\nunion, either destroy, or be destroyed by modern historical theology; but\nthey cannot combine with it and enable it to advance, any more than they\ncan be advanced by it.\n\nWe are confronted with a decisive issue. As with Strauss\u2019s \u201cLife of\nJesus,\u201d so with the surprising agreement in the critical basis of these\ntwo schools\u2014we are not here considering the respective solutions which\nthey offer\u2014there has entered into the domain of the theology of the day a\nforce with which it cannot possibly ally itself. Its whole territory is\nthreatened. It must either reconquer it step by step or else surrender it.\nIt has no longer the right to advance a single assertion until it has\ntaken up a definite position in regard to the fundamental questions raised\nby the new criticism.\n\nModern historical theology is no doubt still far from recognising this. It\nis warned that the dyke is letting in water and sends a couple of masons\nto repair the leak; as if the leak did not mean that the whole masonry is\nundermined, and must be rebuilt from the foundation.\n\nTo vary the metaphor, theology comes home to find the broker\u2019s marks on\nall the furniture and goes on as before quite comfortably, ignoring the\nfact it will lose everything if it does not pay its debts.\n\nThe critical objections which Wrede and the \u201cSketch\u201d agree in bringing\nagainst the modern treatment of the subject are as follows.\n\nIn order to find in Mark the Life of Jesus of which it is in search,\nmodern theology is obliged to read between the lines a whole host of\nthings, and those often the most important, and then to foist them upon\nthe text by means of psychological conjecture. It is determined to find\nevidence in Mark of a development of Jesus, a development of the\ndisciples, and a development of the outer circumstances; and professes in\nso doing to be only reproducing the views and indications of the\nEvangelist. In reality, however, there is not a word of all this in the\nEvangelist, and when his interpreters are asked what are the hints and\nindications on which they base their assertions they have nothing to offer\nsave _argumenta e silentio_.\n\nMark knows nothing of any development in Jesus; he knows nothing of any\npaedagogic considerations which are supposed to have determined the\nconduct of Jesus towards the disciples and the people; he knows nothing of\nany conflict in the mind of Jesus between a spiritual and a popular,\npolitical Messianic ideal; he does not know, either, that in this respect\nthere was any difference between the view of Jesus and that of the people;\nhe knows nothing of the idea that the use of the ass at the triumphal\nentry symbolised a non\u2010political Messiahship; he knows nothing of the idea\nthat the question about the Messiah\u2019s being the Son of David had something\nto do with this alternative between political and non\u2010political; he does\nnot know, either, that Jesus explained the secret of the passion to the\ndisciples, nor that they had any understanding of it; he only knows that\nfrom first to last they were in all respects equally wanting in\nunderstanding; he does not know that the first period was a period of\nsuccess and the second a period of failure; he represents the Pharisees\nand Herodians as (from iii. 6 onwards) resolved upon the death of Jesus,\nwhile the people, down to the very last day when He preached in the\ntemple, are enthusiastically loyal to Him.\n\nAll these things of which the Evangelist says nothing\u2014and they are the\nfoundations of the modern view\u2014should first be proved, if proved they can\nbe; they ought not to be simply read into the text as something self\u2010\nevident. For it is just those things which appear so self\u2010evident to the\nprevailing critical temper which are in reality the least evident of all.\n\nAnother hitherto self\u2010evident point\u2014the \u201chistorical kernel\u201d which it has\nbeen customary to extract from the narratives\u2014must be given up, until it\nis proved, if it is capable of proof, that we can and ought to distinguish\nbetween the kernel and the husk. We may take all that is reported as\neither historical or unhistorical, but, in respect of the definite\npredictions of the passion, death, and resurrection, we ought to give up\ntaking the reference to the passion as historical and letting the rest go;\nwe may accept the idea of the atoning death, or we may reject it, but we\nought not to ascribe to Jesus a feeble, anaemic version of this idea,\nwhile setting down to the account of the Pauline theology the\ninterpretation of the passion which we actually find in Mark.\n\nWhatever the results obtained by the aid of the historical kernel, the\nmethod pursued is the same; \u201cit is detached from its context and\ntransformed into something different.\u201d \u201cIt finally comes to this,\u201d says\nWrede, \u201cthat each critic retains whatever portion of the traditional\nsayings can be fitted into his construction of the facts and his\nconception of historical possibility and rejects the rest.\u201d The\npsychological explanation of motive, and the psychological connexion of\nthe events and actions which such critics have proposed to find in Mark,\nsimply do not exist. That being so, nothing is to be made out of his\naccount by the application of a priori psychology. A vast quantity of\ntreasures of scholarship and erudition, of art and artifice, which the\nMarcan hypothesis has gathered into its storehouse in the two generations\nof its existence to aid it in constructing its life of Jesus has become\nworthless, and can be of no further service to true historical research.\nTheology has been simplified. What would become of it if that did not\nhappen every hundred years or so? And the simplification was badly needed,\nfor no one since Strauss had cleared away its impedimenta.\n\nThoroughgoing scepticism and thoroughgoing eschatology, between them, are\ncompelling theology to read the Marcan text again with simplicity of mind.\nThe simplicity consists in dispensing with the connecting links which it\nhas been accustomed to discover between the sections of the narrative\n(_pericopes_), in looking at each one separately, and recognising that it\nis difficult to pass from one to the other.\n\nThe material with which it has hitherto been usual to solder the sections\ntogether into a life of Jesus will not stand the temperature test. Exposed\nto the cold air of critical scepticism it cracks; when the furnace of\neschatology is heated to a certain point the solderings melt. In both\ncases the sections all fall apart.\n\nFormerly it was possible to book through\u2010tickets at the supplementary\u2010\npsychological\u2010knowledge office which enabled those travelling in the\ninterests of Life\u2010of\u2010Jesus construction to use express trains, thus\navoiding the inconvenience of having to stop at every little station,\nchange, and run the risk of missing their connexion. This ticket office is\nnow closed. There is a station at the end of each section of the\nnarrative, and the connexions are not guaranteed.\n\nThe fact is, it is not simply that there is no very obvious psychological\nconnexion between the sections; in almost every case there is a positive\nbreak in the connexion. And there is a great deal in the Marcan narrative\nwhich is inexplicable and even self\u2010contradictory.\n\nIn their statement of the problems raised by this want of connexion Wrede\nand the \u201cSketch\u201d are in the most exact agreement. That these difficulties\nare not artificially constructed has been shown by our survey of the\nhistory of the attempts to write the Life of Jesus, in the course of which\nthese problems emerge one after another, after Bruno Bauer had by\nanticipation grasped them all in their complexity.\n\nHow do the demoniacs know that Jesus is the Son of God? Why does the blind\nman at Jericho address Him as the Son of David, when no one else knows His\nMessianic dignity? How was it that these occurrences did not give a new\ndirection to the thoughts of the people in regard to Jesus? How did the\nMessianic entry come about? How was it possible without provoking the\ninterference of the Roman garrison of occupation? Why is it as completely\nignored in the subsequent controversies as if had never taken place? Why\nwas it not brought up at the trial of Jesus? \u201cThe Messianic acclamation at\nthe entry into Jerusalem,\u201d says Wrede, \u201cis in Mark quite an isolated\nincident. It has no sequel, neither is there any preparation for it\nbeforehand.\u201d\n\nWhy does Jesus in Mark iv. 10\u201012 speak of the parabolic form of discourse\nas designed to conceal the mystery of the Kingdom of God, whereas the\nexplanation which He proceeds to give to the disciples has nothing\nmysterious about it? What is the mystery of the Kingdom of God? Why does\nJesus forbid His miracles to be made known even in cases where there is no\napparent purpose for the prohibition? Why is His Messiahship a secret and\nyet no secret, since it is known, not only to the disciples, but to the\ndemoniacs, the blind man at Jericho, the multitude at Jerusalem\u2014which\nmust, as Bruno Bauer expresses it, \u201chave fallen from heaven\u201d\u2014and to the\nHigh Priest?\n\nWhy does Jesus first reveal His Messiahship to the disciples at Caesarea\nPhilippi, not at the moment when He sends them forth to preach? How does\nPeter know without having been told by Jesus that the Messiahship belongs\nto his Master? Why must it remain a secret until the \u201cresurrection\u201d? Why\ndoes Jesus indicate His Messiahship only by the title Son of Man? And why\nis it that this title is so far from prominent in primitive Christian\ntheology?\n\nWhat is the meaning of the statement that Jesus at Jerusalem discovered a\ndifficulty in the fact that the Messiah was described as at once David\u2019s\nson and David\u2019s Lord? How are we to explain the fact that Jesus had to\nopen the eyes of the people to the greatness of the Baptist\u2019s office,\nsubsequently to the mission of the Twelve, and to enlighten the disciples\nthemselves in regard to it during the descent from the mount of\ntransfiguration? Why should this be described in Matt. xi. 14 and 15 as a\nmystery difficult to grasp (\u201cIf ye can receive it\u201d ... \u201cHe that hath ears\nto hear, let him hear\u201d)? What is the meaning of the saying that he that is\nleast in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than the Baptist? Does the\nBaptist, then, not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven? How is the Kingdom of\nHeaven subjected to violence since the days of the Baptist? Who are the\nviolent? What is the Baptist intended to understand from the answer of\nJesus?\n\nWhat importance was attached to the miracles by Jesus Himself? What office\nmust they have caused the people to attribute to Him? Why is the discourse\nat the sending out of the Twelve filled with predictions of persecutions\nwhich experience had given no reason to anticipate, and which did not, as\na matter of fact, occur? What is the meaning of the saying in Matt. x. 23\nabout the imminent coming of the Son of Man, seeing that the disciples\nafter all returned to Jesus without its being fulfilled? Why does Jesus\nleave the people just when His work among them is most successful, and\njourney northwards? Why had He, immediately after the sending forth of the\nTwelve, manifested a desire to withdraw Himself from the multitude who\nwere longing for salvation?\n\nHow does the multitude mentioned in Mark viii. 34 suddenly appear at\nCaesarea Philippi? Why is its presence no longer implied in Mark ix. 30?\nHow could Jesus possibly have travelled unrecognised through Galilee, and\nhow could He have avoided being thronged in Capernaum although He stayed\nat \u201cthe house\u201d?\n\nHow came He so suddenly to speak to His disciples of His suffering and\ndying and rising again, without, moreover, explaining to them either the\nnatural or the moral \u201cwherefore\u201d? \u201cThere is no trace of any attempt on the\npart of Jesus,\u201d says Wrede, \u201cto break this strange thought gradually to\nHis disciples ... the prediction is always flung down before the disciples\nwithout preparation, it is, in fact, a characteristic feature of these\nsayings that all attempt to aid the understanding of the disciples is\nlacking.\u201d\n\nDid Jesus journey to Jerusalem with the purpose of working there, or of\ndying there? How comes it that in Mark x. 39, He holds out to the sons of\nZebedee the prospect of drinking His cup and being baptized with His\nbaptism? And how can He, after speaking so decidedly of the necessity of\nHis death, think it possible in Gethsemane that the cup might yet pass\nfrom Him? Who are the undefined \u201cmany,\u201d for whom, according to Mark x. 45\nand xiv. 24, His death shall serve as a ransom?(260)\n\nHow came it that Jesus alone was arrested? Why were no witnesses called at\nHis trial to testify that He had given Himself out to be the Messiah? How\nis it that on the morning after His arrest the temper of the multitude\nseems to be completely changed, so that no one stirs a finger to help Him?\n\nIn what form does Jesus conceive the resurrection, which He promises to\nHis disciples, to be combined with the coming on the clouds of heaven, to\nwhich He points His judge? In what relation do these predictions stand to\nthe prospect held out at the time of the sending forth of the Twelve, but\nnot realized, of the immediate appearance of the Son of Man?\n\nWhat is the meaning of the further prediction on the way to Gethsemane\n(Mark xiv. 28) that after His resurrection He will go before the disciples\ninto Galilee? How is the other version of this saying (Mark xvi. 7) to be\nexplained, according to which it means, as spoken by the angel, that the\ndisciples are to journey to Galilee to have their first meeting with the\nrisen Jesus there, whereas, on the lips of Jesus, it betokened that, just\nas now as a sufferer He was going before them from Galilee to Jerusalem,\nso, after His resurrection, He would go before them from Jerusalem to\nGalilee? And what was to happen there?\n\nThese problems were covered up by the naturalistic psychology as by a\nlight snow\u2010drift. The snow has melted, and they now stand out from the\nnarratives like black points of rock. It is no longer allowable to avoid\nthese questions, or to solve them, each by itself, by softening them down\nand giving them an interpretation by which the reported facts acquire a\nquite different significance from that which they bear for the Evangelist.\nEither the Marcan text as it stands is historical, and therefore to be\nretained, or it is not, and then it should be given up. What is really\nunhistorical is any softening down of the wording, and the meaning which\nit naturally bears.\n\nThe sceptical and eschatological schools, however, go still farther in\ncompany. If the connexion in Mark is really no connexion, it is important\nto try to discover whether any principle can be discovered in this want of\nconnexion. Can any order be brought into the chaos? To this the answer is\nin the affirmative.\n\nThe complete want of connexion, with all its self\u2010contradictions, is\nultimately due to the fact that two representations of the life of Jesus,\nor, to speak more accurately, of His public ministry, are here crushed\ninto one; a natural and a deliberately supernatural representation. A\ndogmatic element has intruded itself into the description of this\nLife\u2014something which has no concern with the events which form the outward\ncourse of that Life. This dogmatic element is the Messianic secret of\nJesus and all the secrets and concealments which go along with it.\n\nHence the irrational and self\u2010contradictory features of the presentation\nof Jesus, out of which a rational psychology can make only something which\nis unhistorical and does violence to the text, since it must necessarily\nget rid of the constant want of connexion and self\u2010contradiction which\nbelongs to the essence of the narrative, and portray a Jesus who was the\nMessiah, not one who at once was and was not Messiah, as the Evangelist\ndepicts Him. When rational psychology conceives Him as one who was\nMessiah, but not in the sense expected by the people, that is a concession\nto the self\u2010contradictions of the Marcan representation; which, however,\ndoes justice neither to the text nor to the history which it records,\nsince the Gospel does not contain the faintest hint that the contradiction\nwas of this nature.\n\nUp to this point\u2014up to the complete reconstruction of the system which\nruns through the disconnectedness, and the tracing back of the dogmatic\nelement to the Messianic secret\u2014there extends a close agreement between\nthoroughgoing scepticism and thoroughgoing eschatology. The critical\narguments are identical, the construction is analogous and based on the\nsame principle. The defenders of the modern psychological view cannot,\ntherefore, play off one school against the other, as one of them proposed\nto do, but must deal with them both at once. They differ only when they\nexplain whence the system that runs through the disconnectedness comes.\nHere the ways divide, as Bauer saw long ago. The inconsistency between the\npublic life of Jesus and His Messianic claim lies either in the nature of\nthe Jewish Messianic conception, or in the representation of the\nEvangelist. There is, on the one hand, the eschatological solution, which\nat one stroke raises the Marcan account as it stands, with all its\ndisconnectedness and inconsistencies, into genuine history; and there is,\non the other hand, the literary solution, which regards the incongruous\ndogmatic element as interpolated by the earliest Evangelist into the\ntradition and therefore strikes out the Messianic claim altogether from\nthe historical Life of Jesus. _Tertium non datur._\n\nBut in some respects it really hardly matters which of the two \u201csolutions\u201d\none adopts. They are both merely wooden towers erected upon the solid main\nbuilding of the consentient critical induction which offers the enigmas\ndetailed above to modern historical theology. It is interesting in this\nconnexion that Wrede\u2019s scepticism is just as constructive as the\neschatological outline of the Life of Jesus in the \u201cSketch.\u201d\n\nBruno Bauer chose the literary solution because he thought that we had no\nevidence for an eschatological expectation existing in the time of Christ.\nWrede, though he follows Johannes Weiss in assuming the existence of a\nJewish eschatological Messianic expectation, finds in the Gospel only the\nChristian conception of the Messiah. \u201cIf Jesus,\u201d he thinks, \u201creally knew\nHimself to be the Messiah and designated Himself as such, the genuine\ntradition is so closely interwoven with later accretions that it is not\neasy to recognise it.\u201d In any case, Jesus cannot, according to Wrede, have\nspoken of His Messianic Coming in the way which the Synoptists report. The\nMessiahship of Jesus, as we find it in the Gospels, is a product of Early\nChristian theology correcting history according to its own conceptions.\n\nIt is therefore necessary to distinguish in Mark between the reported\nevents which constitute the outward course of the history of Jesus, and\nthe dogmatic idea which claims to lay down the lines of its inward course.\nThe principle of division is found in the contradictions.\n\nThe recorded events form, according to Wrede, the following picture. Jesus\ncame forward as a teacher,(261) first and principally in Galilee. He was\nsurrounded by a company of disciples, went about with them, and gave them\ninstruction. To some of them He accorded a special confidence. A larger\nmultitude sometimes attached itself to Him, in addition to the disciples.\nHe is fond of discoursing in parables. Besides the teaching there are the\nmiracles. These make a stir, and He is thronged by the multitudes. He\ngives special attention to the cases of demoniacs. He is in such close\ntouch with the people that He does not hesitate to associate even with\npublicans and sinners. Towards the Law He takes up an attitude of some\nfreedom. He encounters the opposition of the Pharisees and the Jewish\nauthorities. They set traps for Him and endeavour to bring about His fall.\nFinally they succeed, when He ventures to show Himself not only on Judaean\nsoil, but in Jerusalem. He remains passive and is condemned to death. The\nRoman administration supports the Jewish authorities.\n\n\u201cThe texture of the Marcan narrative as we know it,\u201d continues Wrede, \u201cis\nnot complete until to the warp of these general historical notions there\nis added a strong weft of ideas of a dogmatic character,\u201d the substance of\nwhich is that \u201cJesus, the bearer of a special office to which He was\nappointed by God,\u201d becomes \u201ca higher, superhuman being.\u201d If this is the\ncase, however, then the motives of His conduct are not derived from human\ncharacteristics, human aims and necessities. \u201cThe one motive which runs\nthroughout is rather a Divine decree which lies beyond human\nunderstanding. This He seeks to fulfil alike in His actions and His\nsufferings. The teaching of Jesus is accordingly supernatural.\u201d On this\nassumption the want of understanding of the disciples to whom He\ncommunicates, without commentary, unconnected portions of this\nsupernatural knowledge becomes natural and explicable. The people are,\nmoreover, essentially \u201cnon\u2010receptive of revelation.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is these _motifs_ and not those which are inherently historical which\ngive movement and direction to the Marcan narrative. It is they that give\nthe general colour. On them naturally depends the main interest, it is to\nthem that the thought of the writer is really directed. The consequence is\nthat the general picture offered by the Gospel is not an historical\nrepresentation of the Life of Jesus. Only some faded remnants of such an\nimpression have been taken over into a supra\u2010historical religious view. In\nthis sense the Gospel of Mark belongs to the history of dogma.\u201d\n\nThe two conceptions of the Life of Jesus, the natural and the\nsupernatural, are brought, not without inconsistencies, into a kind of\nharmony by means of the idea of intentional secrecy. The Messiahship of\nJesus is concealed in His life as in a closed dark lantern, which,\nhowever, is not quite closed\u2014otherwise one could not see that it was\nthere\u2014and allows a few bright beams to escape.\n\nThe idea of a secret which must remain a secret until the resurrection of\nJesus could only arise at a time when nothing was known of a Messianic\nclaim of Jesus during His life upon earth: that is to say, at a time when\nthe Messiahship of Jesus was thought of as beginning with the\nresurrection. But that is a weighty piece of indirect historical evidence\nthat Jesus did not really profess to be the Messiah at all.\n\nThe positive fact which is to be inferred from this is that the\nappearances of the risen Jesus produced a sudden revolution in His\ndisciples\u2019 conception of Him. \u201cThe resurrection\u201d is for Wrede the real\nMessianic event in the Life of Jesus.\n\nWho is responsible, then, for introducing this singular feature, so\ndestructive of the real historical connexion, into the life of Jesus,\nwhich was in reality that of a teacher? It is quite impossible, Wrede\nargues, that the idea of the Messianic secret is the invention of Mark. \u201cA\nthing like that is not done by a single individual. It must, therefore,\nhave been a view which was current in certain circles, and was held by a\nconsiderable number, though not necessarily perhaps by a very great number\nof persons. To say this is not to deny that Mark had a share and perhaps a\nconsiderable share in the creation of the view which he sets forth ... the\n_motifs_ themselves are doubtless not, in part at least, peculiar to the\nEvangelist, but the concrete embodiment of them is certainly his own work;\nand to this extent we may speak of a special Marcan point of view which\nmanifests itself here and there. Where the line is to be drawn between\nwhat is traditional and what is individual cannot always be determined\neven by a careful examination directed to this end. We must leave it\ncommingled, as we find it.\u201d\n\nThe Marcan narrative has therefore arisen from the impulse to give a\nMessianic form to the earthly life of Jesus. This impulse was, however,\nrestrained by the impression and tradition of the non\u2010Messianic character\nof the life of Jesus, which were still strong and vivid, and it was\ntherefore not able wholly to recast the material, but could only bore its\nway into it and force it apart, as the roots of the bramble disintegrate a\nrock. In the Gospel literature which arose on the basis of Mark the\nMessianic secret becomes gradually of more subordinate importance and the\nlife of Jesus more Messianic in character, until in the Fourth Gospel He\nopenly comes before the people with Messianic claims.\n\nIn estimating the value of this construction we must not attach too much\nimportance to its a priori assumptions and difficulties. In this respect\nWrede\u2019s position is much more precarious than that of his precursor Bruno\nBauer. According to the latter the interpolation of the Messianic secret\nis the personal, absolutely original act of the Evangelist. Wrede thinks\nof it as a collective act, representing the new conception as moulded by\nthe tradition before it was fixed by the Evangelist. That is very much\nmore difficult to carry through. Tradition alters its materials in a\ndifferent way from that in which we find them altered in Mark. Tradition\ntransforms from without. Mark\u2019s way of drawing secret threads of a\ndifferent material through the texture of the tradition, without otherwise\naltering it, is purely literary, and could only be the work of an\nindividual person.\n\nA creative tradition would have carried out the theory of the Messianic\nsecret in the life of Jesus much more boldly and logically, that is to\nsay, at once more arbitrarily and more consistently.\n\nThe only alternative is to distinguish two stages of tradition in early\nChristianity, a naive, freely\u2010working, earlier stage, and a more\nartificial later stage confined to a smaller circle of a more literary\ncharacter. Wrede does, as a matter of fact, propose to find in Mark traces\nof a simpler and bolder transformation which, leaving aside the Messianic\nsecret, makes Jesus an openly\u2010professed Messiah, and is therefore of a\ndistinct origin from the conception of the secret Christ. To this\ntradition may belong, he thinks, the entry into Jerusalem and the\nconfession before the High Priest, since these narratives \u201cnaively\u201d imply\nan openly avowed Messiahship.\n\nThe word \u201cnaively\u201d is out of place here; a really naive tradition which\nintended to represent the entry of Jesus as Messianic would have done so\nin quite a different way from Mark, and would not have stultified itself\nso curiously as we find done even in Matthew, where the Galilaean Passover\npilgrims, after the \u201cMessianic entry,\u201d answer the question of the people\nof Jerusalem as to who it was whom they were acclaiming, with the words\n\u201cThis is the Prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee\u201d (Matt. xxi. 11).\n\nThe tradition, too, which makes Jesus acknowledge His Messiahship before\nHis judges is not \u201cnaive\u201d in Wrede\u2019s sense, for, if it were, it would not\nrepresent the High Priest\u2019s knowledge of Jesus\u2019 Messiahship as something\nso extraordinary and peculiar to himself that he can cite witnesses only\nfor the saying about the Temple, not with reference to Jesus\u2019 Messianic\nclaim, and bases his condemnation only on the fact that Jesus in answer to\nhis question acknowledges Himself as Messiah\u2014and Jesus does so, it should\nbe remarked, as in other passages, with an appeal to a future\njustification of His claim. The confession before the council is therefore\nanything but a \u201cnaive representation of an openly avowed Messiahship.\u201d\n\nThe Messianic statements in these two passages present precisely the same\nremarkable character as in all the other cases to which Wrede draws\nattention. We have not here to do with a different tradition, with a clear\nMessianic light streaming in through the window\u2010pane, but, just as\nelsewhere, with the rays of a dark lantern. The real point is that Wrede\ncannot bring these two passages within the lines of the theory of secrecy,\nand practically admits this by assuming the existence of a second and\nrather divergent line of tradition. What concerns us is to note that this\ntheory does not suffice to explain the two facts in question, the\nknowledge of Jesus\u2019 Messiahship shown by the Galilaean Passover pilgrims\nat the time of the entry into Jerusalem, and the knowledge of the High\nPriest at His trial.\n\nWe can only touch on the question whether any one who wished to date back\nin some way or other the Messiahship into the life of Jesus could not have\ndone it much more simply by making Jesus give His closest followers some\nhints regarding it. Why does the re\u2010moulder of the history, instead of\ndoing that, have recourse to a supernatural knowledge on the part of the\ndemoniacs and the disciples? For Wrede rightly remarks, as Bruno Bauer and\nthe \u201cSketch\u201d also do, that the incident of Caesarea Philippi, as\nrepresented by Mark, involves a miracle, since Jesus does not, as is\ngenerally supposed, reveal His Messiahship to Peter; it is Peter who\nreveals it to Jesus (Mark viii. 29). This fact, however, makes nonsense of\nthe whole theory about the disciples\u2019 want of understanding. It will not\ntherefore fit into the concealment theory, and Wrede, as a matter of fact,\nfeels obliged to give up that theory as regards this incident. \u201cThis\nscene,\u201d he remarks, \u201ccan hardly have been created by Mark himself.\u201d It\nalso, therefore, belongs to another tradition.\n\nHere, then, is a third Messianic fact which cannot be brought within the\nlines of Wrede\u2019s \u201cliterary\u201d theory of the Messianic secret. And these\nthree facts are precisely the most important of all: Peter\u2019s confession,\nthe Entry into Jerusalem, and the High Priest\u2019s knowledge of Jesus\u2019\nMessiahship! In each case Wrede finds himself obliged to refer these to\ntradition instead of to the literary conception of Mark.(262) This\ntradition undermines his literary hypothesis, for the conception of a\ntradition always involves the possibility of genuine historical elements.\n\nHow greatly this inescapable intrusion of tradition weakens the theory of\nthe literary interpolation of the Messiahship into the history, becomes\nevident when we consider the story of the passion. The representation that\nJesus was publicly put to death as Messiah because He had publicly\nacknowledged Himself to be so, must, like the High Priest\u2019s knowledge of\nHis claim, be referred to the other tradition which has nothing to do with\nthe Messianic secret, but boldly antedates the Messiahship without\nemploying any finesse of that kind. But that strongly tends to confirm the\nhistoricity of this tradition, and throws the burden of proof upon those\nwho deny it. It is wholly independent of the hypothesis of secrecy, and in\nfact directly opposed to it. If, on the other hand, in spite of all the\ndifficulties, the representation that Jesus was condemned to death on\naccount of His Messianic claims is dragged by main force into the theory\nof secrecy, the question arises: What interest had the persons who set up\nthe literary theory of secrecy, in representing Jesus as having been\nopenly put to death as Messiah and in consequence of His Messianic claims?\nAnd the answer is: \u201cNone whatever: quite the contrary.\u201d For in doing so\nthe theory of secrecy stultifies itself. As though one were to develop a\nphotographic plate with painful care and, just when one had finished,\nfling open the shutters, so, on this hypothesis, the natural Messianic\nlight suddenly shines into the room which ought to be lighted only by the\nrays of the dark lantern.\n\nHere, therefore, the theory of secrecy abandoned the method which it had\nhitherto followed in regard to the traditional material. For if Jesus was\nnot condemned and crucified at Jerusalem as Messiah, a tradition must have\nexisted which preserved the truth about the last conflicts, and the\nmotives of the condemnation. This is supposed to have been here completely\nset aside by the theory of the secret Messiahship, which, instead of\ndrawing its delicate threads through the older tradition, has simply\nsubstituted its own representation of events. But in that case why not do\naway with the remainder of the public ministry? Why not at least get rid\nof the public appearance at Jerusalem? How can the crudeness of method\nshown in the case of the passion be harmonised with the skilful\nconservatism towards the non\u2010Messianic tradition which it is obvious that\nthe \u201cMarcan circle\u201d has scrupulously observed elsewhere?\n\nIf according to the original tradition, of which Wrede admits the\nexistence, Jesus went to Jerusalem not to die, but to work there, the\ndogmatic view, according to which He went to Jerusalem to die, must have\nstruck out the whole account of His sojourn in Jerusalem and His death, in\norder to put something else in its place. What we now read in the Gospels\nconcerning those last days in Jerusalem cannot be derived from the\noriginal tradition, for one who came to work, and, according to Wrede, \u201cto\nwork with decisive effect,\u201d would not have cast all His preaching into the\nform of obscure parables of judgment and minatory discourses. That is a\nstyle of speech which could be adopted only by one who was determined to\nforce his adversaries to put him to death. Therefore the narrative of the\nlast days of Jesus must be, from beginning to end, a creation of the\ndogmatic idea. And, as a matter of fact, Wrede, here in agreement with\nWeisse, \u201csees grounds for asserting that the sojourn at Jerusalem is\npresented to us in the Gospels in a very much abridged and weakened\nversion.\u201d That is a euphemistic expression, for if it was really the\ndogmatic idea which was responsible for representing Jesus as being\ncondemned as Messiah, it is not a mere case of \u201cabridging and weakening\ndown,\u201d but of displacing the tradition in favour of a new one.\n\nBut if Jesus was not condemned as Messiah, on what grounds was He\ncondemned? And, again, what interest had those whose concern was to make\nthe Messiahship a secret of His earthly life, in making Him die as\nMessiah, contrary to the received tradition? And what interest could the\ntradition have had in falsifying history in that way? Even admitting that\nthe prediction of the passion to the disciples is of a dogmatic character,\nand is to be regarded as a creation of primitive Christian theology, the\nhistoric fact that He died would have been a sufficient fulfilment of\nthose sayings. That He was publicly condemned and crucified as Messiah has\nnothing to do with the fulfilment of those predictions, and goes far\nbeyond it.\n\nTo take a more general point: what interest had primitive theology in\ndating back the Messiahship of Jesus to the time of His earthly ministry?\nNone whatever. Paul shows us with what complete indifference the earthly\nlife of Jesus was regarded by primitive Christianity. The discourses in\nActs show an equal indifference, since in them also Jesus first becomes\nthe Messiah by virtue of His exaltation. To date the Messiahship earlier\nwas not an undertaking which offered any advantage to primitive theology,\nin fact it would only have raised difficulties for it, since it involved\nthe hypothesis of a dual Messiahship, one of earthly humiliation and one\nof future glory. The fact is, if one reads through the early literature\none becomes aware that so long as theology had an eschatological\norientation and was dominated by the expectation of the Parousia the\nquestion of how Jesus of Nazareth \u201chad been\u201d the Messiah not only did not\nexist, but was impossible. Primitive theology is simply a theology of the\nfuture, with no interest in history! It was only with the decline of\neschatological interest and the change in the orientation of Christianity\nwhich was connected therewith that an interest in the life of Jesus and\nthe \u201chistorical Messiahship\u201d arose.\n\nThat is to say, the Gnostics, who were the first to assert the Messiahship\nof the historical Jesus, and who were obliged to assert it precisely\nbecause they denied the eschatological conceptions, forced this view upon\nthe theology of the Early Church, and compelled it to create in the Logos\nChristology an un\u2010Gnostic mould in which to cast the speculative\nconception of the historical Messiahship of Jesus; and that is what we\nfind in the Fourth Gospel. Prior to the anti\u2010Gnostic controversies we find\nin the early Christian literature no conscious dating back of the\nMessiahship of Jesus to His earthly life, and no theological interest at\nwork upon the dogmatic recasting of His history.(263) It is therefore\ndifficult to suppose that the Messianic secret in Mark, that is to say, in\nthe very earliest tradition, was derived from primitive theology. The\nassertion of the Messiahship of Jesus was wholly independent of the\nlatter. The instinct which led Bruno Bauer to explain the Messianic secret\nas the literary invention of Mark himself was therefore quite correct.\nOnce suppose that tradition and primitive theology have anything to do\nwith the matter, and the theory of the interpolation of the Messiahship\ninto the history becomes almost impossible to carry through. But Wrede\u2019s\ngreatness consists precisely in the fact that he was compelled by his\nacute perception of the significance of the critical data to set aside the\npurely literary version of the hypothesis and make Mark, so to speak, the\ninstrument of the literary realisation of the ideas of a definite\nintellectual circle within the sphere of primitive theology.\n\nThe positive difficulty which confronts the sceptical theory is to explain\nhow the Messianic beliefs of the first generation arose, if Jesus,\nthroughout His life, was for all, even for the disciples, merely a\n\u201cteacher,\u201d and gave even His intimates no hint of the dignity which He\nclaimed for Himself. It is difficult to eliminate the Messiahship from the\n\u201cLife of Jesus,\u201d especially from the narrative of the passion; it is more\ndifficult still, as Keim saw long ago, to bring it back again after its\nelimination from the \u201cLife\u201d into the theology of the primitive Church. In\nWrede\u2019s acute and logical thinking this difficulty seems to leap to light.\n\nSince the Messianic secret in Mark is always connected with the\nresurrection, the date at which the Messianic belief of the disciples\narose must be the resurrection of Jesus. \u201cBut the idea of dating the\nMessiahship from the resurrection is certainly not a thought of Jesus, but\nof the primitive Church. It presupposes the Church\u2019s experience of the\nappearance of the risen Jesus.\u201d\n\nThe psychologist will say that the \u201cresurrection experiences,\u201d however\nthey may be conceived, are only intelligible as based upon the expectation\nof the resurrection, and this again as based on references of Jesus to the\nresurrection. But leaving psychology aside, let us accept the resurrection\nexperiences of the disciples as a pure psychological miracle. Even so, how\ncan the appearances of the risen Jesus have suggested to the disciples the\nidea that Jesus, the crucified teacher, was the Messiah? Apart from any\nexpectations, how can this conclusion have resulted for them from the mere\n\u201cfact of the resurrection\u201d? The fact of the appearance did not by any\nmeans imply it. In certain circles, indeed, according to Mark vi. 14\u201016,\nin the very highest quarters, the resurrection of the Baptist was believed\nin; but that did not make John the Baptist the Messiah. The inexplicable\nthing is that, according to Wrede, the disciples began at once to assert\nconfidently and unanimously that He was the Messiah and would before long\nappear in glory.\n\nBut how did the appearance of the risen Jesus suddenly become for them a\nproof of His Messiahship and the basis of their eschatology? That Wrede\nfails to explain, and so makes this \u201cevent\u201d an \u201chistorical\u201d miracle which\nin reality is harder to believe than the supernatural event.\n\nAny one who holds \u201chistorical\u201d miracles to be just as impossible as any\nother kind, even when they occur in a critical and sceptical work, will be\nforced to the conclusion that the Messianic eschatological significance\nattached to the \u201cresurrection experience\u201d by the disciples implies some\nkind of Messianic eschatological references on the part of the historical\nJesus which gave to the \u201cresurrection\u201d its Messianic eschatological\nsignificance. Here Wrede himself, though without admitting it, postulates\nsome Messianic hints on the part of Jesus, since he conceives the judgment\nof the disciples upon the resurrection to have been not analytical, but\nsynthetic, inasmuch as they add something to it, and that, indeed, the\nmain thing, which was not implied in the conception of the event as such.\n\nHere again the merit of Wrede\u2019s contribution to criticism consists in the\nfact that he takes the position as it is and does not try to improve it\nartificially. Bruno Bauer and others supposed that the belief in the\nMessiahship of Jesus had slowly solidified out of a kind of gaseous state,\nor had been forced into primitive theology by the literary invention of\nMark. Wrede, however, feels himself obliged to base it upon an historical\nfact, and, moreover, the same historical fact which is pointed to by the\nsayings in the Synoptics and the Pauline theology. But in so doing he\ncreates an almost insurmountable difficulty for his hypothesis.\n\nWe can only briefly refer to the question what form the accounts of the\nresurrection must have taken if the historic fact which underlay them was\nthe first surprised apprehension and recognition of the Messiahship of\nJesus on the part of the disciples. The Messianic teaching would\nnecessarily in that case have been somehow or other put into the mouth of\nthe risen Jesus. It is, however, completely absent, because it was already\ncontained in the teaching of Jesus during His earthly life. The theory of\nMessianic secrecy must therefore have re\u2010moulded not merely the story of\nthe passion, but also that of the resurrection, removing the revelation of\nthe Messiahship to the disciples from the latter in order to insert it\ninto the public ministry!\n\nWrede, moreover, will only take account of the Marcan text as it stands,\nnot of the historical possibility that the \u201cfuturistic Messiahship\u201d which\nmeets us in the mysterious utterances of Jesus goes back in some form to a\nsound tradition. Further he does not take the eschatological character of\nthe teaching of Jesus into his calculations, but works on the false\nassumption that he can analyse the Marcan text in and by itself and so\ndiscover the principle on which it is composed. He carries out experiments\non the law of crystallisation of the narrative material in this Gospel,\nbut instead of doing so in the natural and historical atmosphere he does\nit in an atmosphere artificially neutralised, which contains no trace of\ncontemporary conceptions.(264) Consequently the conclusion based on the\nsum of his observations has in it something arbitrary. Everything which\nconflicts with the rational construction of the course of the history is\nreferred directly to the theory of the concealment of the Messianic\nsecret. But in the carrying out of that theory a number of self\u2010\ncontradictions, without which it could not subsist, must be recognised and\nnoted.\n\nThus, for example, all the prohibitions,(265) whatever they may refer to,\neven including the command not to make known His miracles, are referred to\nthe same category as the injunction not to reveal the Messianic secret.\nBut what justification is there for that? It presupposes that according to\nMark the miracles could be taken as proofs of the Messiahship, an idea of\nwhich there is no hint whatever in Mark. \u201cThe miracles,\u201d Wrede argues,\n\u201care certainly used by the earliest Christians as evidence of the nature\nand significance of Christ.... I need hardly point to the fact that Mark,\nnot less than Matthew, Luke, and John, must have held the opinion that the\nmiracles of Jesus encountered a widespread and ardent Messianic\nexpectation.\u201d\n\nIn John this Messianic significance of the miracles is certainly assumed;\nbut then the really eschatological view of things has here fallen into the\nbackground. It seems indeed as if genuine eschatology excluded the\nMessianic interpretation of the miracles. In Matthew the miracles of Jesus\nhave nothing whatever to do with the proof of the Messiahship, but, as is\nevident from the saying about Chorazin and Bethsaida, Matt. xi. 20\u201024, are\nonly an exhibition of mercy intended to awaken repentance, or, according\nto Matt. xii. 28, an indication of the nearness of the Kingdom of God.\nThey have as little to do with the Messianic office as in the Acts of the\nApostles.(266) In Mark, from first to last, there is not a single syllable\nto suggest that the miracles have a Messianic significance. Even admitting\nthe possibility that the \u201cmiracles of Jesus encountered an ardent\nMessianic expectation,\u201d that does not necessarily imply a Messianic\nsignificance in them. To justify that conclusion requires the pre\u2010\nsupposition that the Messiah was expected to be some kind of an earthly\nman who should do miracles. This is presupposed by Wrede, by Bruno Bauer,\nand by modern theology in general, but it has not been proved, and it is\nat variance with eschatology, which pictured the Messiah to itself as a\nheavenly being in a world which was already being transformed into\nsomething supra\u2010mundane.\n\nThe assumption that the clue to the explanation of the command not to make\nknown the miracles is to be found in the necessity of guarding the secret\nof the Messiahship is, therefore, not justified. The miracles are\nconnected with the Kingdom and the nearness of the Kingdom, not with the\nMessiah. But Wrede is obliged to refer everything to the Messianic secret,\nbecause he leaves the preaching of the Kingdom out of account.\n\nThe same process is repeated in the discussion of the veiling of the\nmystery of the Kingdom of God in the parables of Mark iv. The mystery of\nthe Kingdom is for Wrede the secret of Jesus\u2019 Messiahship. \u201cWe have\nlearned in the meantime,\u201d he says, \u201cthat one main element in this mystery\nis that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. If Jesus, according to Mark,\nconceals his Messiahship, we are justified in interpreting the \u03bc\u03c5\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd\n\u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bb\u03b5\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u1fe6 in the light of this fact.\u201d\n\nThat is one of the weakest points in Wrede\u2019s whole theory. Where is there\nany hint of this in these parables? And why should the secret of the\nKingdom of God contain within it as one of its principal features the\nsecret of the Messiahship of Jesus?\n\n\u201cMark\u2019s account of Jesus\u2019 parabolic teaching,\u201d he concludes, \u201cis\ncompletely unhistorical,\u201d because it is directly opposed to the essential\nnature of the parables. The ultimate reason, according to Wrede, why this\nwhole view of the parables arose, was simply \u201cbecause the general opinion\nwas already in existence that Jesus had revealed Himself to the disciples,\nbut concealed Himself from the multitude.\u201d\n\nInstead of simply admitting that we are unable to discover what the\nmystery of the Kingdom in Mark iv. is, any more than we can understand why\nit must be veiled, and numbering it among the unsolved problems of Jesus\u2019\npreaching of the Kingdom, Wrede forces this chapter inside the lines of\nhis theory of the veiled Messiahship.\n\nThe desire of Jesus to be alone, too, and remain unrecognised (Mark vii.\n24 and ix. 30 ff.) is supposed to have some kind of connexion with the\nveiling of the Messiahship. He even brings the multitude, which in Mark x.\n47 ff. rebukes the blind beggar at Jericho who cried out to Jesus, into\nthe service of his theory ... on the ground that the beggar had addressed\nHim as Son of David. But all the narrative says is that they told him to\nhold his peace\u2014to cease making an outcry\u2014not that they did so because of\nhis addressing Jesus as \u201cSon of David.\u201d\n\nIn an equally arbitrary fashion the surprising introduction of the\n\u201cmultitude\u201d in Mark viii. 34, after the incident of Caesarea Philippi, is\ndragged into the theory of secrecy.(267) Wrede does not feel the\npossibility or impossibility of the sudden appearance of the multitude in\nthis locality as an historical problem, any more than he grasps the sudden\nwithdrawal of Jesus from His public ministry as primarily an historical\nquestion. Mark is for him a writer who is to be judged from a pathological\npoint of view, a writer who, dominated by the fixed idea of introducing\neverywhere the Messianic secret of Jesus, is always creating mysterious\nand unintelligible situations, even when these do not directly serve the\ninterests of his theory, and who in some of his descriptions, writes in a\nrather \u201cfairy\u2010tale\u201d style. When all is said, his treatment of the history\nscarcely differs from that of the fourth Evangelist.\n\nThe absence of historical prepossessions which Wrede skilfully assumes in\nhis examination of the connexion in Mark is not really complete. He is\nbound to refer everything inexplicable to the principle of the concealment\nof the Messiahship, which is the only principle that he recognises in the\ndogmatic stratum of the narrative, and is consequently obliged to deny the\nhistoricity of such passages, whereas in reality the veiling of the\nMessiahship is only involved in a few places and is there indicated in\nclear and simple words. He is unwilling to recognise that there is a\nsecond, wider circle of mystery which has to do, not with Jesus\u2019\nMessiahship, but with His preaching of the Kingdom, with the mystery of\nthe Kingdom of God in the wider sense, and that within this second circle\nthere lie a number of historical problems, above all the mission of the\nTwelve and the inexplicable abandonment of public activity on the part of\nJesus which followed soon afterwards. His mistake consists in endeavouring\nby violent methods to subsume the more general, the mystery of the Kingdom\nof God, under the more special, the mystery of the Messiahship, instead of\ninserting the latter as the smaller circle, within the wider, the secret\nof the Kingdom of God.\n\nAs he does not deal with the teaching of Jesus, he has no occasion to take\naccount of the secret of the Kingdom of God. That is the more remarkable\nbecause corresponding to one fundamental idea of the Messianic secret\nthere is a parallel, more general dogmatic conception in Jesus\u2019 preaching\nof the Kingdom. For if Jesus in Matt. x. gives the disciples nothing to\ntake with them on their mission but predictions of suffering; if at the\nvery beginning of His ministry He closes the Beatitudes with a blessing\nupon the persecuted; if in Mark viii. 34 ff. He warns the people that they\nwill have to choose between life and life, between death and death; if, in\nshort, from the first, He loses no opportunity of preaching about\nsuffering and following Him in His sufferings; that is just as much a\nmatter of dogma as His own sufferings and predictions of sufferings. For\nin both cases the necessity of suffering, the necessity of facing death,\nis not \u201ca necessity of the historical situation,\u201d not a necessity which\narises out of the circumstances; it is an assertion put forth without\nempirical basis, a prophecy of storm while the sky is blue, since neither\nJesus nor the people to whom He spoke were undergoing any persecution; and\nwhen His fate overtook Him not even the disciples were involved in it. It\nis distinctly remarkable that, except for a few meagre references, the\nenigmatic character of Jesus\u2019 constant predictions of suffering has not\nbeen discussed in the Life\u2010of\u2010Jesus literature.(268)\n\nWhat has now to be done, therefore, is, in contradistinction to Wrede, to\nmake a critical examination of the dogmatic element in the life of Jesus\non the assumption that the atmosphere of the time was saturated with\neschatology, that is, to keep in even closer touch with the facts than\nWrede does, and moreover, to proceed, not from the particular to the\ngeneral, but from the general to the particular, carefully considering\nwhether the dogmatic element is not precisely the historical element. For,\nafter all, why should not Jesus think in terms of doctrine, and make\nhistory in action, just as well as a poor Evangelist can do it on paper,\nunder the pressure of the theological interests of the primitive\ncommunity.\n\nOnce again, however, we must repeat that the critical analysis and the\nassertion of a system running through the disorder are the same in the\neschatological as in the sceptical hypothesis, only that in the\neschatological analysis a number of problems come more clearly to light.\nThe two constructions are related like the bones and cartilage of the\nbody. The general structure is the same, only that in the case of the one\na solid substance, lime, is distributed even in the minutest portions,\ngiving it firmness and solidity, while in the other case this is lacking.\nThis reinforcing substance is the eschatological world\u2010view.\n\nHow is it to be explained that Wrede, in spite of the eschatological\nschool, in spite of Johannes Weiss, could, in critically investigating the\nconnecting principle of the life of Jesus, simply leave eschatology out of\naccount? The blame rests with the eschatological school itself, for it\napplied the eschatological explanation only to the preaching of Jesus, and\nnot even to the whole of this, but only to the Messianic secret, instead\nof using it also to throw light upon the whole public work of Jesus, the\nconnexion and want of connexion between the events. It represented Jesus\nas thinking and speaking eschatologically in some of the most important\npassages of His teaching, but for the rest gave as uneschatological a\npresentation of His life as modern historical theology had done. The\nteaching of Jesus and the history of Jesus were set in different keys.\nInstead of destroying the modern\u2010historical scheme of the life of Jesus,\nor subjecting it to a rigorous examination, and thereby undertaking the\nperformance of a highly valuable service to criticism, the eschatological\ntheory confined itself within the limits of New Testament Theology, and\nleft it to Wrede to reveal one after another by a laborious purely\ncritical method the difficulties which from its point of view it might\nhave grasped historically at a single glance. It inevitably follows that\nWrede is unjust to Johannes Weiss and Johannes Weiss towards Wrede.(269)\n\nIt is quite inexplicable that the eschatological school, with its clear\nperception of the eschatological element in the preaching of the Kingdom\nof God, did not also hit upon the thought of the \u201cdogmatic\u201d element in the\nhistory of Jesus. Eschatology is simply \u201cdogmatic history\u201d\u2014history as\nmoulded by theological beliefs\u2014which breaks in upon the natural course of\nhistory and abrogates. it. Is it not even a priori the only conceivable\nview that the conduct of one who looked forward to His Messianic\n\u201cParousia\u201d in the near future should be determined, not by the natural\ncourse of events, but by that expectation? The chaotic confusion of the\nnarratives ought to have suggested the thought that the events had been\nthrown into this confusion by the volcanic force of an incalculable\npersonality, not by some kind of carelessness or freak of the tradition.\n\nA very little consideration suffices to show that there is something quite\nincomprehensible in the public ministry of Jesus taken as a whole.\nAccording to Mark it lasted less than a year, for since he speaks of only\none Passover\u2010journey we may conclude that no other Passover fell within\nthe period of Jesus\u2019 activity as a teacher. If it is proposed to assume\nthat He allowed a Passover to go by without going up to Jerusalem, His\nadversaries, who took Him to task about hand\u2010washings and about rubbing\nthe ears of corn on the Sabbath, would certainly have made a most serious\nmatter of this, and we should have to suppose that the Evangelist for some\nreason or other thought fit to suppress the fact. That is to say, the\nburden of proof lies upon those who assert a longer duration for the\nministry of Jesus.\n\nUntil they have succeeded in proving it, we may assume something like the\nfollowing course of events. Jesus, in going up to a Passover, came in\ncontact with the movement initiated by John the Baptist in Judaea, and,\nafter the lapse of a little time\u2014if we bring into the reckoning the forty\ndays\u2019 sojourn in the wilderness mentioned in Mark i. 13, a few weeks\nlater\u2014appeared in Galilee proclaiming the near approach of the Kingdom of\nGod. According to Mark He had known Himself since His baptism to be the\nMessiah, but from the historical point of view that does not matter, since\nhistory is concerned with the first announcement of the Messiahship, not\nwith inward psychological processes.(270)\n\nThis work of preaching the Kingdom was continued until the sending forth\nof the Twelve; that is to say, at the most for a few weeks. Perhaps in the\nsaying \u201cthe harvest is great but the labourers are few,\u201d with which Jesus\ncloses His work prior to sending forth the disciples, there lies an\nallusion to the actual state of the natural fields. The flocking of the\npeople to Him after the Mission of the Twelve, when a great multitude\nthronged about Him for several days during His journey along the northern\nshore of the lake, can be more naturally explained if the harvest had just\nbeen brought in.\n\nHowever that may be, it is certain that Jesus, in the midst of His initial\nsuccess, left Galilee, journeyed northwards, and only resumed His work as\na teacher in Judaea on the way to Jerusalem! Of His \u201cpublic ministry,\u201d\ntherefore, a large section falls out, being cancelled by a period of\ninexplicable concealment; it dwindles to a few weeks of preaching here and\nthere in Galilee and the few days of His sojourn in Jerusalem.(271)\n\nBut in that case the public life of Jesus becomes practically\nunintelligible. The explanation that His cause in Galilee was lost, and\nthat He was obliged to flee, has not the slightest foundation in the\ntext.(272) That was recognised even by Keim, the inventor of the\nsuccessful and unsuccessful periods in the life of Jesus, as is shown by\nhis suggestion that the Evangelists had intentionally removed the traces\nof failure from the decisive period which led up to the northern journey.\nThe controversy over the washing of hands in Mark vii. 1\u201023, to which\nappeal is always made, is really a defeat for the Pharisees. The theory of\nthe \u201cdesertion of the Galilaeans,\u201d which appears with more or less\nartistic variations in all modern Lives of Jesus, owes its existence not\nto any other confirmatory fact, but simply to the circumstance that Mark\nmakes the simple statement: \u201cAnd Jesus departed and went into the region\nof Tyre\u201d (vii. 24) without offering any explanation of this decision.\n\nThe only conclusion which the text warrants is that Mark mentioned no\nreason because he knew of none. The decision of Jesus did not rest upon\nthe recorded facts, since it ignores these, but upon considerations lying\noutside the history. His life at this period was dominated by a \u201cdogmatic\nidea\u201d which rendered Him indifferent to all else ... even to the happy and\nsuccessful work as a teacher which was opening before Him. How could Jesus\nthe \u201cteacher\u201d abandon at that moment a people so anxious to learn and so\neager for salvation? His action suggests a doubt whether He really felt\nHimself to be a \u201cteacher.\u201d If all the controversial discourses and sayings\nand answers to questions, which were so to speak wrung from Him, were\nsubtracted from the sum of His utterances, how much of the didactic\npreaching of Jesus would be left over?\n\nBut even the supposed didactic preaching is not really that of a\n\u201cteacher,\u201d since the purpose of His parables was, according to Mark iv.\n10\u201012, not to reveal, but to conceal, and of the Kingdom of God He spoke\nonly in parables (Mark iv. 34).\n\nPerhaps, however, we are not justified in extending the theory of\nconcealment, simply because it is mentioned in connexion with the first\nparable, to all the parables which He ever spoke, for it is never\nmentioned again. It could hardly indeed be applied to the parables with a\nmoral, like that, for instance, of the pearl of great price. It is equally\ninapplicable to the parables of coming judgment uttered at Jerusalem, in\nwhich He explicitly exhorts the people to be prepared and watchful in view\nof the coming of judgment and of the Kingdom. But here too it is deserving\nof notice that Jesus, whenever He desires to make known anything further\nconcerning the Kingdom of God than just its near approach, seems to be\nconfined, as it were by a higher law, to the parabolic form of discourse.\nIt is as though, for reasons which we cannot grasp, His teaching lay under\ncertain limitations. It appears as a kind of accessory aspect of His\nvocation. Thus it was possible for Him to give up His work as a teacher\neven at the moment when it promised the greatest success.\n\nAccordingly the fact of His always speaking in parables and of His taking\nthis inexplicable resolution both point back to a mysterious pre\u2010\nsupposition which greatly reduces the importance of Jesus\u2019 work as a\nteacher.\n\nOne reason for this limitation is distinctly stated in Mark iv. 10\u201012,\nviz. predestination! Jesus knows that the truth which He offers is\nexclusively for those who have been definitely chosen, that the general\nand public announcement of His message could only thwart the plans of God,\nsince the chosen are already winning their salvation from God. Only the\nphrase, \u201cRepent for the Kingdom of God is at hand\u201d and its variants belong\nto the public preaching. And this, therefore, is the only message which He\ncommits to His disciples when sending them forth. What this repentance,\nsupplementary to the law, the special ethic of the interval before the\ncoming of the Kingdom (_Interimsethik_) is, in its positive acceptation,\nHe explains in the Sermon on the Mount. But all that goes beyond that\nsimple phrase must be publicly presented only in parables, in order that\nthose only, who are shown to possess predestination by having the initial\nknowledge which enables them to understand the parables, may receive a\nmore advanced knowledge, which is imparted to them in a measure\ncorresponding to their original degree of knowledge: \u201cUnto him that hath\nshall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken away even that\nwhich he hath\u201d (Mark iv. 24\u201025).\n\nThe predestinarian view goes along with the eschatology. It is pushed to\nits utmost consequences in the closing incident of the parable of the\nmarriage of the King\u2019s son (Matt. xxii. 1\u201014) where the man who, in\nresponse to a publicly issued invitation, sits down at the table of the\nKing, but is recognised from his appearance as not called, is thrown out\ninto perdition. \u201cMany are called but few are chosen.\u201d The ethical idea of\nsalvation and the predestinarian limitation of acceptance to the elect are\nconstantly in conflict in the mind of Jesus. In one case, however, He\nfinds relief in the thought of predestination. When the rich young man\nturned away, not having strength to give up his possessions for the sake\nof following Jesus as he had been commanded to do, Jesus and His disciples\nwere forced to draw the conclusion that he, like other rich men, was lost,\nand could not enter into the Kingdom of God. But immediately afterwards\nJesus makes the suggestion, \u201cWith men it is impossible, but not with God,\nfor with God all things are possible\u201d (Mark x. 17\u201027). That is, He will\nnot give up the hope that the young man, in spite of appearances, which\nare against him, will be found to have belonged to the Kingdom of God,\nsolely in virtue of the secret all\u2010powerful will of God. Of a \u201cconversion\u201d\nof the young man there is no question.\n\nIn the Beatitudes, on the other hand, the argument is reversed; the\npredestination is inferred from its outward manifestation. It may seem to\nus inconceivable, but they are really predestinarian in form. Blessed are\nthe poor in spirit! Blessed are the meek! Blessed are the\npeacemakers!\u2014that does not mean that by virtue of their being poor in\nspirit, meek, peace\u2010loving, they deserve the Kingdom. Jesus does not\nintend the saying as an injunction or exhortation, but as a simple\nstatement of fact: in their being poor in spirit, in their meekness, in\ntheir love of peace, it is made manifest that they are predestined to the\nKingdom. By the possession of these qualities they are marked as belonging\nto it. In the case of others (Matt. v. 10\u201012) the predestination to the\nKingdom is made manifest by the persecutions which befall them in this\nworld. These are the light of the world, which already shines among men\nfor the glory of God (Matt. v. 14\u201015).\n\nThe kingdom cannot be \u201cearned\u201d; what happens is that men are called to it,\nand show themselves to be called to it. On careful examination it appears\nthat the idea of reward in the sayings of Jesus is not really an idea of\nreward, because it is relieved against a background of predestination. For\nthe present it is sufficient to note the fact that the eschatologico\u2010\npredestinarian view brings a mysterious element of dogma not merely into\nthe teaching, but also into the public ministry of Jesus.\n\nTo take another point, what is the mystery of the Kingdom of God? It must\nconsist of something more than merely its near approach, and something of\nextreme importance; otherwise Jesus would be here indulging in mere\nmystery\u2010mongering. The saying about the candle which He puts upon the\nstand, in order that what was hidden may be revealed to those who have\nears to hear, implies that He is making a tremendous revelation to those\nwho understand the parables about the growth of the seed. The mystery must\ntherefore contain the explanation why the Kingdom must now come, and how\nmen are to know how near it is. For the general fact that it is very near\nhad already been openly proclaimed both by the Baptist and by Jesus. The\nmystery, therefore, must consist of something more than that.\n\nIn these parables it is not the idea of development, but of the apparent\nabsence of causation which occupies the foremost place. The description\naims at suggesting the question, how, and by what power, incomparably\ngreat and glorious results can be infallibly produced by an insignificant\nfact without human aid. A man sowed seed. Much of it was lost, but the\nlittle that fell into good ground brought forth a harvest\u2014thirty, sixty,\nan hundredfold\u2014which left no trace of the loss in the sowing. How did that\ncome about?\n\nA man sows seed and does not trouble any further about it\u2014cannot indeed do\nanything to help it, but he knows that after a definite time the glorious\nharvest which arises out of the seed will stand before him. By what power\nis that effected?\n\nAn extremely minute grain of mustard seed is planted in the earth and\nthere necessarily arises out of it a great bush, which cannot certainly\nhave been contained in the grain of seed. How was that?\n\nWhat the parables emphasise is, therefore, so to speak, the in itself\nnegative, inadequate, character of the initial fact, upon which, as by a\nmiracle, there follows in the appointed time, through the power of God,\nsome great thing. They lay stress not upon the natural, but upon the\nmiraculous character of such occurrences.\n\nBut what is the initial fact of the parables? It is the sowing.\n\nIt is not said that by the man who sows the seed Jesus means Himself. The\nman has no importance. In the parable of the mustard seed he is not even\nmentioned. All that is asserted is that the initial fact is already\npresent, as certainly present as the time of the sowing is past at the\nmoment when Jesus speaks. That being so, the Kingdom of God must follow as\ncertainly as harvest follows seed\u2010sowing. As a man believes in the\nharvest, without being able to explain it, simply because the seed has\nbeen sown; so with the same absolute confidence he may believe in the\nKingdom of God.\n\nAnd the initial fact which is symbolised? Jesus can only mean a fact which\nwas actually in existence\u2014the movement of repentance evoked by the Baptist\nand now intensified by His own preaching. That necessarily involves the\nbringing in of the Kingdom by the power of God; as man\u2019s sowing\nnecessitates the giving of the harvest by the same Infinite Power. Any one\nwho knows this sees with different eyes the corn growing in the fields and\nthe harvest ripening, for he sees the one fact in the other, and awaits\nalong with the earthly harvest the heavenly, the revelation of the Kingdom\nof God.\n\nIf we look into the thought more closely we see that the coming of the\nKingdom of God is not only symbolically or analogically, but also really\nand temporally connected with the harvest. The harvest ripening upon earth\nis the last! With it comes also the Kingdom of God which brings in the new\nage. When the reapers are sent into the fields, the Lord in Heaven will\ncause His harvest to be reaped by the holy angels.\n\nIf the three parables of Mark iv. contain the mystery of the Kingdom of\nGod, and are therefore capable of being summed up in a single formula,\nthis can be nothing else than the joyful exhortation: \u201cYe who have eyes to\nsee, read, in the harvest which is ripening upon earth, what is being\nprepared in heaven!\u201d The eager eschatological hope was to regard the\nnatural process as the last of its kind, and to see in it a special\nsignificance in view of the event of which it was to give the signal.\n\nThe analogical and temporal parallelism becomes complete if we assume that\nthe movement initiated by the Baptist began in the spring, and notice that\nJesus, according to Matt. ix. 37 and 38, before sending out the disciples\nto make a speedy proclamation of the nearness of the Kingdom of God,\nuttered the remarkable saying about the rich harvest. It seems like a\nfinal expression of the thought contained in the parables about the seed\nand its promise, and finds its most natural explanation in the supposition\nthat the harvest was actually at hand.\n\nWhatever may be thought of this attempt to divine historically the secret\nof the Kingdom of God, there is one thing that cannot be got away from,\nviz. that the initial fact to which Jesus points, under the figure of the\nsowing, is somehow or other connected with the eschatological preaching of\nrepentance, which had been begun by the Baptist.\n\nThat may be the more confidently asserted because Jesus in another\nmysterious saying describes the days of the Baptist as a time which makes\npreparation for the coming of the Kingdom of God. \u201cFrom the days of John\nthe Baptist,\u201d He says in Matt. xi. 12, \u201ceven until now, the Kingdom of\nHeaven is subjected to violence, and the violent wrest it to themselves.\u201d\nThe saying has nothing to do with the entering of individuals into the\nKingdom; it simply asserts, that since the coming of the Baptist a certain\nnumber of persons are engaged in forcing on and compelling the coming of\nthe Kingdom. Jesus\u2019 expectation of the Kingdom is an expectation based\nupon a fact which exercises an active influence upon the Kingdom of God.\nIt was not He, and not the Baptist who \u201cwere working at the coming of the\nKingdom\u201d; it is the host of penitents which is wringing it from God, so\nthat it may now come at any moment.\n\nThe eschatological insight of Johannes Weiss made an end of the modern\nview that Jesus founded the Kingdom. It did away with all activity, as\nexercised upon the Kingdom of God, and made the part of Jesus purely a\nwaiting one. Now the activity comes back into the preaching of the\nKingdom, but this time eschatologically conditioned. The secret of the\nKingdom of God which Jesus unveils in the parables about confident\nexpectation in Mark iv., and declares in so many words in the eulogy on\nthe Baptist (Matt. xi.), amounts to this, that in the movement to which\nthe Baptist gave the first impulse, and which still continued, there was\nan initial fact which was drawing after it the coming of the Kingdom, in a\nfashion which was miraculous, unintelligible, but unfailingly certain,\nsince the sufficient cause for it lay in the power and purpose of God.\n\nIt should be observed that Jesus in these parables, as well as in the\nrelated saying at the sending forth of the Twelve, uses the formula, \u201cHe\nthat hath ears to hear, let him hear\u201d (Mark iv. 23 and Matt. xi. 15),\nthereby signifying that in this utterance there lies concealed a\nsupernatural knowledge concerning the plans of God, which only those who\nhave ears to hear\u2014that is, the foreordained\u2014can detect. For others these\nsayings are unintelligible.\n\nIf this genuinely \u201chistorical\u201d interpretation of the mystery of the\nKingdom of God is correct, Jesus must have expected the coming of the\nKingdom at harvest time. And that is just what He did expect. It is for\nthat reason that He sends out His disciples to make known in Israel, as\nspeedily as may be, what is about to happen. That in this He is actuated\nby a dogmatic idea, becomes clear when we notice that, according to Mark,\nthe mission of the Twelve followed immediately on the rejection at\nNazareth. The unreceptiveness of the Nazarenes had made no impression upon\nHim; He was only astonished at their unbelief (Mark vi. 6). This passage\nis often interpreted to mean that He was astonished to find His miracle\u2010\nworking power fail Him. There is no hint of that in the text. What He is\nastonished at is, that in His native town there were so few believers,\nthat is, elect, knowing as He does that the Kingdom of God may appear at\nany moment. But that fact makes no difference whatever to the nearness of\nthe coming of the Kingdom.\n\nThe Evangelist, therefore, places the rejection at Nazareth and the\nmission of the Twelve side by side, simply because he found them in this\ntemporal connexion in the tradition. If he had been working by\n\u201cassociation of ideas,\u201d he would not have arrived at this order. The want\nof connexion, the impossibility of applying any natural explanation, is\njust what is historical, because the course of the history was determined,\nnot by outward events, but by the decisions of Jesus, and these were\ndetermined by dogmatic, eschatological considerations.\n\nTo how great an extent this was the case in regard to the mission of the\nTwelve is clearly seen from the \u201ccharge\u201d which Jesus gave them. He tells\nthem in plain words (Matt. x. 23), that He does not expect to see them\nback in the present age. The Parousia of the Son of Man, which is\nlogically and temporally identical with the dawn of the Kingdom, will take\nplace before they shall have completed a hasty journey through the cities\nof Israel to announce it. That the words mean this and nothing else, that\nthey ought not to be in any way weakened down, should be sufficiently\nevident. This is the form in which Jesus reveals to them the secret of the\nKingdom of God. A few days later, He utters the saying about the violent\nwho, since the days of John the Baptist, are forcing on the coming of the\nKingdom.\n\nIt is equally clear, and here the dogmatic considerations which guided the\nresolutions of Jesus become still more prominent, that this prediction was\nnot fulfilled. The disciples returned to Him; and the appearing of the Son\nof Man had not taken place. The actual history disavowed the dogmatic\nhistory on which the action of Jesus had been based. An event of\nsupernatural history which must take place, and must take place at that\nparticular point of time, failed to come about. That was for Jesus, who\nlived wholly in the dogmatic history, the first \u201chistorical\u201d occurrence,\nthe central event which closed the former period of His activity and gave\nthe coming period a new character. To this extent modern theology is\njustified when it distinguishes two periods in the Life of Jesus; an\nearlier, in which He is surrounded by the people, a later in which He is\n\u201cdeserted\u201d by them, and travels about with the Twelve only. It is a sound\nobservation that the two periods are sharply distinguished by the attitude\nof Jesus. To explain this difference of attitude, which they thought\nthemselves bound to account for on natural historical grounds, theologians\nof the modern historical school invented the theory of growing opposition\nand waning support. Weisse, no doubt, had expressed himself in direct\nopposition to this theory.(273) Keim, who gave it its place in theology,\nwas aware that in setting it up he was going against the plain sense of\nthe texts. Later writers lost this consciousness, just as in the first and\nthird Gospel the significance of the Messianic secret in Mark gradually\nfaded away; they imagined that they could find the basis of fact for the\ntheory in the texts, and did not realise that they only believed in the\ndesertion of the multitude and the \u201cflights and retirements\u201d of Jesus\nbecause they could not otherwise explain historically the alteration in\nHis conduct, His withdrawal from public work, and His resolve to die.\n\nThe thoroughgoing eschatological school makes better work of it. They\nrecognise in the non\u2010occurrence of the Parousia promised in Matt. x. 23,\nthe \u201chistoric fact,\u201d in the estimation of Jesus, which in some way\ndetermined the alteration in His plans, and His attitude towards the\nmultitude.\n\nThe whole history of \u201cChristianity\u201d down to the present day, that is to\nsay, the real inner history of it, is based on the delay of the Parousia,\nthe non\u2010occurrence of the Parousia, the abandonment of eschatology, the\nprogress and completion of the \u201cde\u2010eschatologising\u201d of religion which has\nbeen connected therewith. It should be noted that the non\u2010fulfilment of\nMatt. x. 23 is the first postponement of the Parousia. We have therefore\nhere the first significant date in the \u201chistory of Christianity\u201d; it gives\nto the work of Jesus a new direction, otherwise inexplicable.\n\nHere we recognise also why the Marcan hypothesis, in constructing its view\nof the Life of Jesus, found itself obliged to have recourse more and more\nto the help of modern psychology, and thus necessarily became more and\nmore unhistorical. The fact which alone makes possible an understanding of\nthe whole, is lacking in this Gospel. Without Matt. x. and xi. everything\nremains enigmatic. For this reason Bruno Bauer and Wrede are in their own\nway the only consistent representatives of the Marcan hypothesis from the\npoint of view of historical criticism, when they arrive at the result that\nthe Marcan account is inherently unintelligible. Keim, with his strong\nsense of historical reality, rightly felt that the plan of the Life of\nJesus should not be constructed exclusively on the basis of Mark.\n\nThe recognition that Mark alone gives an inadequate basis, is more\nimportant than any \u201cUr\u2010Markus\u201d theories, for which it is impossible to\ndiscover a literary foundation, or find an historical use. A simple\ninduction from the \u201cfacts\u201d takes us beyond Mark. In the discourse\u2010material\nof Matthew, which the modern\u2010historical school thought they could sift in\nhere and there, wherever there seemed to be room for it, there lie hidden\ncertain facts\u2014facts which never happened but are all the more important\nfor that.\n\nWhy Mark describes the events and discourses in the neighbourhood of the\nmission of the Twelve with such careful authentication is a literary\nquestion which the historical study of the life of Jesus may leave open;\nthe more so since, even as a literary question, it is insoluble.\n\nThe prediction of the Parousia of the Son of Man is not the only one which\nremained unfulfilled. There is the prediction of sufferings which is\nconnected with it. To put it more accurately, the prediction of the\nappearing of the Son of Man in Matt. x. 23 runs up into a prediction of\nsufferings, which, working up to a climax, forms the remainder of the\ndiscourse at the sending forth of the disciples. This prediction of\nsufferings has as little to do with objective history as the prediction of\nthe Parousia. Consequently, none of the Lives of Jesus, which follow the\nlines of a natural psychology, from Weisse down to Oskar Holtzmann, can\nmake anything of it.(274) They either strike it out, or transfer it to the\nlast \u201cgloomy epoch\u201d of the life of Jesus, regard it as an unintelligible\nanticipation, or put it down to the account of \u201cprimitive theology,\u201d which\nserves as a scrap\u2010heap for everything for which they cannot find a place\nin the \u201chistorical life of Jesus.\u201d\n\nIn the texts it is quite evident that Jesus is not speaking of sufferings\nafter His death, but of sufferings which will befall them as soon as they\nhave gone forth from Him. The death of Jesus is not here pre\u2010supposed, but\nonly the Parousia of the Son of Man, and it is implied that this will\noccur just after these sufferings and bring them to a close. If the\ntheology of the primitive Church had remoulded the tradition, as is always\nbeing asserted, it would have made Jesus give His followers directions for\ntheir conduct after His death. That we do not find anything of this kind\nis the best proof that there can be no question of a remoulding of the\nLife of Jesus by primitive theology. How easy it would have been for the\nEarly Church to scatter here and there through the discourses of Jesus\ndirections which were only to be applied after His death! But the simple\nfact is that it did not do so.\n\nThe sufferings of which the prospect is held out at the sending forth are\ndoubly, trebly, nay four times over, unhistorical. In the first place\u2014and\nthis is the only point which modern historical theology has\nnoticed\u2014because there is not a shadow of a suggestion in the outward\ncircumstances of anything which could form a natural occasion for such\npredictions of, and exhortations relating to, sufferings. In the second\nplace\u2014and this has been overlooked by modern theology because it had\nalready declared them to be unhistorical in its own characteristic\nfashion, viz. by striking them out\u2014because they were not fulfilled. In the\nthird place\u2014and this has not entered into the mind of modern theology at\nall\u2014because these sayings were spoken in the closest connexion with the\npromise of the Parousia and are placed in the closest connexion with that\nevent. In the fourth place, because the description of that which is to\nbefall the disciples is quite without any basis in experience. A time of\ngeneral dissension will begin, in which brothers will rise up against\nbrothers, and fathers against sons and children against their parents to\ncause them to be put to death (Matt. x. 21). And the disciples \u201cshall be\nhated of all men for His name\u2019s sake.\u201d Let them strive to hold out to the\n\u201cend,\u201d that is, to the coming of the Son of Man, in order that they may be\nsaved (Matt. x. 22).\n\nBut why should they suddenly be hated and persecuted for the name of\nJesus, seeing that this name played no part whatever in their preaching?\nThat is simply inconceivable. The relation of Jesus to the Son of Man, the\nfact, that is to say, that it is He who is to be manifested as Son of Man,\nmust therefore in some way or other become known in the interval; not,\nhowever, through the disciples, but by some other means of revelation. A\nkind of supernatural illumination will suddenly make known all that Jesus\nhas been keeping secret regarding the Kingdom of God and His position in\nthe Kingdom. This illumination will arise as suddenly and without\npreparation as the spirit of strife.\n\nAnd as a matter of fact Jesus predicts to the disciples in the same\ndiscourse that to their own surprise a supernatural wisdom will suddenly\nspeak from their lips, so that it will be not they but the Spirit of God\nwho will answer the great ones of the earth. As the Spirit is for Jesus\nand early Christian theology something concrete which is to descend upon\nthe elect among mankind only in consequence of a definite event\u2014the\noutpouring of the Spirit which, according to the prophecy of Joel, should\nprecede the day of judgment\u2014Jesus must have anticipated that this would\noccur during the absence of the disciples, in the midst of the time of\nstrife and confusion.\n\nTo put it differently; the whole of the discourse at the sending forth of\nthe Twelve, taken in the clear sense of the words, is a prediction of the\nevents of the \u201ctime of the end,\u201d events which are immediately at hand, in\nwhich the supernatural eschatological course of history will break through\ninto the natural course. The expectation of sufferings is therefore\ndoctrinal and unhistorical, as is, precisely in the same way, the\nexpectation of the pouring forth of the Spirit uttered at the same time.\nThe Parousia of the Son of Man is to be preceded according to the\nMessianic dogma by a time of strife and confusion\u2014as it were, the birth\u2010\nthroes of the Messiah\u2014and the outpouring of the Spirit. It should be\nnoticed that according to Joel iii. and iv. the outpouring of the Spirit,\nalong with the miraculous signs, forms the prelude to the judgment; and\nalso, that in the same context, Joel iii. 13, the judgment is described as\nthe harvest\u2010day of God.(275) Here we have a remarkable parallel to the\nsaying about the harvest in Matt. ix. 38, which forms the introduction to\nthe discourse at the sending forth of the disciples.\n\nThere is only one point in which the predicted course of eschatological\nevents is incomplete: the appearance of Elias is not mentioned.\n\nJesus could not prophesy to the disciples the Parousia of the Son of Man\nwithout pointing them, at the same time, to the pre\u2010eschatological events\nwhich must first occur. He must open to them a part of the secret of the\nKingdom of God, viz. the nearness of the harvest, that they might not be\ntaken by surprise and caused to doubt by these events.\n\nThus this discourse is historical as a whole and down to the smallest\ndetail precisely because, according to the view of modern theology, it\nmust be judged unhistorical. It is, in fact, full of eschatological dogma.\nJesus had no need to instruct the disciples as to what they were to teach;\nfor they had only to utter a cry. But concerning the events which should\nsupervene, it was necessary that He should give them information.\nTherefore the discourse does not consist of instruction, but of\npredictions of sufferings and of the Parousia.\n\nThat being so, we may judge with what right the modern psychological\ntheology dismisses the great Matthaean discourses off\u2010hand as mere\n\u201ccomposite structures.\u201d Just let any one try to show how the Evangelist\nwhen he was racking his brains over the task of making a \u201cdiscourse at the\nsending forth of the disciples,\u201d half by the method of piecing it together\nout of traditional sayings and \u201cprimitive theology,\u201d and half by inventing\nit, lighted on the curious idea of making Jesus speak entirely of\ninopportune and unpractical matters; and of then going on to provide the\nevidence that they never happened.\n\nThe foretelling of the sufferings that belong to the eschatological\ndistress is part and parcel of the preaching of the approach of the\nKingdom of God, it embodies the secret of the Kingdom. It is for that\nreason that the thought of suffering appears at the end of the Beatitudes\nand in the closing petition of the Lord\u2019s Prayer. For the \u03c0\u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03bc\u03cc\u03c2 which\nis there in view is not an individual psychological temptation, but the\ngeneral eschatological time of tribulation, from which God is besought to\nexempt those who pray so earnestly for the coming of the Kingdom, and not\nto expose them to that tribulation by way of putting them to the test.\n\nThere followed neither the sufferings, nor the outpouring of the Spirit,\nnor the Parousia of the Son of Man. The disciples returned safe and sound\nand full of a proud satisfaction; for one promise had been realised\u2014the\npower which had been given them over the demons.\n\nBut from the moment when they rejoined Him, all His thoughts and efforts\nwere devoted to getting rid of the people in order to be alone with them\n(Mark vi. 30\u201033). Previously, during their absence, He had, almost in open\nspeech, taught the multitude concerning the Baptist, concerning that which\nwas to precede the coming of the Kingdom, and concerning the judgment\nwhich should come upon the impenitent, even upon whole towns of them\n(Matt. xi. 20\u201024), because, in spite of the miracles which they had\nwitnessed, they had not recognised the day of grace and diligently used it\nfor repentance. At the same time He had rejoiced before them over all\nthose whom God had enlightened that they might see what was going forward;\nand had called them to His side (Matt. xi. 25\u201030).\n\nAnd now suddenly, the moment the disciples return, His one thought is to\nget away from the people. They, however, follow Him and overtake Him on\nthe shores of the lake. He puts the Jordan between Himself and them by\ncrossing to Bethsaida. They also come to Bethsaida. He returns to\nCapernaum. They do the same. Since in Galilee it is impossible for Him to\nbe alone, and He absolutely must be alone, He \u201cslips away\u201d to the north.\nOnce more modern theology was right: He really does flee; not, however,\nfrom hostile Scribes, but from the people, who dog His footsteps in order\nto await in His company the appearing of the Kingdom of God and of the Son\nof Man\u2014to await it in vain.(276)\n\nIn Strauss\u2019s first Life of Jesus the question is thrown out whether, in\nview of Matt. x. 23, Jesus did not think of His Parousia as a\ntransformation which should take place during His lifetime. Ghillany bases\nhis work on this possibility as on an established historical fact. Dalman\ntakes this hypothesis to be the necessary correlative of the\ninterpretation of the self\u2010designation Son of Man on the basis of Daniel\nand the Apocalypses.\n\nIf Jesus, he argues, designated Himself in this futuristic sense as the\nSon of Man who comes from Heaven, He must have assumed that He would first\nbe transported thither. \u201cA man who had died or been rapt away from the\nearth might perhaps be brought into the world again in this way, or one\nwho had never been on earth might so descend thither.\u201d But as this\nconception of transformation and removal seems to Dalman untenable in the\ncase of Jesus, he treats it as a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the\neschatological interpretation of the title.\n\nBut why? If Jesus as a man walking in a natural body upon earth, predicts\nto His disciples the Parousia of the Son of Man in the immediate future,\nwith the secret conviction that He Himself was to be revealed as the Son\nof Man, He must have made precisely this assumption that He would first be\nsupernaturally removed and transformed. He thought of Himself as any one\nmust who believes in the immediate coming of the last things, as living in\ntwo different conditions: the present, and the future condition into which\nHe is to be transferred at the coming of the new supernatural world. We\nlearn later that the disciples on the way up to Jerusalem were entirely\npossessed by the thought of what they should be when this transformation\ntook place. They contend as to who shall have the highest position (Mark\nix. 33); James and John wish Jesus to promise them in advance the thrones\non His right hand and on His left (Mark x. 35\u201037).\n\nHe, moreover, does not rebuke them for indulging such thoughts, but only\ntells them how much, in the present age, of service, humiliation, and\nsuffering is necessary to constitute a claim to such places in the future\nage, and that it does not in the last resort belong to Him to allot the\nplaces on His left and on His right, but that they shall be given to those\nfor whom they are prepared; therefore, perhaps not to any of the disciples\n(Mark x. 40). At this point, therefore, the knowledge and will of Jesus\nare thwarted and limited by the predestinarianism which is bound up with\neschatology.\n\nIt is quite mistaken, however, to speak as modern theology does, of the\n\u201cservice\u201d here required as belonging to the \u201cnew ethic of the Kingdom of\nGod.\u201d There is for Jesus no ethic of the Kingdom of God, for in the\nKingdom of God all natural relationships, even, for example, the\ndistinction of sex (Mark xii. 25 and 26), are abolished. Temptation and\nsin no longer exist. All is \u201creign,\u201d a \u201creign\u201d which has gradations\u2014Jesus\nspeaks of the \u201cleast in the Kingdom of God\u201d\u2014according as it has been\ndetermined in each individual case from all eternity, and according as\neach by his self\u2010humiliation and refusal to rule in the present age has\nproved his fitness for bearing rule in the future Kingdom.\n\nFor the loftier stations, however, it is necessary to have proved oneself\nin persecution and suffering. Accordingly, Jesus asks the sons of Zebedee\nwhether, since they claim these thrones on His right hand and on His left,\nthey feel themselves strong enough to drink of His cup and be baptized\nwith His baptism (Mark x. 38). To serve, to humble oneself, to incur\npersecution and death, belong to \u201cthe ethic of the interim\u201d just as much\nas does penitence. They are indeed only a higher form of penitence.\n\nA vivid eschatological expectation is therefore impossible to conceive\napart from the idea of a metamorphosis. The resurrection is only a special\ncase of this metamorphosis, the form in which the new condition of things\nis realised in the case of those who are already dead. The resurrection,\nthe metamorphosis, and the Parousia of the Son of Man take place\nsimultaneously, and are one and the same act.(277) It is therefore quite\nindifferent whether a man loses his life shortly before the Parousia in\norder to \u201cfind his life,\u201d if that is what is ordained for him; that\nsignifies only that he will undergo the eschatological metamorphosis with\nthe dead instead of with the living.\n\nThe Pauline eschatology recognises both conceptions side by side, in such\na way, however, that the resurrection is subordinated to the\nmetamorphosis. \u201cBehold, I shew you a mystery,\u201d he says in 1 Cor. xv. 51\nff.; \u201cwe shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in\nthe twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound,\nand the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.\u201d\n\nThe apostle himself desires to be one of those who live to experience the\nmetamorphosis and to be clothed with the heavenly mode of existence (2\nCor. v. 1 ff.). The metamorphosis, however, and the resurrection are, for\nthose who are \u201cin Christ,\u201d connected with a being caught up into the\nclouds of heaven (1 Thess. iv. 15 ff.). Therefore Paul also makes one and\nthe same event of the metamorphosis, resurrection, and translation.\n\nIn seeking clues to the eschatology of Jesus, scholars have passed over\nthe eschatology which lies closest to it, that of Paul. But why? Is it not\nidentical with that of Jesus, at least in so far that both are \u201cJewish\neschatology\u201d? Did not Reimarus long ago declare that the eschatology of\nthe primitive Christian community was identical with the Jewish, and only\nwent beyond it in claiming a definite knowledge on a single point which\nwas unessential to the nature and course of the expected events, in\nknowing, that is, who the Son of Man should be? That Christians drew no\ndistinction between their own eschatology and the Jewish is evident from\nthe whole character of the earlier apocalyptic literature, and not least\nfrom the Apocalypse of John! After all, what alteration did the belief\nthat Jesus was the Son of Man who was to be revealed make in the general\nscheme of the course of apocalyptic events?\n\nFrom the Rabbinic literature little help is to be derived towards the\nunderstanding of the world of thought in which Jesus lived, and His view\nof His own Person. The latest researches may be said to have made that\nclear. A few moral maxims, a few halting parables\u2014that is all that can be\nproduced in the way of parallels. Even the conception which is there\nsuggested of the hidden coming and work of the Messiah is of little\nimportance. We find the same ideas in the mouth of Trypho in Justin\u2019s\ndialogue, and that makes their Jewish character doubtful. That Jesus of\nNazareth knew Himself to be the Son of Man who was to be revealed is for\nus the great fact of His self\u2010consciousness, which is not to be further\nexplained, whether there had been any kind of preparation for it in\ncontemporary theology or not.\n\nThe self\u2010consciousness of Jesus cannot in fact be illustrated or\nexplained; all that can be explained is the eschatological view, in which\nthe Man who possessed that self\u2010consciousness saw reflected in advance the\ncoming events, both those of a more general character, and those which\nespecially related to Himself.(278)\n\nThe eschatology of Jesus can therefore only be interpreted by the aid of\nthe curiously intermittent Jewish apocalyptic literature of the period\nbetween Daniel and the Bar\u2010Cochba rising. What else, indeed, are the\nSynoptic Gospels, the Pauline letters, the Christian apocalypses than\nproducts of Jewish apocalyptic, belonging, moreover, to its greatest and\nmost flourishing period? Historically regarded, the Baptist, Jesus, and\nPaul are simply the culminating manifestations of Jewish apocalyptic\nthought. The usual representation is the exact converse of the truth.\nWriters describe Jewish eschatology in order to illustrate the ideas of\nJesus. But what is this \u201cJewish eschatology\u201d after all? It is an\neschatology with a great gap in it, because the culminating period, with\nthe documents which relate to it, has been left out. The true historian\nwill describe the eschatology of the Baptist, of Jesus, and of Paul in\norder to explain Jewish eschatology. It is nothing less than a misfortune\nfor the science of New Testament Theology that no real attempt has\nhitherto been made to write the history of Jewish eschatology as it really\nwas; that is, with the inclusion of the Baptist, of Jesus, and of\nPaul.(279)\n\nAll this has had to be said in order to justify the apparently self\u2010\nevident assertion that Mark, Matthew, and Paul are the best sources for\nthe Jewish eschatology of the time of Jesus. They represent a phase, which\neven in detail is self\u2010explanatory, of that Jewish apocalyptic hope which\nmanifested itself from time to time. We are, therefore, justified in first\nreconstructing the Jewish apocalyptic of the time independently out of\nthese documents, that is to say, in bringing the details of the discourses\nof Jesus into an eschatological system, and then on the basis of this\nsystem endeavouring to explain the apparently disconnected events in the\nhistory of His public life.\n\nThe lines of connection which run backwards towards the Psalms of Solomon,\nEnoch, and Daniel, and forwards towards the apocalypses of Baruch and\nEnoch, are extremely important for the understanding of certain general\nconceptions. On the other hand, it is impossible to over\u2010emphasise the\nuniqueness of the point of view from which the eschatology of the time of\nthe Baptist, of Jesus, and of Paul presents itself to us.\n\nIn the first place, men feel themselves so close to the coming events that\nthey only see what lies nearest to them, the imaginative development of\ndetail entirely ceases. In the second place, it appears to us as though\nseen, so to speak, from within, passed through the medium of powerful\nminds like those of the Baptist and Jesus. That is why it is so great and\nsimple. On the other hand, a certain complication arises from the fact\nthat it now intersects actual history. All these are original features of\nit, which are not found in the Jewish apocalyptic writings of the\npreceding and following periods, and that is why these documents give us\nso little help in regard to the characteristic detail of the eschatology\nof Jesus and His contemporaries.\n\nA further point to be noticed is that the eschatology of the time of Jesus\nshows the influence of the eschatology of the ancient prophets in a way\nwhich is not paralleled either before or after. Compare the Synoptic\neschatology with that of the Psalms of Solomon. In place of the legal\nrighteousness, which, since the return from the exile, had formed the link\nof connexion between the present and the future, we find the prophetic\nethic, the demand for a general repentance, even in the case of the\nBaptist. In the Apocalypses of Baruch and Ezra we see, especially in the\ntheological character of the latter, the persistent traces of this ethical\ndeepening of apocalyptic.\n\nBut even in individual conceptions the apocalyptic of the Baptist, and of\nthe period which he introduces, reaches back to the eschatology of the\nprophetic writings. The pouring forth of the spirit, and the figure of\nElias, who comes again to earth, play a great r\u00f4le in it. The difficulty\nis, indeed, consciously felt of combining the two eschatologies, and\nbringing the prophetic within the Danielic. How, it is asked, can the Son\nof David be at the same time the Danielic Son\u2010of\u2010Man Messiah, at once\nDavid\u2019s son and David\u2019s Lord?\n\nIt is inadequate to speak of a synthesis of the two eschatologies. What\nhas happened is nothing less than the remoulding, the elevation, of the\nDaniel\u2010Enoch apocalyptic by the spirit and conceptions belonging to the\nancient prophetic hope.\n\nA great simplification and deepening of eschatology begins to show itself\neven in the Psalms of Solomon. The conception of righteousness which the\nwriter applies is, in spite of its legal aspect, of an ethical, prophetic\ncharacter. It is an eschatology associated with great historical events,\nthe eschatology of a Pharisaism which is fighting for a cause, and has\ntherefore a certain inward greatness.(280) Between the Psalms of Solomon\nand the appearance of the Baptist there lies the decadence of Pharisaism.\nAt this point there suddenly appears an eschatological movement detached\nfrom Pharisaism, which was declining into an external legalism, a movement\nresting on a basis of its own, and thoroughly penetrated with the spirit\nof the ancient prophets.\n\nThe ultimate _differentia_ of this eschatology is that it was not, like\nthe other apocalyptic movements, called into existence by historical\nevents. The Apocalypse of Daniel was called forth by the religious\noppression of Antiochus;(281) the Psalms of Solomon by the civil strife at\nJerusalem and the first appearance of the Roman power under Pompey;(282)\nFourth Ezra and Baruch by the destruction of Jerusalem.(283) The\napocalyptic movement in the time of Jesus is not connected with any\nhistorical event. It cannot be said, as Bruno Bauer rightly perceived,\nthat we know anything about the Messianic expectations of the Jewish\npeople at that time.(284) On the contrary, the indifference shown by the\nRoman administration towards the movement proves that the Romans knew\nnothing of a condition of great and general Messianic excitement among the\nJewish people. The conduct of the Pharisaic party also, and the\nindifference of the great mass of the people, show that there can have\nbeen no question at that time of a national movement. What is really\nremarkable about this wave of apocalyptic enthusiasm is the fact that it\nwas called forth not by external events, but solely by the appearance of\ntwo great personalities, and subsides with their disappearance, without\nleaving among the people generally any trace, except a feeling of hatred\ntowards the new sect.\n\nThe Baptist and Jesus are not, therefore, borne upon the current of a\ngeneral eschatological movement. The period offers no events calculated to\ngive an impulse to eschatological enthusiasm. They themselves set the\ntimes in motion by acting, by creating eschatological facts. It is this\nmighty creative force which constitutes the difficulty in grasping\nhistorically the eschatology of Jesus and the Baptist. Instead of literary\nartifice speaking out of a distant imaginary past, there now enter into\nthe field of eschatology men, living, acting men. It was the only time\nwhen that ever happened in Jewish eschatology.\n\nThere is silence all around. The Baptist appears, and cries: \u201cRepent, for\nthe Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.\u201d Soon after that comes Jesus, and in the\nknowledge that He is the coming Son of Man lays hold of the wheel of the\nworld to set it moving on that last revolution which is to bring all\nordinary history to a close. It refuses to turn, and He throws Himself\nupon it. Then it does turn; and crushes Him. Instead of bringing in the\neschatological conditions, He has destroyed them. The wheel rolls onward,\nand the mangled body of the one immeasurably great Man, who was strong\nenough to think of Himself as the spiritual ruler of mankind and to bend\nhistory to His purpose, is hanging upon it still. That is His victory and\nHis reign.\n\nThese considerations regarding the distinctive character of the Synoptic\neschatology were necessary in order to explain the significance of the\nsending forth of the disciples and the discourse which Jesus uttered upon\nthat occasion. Jesus\u2019 purpose is to set in motion the eschatological\ndevelopment of history, to let loose the final woes, the confusion and\nstrife, from which shall issue the Parousia, and so to introduce the\nsupra\u2010mundane phase of the eschatological drama. That is His task, for\nwhich He has authority here below. That is why He says in the same\ndiscourse, \u201cThink not that I am come to send peace on the earth; I am not\ncome to send peace, but a sword\u201d (Matt. x. 34).\n\nIt was with a view to this initial movement that He chose His disciples.\nThey are not His helpers in the work of teaching; we never see them in\nthat capacity, and He did not prepare them to carry on that work after His\ndeath. The very fact that He chooses just twelve shows that it is a\ndogmatic idea which He has in mind. He chooses them as those who are\ndestined to hurl the firebrand into the world, and are afterwards, as\nthose who have been the comrades of the unrecognised Messiah, before He\ncame to His Kingdom, to be His associates in ruling and judging it.(285)\n\nBut what was to be the fate of the future Son of Man during the Messianic\nwoes of the last times? It appears as if it was appointed for Him to share\nthe persecution and the suffering. He says that those who shall be saved\nmust take their cross and follow Him (Matt. x. 38), that His followers\nmust be willing to lose their lives for His sake, and that only those who\nin this time of terror confess their allegiance to Him, shall be confessed\nby Him before His heavenly Father (Matt. x. 32). Similarly, in the last of\nthe Beatitudes, He had pronounced those blessed who were despised and\npersecuted for His sake (Matt. v. 11, 12). As the future bearer of the\nsupreme rule He must go through the deepest humiliation. There is danger\nthat His followers may doubt Him. Therefore, the last words of His message\nto the Baptist, just at the time when He had sent forth the Twelve, is,\n\u201cBlessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me\u201d (Matt. xi. 6).\n\nIf He makes a point of familiarising others with the thought that in the\ntime of tribulation they may even lose their lives, He must have\nrecognised that this possibility was still more strongly present in His\nown case. It is possible that in the enigmatic saying about the disciples\nfasting \u201cwhen the bridegroom is taken away from them\u201d (Mark ii. 20), there\nis a hint of what Jesus expected. In that case suffering, death, and\nresurrection must have been closely united in the Messianic consciousness\nfrom the first. So much, however, is certain, viz. that the thought of\nsuffering formed part, at the time of the sending forth the disciples, of\nthe mystery of the Kingdom of God and of the Messiahship of Jesus, and\nthat in the form that Jesus and all the elect were to be brought low in\nthe \u03c0\u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03bc\u03cc\u03c2 at the time of the death\u2010struggle against the evil world\u2010\npower which would arise against them; brought down, it might be, even to\ndeath. It mattered as little in His own case as in that of others whether\nat the time of the Parousia He should be one of those who should be\nmetamorphosed, or one who had died and risen again. The question arises,\nhowever, how this self\u2010consciousness of Jesus could remain concealed. It\nis true the miracles had nothing to do with the Messiahship, since no one\nexpected the Messiah to come as an earthly miracle\u2010worker in the present\nage. On the contrary, it would have been the greatest of miracles if any\none had recognised the Messiah in an earthly miracle\u2010worker. How far the\ncries of the demoniacs who addressed Him as Messiah were intelligible by\nthe people must remain an open question. What is clear is that His\nMessiahship did not become known in this way even to His disciples.\n\nAnd yet in all His speech and action the Messianic consciousness shines\nforth. One might, indeed, speak of the acts of His Messianic\nconsciousness. The Beatitudes, nay, the whole of the Sermon on the Mount,\nwith the authoritative \u201cI\u201d for ever breaking through, bear witness to the\nhigh dignity which He ascribed to Himself. Did not this \u201cI\u201d set the people\nthinking?\n\nWhat must they have thought when, at the close of this discourse, He spoke\nof people who, at the Day of Judgment, would call upon Him as Lord, and\nappeal to the works that they had done in His name, and who yet were\ndestined to be rejected because He would not recognise them (Matt. vii.\n21\u201023)?\n\nWhat must they have thought of Him when He pronounced those blessed who\nwere persecuted and despised for His sake (Matt. v. 11, 12)? By what\nauthority did this man forgive sins (Mark ii. 5 ff.)?\n\nIn the discourse at the sending forth of the disciples the \u201cI\u201d is still\nmore prominent. He demands of men that in the trials to come they shall\nconfess Him, that they shall love Him more than father or mother, bear\ntheir cross after Him, and follow Him to the death, since it is only for\nsuch that He can entreat His Heavenly Father (Matt. x. 32 ff.). Admitting\nthat the expression \u201cHeavenly Father\u201d contained no riddle for the\nlistening disciples, since He had taught them to pray \u201cOur Father which\nart in Heaven,\u201d we have still to ask who was He whose yea or nay should\nprevail with God to determine the fate of men at the Judgment?\n\nAnd yet they found it hard, nay impossible, to think of Him as Messiah.\nThey guessed Him to be a prophet; some thought of Elias, some of John the\nBaptist risen from the dead, as appears clearly from the answer of the\ndisciples at Caesarea Philippi.(286) The Messiah was a supernatural\npersonality who was to appear in the last times, and who was not expected\nupon earth before that.\n\nAt this point a difficulty presents itself. How could Jesus be Elias for\nthe people? Did they not hold John the Baptist to be Elias? Not in the\nleast! Jesus was the first and the only person who attributed this office\nto him. And, moreover, He declares it to the people as something\nmysterious, difficult to understand\u2014\u201cIf ye can receive it, this is Elias,\nwhich was for to come. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear\u201d (Matt. xi.\n14, 15). In making this revelation He is communicating to them a piece of\nsupernatural knowledge, opening up a part of the mystery of the Kingdom of\nGod. Therefore He uses the same formula of emphasis as when making known\nin parables the mystery of the Kingdom of God (Mark iv.).\n\nThe disciples were not with Him at this time, and therefore did not learn\nwhat was the r\u00f4le of John the Baptist. When a little later, in descending\nfrom the mount of transfiguration He predicted to the three who formed the\ninner circle of His followers the resurrection of the Son of Man, they\ncame to Him with difficulties about the rising from the dead\u2014how could\nthis be possible when, according to the Pharisees and Scribes, Elias must\nfirst come?\u2014whereupon Jesus explains to them that the preacher of\nrepentance whom Herod had put to death had been Elias (Mark ix. 11\u201013).\n\nWhy did not the people take the Baptist to be Elias? In the first place no\ndoubt because he did not describe himself as such. In the next place\nbecause he did no miracle! He was only a natural man without any evidence\nof supernatural power, only a prophet. In the third place, and that was\nthe decisive point, he had himself pointed forward to the coming of Elias.\nHe who was to come, he whom he preached, was not the Messiah, but Elias.\n\nHe describes him, not as a supernatural personality, not as a judge, not\nas one who will be manifested at the unveiling of the heavenly world, but\nas one who in his work shall resemble himself, only much greater\u2014one who,\nlike himself, baptizes, though with the Holy Spirit. Had it ever been\nrepresented as the work of the Messiah to baptize?\n\nBefore the Last Judgment, so it was inferred from Joel, the great\noutpouring of the Spirit was to take place; before the Last Judgment, so\ntaught Malachi, Elias was to come. Until these events had occurred the\nmanifestation of the Son of Man was not to be looked for. Men\u2019s thoughts\nwere fixed, therefore, not on the Messiah, but upon Elias and the\noutpouring of the Spirit.(287) The Baptist in his preaching combines both\nideas, and predicts the coming of the Great One who shall \u201cbaptize with\nthe Holy Spirit,\u201d _i.e._ who brings about the outpouring of the Spirit.\nHis own preaching was only designed to secure that at His coming that\nGreat One should find a community sanctified and prepared to receive the\nSpirit.\n\nWhen he heard in the prison of one who did great wonders and signs, he\ndesired to learn with certainty whether this was \u201che who was to come.\u201d If\nthis question is taken as referring to the Messiahship the whole narrative\nloses its meaning, and it upsets the theory of the Messianic secret, since\nin this case at least one person had become aware, independently, of the\noffice which belonged to Jesus, not to mention all the ineptitudes\ninvolved in making the Baptist here speak in doubt and confusion.\nMoreover, on this false interpretation of the question the point of Jesus\u2019\ndiscourse is lost, for in this case it is not clear why He says to the\npeople afterwards, \u201cIf ye can receive it, John himself is Elias.\u201d This\nrevelation presupposes that Jesus and the people, who had heard the\nquestion which had been addressed to Him, also gave it its only natural\nmeaning, referring it to Jesus as the bearer of the office of Elias.\n\nThat even the first Evangelist gives the episode a Messianic setting by\nintroducing it with the words \u201cWhen John heard in the prison of the works\nof the Christ\u201d does not alter the facts of the body of the narrative. The\nsequel directly contradicts the introduction. And this interpretation\nfully explains the evasive answer of Jesus, in which exegesis has always\nrecognised a certain reserve without ever being able to make it\nintelligible why Jesus did not simply send him the message, \u201cYes, I am\nhe\u201d\u2014whereto, however, according to modern theology, He would have needed\nto add, \u201cbut another kind of Messiah from him whom you expect.\u201d\n\nThe fact was, the Baptist had put Him in an extremely difficult position.\nHe could not answer that He was Elias if He held Himself to be the\nMessiah; on the other hand He could not, and would not, disclose to him,\nand still less to the messengers and the listening multitude, the secret\nof His Messiahship. Therefore He sends this obscure message, which only\ncontains a confirmation of the facts which John had already heard and\ncloses with a warning, come what may, not to be offended in Him. Of this\nthe Baptist was to make what he could.\n\nIt mattered, in fact, little how John understood the message. The time was\nmuch more advanced than he supposed; the hammer of the world\u2019s clock had\nrisen to strike the last hour. All that he needed to know was that he had\nno cause to doubt.\n\nIn revealing to the people the true office of the Baptist, Jesus unveiled\nto them almost the whole mystery of the Kingdom of God, and nearly\ndisclosed the secret of His Messiahship. For if Elias was already present,\nwas not the coming of the Kingdom close at hand? And if John was Elias,\nwho was Jesus?... There could only be one answer: the Messiah. But this\nseemed impossible, because Messiah was expected as a supernatural\npersonality. The eulogy on the Baptist is, historically regarded,\nidentical in content with the prediction of the Parousia in the discourse\nat the sending forth of the disciples. For after the coming of Elias there\nmust follow immediately the judgment and the other events belonging to the\nlast time. Now we can understand why in the enumeration of the events of\nthe last time in the discourse to the Twelve the coming of Elias is not\nmentioned.\n\nWe see here, too, how, in the thought of Jesus, Messianic doctrine forces\nits way into history and simply abolishes the historic aspect of the\nevents. The Baptist had not held himself to be Elias, the people had not\nthought of attributing this office to him; the description of Elias did\nnot fit him at all, since he had done none of those things which Elias was\nto do: and yet Jesus makes him Elias, simply because He expected His own\nmanifestation as Son of Man, and before that it was necessary that Elias\nmust first have come. And even when John was dead Jesus still told the\ndisciples that in him Elias had come, although the death of Elias was not\ncontemplated in the eschatological doctrine, and was in fact unthinkable,\nBut Jesus must somehow drag or force the eschatological events into the\nframework of the actual occurrences.\n\nThus the conception of the \u201cdogmatic element\u201d in the narrative widens in\nan unsuspected fashion. And even what before seemed natural becomes on a\ncloser examination doctrinal. The Baptist is made into Elias solely by the\nforce of Jesus\u2019 Messianic consciousness.\n\nA short time afterwards, immediately upon the return of the disciples, He\nspoke and acted before their eyes in a way which presupposed the Messianic\nsecret. The people had been dogging his steps; at a lonely spot on the\nshores of the lake they surrounded Him, and He \u201ctaught them about many\nthings\u201d (Mark vi. 30\u201034). The day was drawing to a close, but they held\nclosely to Him without troubling about food. In the evening, before\nsending them away, He fed them.\n\nWeisse, long ago, had constantly emphasised the fact that the feeding of\nthe multitude was one of the greatest historical problems, because this\nnarrative, like that of the transfiguration, is very firmly riveted to its\nhistorical setting and, therefore, imperatively demands explanation. How\nis the historical element in it to be got at? Certainly not by seeking to\nexplain the apparently miraculous in it on natural lines, by representing\nthat at the bidding of Jesus people brought out the baskets of provisions\nwhich they had been concealing, and, thus importing into the tradition a\nnatural fact which, so far from being hinted at in the narrative, is\nactually excluded by it.\n\nOur solution is that the whole is historical, except the closing remark\nthat they were all filled. Jesus distributed the provisions which He and\nHis disciples had with them among the multitude so that each received a\nvery little, after He had first offered thanks. The significance lies in\nthe giving of thanks and in the fact that they had received from Him\nconsecrated food. Because He is the future Messiah, this meal becomes\nwithout their knowledge the Messianic feast. With the morsel of bread\nwhich He gives His disciples to distribute to the people He consecrates\nthem as partakers in the coming Messianic feast, and gives them the\nguarantee that they, who had shared His table in the time of His\nobscurity, would also share it in the time of His glory. In the prayer He\ngave thanks not only for the food, but also for the coming Kingdom and all\nits blessings. It is the counterpart of the Lord\u2019s prayer, where He so\nstrangely inserts the petition for daily bread between the petitions for\nthe coming of the Kingdom and for deliverance from the \u03c0\u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03bc\u03cc\u03c2.\n\nThe feeding of the multitude was more than a love\u2010feast, a fellowship\u2010\nmeal. It was from the point of view of Jesus a sacrament of salvation.\n\nWe never realise sufficiently that in a period when the judgment and the\nglory were expected as close at hand, one thought arising out of this\nexpectation must have acquired special prominence\u2014how, namely, in the\npresent time a man could obtain a guarantee of coming scatheless through\nthe judgment, of being saved and received into the Kingdom, of being\nsigned and sealed for deliverance amid the coming trial, as the Chosen\nPeople in Egypt had a sign revealed to them from God by means of which\nthey might be manifest as those who were to be spared. But once we do\nrealise this, we can understand why the thought of signing and sealing\nruns through the whole of the apocalyptic literature. It is found as early\nas the ninth chapter of Ezekiel. There, God is making preparation for\njudgment. The day of visitation of the city is at hand. But first the Lord\ncalls unto \u201cthe man clothed with linen who had the writer\u2019s ink\u2010horn by\nhis side\u201d and said unto him, \u201cGo through the midst of the city, through\nthe midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that\nsigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst\nthereof.\u201d Only after that does He give command to those who are charged\nwith the judgment to begin, adding, \u201cBut come not near any man upon whom\nis the mark\u201d (Ezek. ix. 4 and 6).\n\nIn the fifteenth of the Psalms of Solomon,(288) the last eschatological\nwriting before the movement initiated by the Baptist, it is expressly said\nin the description of the judgment that \u201cthe saints of God bear a sign\nupon them which saves them.\u201d\n\nIn the Pauline theology very striking prominence is given to the thought\nof being sealed unto salvation. The apostle is conscious of bearing about\nwith him in his body \u201cthe marks of Jesus\u201d (Gal. vi. 17), the \u201cdying\u201d of\nJesus (2 Cor. iv. 10). This sign is received in baptism, since it is a\nbaptism \u201cinto the death of Christ\u201d; in this act the recipient is in a\ncertain sense really buried with Him, and thenceforth walks among men as\none who belongs, even here below, to risen humanity (Rom. vi. 1 ff.).\nBaptism is the seal, the earnest of the spirit, the pledge of that which\nis to come (2 Cor i. 22; Eph. i. 13, 14, iv. 30).\n\nThis conception of baptism as a \u201csalvation\u201d in view of that which was to\ncome goes down through the whole of ancient theology. Its preaching might\nreally be summed up in the words, \u201cKeep your baptism holy and without\nblemish.\u201d\n\nIn the Shepherd of Hermas even the spirits of the men of the past must\nreceive \u201cthe seal, which is the water\u201d in order that they may \u201cbear the\nname of God upon them.\u201d That is why the tower is built over the water, and\nthe stones which are brought up out of the deep are rolled through the\nwater (Vis. iii. and Sim. ix. 16).\n\nIn the Apocalypse of John the thought of the sealing stands prominently in\nthe foreground. The locusts receive power to hurt those only who have not\nthe seal of God on their foreheads (Rev. ix. 4, 5). The beast (Rev. xiii.\n16 ff.) compels men to bear his mark; only those who will not accept it\nare to reign with Christ (Rev. xx. 4). The chosen hundred and forty\u2010four\nthousand bear the name of God and the name of the Lamb upon their\nforeheads (Rev. xiv. 1).\n\n\u201cAssurance of salvation\u201d in a time of eschatological expectation demanded\nsome kind of security for the future of which the earnest could be\npossessed in the present. And with this the predestinarian thought of\nelection was in complete accord. If we find the thought of being sealed\nunto salvation previously in the Psalms of Solomon, and subsequently in\nthe same signification in Paul, in the Apocalypse of John, and down to the\nShepherd of Hermas, it may be assumed in advance that it will be found in\nsome form or other in the so strongly eschatological teaching of Jesus and\nthe Baptist.\n\nIt may be said, indeed, to dominate completely the eschatological\npreaching of the Baptist, for this preaching does not confine itself to\nthe declaration of the nearness of the Kingdom, and the demand for\nrepentance, but leads up to an act to which it gives a special reference\nin relation to the forgiveness of sins and the outpouring of the spirit.\nIt is a mistake to regard baptism with water as a \u201csymbolic act\u201d in the\nmodern sense, and make the Baptist decry his own wares by saying, \u201cI\nbaptize only with water, but the other can baptize with the Holy Spirit.\u201d\nHe is not contrasting the two baptisms, but connecting them\u2014he who is\nbaptized by him has the certainty that he will share in the outpouring of\nthe Spirit which shall precede the judgment, and at the judgment shall\nreceive forgiveness of sins, as one who is signed with the mark of\nrepentance. The object of being baptized by him is to secure baptism with\nthe Spirit later. The forgiveness of sins associated with baptism is\nproleptic; it is to be realised at the judgment. The Baptist himself did\nnot forgive sin.(289) If he had done so, how could such offence have been\ntaken when Jesus claimed for Himself the right to forgive sins in the\npresent (Mark ii. 10).\n\nThe baptism of John was therefore an eschatological sacrament pointing\nforward to the pouring forth of the spirit and to the judgment, a\nprovision for \u201csalvation.\u201d Hence the wrath of the Baptist when he saw\nPharisees and Sadducees crowding to his baptism: \u201cYe generation of vipers,\nwho hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth now fruits\nmeet for repentance\u201d (Matt. iii. 7, 8). By the reception of baptism, that\nis, they are saved from the judgment.\n\nAs a cleansing unto salvation it is a divine institution, a revealed means\nof grace. That is why the question of Jesus, whether the baptism of John\nwas from heaven or from men, placed the Scribes at Jerusalem in so awkward\na dilemma (Mark xi. 30).\n\nThe authority of Jesus, however, goes farther than that of the Baptist. As\nthe Messiah who is to come He can give even here below to those who gather\nabout Him a right to partake in the Messianic feast, by this distribution\nof food to them; only, they do not know what is happening to them and He\ncannot solve the riddle for them. The supper at the Lake of Gennesareth\nwas a veiled eschatological sacrament. Neither the disciples nor the\nmultitude understood what was happening, since they did not know who He\nwas who thus made them His guests.(290) This meal must have been\ntransformed by tradition into a miracle, a result which may have been in\npart due to the references to the wonders of the Messianic feast which\nwere doubtless contained in the prayers, not to speak of the\neschatological enthusiasm which then prevailed universally. Did not the\ndisciples believe that on the same evening, when they had been commanded\nto take Jesus into their ship at the mouth of the Jordan, to which point\nHe had walked along the shore\u2014did they not believe that they saw Him come\nwalking towards them upon the waves of the sea? The impulse to the\nintroduction of the miraculous into the narrative came from the\nunintelligible element with which the men who surrounded Jesus were at\nthis time confronted.(291)\n\nThe Last Supper at Jerusalem had the same sacramental significance as that\nat the lake. Towards the end of the meal Jesus, after giving thanks,\ndistributes the bread and wine. This had as little to do with the\nsatisfaction of hunger as the distribution to the Galilaean believers. The\nact of Jesus is an end in itself, and the significance of the celebration\nconsists in the fact that it is He Himself who makes the distribution. In\nJerusalem, however, they understood what was meant, and He explained it to\nthem explicitly by telling them that He would drink no more of the fruit\nof the vine until He drank it new in the Kingdom of God. The mysterious\nimages which He used at the time of the distribution concerning the\natoning significance of His death do not touch the essence of the\ncelebration, they are only discourses accompanying it.\n\nOn this interpretation, therefore, we may think of Baptism and the Lord\u2019s\nSupper as from the first eschatological sacraments in the eschatological\nmovement which later detached itself from Judaism under the name of\nChristianity. That explains why we find them both in Paul and in the\nearliest theology as sacramental acts, not as symbolic ceremonies, and\nfind them dominating the whole Christian doctrine. Apart from the\nassumption of the eschatological sacraments, we can only make the history\nof dogma begin with a \u201cfall\u201d from the earlier purer theology into the\nsacramental magical, without being able to adduce a single syllable in\nsupport of the idea that after the death of Jesus Baptism and the Lord\u2019s\nSupper existed even for an hour as symbolical actions\u2014Paul, indeed, makes\nthis supposition wholly impossible.\n\nIn any case the adoption of the baptism of John in Christian practice\ncannot be explained except on the assumption that it was the sacrament of\nthe eschatological community, a revealed means of securing \u201csalvation\u201d\nwhich was not altered in the slightest by the Messiahship of Jesus. How\nelse could we explain the fact that baptism, without any commandment of\nJesus, and without Jesus\u2019 ever having baptized, was taken over, as a\nmatter of course, into Christianity, and was given a special reference to\nthe receiving of the Spirit?\n\nIt is no use proposing to explain it as having been instituted as a\nsymbolical repetition of the baptism of Jesus, thought of as \u201can anointing\nto the Messiahship.\u201d There is not a single passage in ancient theology to\nsupport such a theory. And we may point also to the fact that Paul never\nrefers to the baptism of Jesus in explaining the character of Christian\nbaptism, never, in fact, makes any distinct reference to it. And how could\nbaptism, if it had been a symbolical repetition of the baptism of Jesus,\never have acquired this magic\u2010sacramental sense of \u201csalvation\u201d?\n\nNothing shows more clearly than the dual character of ancient baptism,\nwhich makes it the guarantee both of the reception of the Spirit and of\ndeliverance from the judgment, that it is nothing else than the\neschatological baptism of John with a single difference. Baptism with\nwater and baptism with the Spirit are now connected not only logically,\nbut also in point of time, seeing that since the day of Pentecost the\nperiod of the outpouring of the Spirit is present. The two portions of the\neschatological sacrament which in the Baptist\u2019s preaching were\ndistinguished in point of time\u2014because he did not expect the outpouring of\nthe Spirit until some future period\u2014are now brought together, since one\neschatological condition\u2014the baptism with the Spirit\u2014is now present. The\n\u201cChristianising\u201d of baptism consisted in this and in nothing else; though\nPaul carried it a stage farther when he formed the conception of baptism\nas a mystic partaking in the death and resurrection of Jesus.\n\nThus the thoroughgoing eschatological interpretation of the Life of Jesus\nputs into the hands of those who are reconstructing the history of dogma\nin the earliest times an explanation of the conception of the sacraments,\nof which they had been able hitherto only to note the presence as an _x_\nof which the origin was undiscoverable, and for which they possessed no\nequation by which it could be evaluated. If Christianity as the religion\nof historically revealed mysteries was able to lay hold upon Hellenism and\novercome it, the reason of this was that it was already in its purely\neschatological beginnings a religion of sacraments, a religion of\neschatological sacraments, since Jesus had recognised a Divine institution\nin the baptism of John, and had Himself performed a sacramental action in\nthe distribution of food at the Lake of Gennesareth and at the Last\nSupper.\n\nThis being so, the feeding of the multitude also belongs to the dogmatic\nelement in the history. But no one had previously recognised it as what it\nreally was, an indirect disclosure of the Messianic secret, just as no one\nhad understood the full significance of Jesus\u2019 description of the Baptist\nas Elias.\n\nBut how does Peter at Caesarea Philippi know the secret of his Master?\nWhat he there declares is not a conviction which had gradually dawned on\nhim, and slowly grown through various stages of probability and certainty.\n\nThe real character of this incident has been interpreted with remarkable\npenetration by Wrede. The incident itself, he says, is to be understood in\nquite as supernatural a fashion in Mark as in Matthew. But on the other\nhand one does not receive the impression that the writer intends to\nrepresent the confession as a merit or a discovery of Peter. \u201cFor\naccording to the text of Mark, Jesus shows no trace of joy or surprise at\nthis confession. His only answer consists of the command to say nothing\nabout His Messiahship.\u201d Keim, whom Wrede quotes, had received a similar\nimpression from the Marcan account, and had supposed that Jesus had\nactually found the confession of Peter inopportune.\n\nHow is all this to be explained\u2014the supernatural knowledge of Peter and\nthe rather curt fashion in which Jesus receives his declaration?\n\nIt might be worth while to put the story of the transfiguration side by\nside with the incident at Caesarea Philippi, since there the Divine\nSonship of Jesus is \u201ca second time\u201d revealed to the \u201cthree,\u201d Peter, James,\nand John, and the revelation is made supernaturally by a voice from\nheaven. It is rather striking that Mark does not seem to be conscious that\nhe is reporting something which the disciples knew already. At the\nbeginning of the actual transfiguration Peter still addresses Jesus simply\nas Rabbi (Mark ix. 5). And what does it mean when Jesus, during the\ndescent from the mountain, forbids them to speak to any man concerning\nthat which they have seen until after the resurrection of the Son of Man?\nThat would exclude even the other disciples who knew only the secret of\nHis Messiahship. But why should they not be told of the Divine\nconfirmation of that which Peter had declared at Caesarea Philippi and\nJesus had \u201cadmitted\u201d?\n\nWhat has the transfiguration to do with the resurrection of the dead? And\nwhy are the thoughts of the disciples suddenly busied, not with what they\nhave seen, not with the fact that the Son of Man shall rise from the dead,\nbut simply with the possibility of the rising from the dead, the\ndifficulty being that Elias was not yet present? Those who see in the\ntransfiguration a projection backwards of the Pauline theology into the\nGospel history do not realise what are the principal points and\ndifficulties of the narrative. The problem lies in the conversation during\nthe descent. Against the Messiahship of Jesus, against His rising from the\ndead, they have only one objection to suggest: Elias had not yet come.\n\nWe see here, in the first place, the importance of the revelation which\nJesus had made to the people in declaring to them the secret that the\nBaptist is Elias. From the standpoint of the eschatological expectation no\none could recognise Elias in the Baptist, unless he knew of the\nMessiahship of Jesus. And no one could believe in the Messiahship and\n\u201cresurrection\u201d of Jesus, that is, in His Parousia, without presupposing\nthat Elias had in some way or other already come. This was therefore the\nprimary difficulty of the disciples, the stumbling\u2010block which Jesus must\nremove for them by making the same revelation concerning the Baptist to\nthem as to the people. It is also once more abundantly clear that\nexpectation was directed at that time primarily to the coming of\nElias.(292) But since the whole eschatological movement arose out of the\nBaptist\u2019s preaching, the natural conclusion is that by \u201chim who was to\ncome after\u201d and baptize with the Holy Spirit John meant, not the Messiah,\nbut Elias.\n\nBut if the non\u2010appearance of Elias was the primary difficulty of the\ndisciples in connexion with the Messiahship of Jesus and all that it\nimplied, why does it only strike the \u201cthree,\u201d and moreover, all three of\nthem together, now, and not at Caesarea Philippi?(293) How could Peter\nthere have declared it and here be still labouring with the rest over the\ndifficulty which stood in the way of his own declaration? To make the\nnarrative coherent, the transfiguration, as being a revelation of the\nMessiahship, ought to precede the incident at Caesarea Philippi. Now let\nus look at the connexion in which it actually occurs. It falls in that\ninexplicable section Mark viii. 34\u2010ix. 30 in which the multitude suddenly\nappears in the company of Jesus who is sojourning in a Gentile district,\nonly to disappear again, equally enigmatically, afterwards, when He sets\nout for Galilee, instead of accompanying Him back to their own country.\n\nIn this section everything points to the situation during the days at\nBethsaida after the return of the disciples from their mission. Jesus is\nsurrounded by the people, while what He desires is to be alone with His\nimmediate followers. The disciples make use of the healing powers which He\nhad bestowed upon them when sending them forth, and have the experience of\nfinding that they are not in all cases adequate (Mark ix. 14\u201029). The\nmountain to which He takes the \u201cthree\u201d is not a mountain in the north, or\nas some have suggested, an imaginary mountain of the Evangelist, but the\nsame to which Jesus went up to pray and to be alone on the evening of the\nfeeding of the multitude (Mark vi. 46 and ix. 2). The house to which He\ngoes after His return from the transfiguration is therefore to be placed\nat Bethsaida.\n\nAnother thing which points to a sojourn at Bethsaida after the feeding of\nthe multitude is the story of the healing of the blind man at Bethsaida\n(Mark viii. 22\u201026).\n\nThe circumstances, therefore, which we have to presuppose are that Jesus\nis surrounded and thronged by the people at Bethsaida. In order to be\nalone He once more puts the Jordan between Himself and the multitude, and\ngoes with the \u201cthree\u201d to the mountain where He had prayed after the\nfeeding of the five thousand. This is the only way in which we can\nunderstand how the people failed to follow Him, and He was able really to\ncarry out His plan.\n\nBut how could this story be torn out of its natural context and its scene\nremoved to Caesarea Philippi, where it is both on external and internal\ngrounds impossible? What we need to notice is the Marcan account of the\nevents which followed the sending forth of the disciples. We have two\nstories of the feeding of the multitude with a crossing of the lake after\neach (Mark vi. 31\u201056, Mark viii. 1\u201022), two stories of Jesus going away\ntowards the north with the same motive, that of being alone and\nunrecognised. The first time, after the controversy about the washing of\nhands, His course is directed towards Tyre (Mark vii. 24\u201030), the second\ntime, after the demand for a sign, he goes into the district of Caesarea\nPhilippi (Mark viii. 27). The scene of the controversy about the washing\nof hands is some locality in the plain of Gennesareth (Mark vi. 53 ff);\nDalmanutha is named as the place where the sign was demanded (Mark viii.\n10 ff.).\n\nThe most natural conclusion is to identify the two cases of feeding the\nmultitude, and the two journeys northwards. In that case we should have in\nthe section Mark vi. 31\u2010ix. 30, two sets of narratives worked into one\nanother, both recounting how Jesus, after the disciples came back to Him,\nwent with them from Capernaum to the northern shore of the lake, was there\nsurprised by the multitude, and after the meal which He gave them, crossed\nthe Jordan by boat to Bethsaida, stayed there for a while, and then\nreturned again by ship to the country of Gennesareth, and was there again\novertaken and surrounded by the people; then after some controversial\nencounters with the Scribes, who at the report of His miracles had come\ndown from Jerusalem (Mark vii. 1), left Galilee and again went\nnorthwards.(294)\n\nThe seams at the joining of the narratives can be recognised in Mark vii.\n31, where Jesus is suddenly transferred from the north to Decapolis, and\nin the saying in Mark viii. 14 ff., which makes explicit reference to the\ntwo miracles of feeding the multitude. Whether the Evangelist himself\nworked these two sets of narratives together, or whether he found them\nalready united, cannot be determined, and is not of any direct historical\ninterest. The disorder is in any case so complete that we cannot fully\nreconstruct each of the separate sets of narratives.\n\nThe external reasons why the narratives of Mark viii. 34\u2010ix. 30, of which\nthe scene is on the northern shore of the lake, are placed in this way\nafter the incident of Caesarea Philippi are not difficult to grasp. The\nsection contains an impressive discourse to the people on following Jesus\nin His sufferings, crucifixion, and death (Mark viii. 34\u2010ix. 1). For this\nreason the whole series of scenes is attached to the revelation of the\nsecret of the suffering of the Son of Man; and the redactor did not stop\nto think how the people could suddenly appear, and as suddenly disappear\nagain. The statement, too, \u201cHe called the people with the disciples\u201d (Mark\nviii. 34), helped to mislead him into inserting the section at this point,\nalthough this very remark points to the circumstances of the time just\nafter the return of the disciples, when Jesus was sometimes alone with the\ndisciples, and sometimes calls the eager multitude about Him.\n\nThe whole scene belongs, therefore, to the days which He spent at\nBethsaida, and originally followed immediately upon the crossing of the\nlake, after the feeding of the multitude. It was after Jesus had been six\ndays surrounded by the people, not six days after the revelation at\nCaesarea Philippi, that the \u201ctransfiguration\u201d took place (Mark ix. 2). On\nthis assumption, all the difficulties of the incident at Caesarea Philippi\nare cleared up in a moment; there is no longer anything strange in the\nfact that Peter declares to Jesus who He really is, while Jesus appears\nneither surprised nor especially rejoiced at the insight of His disciple.\nThe transfiguration had, in fact, been the revelation of the secret of the\nMessiahship to the three who constituted the inner circle of the\ndisciples.(295) And Jesus had not Himself revealed it to them; what had\nhappened was, that in a state of rapture common to them all, in which they\nhad seen the Master in a glorious transfiguration, they had seen Him\ntalking with Moses and Elias and had heard a voice from heaven saying,\n\u201cThis is my beloved Son, hear ye Him.\u201d\n\nWe must always make a fresh effort to realise to ourselves, that Jesus and\nHis immediate followers were, at that time, in an enthusiastic state of\nintense eschatological expectation. We must picture them among the people,\nwho were filled with penitence for their sins, and with faith in the\nKingdom, hourly expecting the coming of the Kingdom, and the revelation of\nJesus as the Son of Man, seeing in the eager multitude itself a sign that\ntheir reckoning of the time was correct; thus the psychological conditions\nwere present for a common ecstatic experience such as is described in the\naccount of the transfiguration.\n\nIn this ecstasy the \u201cthree\u201d heard the voice from heaven saying who He was.\nTherefore, the Matthaean report, according to which Jesus praises Simon\n\u201cbecause flesh and blood have not revealed it to him, but the Father who\nis in heaven,\u201d is not really at variance with the briefer Marcan account,\nsince it rightly indicates the source of Peter\u2019s knowledge.\n\nNevertheless Jesus was astonished. For Peter here disregarded the command\ngiven during the descent from the mount of transfiguration. He had\n\u201cbetrayed\u201d to the Twelve Jesus\u2019 consciousness of His Messiahship. One\nreceives the impression that Jesus did not put the question to the\ndisciples in order to reveal Himself to them as Messiah, and that by the\nimpulsive speech of Peter, upon whose silence He had counted because of\nHis command, and to whom He had not specially addressed the question, He\nwas forced to take a different line of action in regard to the Twelve from\nwhat He had intended. It is probable that He had never had the intention\nof revealing the secret of His Messiahship to the disciples. Otherwise He\nwould not have kept it from them at the time of their mission, when He did\nnot expect them to return before the Parousia. Even at the transfiguration\nthe \u201cthree\u201d do not learn it from His lips, but in a state of ecstasy, an\necstasy which He shared with them. At Caesarea Philippi it is not He, but\nPeter, who reveals His Messiahship. We may say, therefore, that Jesus did\nnot voluntarily give up His Messianic secret; it was wrung from Him by the\npressure of events.\n\nHowever that may be, from Caesarea Philippi onwards it was known to the\nother disciples through Peter; what Jesus Himself revealed to them, was\nthe secret of his sufferings.\n\nPfleiderer and Wrede were quite right in pointing to the clear and\ndefinite predictions of the suffering, death, and resurrection as the\nhistorically inexplicable element in our reports, since the necessity of\nJesus\u2019 death, by which modern theology endeavours to make His resolve and\nHis predictions intelligible, is not a necessity which arises out of the\nhistorical course of events. There was not present any natural ground for\nsuch a resolve on the part of Jesus. Had He returned to Galilee, He would\nimmediately have had the multitudes flocking after Him again.\n\nIn order to make the historical possibility of the resolve to suffer and\nthe prediction of the sufferings in some measure intelligible, modern\ntheology has to ignore the prediction of the resurrection which is bound\nup with them, for this is \u201cdogmatic.\u201d That is, however, not permissible.\nWe must, as Wrede insists, take the words as they are, and must not even\nindulge in ingenious explanations of the \u201cthree days.\u201d Therefore, the\nresolve to suffer and to die are dogmatic; therefore, according to him,\nthey are unhistorical, and only to be explained by a literary hypothesis.\n\nBut the thoroughgoing eschatological school says they are dogmatic, and\ntherefore historical; because they find their explanation in\neschatological conceptions.\n\nWrede held that the Messianic conception implied in the Marcan narrative\nis not the Jewish Messianic conception, just because of the thought of\nsuffering and death which it involves. No stress must be laid on the fact\nthat in Fourth Ezra vii. 29 the Christ dies and rises again, because His\ndeath takes place at the end of the Messianic Kingdom.(296) The Jewish\nMessiah is essentially a glorious being who shall appear in the last time.\nTrue, but the case in which the Messiah should be present, prior to the\nParousia, should cause the final tribulations to come upon the earth, and\nshould Himself undergo them, does not arise in the Jewish eschatology as\ndescribed from without. It first arises with the self\u2010consciousness of\nJesus. Therefore, the Jewish conception of the Messiah has no information\nto give us upon this point.\n\nIn order to understand Jesus\u2019 resolve to suffer, we must first recognise\nthat the mystery of this suffering is involved in the mystery of the\nKingdom of God, since the Kingdom cannot come until the \u03c0\u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03bc\u03cc\u03c2 has\ntaken place. This certainty of suffering is quite independent of the\nhistoric circumstances, as the beatitude on the persecuted in the sermon\non the mount, and the predictions in the discourse at the sending forth of\nthe Twelve, clearly show. Jesus\u2019 prediction of His own sufferings at\nCaesarea Philippi is precisely as unintelligible, precisely as dogmatic,\nand therefore precisely as historical as the prediction to the disciples\nat the time of their mission. The \u201cmust be\u201d of the sufferings is the\nsame\u2014the coming of the Kingdom, and of the Parousia, which are dependent\nupon the \u03c0\u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03bc\u03cc\u03c2 having first taken place.\n\nIn the first period Jesus\u2019 thoughts concerning His own sufferings were\nincluded in the more general thought of the sufferings which formed part\nof the mystery of the Kingdom of God. The exhortations to hold steadfastly\nto Him in the time of trial, and not to lose faith in Him, certainly\ntended to suggest that He thought of Himself as the central point amid\nthese conflicts and confusions, and reckoned on the possibility of His own\ndeath as much as on that of others. Upon this point nothing more definite\ncan be said, since the mystery of Jesus\u2019 own sufferings does not detach\nitself from the mystery of the sufferings connected with the Kingdom of\nGod until after the Messianic secret is made known at Caesarea Philippi.\nWhat is certain is that, for Him, suffering was always associated with the\nMessianic secret, since He placed His Parousia at the end of the pre\u2010\nMessianic tribulations in which He was to have His part.\n\nThe suffering, death, and resurrection of which the secret was revealed at\nCaesarea Philippi are not therefore in themselves new or surprising.(297)\nThe novelty lies in the form in which they are conceived. The tribulation,\nso far as Jesus is concerned, is now connected with an historic event: He\nwill go to Jerusalem, there to suffer death at the hands of the\nauthorities.\n\nFor the future, however, He no longer speaks of the general tribulation\nwhich He is to bring upon the earth, nor of the sufferings which await His\nfollowers, nor of the sufferings in which they must rally round Him. In\nthe predictions of the passion there is no word of that; at Jerusalem\nthere is no word of that. This thought disappears once for all.\n\nIn the secret of His passion which Jesus reveals to the disciples at\nCaesarea Philippi the pre\u2010Messianic tribulation is for others set aside,\nabolished, concentrated upon Himself alone, and that in the form that they\nare fulfilled in His own passion and death at Jerusalem. That was the new\nconviction that had dawned upon Him. He must suffer for others ... that\nthe Kingdom might come.\n\nThis change was due to the non\u2010fulfilment of the promises made in the\ndiscourse at the sending forth of the Twelve. He had thought then to let\nloose the final tribulation and so compel the coming of the Kingdom. And\nthe cataclysm had not occurred. He had expected it also after the return\nof the disciples. In Bethsaida, in speaking to the multitude which He had\nconsecrated by the foretaste of the Messianic feast, as also to the\ndisciples at the time of their mission, He had turned their thoughts to\nthings to come and had adjured them to be prepared to suffer with Him, to\ngive up their lives, not to be ashamed of Him in His humiliation, since\notherwise the Son of Man would be ashamed of them when He came in glory\n(Mark viii. 34\u2010ix. 1).(298)\n\nIn leaving Galilee He abandoned the hope that the final tribulation would\nbegin of itself. If it delays, that means that there is still something to\nbe done, and yet another of the violent must lay violent hands upon the\nKingdom of God. The movement of repentance had not been sufficient. When,\nin accordance with His commission, by sending forth the disciples with\ntheir message, he hurled the fire\u2010brand which should kindle the fiery\ntrials of the Last Time, the flame went out. He had not succeeded in\nsending the sword on earth and stirring up the conflict. And until the\ntime of trial had come, the coming of the Kingdom and His own\nmanifestation as Son of Man were impossible.\n\nThat meant\u2014not that the Kingdom was not near at hand\u2014but that God had\nappointed otherwise in regard to the time of trial. He had heard the\nLord\u2019s Prayer in which Jesus and His followers prayed for the coming of\nthe Kingdom\u2014and at the same time, for deliverance from the \u03c0\u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03bc\u03cc\u03c2. The\ntime of trial was not come; therefore God in His mercy and omnipotence had\neliminated it from the series of eschatological events, and appointed to\nHim whose commission had been to bring it about, instead to accomplish it\nin His own person. As He who was to rule over the members of the Kingdom\nin the future age, He was appointed to serve them in the present, to give\nHis life for them, the many (Mark x. 45 and xiv. 24), and to make in His\nown blood the atonement which they would have had to render in the\ntribulation.\n\nThe Kingdom could not come until the debt which weighed upon the world was\ndischarged. Until then, not only the now living believers, but the chosen\nof all generations since the beginning of the world wait for their\nmanifestation in glory\u2014Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the countless\nunknown who should come from the East and from the West to sit at tables\nwith them at the Messianic feast (Matt. viii. 11). The enigmatic \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03af\nfor whom Jesus dies are those predestined to the Kingdom, since His death\nmust at last compel the Coming of the Kingdom.(299)\n\nThis thought Jesus found in the prophecies of Isaiah, which spoke of the\nsuffering Servant of the Lord. The mysterious description of Him who in\nHis humiliation was despised and misunderstood, who, nevertheless bears\nthe guilt of others and afterwards is made manifest in what He has done\nfor them, points, He feels, to Himself.\n\nAnd since He found it there set down that He must suffer unrecognised, and\nthat those for whom He suffered should doubt Him, His suffering should,\nnay must, remain a mystery. In that case those who doubted Him would not\nbring condemnation upon themselves. He no longer needs to adjure them for\ntheir own sakes to be faithful to Him and to stand by Him even amid\nreproach and humiliation; He can calmly predict to His disciples that they\nshall all be offended in Him and shall flee (Mark xiv. 26, 27); He can\ntell Peter, who boasts that he will die with Him, that before the dawn he\nshall deny Him thrice (Mark xiv. 29\u201031); all that is so set down in the\nScripture. They must doubt Him. But now they shall not lose their\nblessedness, for He bears all sins and transgressions. That, too, is\nburied in the atonement which He offers.\n\nTherefore, also, there is no need for them to understand His secret. He\nspoke of it to them without any explanation. It is sufficient that they\nshould know why He goes up to Jerusalem. They, on their part, are thinking\nonly of the coming transformation of all things, as their conversation\nshows. The prospect which He has opened up to them is clear enough; the\nonly thing that they do not understand is why He must first die at\nJerusalem. The first time that Peter ventured to speak to Him about it, He\nhad turned on him with cruel harshness, had almost cursed him (Mark viii.\n32, 33); from that time forward they no longer dared to ask Him anything\nabout it. The new thought of His own passion has its basis therefore in\nthe authority with which Jesus was armed to bring about the beginning of\nthe final tribulation. Ethically regarded, His taking the suffering upon\nHimself is an act of mercy and compassion towards those who would\notherwise have had to bear these tribulations, and perhaps would not have\nstood the test. Historically regarded, the thought of His sufferings\ninvolves the same lofty treatment both of history and eschatology as was\nmanifested in the identification of the Baptist with Elias. For now He\nidentifies His condemnation and execution, which are to take place on\nnatural lines, with the predicted pre\u2010Messianic tribulations. This\nimperious forcing of eschatology into history is also its destruction; its\nassertion and abandonment at the same time.\n\nTowards Passover, therefore, Jesus sets out for Jerusalem, solely in order\nto die there.(300) \u201cIt is,\u201d says Wrede, \u201cbeyond question the opinion of\nMark that Jesus went to Jerusalem because He had decided to die; that is\nobvious even from the details of the story.\u201d It is therefore a mistake to\nspeak of Jesus as \u201cteaching\u201d in Jerusalem. He has no intention of doing\nso. As a prophet He foretells in veiled parabolic form the offence which\nmust come (Mark xii. 1\u201012), exhorts men to watch for the Parousia,\npictures the nature of the judgment which the Son of Man shall hold, and,\nfor the rest, thinks only how He can so provoke the Pharisees and the\nrulers that they will be compelled to get rid of Him. That is why He\nviolently cleanses the Temple, and attacks the Pharisees, in the presence\nof the people, with passionate invective.\n\nFrom the revelation at Caesarea Philippi onward, all that belongs to the\nhistory of Jesus, in the strict sense, are the events which lead up to His\ndeath; or, to put it more accurately, the events in which He Himself is\nthe sole actor. The other things which happen, the questions which are\nlaid before Him for decision, the episodic incidents which occur in those\ndays, have nothing to do with the real \u201cLife of Jesus,\u201d since they\ncontribute nothing to the decisive issue, but merely form the anecdotic\nfringes of the real outward and inward event, the deliberate bringing down\nof death upon Himself.\n\nIt is in truth surprising that He succeeded in transforming into history\nthis resolve which had its roots in dogma, and really dying alone. Is it\nnot almost unintelligible that His disciples were not involved in His\nfate? Not even the disciple who smote with the sword was arrested along\nwith Him (Mark xiv. 47); Peter, recognised in the courtyard of the High\nPriest\u2019s house as one who had been with Jesus the Nazarene, is allowed to\ngo free.\n\nFor a moment indeed, Jesus believes that the \u201cthree\u201d are destined to share\nHis fate, not from any outward necessity, but because they had professed\nthemselves able to suffer the last extremities with Him. The sons of\nZebedee, when He asked them whether, in order to sit at His right hand and\nHis left, they are prepared to drink His cup and be baptized with His\nbaptism, had declared that they were, and thereupon He had predicted that\nthey should do so (Mark x. 38, 39). Peter again had that very night, in\nspite of the warning of Jesus, sworn that he would go even unto death with\nHim (Mark xiv. 30, 31). Hence He is conscious of a higher possibility that\nthese three are to go through the trial with Him. He takes them with Him\nto Gethsemane and bids them remain near Him and watch with Him. And since\nthey do not perceive the danger of the hour, He adjures them to watch and\npray. They are to pray that they may not have to pass through the trial\n(\u1f35\u03bd\u03b1 \u03bc\u1f74 \u1f14\u03bb\u03b8\u03b7\u03c4\u03b5 \u03b5\u1f30\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03bc\u03cc\u03bd) since, though the spirit is willing, the\nflesh is weak. Amid His own sore distress He is anxious about them and\ntheir capacity to share His trial as they had declared their willingness\nto do.(301)\n\nHere also it is once more made clear that for Jesus the necessity of His\ndeath is grounded in dogma, not in external historical facts. Above the\ndogmatic eschatological necessity, however, there stands the omnipotence\nof God, which is bound by no limitations. As Jesus in the Lord\u2019s Prayer\nhad taught His followers to pray for deliverance from the \u03c0\u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03bc\u03cc\u03c2, and\nas in His fears for the three He bids them pray for the same thing, so now\nHe Himself prays for deliverance, even in this last moment when He knows\nthat the armed band which is coming to arrest Him is already on the way.\nLiteral history does not exist for Him, only the will of God; and this is\nexalted even above eschatological necessity.\n\nBut how did this exact agreement between the fate of Jesus and His\npredictions come about? Why did the authorities strike at Him only, not at\nHis whole following, not even at the disciples? He was arrested and\ncondemned on account of His Messianic claims. But how did the High Priest\nknow that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah? And why does he put the\naccusation as a direct question without calling witnesses in support of\nit? Why was the attempt first made to bring up a saying about the Temple\nwhich could be interpreted as blasphemy in order to condemn Him on this\nground (Mark xiv. 57\u201059)? Before that again, as is evident from Mark\u2019s\naccount, they had brought up a whole crowd of witnesses in the hope of\nsecuring evidence sufficient to justify His condemnation; and the attempt\nhad not succeeded.\n\nIt was only after all these attempts had failed that the High Priest\nbrought his accusation concerning the Messianic claim, and he did so\nwithout citing the three necessary witnesses. Why so? Because he had not\ngot them. The condemnation of Jesus depended on His own admission. That\nwas why they had endeavoured to convict Him upon other charges.(302)\n\nThis wholly unintelligible feature of the trial confirms what is evident\nalso from the discourses and attitude of Jesus at Jerusalem, viz. that He\nhad not been held by the multitude to be the Messiah, that the idea of His\nmaking such claims had not for a moment occurred to them\u2014lay in fact for\nthem quite beyond the range of possibility. Therefore He cannot have made\na Messianic entry.\n\nAccording to Havet, Brandt, Wellhausen, Dalman, and Wrede the ovation at\nthe entry had no Messianic character whatever. It is wholly mistaken, as\nWrede quite rightly remarks, to represent matters as if the Messianic\novation was forced upon Jesus\u2014that He accepted it with inner repugnance\nand in silent passivity. For that would involve the supposition that the\npeople had for a moment regarded Him as Messiah and then afterwards had\nshown themselves as completely without any suspicion of His Messiahship as\nthough they had in the interval drunk of the waters of Lethe. The exact\nopposite is true: Jesus Himself made the preparations for the Messianic\nentry. Its Messianic features were due to His arrangements. He made a\npoint of riding upon the ass, not because He was weary, but because He\ndesired that the Messianic prophecy of Zech. ix. 9 should be secretly\nfulfilled.\n\nThe entry is therefore a Messianic act on the part of Jesus, an action in\nwhich His consciousness of His office breaks through, as it did at the\nsending forth of the disciples, in the explanation that the Baptist was\nElias, and in the feeding of the multitude. But others can have had no\nsuspicion of the Messianic significance of that which was going on before\ntheir eyes. The entry into Jerusalem was therefore Messianic for Jesus,\nbut not Messianic for the people.\n\nBut what was He for the people? Here Wrede\u2019s theory that He was a teacher\nagain refutes itself. In the triumphal entry there is more than the\novation offered to a teacher. The jubilations have reference to \u201cHim who\nis to come\u201d; it is to Him that the acclamations are offered and because of\nHim that the people rejoice in the nearness of the Kingdom, as in Mark,\nthe cries of jubilation show; for here, as Dalman rightly remarks, there\nis actually no mention of the Messiah.\n\nJesus therefore made His entry into Jerusalem as the Prophet, as Elias.\nThat is confirmed by Matthew (xxi. 11), although Matthew gives a Messianic\ncolouring to the entry itself by bringing in the acclamation in which He\nwas designated the Son of David, just as, conversely, he reports the\nBaptist\u2019s question rightly, and introduces it wrongly, by making the\nBaptist hear of the \u201cworks of the Christ.\u201d\n\nWas Mark conscious, one wonders, that it was not a Messianic entry that he\nwas reporting? We do not know. It is not inherently impossible that, as\nWrede asserts, \u201che had no real view concerning the historical life of\nJesus,\u201d did not know whether Jesus was recognised as Messiah, and took no\ninterest in the question from an historical point of view. Fortunately for\nus! For that is why he simply hands on tradition and does not write a Life\nof Jesus.\n\nThe Marcan hypothesis went astray in conceiving this Gospel as a Life of\nJesus written with either complete or partial historical consciousness,\nand interpreting it on these lines, on the sole ground that it only brings\nin the name Son of Man twice prior to the incident at Caesarea Philippi.\nThe Life of Jesus cannot be arrived at by following the arrangement of a\nsingle Gospel, but only on the basis of the tradition which is preserved\nmore or less faithfully in the earliest pair of Synoptic Gospels.\n\nQuestions of literary priority, indeed literary questions in general, have\nin the last resort, as Keim remarked long ago, nothing to do with the\ngaining of a clear idea of the course of events, since the Evangelists had\nnot themselves a clear idea of it before their minds; it can only be\narrived at hypothetically by an experimental reconstruction based on the\nnecessary inner connexion of the incidents.\n\nBut who could possibly have had in early times a clear conception of the\nLife of Jesus? Even its most critical moments were totally unintelligible\nto the disciples who had themselves shared in the experiences, and who\nwere the only sources for the tradition.\n\nThey were simply swept through these events by the momentum of the purpose\nof Jesus. That is why the tradition is incoherent. The reality had been\nincoherent too, since it was only the secret Messianic self\u2010consciousness\nof Jesus which created alike the events and their connexion. Every Life of\nJesus remains therefore a reconstruction on the basis of a more or less\naccurate insight into the nature of the dynamic self\u2010consciousness of\nJesus which created the history.\n\nThe people, whatever Mark may have thought, did not offer Jesus a\nMessianic ovation at all; it was He who, in the conviction that they were\nwholly unable to recognise it, played with His Messianic self\u2010\nconsciousness before their eyes, just as He did at the time after the\nsending forth of the disciples, when, as now, He thought the end at hand.\nIt was in the same way, too, that He closed the invective against the\nPharisees with the words \u201cI say unto you, ye shall see me no more until ye\nshall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord\u201d (Matt.\nxxiii. 39). This saying implies His Parousia.\n\nSimilarly He is playing with His secret in that crucial question regarding\nthe Messiahship in Mark xii. 35\u201037. There is no question of dissociating\nthe Davidic Sonship from the Messiahship.(303) He asks only how can the\nChrist in virtue of His descent from David be, as his son, inferior to\nDavid, and yet be addressed by David in the Psalm as his Lord? The answer\nis; by reason of the metamorphosis and Parousia in which natural\nrelationships are abolished and the scion of David\u2019s line who is the\npredestined Son of Man shall take possession of His unique glory.\n\nFar from rejecting the Davidic Sonship in this saying, Jesus, on the\ncontrary, presupposes His possession of it. That raises the question\nwhether He did not really during His lifetime regard Himself as a\ndescendant of David and whether He was not regarded as such. Paul, who\notherwise shows no interest in the earthly phase of the existence of the\nLord, certainly implies His descent from David.\n\nThe blind man at Jericho, too, cries out to the Nazarene prophet as \u201cSon\nof David\u201d (Mark x. 47). But in doing so he does not mean to address Jesus\nas Messiah, for afterwards, when he is brought to Him he simply calls Him\n\u201cRabbi\u201d (Mark x. 51). And the people thought nothing further about what he\nhad said. When the expectant people bid him keep silence they do not do so\nbecause the expression Son of David offends them, but because his clamour\nannoys them. Jesus, however, was struck by this cry, stood still and\ncaused him, as he was standing timidly behind the eager multitude, to be\nbrought to Him. It is possible, of course, that this address is a mere\nmistake in the tradition, the same tradition which unsuspectingly brought\nin the expression Son of Man at the wrong place.\n\nSo much, however, is certain: the people were not made aware of the\nMessiahship of Jesus by the cry of the blind man any more than by the\noutcries of the demoniacs. The entry into Jerusalem was not a Messianic\novation. All that history is concerned with is that this fact should be\nadmitted on all hands. Except Jesus and the disciples, therefore, no one\nknew the secret of His Messiahship even in those days at Jerusalem. But\nthe High Priest suddenly showed himself in possession of it. How? Through\nthe betrayal of Judas.\n\nFor a hundred and fifty years the question has been historically discussed\nwhy Judas betrayed his Master. That the main question for history was\n_what he betrayed_ was suspected by few and they touched on it only in a\ntimid kind of way\u2014indeed the problems of the trial of Jesus may be said to\nhave been non\u2010existent for criticism.\n\nThe traitorous act of Judas cannot have consisted in informing the\nSanhedrin where Jesus was to be found at a suitable place for an arrest.\nThey could have had that information more cheaply by causing Jesus to be\nwatched by spies. But Mark expressly says that Judas when he betrayed\nJesus did not yet know of a favourable opportunity for the arrest, but was\nseeking such an opportunity. Mark xiv. 10, 11, \u201cAnd Judas Iscariot, one of\nthe twelve, went unto the chief priests, to betray him unto them. And when\nthey heard it, they were glad, and promised to give him money. And he\nsought how he might conveniently betray him.\u201d\n\nIn the betrayal, therefore, there were two points, a more general and a\nmore special: the general fact by which he gave Jesus into their power,\nand the undertaking to let them know of the next opportunity when they\ncould arrest Him quietly, without publicity. The betrayal by which he\nbrought his Master to death, in consequence of which the rulers decided\nupon the arrest, knowing that their cause was safe in any case, was the\nbetrayal of the Messianic secret. Jesus died because two of His disciples\nhad broken His command of silence: Peter when he made known the secret of\nthe Messiahship to the Twelve at Caesarea Philippi; Judas Iscariot by\ncommunicating it to the High Priest. But the difficulty was that Judas was\nthe sole witness. Therefore the betrayal was useless so far as the actual\ntrial was concerned unless Jesus admitted the charge. So they first tried\nto secure His condemnation on other grounds, and only when these attempts\nbroke down did the High Priest put, in the form of a question, the charge\nin support of which he could have brought no witnesses.\n\nBut Jesus immediately admitted it, and strengthened the admission by an\nallusion to His Parousia in the near future as Son of Man.\n\nThe betrayal and the trial can only be rightly understood when it is\nrealised that the public knew nothing whatever of the secret of the\nMessiahship.(304)\n\nIt is the same in regard to the scene in the presence of Pilate. The\npeople on that morning knew nothing of the trial of Jesus, but came to\nPilate with the sole object of asking the release of a prisoner, as was\nthe custom at the feast (Mark xv. 6\u20108). The idea then occurs to Pilate,\nwho was just about to hand over, willingly enough, this troublesome fellow\nand prophet to the priestly faction, to play off the people against the\npriests and work on the multitude to petition for the release of Jesus. In\nthis way he would have secured himself on both sides. He would have\ncondemned Jesus to please the priests, and after condemning Him would have\nreleased Him to please the people. The priests are greatly embarrassed by\nthe presence of the multitude. They had done everything so quickly and\nquietly that they might well have hoped to get Jesus crucified before any\none knew what was happening or had had time to wonder at His non\u2010\nappearance in the Temple.\n\nThe priests therefore go among the people and induce them not to agree to\nthe Procurator\u2019s proposal. How? By telling them why He was condemned, by\nrevealing to them the Messianic secret. That makes Him at once from a\nprophet worthy of honour into a deluded enthusiast and blasphemer. That\nwas the explanation of the \u201cfickleness\u201d of the Jerusalem mob which is\nalways so eloquently described, without any evidence for it except this\nsingle inexplicable case.\n\nAt midday of the same day\u2014it was the 14th Nisan, and in the evening the\nPaschal lamb would be eaten\u2014Jesus cried aloud and expired. He had chosen\nto remain fully conscious to the last.\n\n\n\n\n\nXX. RESULTS\n\n\nThose who are fond of talking about negative theology can find their\naccount here. There is nothing more negative than the result of the\ncritical study of the Life of Jesus.\n\nThe Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah, who\npreached the ethic of the Kingdom of God, who founded the Kingdom of\nHeaven upon earth, and died to give His work its final consecration, never\nhad any existence. He is a figure designed by rationalism, endowed with\nlife by liberalism, and clothed by modern theology in an historical garb.\n\nThis image has not been destroyed from without, it has fallen to pieces,\ncleft and disintegrated by the concrete historical problems which came to\nthe surface one after another, and in spite of all the artifice, art,\nartificiality, and violence which was applied to them, refused to be\nplaned down to fit the design on which the Jesus of the theology of the\nlast hundred and thirty years had been constructed, and were no sooner\ncovered over than they appeared again in a new form. The thoroughgoing\nsceptical and the thoroughgoing eschatological school have only completed\nthe work of destruction by linking the problems into a system and so\nmaking an end of the _Divide et impera_ of modern theology, which\nundertook to solve each of them separately, that is, in a less difficult\nform. Henceforth it is no longer permissible to take one problem out of\nthe series and dispose of it by itself, since the weight of the whole\nhangs upon each.\n\nWhatever the ultimate solution may be, the historical Jesus of whom the\ncriticism of the future, taking as its starting\u2010point the problems which\nhave been recognised and admitted, will draw the portrait, can never\nrender modern theology the services which it claimed from its own half\u2010\nhistorical, half\u2010modern, Jesus. He will be a Jesus, who was Messiah, and\nlived as such, either on the ground of a literary fiction of the earliest\nEvangelist, or on the ground of a purely eschatological Messianic\nconception.\n\nIn either case, He will not be a Jesus Christ to whom the religion of the\npresent can ascribe, according to its long\u2010cherished custom, its own\nthoughts and ideas, as it did with the Jesus of its own making. Nor will\nHe be a figure which can be made by a popular historical treatment so\nsympathetic and universally intelligible to the multitude. The historical\nJesus will be to our time a stranger and an enigma.\n\nThe study of the Life of Jesus has had a curious history. It set out in\nquest of the historical Jesus, believing that when it had found Him it\ncould bring Him straight into our time as a Teacher and Saviour. It loosed\nthe bands by which He had been riveted for centuries to the stony rocks of\necclesiastical doctrine, and rejoiced to see life and movement coming into\nthe figure once more, and the historical Jesus advancing, as it seemed, to\nmeet it. But He does not stay; He passes by our time and returns to His\nown. What surprised and dismayed the theology of the last forty years was\nthat, despite all forced and arbitrary interpretations, it could not keep\nHim in our time, but had to let Him go. He returned to His own time, not\nowing to the application of any historical ingenuity, but by the same\ninevitable necessity by which the liberated pendulum returns to its\noriginal position.\n\nThe historical foundation of Christianity as built up by rationalistic, by\nliberal, and by modern theology no longer exists; but that does not mean\nthat Christianity has lost its historical foundation. The work which\nhistorical theology thought itself bound to carry out, and which fell to\npieces just as it was nearing completion, was only the brick facing of the\nreal immovable historical foundation which is independent of any\nhistorical confirmation or justification.\n\nJesus means something to our world because a mighty spiritual force\nstreams forth from Him and flows through our time also. This fact can\nneither be shaken nor confirmed by any historical discovery. It is the\nsolid foundation of Christianity.\n\nThe mistake was to suppose that Jesus could come to mean more to our time\nby entering into it as a man like ourselves. That is not possible. First\nbecause such a Jesus never existed. Secondly because, although historical\nknowledge can no doubt introduce greater clearness into an existing\nspiritual life, it cannot call spiritual life into existence. History can\ndestroy the present; it can reconcile the present with the past; can even\nto a certain extent transport the present into the past; but to contribute\nto the making of the present is not given unto it.\n\nBut it is impossible to over\u2010estimate the value of what German research\nupon the Life of Jesus has accomplished. It is a uniquely great expression\nof sincerity, one of the most significant events in the whole mental and\nspiritual life of humanity. What has been done for the religious life of\nthe present and the immediate future by scholars such as P. W. Schmidt,\nBousset, J\u00fclicher, Weinel, Wernle\u2014and their pupil Frenssen\u2014and the others\nwho have been called to the task of bringing to the knowledge of wider\ncircles, in a form which is popular without being superficial, the results\nof religious\u2010historical study, only becomes evident when one examines the\nliterature and social culture of the Latin nations, who have been scarcely\nif at all touched by the influence of these thinkers.\n\nAnd yet the time of doubt was bound to come. We modern theologians are too\nproud of our historical method, too proud of our historical Jesus, too\nconfident in our belief in the spiritual gains which our historical\ntheology can bring to the world. The thought that we could build up by the\nincrease of historical knowledge a new and vigorous Christianity and set\nfree new spiritual forces, rules us like a fixed idea, and prevents us\nfrom seeing that the task which we have grappled with and in some measure\ndischarged is only one of the intellectual preliminaries of the great\nreligious task. We thought that it was for us to lead our time by a\nroundabout way through the historical Jesus, as we understood Him, in\norder to bring it to the Jesus who is a spiritual power in the present.\nThis roundabout way has now been closed by genuine history.\n\nThere was a danger of our thrusting ourselves between men and the Gospels,\nand refusing to leave the individual man alone with the sayings of Jesus.\n\nThere was a danger that we should offer them a Jesus who was too small,\nbecause we had forced Him into conformity with our human standards and\nhuman psychology. To see that, one need only read the Lives of Jesus\nwritten since the \u2019sixties, and notice what they have made of the great\nimperious sayings of the Lord, how they have weakened down His imperative\nworld\u2010contemning demands upon individuals, that He might not come into\nconflict with our ethical ideals, and might tune His denial of the world\nto our acceptance of it. Many of the greatest sayings are found lying in a\ncorner like explosive shells from which the charges have been removed. No\nsmall portion of elemental religious power needed to be drawn off from His\nsayings to prevent them from conflicting with our system of religious\nworld\u2010acceptance. We have made Jesus hold another language with our time\nfrom that which He really held.\n\nIn the process we ourselves have been enfeebled, and have robbed our own\nthoughts of their vigour in order to project them back into history and\nmake them speak to us out of the past. It is nothing less than a\nmisfortune for modern theology that it mixes history with everything and\nends by being proud of the skill with which it finds its own thoughts\u2014even\nto its beggarly pseudo\u2010metaphysic with which it has banished genuine\nspeculative metaphysic from the sphere of religion\u2014in Jesus, and\nrepresents Him as expressing them. It had almost deserved the reproach:\n\u201che who putteth his hand to the plough, and looketh back, is not fit for\nthe Kingdom of God.\u201d\n\nIt was no small matter, therefore, that in the course of the critical\nstudy of the Life of Jesus, after a resistance lasting for two\ngenerations, during which first one expedient was tried and then another,\ntheology was forced by genuine history to begin to doubt the artificial\nhistory with which it had thought to give new life to our Christianity,\nand to yield to the facts, which, as Wrede strikingly said, are sometimes\nthe most radical critics of all. History will force it to find a way to\ntranscend history, and to fight for the lordship and rule of Jesus over\nthis world with weapons tempered in a different forge.\n\nWe are experiencing what Paul experienced. In the very moment when we were\ncoming nearer to the historical Jesus than men had ever come before, and\nwere already stretching out our hands to draw Him into our own time, we\nhave been obliged to give up the attempt and acknowledge our failure in\nthat paradoxical saying: \u201cIf we have known Christ after the flesh yet\nhenceforth know we Him no more.\u201d And further we must be prepared to find\nthat the historical knowledge of the personality and life of Jesus will\nnot be a help, but perhaps even an offence to religion.\n\nBut the truth is, it is not Jesus as historically known, but Jesus as\nspiritually arisen within men, who is significant for our time and can\nhelp it. Not the historical Jesus, but the spirit which goes forth from\nHim and in the spirits of men strives for new influence and rule, is that\nwhich overcomes the world.\n\nIt is not given to history to disengage that which is abiding and eternal\nin the being of Jesus from the historical forms in which it worked itself\nout, and to introduce it into our world as a living influence. It has\ntoiled in vain at this undertaking. As a water\u2010plant is beautiful so long\nas it is growing in the water, but once torn from its roots, withers and\nbecomes unrecognisable, so it is with the historical Jesus when He is\nwrenched loose from the soil of eschatology, and the attempt is made to\nconceive Him \u201chistorically\u201d as a Being not subject to temporal conditions.\nThe abiding and eternal in Jesus is absolutely independent of historical\nknowledge and can only be understood by contact with His spirit which is\nstill at work in the world. In proportion as we have the Spirit of Jesus\nwe have the true knowledge of Jesus.\n\nJesus as a concrete historical personality remains a stranger to our time,\nbut His spirit, which lies hidden in His words, is known in simplicity,\nand its influence is direct. Every saying contains in its own way the\nwhole Jesus. The very strangeness and unconditionedness in which He stands\nbefore us makes it easier for individuals to find their own personal\nstandpoint in regard to Him.\n\nMen feared that to admit the claims of eschatology would abolish the\nsignificance of His words for our time; and hence there was a feverish\neagerness to discover in them any elements that might be considered not\neschatologically conditioned. When any sayings were found of which the\nwording did not absolutely imply an eschatological connexion there was\ngreat jubilation\u2014these at least had been saved uninjured from the coming\n_d\u00e9b\u00e2cle_.\n\nBut in reality that which is eternal in the words of Jesus is due to the\nvery fact that they are based on an eschatological world\u2010view, and contain\nthe expression of a mind for which the contemporary world with its\nhistorical and social circumstances no longer had any existence. They are\nappropriate, therefore, to any world, for in every world they raise the\nman who dares to meet their challenge, and does not turn and twist them\ninto meaninglessness, above his world and his time, making him inwardly\nfree, so that he is fitted to be, in his own world and in his own time, a\nsimple channel of the power of Jesus.\n\nModern Lives of Jesus are too general in their scope. They aim at\ninfluencing, by giving a complete impression of the life of Jesus, a whole\ncommunity. But the historical Jesus, as He is depicted in the Gospels,\ninfluenced individuals by the individual word. They understood Him so far\nas it was necessary for them to understand, without forming any conception\nof His life as a whole, since this in its ultimate aims remained a mystery\neven for the disciples.\n\nBecause it is thus preoccupied with the general, the universal, modern\ntheology is determined to find its world\u2010accepting ethic in the teaching\nof Jesus. Therein lies its weakness. The world affirms itself\nautomatically; the modern spirit cannot but affirm it. But why on that\naccount abolish the conflict between modern life, with the world\u2010affirming\nspirit which inspires it as a whole, and the world\u2010negating spirit of\nJesus? Why spare the spirit of the individual man its appointed task of\nfighting its way through the world\u2010negation of Jesus, of contending with\nHim at every step over the value of material and intellectual goods\u2014a\nconflict in which it may never rest? For the general, for the institutions\nof society, the rule is: affirmation of the world, in conscious opposition\nto the view of Jesus, on the ground that the world has affirmed itself!\nThis general affirmation of the world, however, if it is to be Christian,\nmust in the individual spirit be Christianised and transfigured by the\npersonal rejection of the world which is preached in the sayings of Jesus.\nIt is only by means of the tension thus set up that religious energy can\nbe communicated to our time. There was a danger that modern theology, for\nthe sake of peace, would deny the world\u2010negation in the sayings of Jesus,\nwith which Protestantism was out of sympathy, and thus unstring the bow\nand make Protestantism a mere sociological instead of a religious force.\nThere was perhaps also a danger of inward insincerity, in the fact that it\nrefused to admit to itself and others that it maintained its affirmation\nof the world in opposition to the sayings of Jesus, simply because it\ncould not do otherwise.\n\nFor that reason it is a good thing that the true historical Jesus should\noverthrow the modern Jesus, should rise up against the modern spirit and\nsend upon earth, not peace, but a sword. He was not teacher, not a\ncasuist; He was an imperious ruler. It was because He was so in His inmost\nbeing that He could think of Himself as the Son of Man. That was only the\ntemporally conditioned expression of the fact that He was an authoritative\nruler. The names in which men expressed their recognition of Him as such,\nMessiah, Son of Man, Son of God, have become for us historical parables.\nWe can find no designation which expresses what He is for us.\n\nHe comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lake\u2010\nside, He came to those men who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same\nword: \u201cFollow thou me!\u201d and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfil\nfor our time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise\nor simple, He will reveal Himself in the toils, the conflicts, the\nsufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an\nineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is.\n\n\n\n\n\nINDEX OF AUTHORS AND WORKS\n\n\n(Including Reference To English Translations)\n\nAmmon, Christoph Friedrich von. Fortbildung des Christentums (Leipzig,\n            1840);\n  Die Geschichte des Lebens Jesu mit steter R\u00fccksicht auf die vorhandenen\n              Quellen (1842\u20101847), 11, 97, 104 f., 117 f.\n\nAnonymous Works\u2014\n  Das Leben Napoleons kritisch gepr\u00fcft. Aus dem Englischen (see under\n              Whateley) nebst einigen Nutzanwendungen auf das Leben\u2010Jesu\n              von Strauss (1836), 112\n\n  Did Jesus live 100 B.C.? (London and Benares, Theosophical Publishing\n              Society, 1903), 327\n\n  Dr. Strauss und die Z\u00fcricher Kirche (Basle, 1839), 103\n\n  Wichtige Enth\u00fcllungen \u00fcber die wirkliche Todesart Jesu (5th ed.,\n              Leipzig, 1849);\n    Historische Enth\u00fcllungen \u00fcber die wirklichen Ereignisse der Geburt und\n                Jugend Jesu (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1849), 161 f.\n\n  Zwei Gespr\u00e4che \u00fcber die Ansicht des Herrn Dr. Strauss von der\n              evangelischen Geschichte (Jena, 1839), 100\n\nBaader, Franz. \u00dcber das Leben\u2010Jesu von Strauss (Munich, 1836), 100\n\nBahrdt, Karl Friedrich. Briefe \u00fcber die Bibel im Volkston (1782);\n  Ausf\u00fchrung des Plans und Zwecks Jesu (1784\u20101792);\n  Die s\u00e4mtlichen Reden Jesu aus den Evangelien ausgezogen (1786), 4, 5,\n              38, 39 f., 46, 53, 59, 299, 313\n\nBaldensperger, Wilhelm. Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu im Lichte der\n            messianischen Hoffnungen seiner Zeit (Strassburg, 1888, 2nd\n            ed. 1892, 3rd ed. pt. i. 1903), 12, 233\u2010237, 250, 266, 278 f.,\n            365, 366\n\nBarth, Fritz. Die Hauptprobleme des Lebens Jesu (1st ed. 1899, 2nd ed.\n            1903), 301\n\nBauer, Bruno. Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte des Johannes (Bremen,\n            1840);\n  Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte der Synoptiker (Leipzig, 1841\u20101842);\n  Kritik der Evangelien und Geschichte ihres Ursprungs (Berlin,\n              1850\u20101851);\n  Kritik der Apostelgeschichte (1850);\n  Kritik der Paulinischen Briefe (Berlin, 1850\u20101852);\n  Philo, Strauss, Renan und das Urchristentum (Berlin, 1874);\n  Christus und die C\u00e4saren (Berlin, 1877);\n  Die gute Sache der Freiheit und meine eigene Angelegenheit (Zurich,\n              1843), 5, 9, 10, 12, 137\u2010160, 186 f., 221, 231, 256\u2010258, 305\n              f., 312, 315, 328, 332, 335 f., 338, 342, 346, 358, 368, 388\n\nBaumer, Friedrich. Schwarz, Strauss, Renan (Leipzig, 1864), 191\n\nBaur, Ferdinand Christian. Kritische Untersuchungen \u00fcber die kanonischen\n            Evangelien (T\u00fcbingen, 1847), 25, 58, 68, 87, 89, 124, 182,\n            195, 201, 229\n\nBergh van Eysinga, Van den. Indische Einfl\u00fcsse auf evangelische\n            Erz\u00e4hlungen (G\u00f6ttingen, 1904), 290\n\nBernhard ter Haar (Utrecht). Zehn Vorlesungen \u00fcber Renans \u201cLeben\u2010Jesu\u201d\n            (German by H. Doermer, Gotha, 1864), 191\n\nBeyschlag, Willibald. \u00dcber das Leben\u2010Jesu von Renan (Berlin, 1864);\n  Das Leben\u2010Jesu (pt. i. 1885, pt. ii. 1886, 2nd ed. 1887\u20101888), 6, 10,\n              190, 215 f., 218\n\nBinder, 68, 69\n\nBleby, H. W. The Trial of Jesus of Nazareth considered as a Judicial Act\n            (1880), 391\n\nBleek, 229, 231\n\nB\u00f6klen, E. Die Verwandtschaft der j\u00fcdisch\u2010christlichen und der parsischen\n            Eschatologie (1902), 287\n\nBolten, Johann Adrian. Der Bericht des Matth\u00e4us von Jesu dem Messias\n            (Altona, 1792), 271, 276\n\nBosc, Ernest. La Vie \u00e9sot\u00e9rique de J\u00e9sus de Nazareth et les origines\n            orientales du christianisme (Paris, 1902), 294, 327\n\nBousset, Wilhelm. Jesu Predigt in ihrem Gegensatz zum Judentum. Ein\n            religionsgeschichtlicher Vergleich (G\u00f6ttingen, 1892);\n  Die j\u00fcdische Apokalyptik in ihrer religionsgeschichtlichen Herkunft und\n              ihrer Bedeutung f\u00fcr das Neue Testament (Berlin, 1903);\n  Die Religion des Judentums im neutestamentlichen Zeitalter (1902);\n  Was wissen wir von Jesus? Vortr\u00e4ge im Protestantenverein zu Bremen\n              (Halle, 1904);\n  Jesus (Religionsgeschichtliche Volksb\u00fccher, herausgegeben von Schiele,\n              Halle, 1904) (English translation, _Jesus_, by J. P.\n              Trevelyan, London, 1906), 241\u2010249, 255 f., 262, 264, 267,\n              280, 300, 359, 398\n\nBrandt, Wilhelm. Die evangelische Geschichte und der Ursprung des\n            Christentums auf Grund einer Kritik der Berichte \u00fcber das\n            Leiden und die Auferstehung Jesu (Leipzig, 1893), 241,\n            256\u2010261, 267, 301, 309, 312, 313, 391\n\nBretschneider, Karl Gottlob, 85, 118\n\nBrunner, Sebastian. Der Atheist Renan und sein Evangelium (Regensburg,\n            1864), 190\n\nBugge, Chr. A. Die Hauptparabeln Jesu. (From the Norwegian) (Giessen,\n            1903), 263\n\nBunsen, Christian Karl Josias, Ritter von. Das Leben Jesu, vol. ix. of\n            Bunsen\u2019s \u201cBibelwerk\u201d (published by Holtzmann, 1865), 200\n\nCairns, John. Falsche Christi und der wahre Christus, oder Verteidigung\n            der evangelischen Geschichte gegen Strauss und Renan. Aus dem\n            Englischen \u00fcbersetzt (Hamburg, 1864) (_False Christ and the\n            True_, A sermon delivered before the National Bible Society of\n            Scotland, Edinburgh, 1864), 191\n\nCapitaine, W. Jesus von Nazareth (Regensburg, 1905), 294\n\nCassel, Paulus. Bericht \u00fcber Renans Leben\u2010Jesu (Berlin, 1864), 191\n\n\u201cCasuar.\u201d Das Leben Luthers kritisch bearbeitet. Herausgegeben von Jul.\n            Ferd. Wurm (\u201cMexiko, 2836\u201d), 112\n\nChamberlain, H. S. Worte Christi (1901), 310\n\nCharles, R. H. \u201cThe Son of Man\u201d (Expos. Times, 1893), 267\n\nColani, Timoth\u00e9e. Examen de la vie de J\u00e9sus de M. Renan (Strassburg,\n            1864);\n  J\u00e9sus\u2010Christ et les croyances messianiques de son temps (Strassburg,\n              1864), 182, 189, 209, 221 f., 226, 229, 233, 248, 372\n\nCone, Orello. \u201cJesus\u2019 Self\u2010designation in the Synoptic Gospels\u201d (The New\n            World, 1893), 266\n\nCoquerel, Athanase (jun.), 189, 209\n\nCredner, 89\n\nDalman, Gustaf. Grammatik des j\u00fcdisch\u2010pal\u00e4stinensischen Aram\u00e4isch\n            (Leipzig, 1894);\n  Die Worte Jesu. Mit Ber\u00fccksichtigung des nachkanonischen Schrifttums und\n              der aram\u00e4ischen Sprache, I. (Leipzig, 1898) (authorised\n              English translation by D. M. Kay, _The Words of Jesus_,\n              Edinburgh, 1902), 269, 271, 273\u2010275, 278, 279\u2010281, 286\u2010289,\n              363, 391 f.\n\nDarboy, Georges. Lettre pastorale de Monseigneur l\u2019Archev\u00eaque de Paris sur\n            la divinit\u00e9 de J\u00e9sus\u2010Christ, et mandement pour le car\u00eame de\n            1864, 188\n\nDelff, Hugo. Geschichte des Rabbi Jesus von Nazareth (Leipzig, 1889), 11,\n            323\n\nDelitzsch, Franz, 273, 285\n\nDeutlinger, Martin. Renan und das Wunder. Ein Beitrag zur christlichen\n            Apologetik (Munich, 1864), 190\n\nDidon, Le P\u00e8re, de l\u2019ordre des fr\u00e8res pr\u00eacheurs. J\u00e9sus Christ (Paris,\n            1891, 2 vols., German, 1895) (English translation, _Jesus\n            Christ_, 2 vols., 1891), 295\n\nDieu, Louis de, 14\n\nDillmann, 223\n\nDiodati, Dominicus, 271\n\nD\u00f6derlein. Fragmente und Antifragmente (Nuremberg, 1778), 25\n\nDulk, Albert. Der Irrgang des Lebens Jesu. In geschichtlicher Auffassung\n            dargestellt (pt. i. 1884, pt. ii. 1885), 294, 324\n\nDupanloup, F\u00e9lix Antoine Philibert, \u00c9v\u00eaque d\u2019Orl\u00e9ans. Avertissement \u00e0 la\n            jeunesse et aux p\u00e8res de famille sur les attaques dirig\u00e9es\n            contre la religion par quelques \u00e9crivains de nos jours (Paris,\n            1864), 188\n\nEbrard, August. Wissenschaftliche Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte\n            (Frankfort, 1842), 97, 116 f.\n\nEdersheim, Alfred. The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (London, 1st\n            ed. 1883, 3rd ed. 1886, 2 vols.), 233\n\nEerdmanns, B. E. \u201cDe Oorsprong van de uitdrukking \u2019Zoon des Menschen\u2019 als\n            evangelische Messiastitel\u201d (Theol. Tijdschr., 1894), 276\n\nEhrhardt. Der Grundcharakter der Ethik Jesu in Verh\u00e4ltnis zu den\n            messianischen Hoffnungen seines Volkes und zu seinem eigenen\n            Messiasbewusstsein (Freiburg, 1895);\n  Le Principe de la morale de J\u00e9sus (Paris, 1896), 249\n\nEichhorn, Johann Gottfried, 78, 89\n\nEmmerich, Anna Katharina. Das bittere Leiden unseres Herrn Jesu Christi.\n            Herausgegeben von Brentano (1858\u20101860, new ed. 1895) (English\n            translation, _The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ_,\n            London, 1862);\n  Das Leben Jesu, 3 vols. (1858\u20101860), 109 f., 295\n\nEwald, Georg Heinrich August. \u201cGeschichte Christus\u2019 und seiner Zeit,\u201d vol.\n            v. of the \u201cGeschichte des Volkes Israel\u201d (G\u00f6ttingen, 1855, 2nd\n            ed. 1857), English translation of the _Life of Jesus Christ_,\n            by Octavius Glover (London, 1865);\n  Die drei ersten Evangelien (1850), 97, 117, 124, 135\n\nFiebig, Paul. Der Menschensohn (T\u00fcbingen, 1901);\n  Altj\u00fcdische Gleichnisse und die Gleichnisse Jesu (T\u00fcbingen, 1904), 278,\n              286\n\nFrantzen, Wilhelm. Die \u201cLeben\u2010Jesu\u2010\u201d Bewegung seit Strauss (Dorpat, 1898),\n            12\n\nFrenssen, Gustav. Hilligenlei (Berlin, 1905), pp. 462\u2010593: \u201cDie\n            Handschrift\u201d (English translation, _Holy Land_, by M. A.\n            Hamilton, London, 1906), 293, 307\u2010309, 398\n\nFreppel, Charles Emile. Examen critique de la vie de Jesus de M. Renan\n            (Paris, 1864) (German by Kollmus, Vienna, 1864), 188, 190\n\nFrick, Otto. Mythus und Evangelium (Heilbronn, 1879), 112\n\nFurrer, Konrad. Vortr\u00e4ge \u00fcber das Leben Jesu Christi (1902), 301\n\nGabler, 78\n\nGardner, P. Exploratio Evangelica. A Brief Examination of the Basis and\n            Origin of Christian Belief (1899, 2nd ed. 1907), 217\n\nGerlach, Hermann. Gegen Renans Leben\u2010Jesu 1864 (Berlin), 191\n\nGfr\u00f6rer, August Friedrich. Kritische Geschichte des Urchristentums (vol.\n            i. 1st ed. 1831, 2nd ed. 1835, vol. ii. 1838), 161, 163\u2010166,\n            195\n\nGhillany, Friedrich Wilhelm (\u201cRichard von der Alm\u201d). Theologische Briefe\n            an die Gebildeten der deutschen Nation (3 vols. 1863);\n  Die Urteile heidnischer und christlicher Schriftsteller der vier ersten\n              christlichen Jahrhunderte \u00fcber Jesus (1864), 161, 166\u2010172,\n              240, 363\n\nGodet, F. Das Leben Jesu vor seinem \u00f6ffentlichen Auftreten (German by M.\n            Reineck, Hanover, 1897), 217\n\nGratz, 89\n\nGreiling. Das Leben Jesu von Nazareth (1813), 50\n\nGressman, Hugo, 234\n\nGriesbach, Johann Jakob, 13, 89\n\nGrimm, Eduard. Die Ethik Jesu (Hamburg, 1903), 320\n\nGrimm, Joseph. Das Leben Jesu (W\u00fcrzburg, 6 vols., 2nd ed. 1890\u20101903), 294\n\nGrotius, Hugo, 270\n\nGunkel, Hermann, 277\n\nHagel, Maurus. Dr. Strauss\u2019 Leben\u2010Jesu aus dens Standpunkt des\n            Katholicismus betrachtet (1839), 108\n\nHahn, Werner. Leben\u2010Jesu (Berlin, 1844), 118\n\nHaneberg, Daniel Bonifacius. Ernest Renans Leben\u2010Jesu (Regensburg, 1864),\n            190\n\nHanson, Sir Richard. The Jesus of History (1869), 202\n\nHarless, Adolf. Die kritische Bearbeitung des Lebens Jesu von David\n            Friedrich Strauss nach ihrem wissenschaftlichen Werte\n            beleuchtet (Erlangen, 1836), 98 f.\n\nHarnack, Adolf, 242, 252, 314\n\nHartmann, Eduard von. Das Christentum des Neuen Testaments, 2nd ed. of the\n            \u201cBriefe \u00fcber die christliche Religion\u201d (Sachsa\u2010in\u2010the\u2010Harz,\n            1905), 292, 318\u2010320\n\nHartmann, Julius. Leben Jesu (2 vols., 1837\u20101839), 101\n\nHase, Karl August von. Das Leben Jesu (1st ed. 1829);\n  Geschichte Jesu (Leipzig, 1876), 4, 5, 10, 11, 12, 28, 58 f., 65, 72,\n              81, 88, 99, 106, 116, 120, 162, 193, 214 f., 218, 220, 229\n\nHaupt, Erich. Die eschatologischen Aussagen Jesu in den synoptischen\n            Evangelien (1895), 241, 250 f.\n\nHausrath, Adolf. Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte (1st ed., Munich, 1868\n            ff., 3rd ed., vol. i. 1879) (English translation, _A History\n            of the __ New Testament Times, The Time of Jesus_, by C. T.\n            Poynting and P. Quenzer, London, 1878), 214\n\nHavet, Ernest. J\u00e9sus dans l\u2019histoire. Examen de la vie de J\u00e9sus par M.\n            Renan. Extrait de la Revue des deux mondes (Paris, 1863);\n  Le Christianisme et ses origines, 3me ptie, Le Nouveau Testament (1884),\n              189, 290, 328, 391\n\nHegel, Georg Friedrich Wilhelm, 49, 68 f., 79 f., 107, 111, 114 f., 122,\n            137, 163, 165, 194\n\nHengstenberg, Ernst Wilhelm, 106 f., 111, 115, 143\n\nHennell, Charles Christian. An Inquiry concerning the Origin of\n            Christianity (London, 1838) (Untersuchungen \u00fcber den Ursprung\n            des Christentums. Vorrede von David Friedrich Strauss, 1840),\n            161\n\nHerder, Johann Gottfried. Vom Erl\u00f6ser der Menschen. Nach unsern drei\n            ersten Evangelien (1796);\n  Von Gottes Sohn, der Welt Heiland. Nach Johannes Evangelium (1797), 27,\n              29, 34, 89, 203\n\nHess, Johann Jakob. Geschichte der drei letzten Lebensjahre Jesu (1768\n            ff.), 4, 14, 27\u201031\n\nHilgenfeld, Adolf, 124, 222, 266\n\nHoekstra. \u201cDe Christologie van het canonieke Marcus\u2010Evangelie, vergeleken\n            met die van de beide andere synoptische Evangelien\u201d (Theol.\n            Tijdschrift, v., 1871), 328\n\nHoffmann, Wilhelm. Das Leben\u2010Jesu kritisch bearbeitet von Dr. David Fried.\n            Strauss. Gepr\u00fcft f\u00fcr Theologen und Nicht\u2010Theologen (1836), 99\n\nHoltzmann, Heinrich Julius, 10, 61, 125, 195, 200, 202\u2010205, 209, 218, 220,\n            229, 231, 235, 237, 277, 294\n\nHoltzmann, Oskar. Das Leben Jesu, (1901) (English translation, _The Life\n            of Jesus_, by J. T. Bealby and Maurice A. Canney, London,\n            1904);\n  Das Messianit\u00e4tsbewusstsein Jesu und seine neueste Bestreitung. Vortrag\n              (1902);\n  War Jesus Ekstatiker? (T\u00fcbingen, 1903), 208, 293, 295\u2010300, 306 f., 308,\n              312, 359\n\nHug, Leonhard. Gutachten \u00fcber das Leben\u2010Jesu, kritisch bearbeitet von D.\n            Fr. Strauss (Freiburg, 1840), 97, 108, 109, 271\n\nIngraham, J. H. The Prince of the House of David (London, 1859) (Der F\u00fcrst\n            aus Davids Hause, new ed., 1896, Brunswick), 326\n\nInchofer, 270\n\nIssel, 237\n\nJacobi, Johann Adolf. Die Geschichte Jesu f\u00fcr denkende und gem\u00fctvolle\n            Leser (1816), 27, 34\n\nJonge, De. Jeschua. Der klassische j\u00fcdische Mann. Zerst\u00f6rung des\n            kirchlichen, Enth\u00fcllung des j\u00fcdischen Jesus\u2010Bildes (Berlin,\n            1904), 293, 321 f.\n\nJ\u00fclicher, Adolf. Die Gleichnisreden Jesu (pt. i. 1888, pt. ii. 1899);\n  Die Kultur der Gegenwart (Teubner, Berlin, 1905), pp. 40\u201069;\n  \u201cJesus,\u201d 241, 262\u2010264, 286, 290, 320, 398\n\nKalthoff, Albert. Das Christus\u2010Problem. Grundlinien zu einer\n            Sozialtheologie (Leipzig, 1902);\n  Die Entstehung des Christentums. Neue Beitr\u00e4ge zum Christus\u2010Problem\n              (Leipzig, 1904) (English translation, _The Rise of\n              Christianity_, by Joseph M\u2019Cabe, London, 1907);\n  Das Leben Jesu. Reden gehalten im prot. Reformverein zu Berlin (1880);\n  Was wissen wir von Jesus? Eine Abrechnung mit Professor Bousset in\n              G\u00f6ttingen (Berlin, 1904), 293, 314\u2010318\n\nKant, Emmanuel, 50, 105, 322\n\nKapp, W. Das Christus\u2010und Christentum\u2010Problem bei Kalthoff (Strassburg,\n            1905), 318\n\nKautzsch, Emil Friedrich, 271\n\nKeim, Theodor. Die Geschichte Jesu von Nazara (3 vols., Zurich, pt. i.\n            1867, pt. ii. 1871, pt. iii. 1872);\n  Die Geschichte Jesu. Nach den Ergebnissen heutiger Wissenschaft f\u00fcr\n              weitere Kreise \u00fcbersichtlich erz\u00e4hlt (Zurich, 1872) (English\n              translation of the larger work, _The History of Jesus of\n              Nazara_, by E. M. Geldart and A. Ransom, 6 vols., London,\n              1873\u20101883), 11, 61, 193, 200, 209, 211\u2010214, 231 f., 310,\n              343, 351, 357, 380, 392\n\nKienlen, 228\n\nKirchbach, Wolfgang. Was lehrte Jesus? (Berlin, 1897, 2nd ed. 1902);\n  Das Buch Jesus (Berlin, 1897), 294, 322\u2010324\n\nKoppe, 89\n\nK\u00f6stlin, Karl Reinhold, 124\n\nKrabbe. Vorlesungen \u00fcber das Leben Jesu f\u00fcr Theologen und Nicht\u2010Theologen\n            (Hamburg, 1839), 100\n\nKralik, Richard von. Jesu Leben und Werk (Kempten\u2010N\u00fcrnberg, 1904), 294\n\nKrauss, S. Das Leben Jesu nach j\u00fcdischen Quellen (1902), 327\n\nKr\u00fcger\u2010Velthusen, W. Leben Jesu. (Elberfeld, 1872), 217\n\nKuhn, Johannes von. Leben Jesu (T\u00fcbingen, 1840), 108\n\nKunz, K. Christus medicus (Freiburg, 1905), 325\n\nLachmann, 89\n\nLamy. Renans Leben\u2010Jesu vor dem Richterstuhle der Kritik. \u00dcbersetzt von\n            Aug. Rohling (M\u00fcnster, 1864), 190\n\nLange, Johann Peter. Das Leben Jesu, 5 vols. (1844\u20101847) (English\n            translation, _The Life of the Lord Jesus Christ_, by Sophia\n            Taylor, Edinburgh, 1864), 117\n\nL\u00e4ngin, G. Der Christus der Geschichte und sein Christentum (2 vols.,\n            1897\u20101898), 217\n\nLangsdorf, Karl von. Wohlgepr\u00fcfte Darstellung des Lebens Jesu (Mannheim,\n            1831), 162\n\nLasserre, Henri. L\u2019\u00c9vangile selon Renan (1864, 12 editions, German,\n            Munich, 1864), 188, 190\n\nLehmann. Renan wider Renan (Zwickau, 1864), 191\n\nLessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 5, 14\u201016, 75\n\nLevi, Giuseppe. Parabeln, Legenden und Gedanken aus Talmud und Midrasch\n            (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1877), 286\n\nLichtenstein, Wilhelm Jakob. Leben des Herrn Jesu Christi (Erlangen,\n            1856), 101\n\nLietzmann, Hans. Der Menschensohn (Freiburg, 1896);\n  Zur Menschensohnfrage (1898), 265, 276 f., 285, 289\n\nLightfoot, John. Horae Hebraicae et Talmudicae in quatuor Evangelistas.\n            Herausgegeben von J. B. Carpzov (Leipzig, 1684), 222, 285\n\nLillie, A. The Influence of Buddhism on Primitive Christianity (London,\n            1893), 326\n\nLittr\u00e9, M., 181\n\nLoisy, Alfred. Le Quatri\u00e8me \u00c9vangile (Paris, 1903);\n  Les \u00c9vangiles synoptiques, 2 vols. (Paris, 1907);\n  L\u2019\u00c9vangile et l\u2019\u00c9glise (Paris, 1903) (translated by C. Home, _The Gospel\n              and the Church_, new ed. with a preface by G. Tyrrell,\n              1908), 295\n\nL\u00fccke, 106\n\nLuthardt, Christoph Ernst. Die modernen Darstellungen des Lebens Jesu.\n            Vortrag (Leipzig, 1864), 191, 209\n\nLuther, 13\n\nMack, Joseph. Bericht \u00fcber des Herrn Dr. Strauss\u2019 historische Bearbeitung\n            des Lebens Jesu (1837), 108\n\nManen, van, 286\n\nMarius, Emmanuel. Die Pers\u00f6nlichkeit Jesu mit besonderer R\u00fccksicht auf die\n            Mythologien und Mysterien der alten V\u00f6lker (Leipzig, 1879),\n            112\n\nMeinhold, J. Jesus und das Alte Testament (1896), 255\n\nMeuschen, Johann Gerhardt, 285\n\nMeyer, Arnold. Jesu Muttersprache (Leipzig, 1896), 229, 231, 265, 269,\n            271, 274, 276, 286, 287, 289\n\nMichaelis, 49, 271\n\nMichelis. Renans Roman vom Leben\u2010Jesu (M\u00fcnster, 1864), 190\n\nM\u00fcller, A. Jesus ein Arier (Leipzig, 1904), 327\n\nM\u00fcller, Max, 290\n\nMussard, Eug\u00e8ne. Du syst\u00e8me mythique appliqu\u00e9 \u00e0 l\u2019histoire de la vie de\n            J\u00e9sus (1838), 112\n\nNahor, Pierre (\u00c9milie Lerou), J\u00e9sus. (German by Walther Bloch, Berlin,\n            1905), 325\n\nNeander, August Wilhelm. Das Leben Jesu Christi (Hamburg, 1837) (English\n            translation, _The Life of Jesus Christ_, by J. M\u2019Clintock and\n            C. E. Blumenthal, London, 1851);\n  Gutachten \u00fcber das Buch des Dr. Strauss\u2019, Leben\u2010Jesu (1836), 72, 97,\n              101\u2010103, 116, 139\n\nNestle, 276\n\nNeubauer, Adolf, 273\n\nNeumann, Arno. Jesus wie er geschichtlich war (Freiburg, 1904), 320\n\nNicolas, Amad\u00e9e. Renan et sa vie de J\u00e9sus sous les rapports moral, l\u00e9gal\n            et litt\u00e9raire (Paris\u2010Marseille, 1864), 188\n\nNippold, Friedrich. Der Entwicklungsgang des Lebens Jesu im Wortlaut der\n            drei ersten Evangelien (Hamburg, 1895);\n  Die psychiatrische Seite der Heilst\u00e4tigkeit Jesu (1889), 301, 324\n\nNoack, Ludwig. Die Geschichte Jesu (2nd ed., Mannheim, 1876);\n  Aus der Jordanwiege nach Golgatha (1870\u20101871), 161 f., 172\u2010179, 185, 322\n\nNork, J., 285, 286\n\nNotowitsch, Nicolas. La Vie inconnue de J\u00e9sus\u2010Christ (Paris, 1894)\n            (German, Stuttgart, 1894), 290, 326\n\nOort, H. L. Die Uitdrukking \u1f41 \u03c5\u1f31\u1f78\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u1f00\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 in het Nieuwe Testament\n            (Leiden, 1893), 266, 278, 286\n\nOpitz, Ernst August. Geschichte und Characterz\u00fcge Jesu (1812), 27, 34\n\nOsiander, Andreas, 13\n\nOsiander, Johann Ernst. Apologie des Lebens Jesu gegen\u00fcber dem neuesten\n            Versuch, es in Mythen aufzul\u00f6sen (1837), 100\n\nOsterzee, J. J. van (Utrecht). Geschichte oder Roman? Das Leben\u2010Jesu von\n            Ernest Renan vorl\u00e4ufig beleuchtet. (From the Dutch) (Hamburg,\n            1864), 191\n\nOtto, Rudolf. Leben und Wirken Jesu nach historisch\u2010kritischer Auffassung.\n            Vortrag (G\u00f6ttingen, 1902), 301\n\nPaul, Ludwig. Die Vorstellung vom Messias und vom Gottesreich bei den\n            Synoptikern (Bonn, 1895), 265\n\nPaulus, Heinrich Eberhard Gottlob. Das Leben Jesu als Grundlage einer\n            reinen Geschichte des Urchristentums (1828), 4, 28, 37, 48 f.,\n            104, 271, 276, 303\n\nPfleiderer, Otto. Das Urchristentum, seine Schriften und Lehren in\n            geschichtlichem Zusammenhang beschrieben (2nd ed., Berlin,\n            1902, 2 vols.) (English translation, _Primitive Christianity_,\n            vols. i. and ii. (vol. i. of original), London, 1906, 1909);\n  Die Entstehung des Urchristentums (Munich, 1905) (English translation,\n              _Christian Origins_, by D. A. Huebsch, London, 1905), 229,\n              293, 309, 311\u2010313, 384\n\nPlank. Geschichte des Christentums (G\u00f6ttingen, 1818), 34\n\nPressel, Theodor. Leben Jesu Christi (1857), 101\n\nPressens\u00e9, Edmond Dehoult de. J\u00e9sus\u2010Christ, son temps, sa vie, son \u0153uvre\n            (Paris, 1865) (English translation, _Jesus Christ, His Times,\n            His Life, His Work_, by A. Harwood, 3rd ed., London, 1869);\n  L\u2019\u00c9cole critique et J\u00e9sus\u2010Christ, \u00e0 propos de la vie de J\u00e9sus de M.\n              Renan, 180, 189\n\nQuinet, Edgar, 108\n\nRauch, C. Jeschua ben Joseph (Deichert, 1899), 326\n\nR\u00e9gla, Paul de. Jesus von Nazareth, (German by A. Just, Leipzig, 1894),\n            294, 325\n\nReimarus, Hermann Samuel. Von dem Zwecke Jesu und seiner J\u00fcnger (published\n            by Lessing, Brunswick, 1778) (English translation, _The Object\n            of Jesus and His disciples, as seen in the New Testament_,\n            edited by A. Voysey, 1879), 4, 9, 10, 13\u201026, 75, 94, 107, 120,\n            159, 166, 172, 221, 239, 264, 303, 312, 319, 345, 365\n\nReinhard, Franz Volkmar. Versuch \u00fcber den Plan, welchen der Stifter der\n            christlichen Religion zum Besten der Menschheit entwarf\n            (1798), 4, 31 f., 48, 206\n\nRenan, Ernest. La Vie de J\u00e9sus (Paris, 1863), German, 1895 (English\n            translation, _The Life of Jesus_, London, 1864; translated\n            with an introduction by W. G. Hutchison, London, 1898), 11,\n            75, 108, 180\u2010192, 193 f., 197, 200, 207, 213 f., 219, 225,\n            229, 252, 259, 290, 295, 303, 309, 310\n\nResch, 273\n\nReuss, Eduard, 124, 182, 189, 228\n\nR\u00e9ville, Albert. La Vie de J\u00e9sus de Renan devant les orthodoxes et devant\n            la critique (1864), 125, 189, 249\n\nRitschl, Albrecht, 1, 124 f., 250, 320\n\nRobertson, J. M. Christianity and Mythology (London, 1900), 290 f.\n\nRogers, A. K. The Life and Teachings of Jesus: a critical analysis, etc.\n            (London and New York, 1894), 249\n\nRosegger, Peter. Frohe Botschaft eines armen S\u00fcnders (Leipzig, 1906), 326\n\nRossi, Giambernardo de. Dissertazione della lingua propria di Christo e\n            degli Ebrei nazionali della Palestina da\u2019 tempi de\u2019 Maccabei\n            in disamina del sentimento di un recente scrittore italiano\n            (Parma, 1772), 271\n\nSalvator. J\u00e9sus\u2010Christ et sa doctrine (Paris, 1838, 2 vols.), 162\n\nSanday, 90\n\nSaumaise, Claude, 270\n\nScaliger, Justus, 270\n\nSchegg, Peter. Sechs B\u00fccher des Lebens Jesu (Freiburg, 1874\u20101875), 294\n\nSchell, Hermann. Christus (Mainz, 1903), 294 f.\n\nSchenkel, Daniel. Das Charakterbild Jesu (Wiesbaden, 1st and 2nd ed. 1864,\n            4th ed. 1873) (English translation, _A Sketch of the Character\n            of Jesus_, London, 1869), 11, 103, 131, 193, 200, 203,\n            205\u2010210, 215, 218, 220, 229, 310\n\nScherer, Edmond, 189, 191, 209\n\nScherer, Edmond, und Athanase Coquerel (jun.). Zwei franz\u00f6sische Stimmen\n            \u00fcber Renans Leben\u2010Jesu (Regensburg, 1864), 189\n\nSchleiermacher, Friedrich Ernst Daniel. Das Leben Jesu (1864), 49, 58, 62\n            f., 70, 73, 80, 81, 85, 88, 89, 101 f., 108, 116, 127, 139,\n            195, 197, 218, 233, 320\n\nSchmiedel, Otto. Die Hauptprobleme der Leben\u2010Jesu\u2010Forschung (T\u00fcbingen,\n            1902), 12, 22, 293, 301, 303, 305, 312\n\nSchmiedel, P., 277\n\nSchmidt, N. \u201cWas \u05d1\u05df \u05e0\u05e9\u05d0 a Messianic Title?\u201d (Journal of the Society for\n            Biblical Literature, xv., 1896), 277\n\nSchmidt, Paul Wilhelm. Die Geschichte Jesu, i. (Freiburg, 1899), ii.\n            (T\u00fcbingen, 1904), 265, 278, 293, 301, 304, 308, 398\n\nSchmoller. \u00dcber die Lehre vom Reiche Gottes im Neuen Testament, 237\n\nScholten, 231\n\nSch\u00f6ttgen, Christian, 285\n\nSch\u00fcrer, Emil. Geschichte des j\u00fcdischen Volkes ins Zeitalter Jesu Christi\n            (2nd ed., 2nd pt., 1886) (English translation, _History of\n            Jewish People in time of Jesus Christ_, Edinburgh, 1885);\n  Das messianische Selbstbewusstsein Jesu Christi (1903), 234, 241, 254\n              f., 287\n\nSchwartzkoppf. Die Weissagungen Jesu Christi von seinem Tode, seiner\n            Auferstehung und Wiederkunft und ihre Erf\u00fcllung (1895), 267\n\nSchweitzer, Albert. Das Messianit\u00e4tsund Leidensgeheimnis. Eine Skizze des\n            Lebens Jesu (T\u00fcbingen, 1901), 281, 287, 328\u2010330, 332 f., 336,\n            339 f., 351, 382 f.\n\nSchweizer, Alexander, 118, 127 f., 200, 219, 265\n\nSemler, Johann Salomo. Beantwortung der Fragmente eines Ungenannten,\n            insbesondere vom Zweck Jesu und seiner J\u00fcnger (Halle, 1779),\n            13, 15, 25 f., 49\n\nSepp, Johann Nepomuk. Das Leben Jesu Christi (Regensburg, 7 vols., 1st ed.\n            1843\u20101846, 2nd ed. 1853\u20101862), 108, 294\n\nSeydel, Rudolf. Das Evangelium Jesu in seinen Verh\u00e4ltnissen zur Buddha\u2010\n            Saga und Buddha\u2010Lehre (Leipzig, 1882);\n  Die Buddha\u2010Legende und das Leben Jesu nach den Evangelien (2nd ed.\n              1897);\n  Buddha und Christus (Breslau, 1884), 269, 290\u2010292\n\nSiegfried, Carl, 285\n\nSimon, Richard, 270\n\nSoden, Hermann Freiherr von. Die wichtigsten Fragen im Leben Jesu (Berlin,\n            1904), 12, 293, 301\u2010308, 312\n\nStalker, J. The Life of Jesus Christ (Edinburgh, 1880) (German, T\u00fcbingen,\n            1898), 217\n\nStapfer, E. La Vie de J\u00e9sus (pt. i. 1896, pt. ii. 1897, pt. iii. 1898)\n            (English translation, _Jesus Christ before His Ministry_, by\n            L. S. Houghton, 1897, _Jesus Christ during His Ministry_, by\n            L. S. Houghton, 1897), 217\n\nStave, 243\n\nStorr, 89\n\nStrauss, David Friedrich. Der Christus des Glaubens und der Jesus der\n            Geschichte. Eine Kritik des Schleiermacher\u2019schen Lebens Jesu\n            (Berlin, 1865);\n  Das Leben Jesu (1st ed. 1835 and 1836, 2 vols., 3rd ed., revised, 1838\n              and 1839, 4th ed. 1840) (_The Life of Jesus Critically\n              Examined_, translated from the 4th German ed. by George\n              Eliot, London, 1846, 3rd ed. with a preface by Otto\n              Pfleiderer, 1898);\n  Das Leben Jesu f\u00fcr das deutsche Volk bearbeitet (Leipzig, 1864, 8th ed.)\n              (English translation, _A New Life of Jesus_, London, 1865),\n              4, 5, 10, 11, 12, 14, 24, 28, 35\u201037, 58, 60, 62, 65, 79 f.,\n              97 f., 68\u2010121, 125, 129 f., 136, 138, 140, 145, 151, 153,\n              158, 159, 161, 162, 163, 166, 171, 173, 180 f., 182, 185,\n              188, 190, 193\u2010199, 200, 201, 209 f., 214, 218, 221, 225,\n              229, 237, 252, 281, 294, 303, 309, 329, 331, 363\n\nStricker. Jesus von Nazareth (1868), 202\n\nTal, T., 286\n\nTholuck, August. Die Glaubw\u00fcrdigkeit der evangelischen Geschichte,\n            zugleich eine Kritik des Lebens Jesu von Strauss (Hamburg,\n            1837) (English translation, _The Credibility of the\n            Evangelical History, illustrated with reference to the\n            __\u201c__Leben\u2010Jesu__\u201d__ of Dr. Strauss_, London, 1844), 70, 97,\n            100 f., 116, 119, 122, 139\n\nTitius, Arthur, 250\n\nUhlhorn, Johann Gerhard Wilhelm. Das Leben Jesu in seinen neueren\n            Darstellungen. Vortr\u00e4ge (1892), 5, 11\n\nUllmann, 100\n\nUsteri, 78\n\nVenturini, Karl Heinrich. Nat\u00fcrliche Geschichte des grossen Propheten von\n            Nazareth (1st ed. 1800\u20101802, 2nd ed. 1806), 4, 38, 44, 45, 50,\n            59, 82, 162, 170, 299, 303, 313, 325, 327\n\nVeuillot, Louis. La Vie de notre Seigneur J\u00e9sus\u2010Christ (Paris, 1863),\n            (German by Waldener, K\u00f6ln\u2010Neuss, 1864), 295\n\nVolkmar, Gustav. Jesus Nazarenus und die erste christliche Zeit, mit den\n            beiden ersten Erz\u00e4hlern (Zurich, 1882), 11, 210, 225\u2010228, 233,\n            256, 301, 309, 313, 328\n\nVolz, Paul. Die j\u00fcdische Eschatologie von Daniel bis Akiba (T\u00fcbingen,\n            1903), 234\n\nVossius, 270\n\nWallon, H. Vie de notre Seigneur J\u00e9sus\u2010Christ (Paris, 1865), 295\n\nWalton, Brian, 270\n\nWeber, Ferdinand. System der altsynagogalen pal\u00e4stinensischen Theologie\n            (Leipzig, 1880, 2nd ed. 1897), 269, 285 f.\n\nWeiffenbach, Wilhelm. Der Wiederkunftsgedanke Jesu (1873), 222, 228\u2010233,\n            237, 250\n\nWeinel, Heinrich. Jesus im neunzehnten Jahrhundert (1904), 12, 398\n\nWeiss, Bernhard. Das Leben Jesu (1st ed. 2 vols. 1882, 2nd ed. 1884)\n            (English translation, _The Life of Jesus_, by J. W. Hope,\n            Edinburgh, 1883), 10, 193, 216\u2010218, 250, 262\n\nWeiss, Johannes. Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes (1st ed. 1892, 2nd ed.\n            1900), 9, 10, 11, 23, 61, 91, 92, 136, 221, 222, 237\u2010240, 249\n            f., 256, 262, 265\u2010267, 278, 301, 309, 336, 349, 383, 388\n\nWeisse, Christian Hermann. Die evangelische Geschichte kritisch und\n            philosophisch bearbeitet (2 vols., Leipzig, 1838);\n  Die Evangelienfrage in ihrem gegenw\u00e4rtigen Stadium (Leipzig, 1856), 12,\n              118, 120, 121\u2010136, 140, 162, 195, 198, 200, 204 f., 218,\n              229, 232, 294, 309, 328, 341, 357, 374, 378, 389\n\nWeitbrecht, M. G. Das Leben Jesu nach den vier Evangelien (1881), 217\n\nWeizs\u00e4cker, Karl Heinrich. Untersuchungen \u00fcber die evangelische\n            Geschichte, ihre Quellen und den Gang ihrer Entwicklung\n            (Gotha, 1864), 190, 193, 200\u2010202, 205, 207, 218, 229, 259\n\nWellhausen, Julius. Israelitische und j\u00fcdische Geschichte (3rd ed. 1897,\n            4th ed. 1902);\n  Das Evangelium Marci (1903);\n  Das Evangelium Matth\u00e4i (1904);\n  Das Evangelium Lucae (1904);\n  Skizzen und Vorarbeiten (1899), 254, 269, 276, 277, 285, 287, 289, 391\n\nWendt, Hans Heinrich. Die Lehre Jesu (G\u00f6ttingen, pt. i. 1886, pt. ii.\n            1890) (English translation, _The Teaching of Jesus_, by J.\n            Wilson, Edinburgh, 1892) (2nd German ed. 1902, 3rd ed. 1903),\n            219, 249, 265\n\nWernle, Paul. Die Anf\u00e4nge unserer Religion (T\u00fcbingen\u2010Leipzig, 1901, 2nd\n            ed. 1904) (English translation, _The Beginnings of\n            Christianity_, by G. A. Bienemann, London, 1903);\n  Die Reichgotteshoffnung in den \u00e4ltesten christlichen Dokumenten und bei\n              Jesus (1903), 241, 252\u2010254, 265, 267, 314, 398\n\nWette, Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de, 72, 78, 86, 103, 119, 208\n\nWettstein, Johann Jakob, 285\n\nWhateley, Richard. Historic Doubts relative to Napoleon Bonaparte (London,\n            1819) (adapted as Das Leben Napoleons kritisch gepr\u00fcft), 112\n\nWieseler, Karl Georg. Chronologische Synopse der vier Evangelien (Hamburg,\n            1843), 117\n\nWiesinger, Albert. Aphorismen gegen Renans Leben\u2010Jesu (Vienna, 1864), 117,\n            190\n\nWidmanstadt, Joh. Alb., 270\n\nWilke, Christian Gottlob. Tradition und Mythe (Leipzig, 1837);\n  Der Urevangelist (Dresden and Leipzig, 1838), 97, 112\u2010114, 119, 121,\n              124, 140 f., 148, 195, 202, 225, 328\n\nWittichen, Karl. Leben Jesu (Jena, 1876), 218\n\nWrede, Wilhelm. Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien (G\u00f6ttingen, 1901),\n            9, 11, 25, 131, 210, 221, 256, 257, 264, 309, 328\u2010349, 350,\n            358, 380, 384 f., 389, 391 f., 399\n\nW\u00fcnsche, August. Neue Beitr\u00e4ge zur Erl\u00e4uterung der Evangelien aus Talmud\n            und Midrasch (G\u00f6ttingen, 1878);\n  Jesus in seiner Stellung zu den Frauen (1876), 269, 285 f.\n\nXavier, Hieronymus. Historia Christi persice conscripta (Lugd. 1639), 14\n\nZiegler, Heinrich. Der geschichtliche Christus (1891), 217\n\nZiegler, Theobald, 69\n\n\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n\n    1 _Quoted by Dr. Inge in the Hibbert Journal for Jan. 1910, p. 438\n      (from __\u201c__Jesus or Christ,__\u201d__ p. 32)._\n\n    2 _\u201c__Quest,__\u201d__ p. 4._\n\n    3 An order founded in 1776 by Professor Adam Weishaupt of Ingolstadt\n      in Bavaria. Its aim was the furtherance of rational religion as\n      opposed to orthodox dogma; its organisation was largely modelled on\n      that of the Jesuits. At its most flourishing period it numbered over\n      2000 members, including the rulers of several German\n      States.\u2014TRANSLATOR.\n\n    4 D. Fr. Strauss, _Gespr\u00e4che von Ulrich von Hutten_. Leipzig, 1860.\n\n    5 W. Wrede, _Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien_. (The Messianic\n      Secret in the Gospels.) G\u00f6ttingen, 1901, pp. 280\u2010282.\n\n    6 In the author\u2019s usage \u201cthe Marcan hypothesis\u201d means the theory that\n      the Gospel of Mark is not only the earliest and most valuable source\n      for the facts, but differs from the other Gospels in embodying a\n      more or less clear and historically intelligible view of the\n      connexion of events. See Chaps. X. and XIV. below.\u2014TRANSLATOR.\n\n    7 Dr. Christoph Friedrich von Ammon, _Fortbildung des Christentums_,\n      Leipzig, 1840, vol. iv. p. 156 ff.\n\n    8 Hase, _Geschichte Jesu_, Leipzig, 1876, pp. 110\u2010162. The second\n      edition, published in 1891, carries the survey no further than the\n      first.\n\n    9 _Das Leben Jesu in seinen neueren Darstellungen_, 1892, five\n      lectures.\n\n   10 W. Frantzen, _Die __\u201c__Leben\u2010Jesu__\u201d__ Bewegung seit Strauss_,\n      Dorpat, 1898.\n\n   11 _Theol. Rundschau_, ii. 59\u201067 (1899); iii. 9\u201019 (1900).\n\n   12 Von Soden\u2019s study, _Die wichtigsten Fragen im Leben Jesu_, 1904,\n      belongs here only in a very limited sense, since it does not seek to\n      show how the problems have gradually emerged in the various Lives of\n      Jesus.\n\n   13 Hase, _Geschichte Jesu_, 1876, pp. 112, 113.\n\n   14 _Historia Christi persice conscripta simulque multis modis\n      contaminata a Hieronymo Xavier, lat. reddita et animadd, notata a\n      Ludovico de Dieu._ Lugd. 1639.\n\n   15 Johann Jakob Hess, _Geschichte der drei letzten Lebensjahre Jesu_.\n      (History of the Last Three Years of the Life of Jesus.) 3 vols. 1768\n      ff.\n\n   16 D. F. Strauss, _Hermann Samuel Reimarus und seine Schutzschrift f\u00fcr\n      die vern\u00fcnftigen Verehrer Gottes_. (Reimarus and his Apology for the\n      Rational Worshippers of God.) 1862.\n\n   17 The quotations inserted without special introduction are, of course,\n      from Reimarus. It is Dr. Schweitzer\u2019s method to lead up by a\n      paragraph of exposition to one of these characteristic\n      phrases.\u2014TRANSLATOR.\n\n   18 Otto Schmiedel, _Die Hauptprobleme der Leben\u2010Jesu\u2010Forschung_.\n      T\u00fcbingen, 1902.\n\n   19 D\u00f6derlein also wrote a defence of Jesus against the Fragmentist:\n      _Fragmente und Antifragmente_. Nuremberg, 1778.\n\n   20 This is perhaps the place to mention the account of the life of\n      Jesus which is given in the first part of Plank\u2019s _Geschichte des\n      Christentums_. G\u00f6ttingen, 1818.\n\n   21 _Briefe das Studium der Theologie betreffend_, 1st ed., 1780\u20101781;\n      2nd ed., 1785\u20101786; _Werke_, ed. Suphan, vol. x.\n\n   22 A Life of Jesus which is completely dependent on the Commentaries of\n      Paulus is that of Greiling, superintendent at Aschersleben, _Das\n      Leben Jesu von Nazareth Ein religi\u00f6ses Handbuch f\u00fcr Geist und Herz\n      der Freunde Jesu unter den Gebildeten._ (The Life of Jesus of\n      Nazareth, a religious Handbook for the Minds and Hearts of the\n      Friends of Jesus among the Cultured.) Halle, 1813.\n\n   23 Paulus prided himself on a very exact acquaintance with the physical\n      and geographical conditions of Palestine. He had a wide knowledge of\n      the literature of Eastern travel.\u2014TRANSLATOR.\n\n   24 This interpretation, it ought to be remarked, seems to be implied by\n      the ancient reading. \u201cFew things are needful, or one,\u201d given in the\n      margin of the Revised Version.\u2014TRANSLATOR.\n\n   25 Associations of students, at that time of a political\n      character.\u2014TRANSLATOR.\n\n   26 The ground of the inference is that, according to this theory, they\n      did not attach much importance to the keeping of the Feasts at\n      Jerusalem. Dr. Schweitzer reminds us in a footnote that a certain\n      want of clearness is due to the fact of this work having been\n      compiled from lecture\u2010notes.\n\n   27 See Theobald Ziegler, \u201cZur Biographie von David Friedrich Strauss\u201d\n      (Materials for the Biography of D. F. S.), in the _Deutsche Revue_,\n      May, June, July 1905. The hitherto unpublished letters to Binder\n      throw some light on the development of Strauss during the formative\n      years before the publication of the Life of Jesus.\n\n      Binder, later Director of the Board of Studies at Stuttgart, was the\n      friend who delivered the funeral allocution at the grave of Strauss.\n      This last act of friendship exposed him to enmity and calumny of all\n      kinds. For the text of his short address, see the _Deutsche Revue_,\n      1905, p. 107.\n\n   28 _Deutsche Revue_, May 1905, p. 199.\n\n   29 _Ibid._ p. 201.\n\n   30 _Deutsche Revue_, p. 203.\n\n   31 Assistant lecturer.\n\n   32 _Ibid._, June 1905, p. 343 ff.\n\n   33 See Hase, _Leben Jesu_, 1876, p. 124. The \u201ctext\u2010book\u201d referred to is\n      Hase\u2019s first Life of Jesus.\n\n   34 He to whom my plaint is\n      Knows I shed no tear;\n      She to whom I say this\n      Feels I have no fear.\n\n      Time has come for fading,\n      Like a glimmering ray,\n      Or a sense\u2010evading\n      Strain that floats away.\n\n      May, though fainter, dimmer,\n      Only, clear and pure,\n      To the last the glimmer\n      And the strain endure.\n\n      The persons alluded to in the first verse are his son, who, as a\n      physician, attended him in his illness, and to whom he was deeply\n      attached, and a very old friend to whom the verses were\n      addressed.\u2014TRANSLATOR.\n\n   35 2 Kings iv. 42\u201044.\n\n   36 _Probabilia de evangelii et epistolarum Ioannis Apostoli indole et\n      origine eruditorum iudiciis modeste subjecit C. Th. Bretschneider._\n      Leipzig, 1820.\n\n   37 Dr. Fr. Schleiermacher, _\u00dcber die Schriften des Lukas. Ein\n      kritischer Versuch._ (The Writings of Luke. A critical essay.) C.\n      Reimer, Berlin, 1817.\n\n   38 Koppe, _Marcus non epitomator Matth\u00e4i_, 1782.\n\n   39 Storr, _De Fontibus Evangeliorum Mt. et Lc._, 1794.\n\n   40 Gratz, _Neuer Versuch, die Entstehung der drei ersten Evangelien zu\n      erkl\u00e4ren_, 1812.\n\n   41 _V. sup._ p. 35 f. For the earlier history of the question see F. C.\n      Baur, _Krit. Untersuch. \u00fcber die kanonischen Evangelien_, T\u00fcbingen,\n      1847, pp. 1\u201076.\n\n   42 So called because largely based on the reference in Luke i. 1, to\n      the \u201cmany\u201d who had \u201ctaken in hand to draw up a narrative\n      (\u03b4\u03b5\u03ae\u03b3\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2).\u201d\u2014TRANSLATOR.\n\n   43 We take the translation of this striking image from Sanday\u2019s \u201cSurvey\n      of the Synoptic Question,\u201d _The Expositor_, 4th ser. vol. 3, p. 307.\n\n   44 For general title see above. First part: \u201cHerr Dr. Steudel, or the\n      Self\u2010deception of the Intellectual Supernaturalism of our Time.\u201d 182\n      pp. Second part: \u201cDie Herren Eschenmayer und Menzel.\u201d 247 pp. Third\n      part: \u201c_Die evangelische Kirchenzeitung_, _die Jahrb\u00fccher f\u00fcr\n      wissenschaftliche Kritik_ und _Die theologischen Studien und\n      Kritiken_ in ihrer Stellung zu meiner Kritik des Lebens Jesu.\u201d (The\n      attitude taken up by ... in regard to my critical Life of Jesus.)\n      179 pp. In the _Studien und Kritiken_ two reviews had appeared: a\n      critical review by Dr. Ullmann (vol. for 1836, pp. 770\u2010816) and that\n      of M\u00fcller, written from the standpoint of the \u201ccommon faith\u201d (vol.\n      for 1836, pp. 816\u2010890). In the _Evangelische Kirchenzeitung_ the\n      articles referred to are the following: _Vorwort_ (Editorial\n      Survey), 1836, pp. 1\u20106, 9\u201014, 17\u201023, 25\u201031, 33\u201038, 41\u201045; \u201cThe\n      Future of our Theology\u201d (1836, pp. 281 ff.); \u201cThoughts suggested by\n      Dr. Strauss\u2019s essay on \u2018The Relation of Theological Criticism and\n      Speculation to the Church\u2019 \u201d (1836, pp. 382 ff.); Strauss\u2019s essay\n      had appeared in the _Allgemeine Kirchenzeitung_ for 1836, No. 39.\n      \u201c_Die kritische Bearbeitung des Lebens Jesu von D. F. Strauss nach\n      ihrem wissenschaftlichen Werte beleuchtet_\u201d (An Inquiry into the\n      Scientific Value of D. F. Strauss\u2019s Critical Study of the Life of\n      Jesus.) By Prof. Dr. Harless. Erlangen, 1836.\n\n   45 \u201cEverything turns to the advantage of the elect, even to the\n      obscurities of scripture, for they treat them with reverence because\n      of its perspicuities; everything turns to the disadvantage of the\n      reprobate, even to the perspicuities of scripture, for they\n      blaspheme them because they cannot understand its obscurities.\u201d For\n      the title of Harless\u2019s essay, see end of previous note.\n\n   46 _Das Leben\u2010Jesu kritisch bearbeitet von Dr. D. F. Strauss. Gepr\u00fcft\n      f\u00fcr Theologen und Nicht\u2010Theologen_, von Wilhelm Hoffmann. 1836.\n      (Strauss\u2019s Critical Study of the Life of Jesus examined for the\n      Benefit of Theologians and non\u2010Theologians.)\n\n   47 _Apologie des Lebens Jesu gegen\u00fcber dem neuesten Versuch, es in\n      Mythen aufzul\u00f6sen._ (Defence of the Life of Jesus against the latest\n      attempt to resolve it into myth.) By Joh. Ernst Osiander, Professor\n      at the Evangelical Seminary at Maulbronn.\n\n   48 _\u00dcber das Leben\u2010Jesu von Strauss_, von Franz Baader, 1836. Here may\n      be mentioned also the lectures which Krabbe (subsequently Professor\n      at Rostock) delivered against Strauss: _Vorlesungen \u00fcber das Leben\u2010\n      Jesu f\u00fcr Theologen und Nicht\u2010Theologen_ (Lectures on the Life of\n      Jesus for Theologians and non\u2010Theologians), Hamburg, 1839. They are\n      more tolerable to non\u2010theologians than to theologians. The author at\n      a later period distinguished himself by the fanatical zeal with\n      which he urged on the deposition of his colleague, Michael\n      Baumgarten, whose _Geschichte Jesu_, published in 1859, though fully\n      accepting the miracles, was weighed in the balance by Krabbe and\n      found light\u2010weight by the Rostock standard.\n\n   49 For the title, see head of chapter. Tholuck was born in 1799 at\n      Breslau, and became in 1826 Professor at Halle, where he worked\n      until his death in 1877. With the possible exception of Neander, he\n      was the most distinguished representative of the mediating theology.\n      His piety was deep and his learning was wide, but his judgment went\n      astray in the effort to steer his freight of pietism safely between\n      the rocks of rationalism and the shoals of orthodoxy.\n\n   50 _Stud. u. Krit._, 1836, p. 777. In his \u201cOpen letter to Dr. Ullmann,\u201d\n      Strauss examines this suggestion in a serious and dignified fashion,\n      and shows that nothing would be gained by such\n      expedients.\u2014_Streitschriften_, 3rd pt., p. 129 ff.\n\n   51 _Das Leben Jesu\u2010Christi._ Hamburg, 1837. Aug. Wilhelm Neander was\n      born in 1789 at G\u00f6ttingen, of Jewish parents, his real name being\n      David Mendel. He was baptized in 1806, studied theology, and in 1813\n      was appointed to a professorship in Berlin, where he displayed a\n      many\u2010sided activity and exercised a beneficent influence. He died in\n      1850. The best\u2010known of his writings is the _Geschichte der\n      Pflanzung und Leitung der christlichen Kirche durch die Apostel_\n      (History of the Propagation and Administration of the Christian\n      Church by the Apostles), Hamburg, 1832\u20101833, of which a reprint\n      appeared as late as 1890. Neander was a man not only of deep piety,\n      but also of great solidity of character.\n\n      Strauss, in his Life of Jesus of 1864, passes the following judgment\n      upon Neander\u2019s work: \u201cA book such as in these circumstances\n      Neander\u2019s Life of Jesus was bound to be calls forth our sympathy;\n      the author himself acknowledges in his preface that it bears upon it\n      only too clearly the marks of the time of crisis, division, pain,\n      and distress in which it was produced.\u201d\n\n      Of the innumerable \u201cpositive\u201d Lives of Jesus which appeared about\n      the end of the \u2019thirties we may mention that of Julius Hartmann (2\n      vols., 1837\u20101839). Among the later Lives of Jesus of the mediating\n      theology may be mentioned that of Theodore Pressel of T\u00fcbingen,\n      which was much read at the time of its appearance (1857, 592 pp.).\n      It aims primarily at edification. We may also mention the _Leben des\n      Herrn Jesu Christi_ by Wil. Jak. Lichtenstein (Erlangen, 1856),\n      which reflects the ideas of von Hofmann.\n\n   52 For title see head of chapter.\n\n   53 _Aphorismen zur Apologie des Dr. Strauss und seines Werkes._ Grimma,\n      1838.\n\n   54 From the _Xame Xenien_, p. 259 of Goethe\u2019s Works, ed. Hempel.\n\n   55 _Die Wissenschaft und die Kirche. Zur Verst\u00e4ndigung \u00fcber die\n      Straussische Angelegenheit._ (A contribution to the adjustment of\n      opinion regarding the Strauss affair.) By Daniel Schenkel,\n      Licentiate in Theology and Privat\u2010Docent of the University of Basle,\n      with a dedicatory letter to Herr Dr. L\u00fccke, Konsistorialrat. Basle,\n      1839.\n\n   56 _Dr. Strauss und die Z\u00fcricher Kirche. Eine Stimme aus\n      Norddeutschland. Mit einer Vorrede von Dr. W. M. L. de Wette._ (A\n      voice from North Germany. With an introduction by Dr. W. M. L. de\n      Wette.) Basle, 1839.\n\n   57 _\u00dcber theologische Lehrfreiheit und Lehrerwahl f\u00fcr Hochschulen._\n      Zurich, 1839.\n\n   58 For full title see head of chapter. Reference may also be made to\n      the same author\u2019s _Fortbildung des Christentums zur Weltreligion_.\n      (Development of Christianity into a World\u2010religion.) Leipzig,\n      1833\u20101835. 4 vols. Ammon was born in 1766 at Bayreuth; became\n      Professor of theology at Erlangen in 1790; was Professor in\n      G\u00f6ttingen from 1794 to 1804, and, after being back in Erlangen in\n      the meantime, became in 1813 Senior Court Chaplain and\n      \u201cOberkonsistorialrat\u201d at Dresden, where he died in 1850. He was the\n      most distinguished representative of historico\u2010critical rationalism.\n\n   59 He is at one with Strauss in rejecting the explanation of this\n      miracle on the analogy of an expedited natural process, to which\n      Hase had pointed, and which was first suggested by Augustine in\n      _Tract viii. in Ioann._: \u201cThat Christ changed water into wine is\n      nothing wonderful to those who consider the works of God. What was\n      there done in the water\u2010pots, God does yearly in the vine.\u201d\n      [Augustine\u2019s words are: Miraculum quidem Domini nostri Jesu Christi,\n      quo de aqua vinum fecit, non est mirum eis qui noverunt quia Deus\n      fecit (_i.e._ that He who did it was God). Ipse enim fecit vinum\n      illo die ... in sex hydriis, qui omni anno facit hoc in vitibus.]\n      Nevertheless the poorest naturalistic explanation is at least better\n      than the resignation of L\u00fccke, who is content to wait \u201cuntil it\n      please God through the further progress of Christian thought and\n      life to bring about the solution of this riddle in its natural and\n      historical aspects.\u201d L\u00fccke, _Johannes\u2010Kommentar_, p. 474 ff.\n\n   60 Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg was born in 1802 at Fr\u00f6ndenberg in the\n      \u201ccounty\u201d (_Grafschaft_) of Mark, became Professor of Theology in\n      Berlin in 1826, and died there in 1869. He founded the _Evangelische\n      Kirchenzeitung_ in 1827.\n\n   61 _Bericht \u00fcber des Herrn Dr. Strauss\u2019 historische Bearbeitung des\n      Lebens Jesu._\n\n   62 _Dr. Strauss\u2019 Leben\u2010Jesu aus dem Standpunkt des Catholicismus\n      betrachtet._\n\n   63 Johann Leonhard Hug was born in 1765 at Constance, and had been\n      since 1791 Professor of New Testament Theology at Freiburg, where he\n      died in 1846. He had a wide knowledge of his own department of\n      theology, and his Introduction to the New Testament Writings won him\n      some reputation among Protestant theologians also.\n\n   64 Among the Catholic \u201cLeben\u2010Jesu,\u201d of which the authors found their\n      incentive in the desire to oppose Strauss, the first place belongs\n      to that of Kuhn of T\u00fcbingen. Unfortunately only the first volume\n      appeared (1838, 488 pp.). Here there is a serious and scholarly\n      attempt to grapple with the problems raised by Strauss. Of less\n      importance is the work of the same title in seven volumes, by the\n      Munich Priest and Professor of History, Nepomuk Sepp (1843\u20101846; 2nd\n      ed. 1853\u20101862).\n\n   65 _\u00dcber das Leben\u2010Jesu von Doctor Strauss._ By Edgar Quinet.\n      Translated from the French by Georg Kleine. Published by J. Erdmann\n      and C. C. M\u00fcller, 1839. In 1840 Strauss\u2019s book was translated into\n      French by M. Littr\u00e9. It failed, however, to exercise any influence\n      upon French theology or literature. Strauss is one of those German\n      thinkers who always remain foreign and unintelligible to the French\n      mind. Could Renan have written his Life of Jesus as he did if he had\n      had even a partial understanding of Strauss?\n\n   66 Anna Katharina Emmerich was born in 1774 at Flamske near Coesfeld.\n      Her parents were peasants. In 1803 she took up her abode with the\n      Augustinian nuns of the convent of Agnetenberg at D\u00fclmen. After the\n      dissolution of the convent, she lived in a single room in D\u00fclmen\n      itself. The \u201cstigmata\u201d showed themselves first in 1812. She died on\n      the 9th of February 1824. Brentano had been in her neighbourhood\n      since 1819. _Das bittere Leiden unseres Herrn Jesu Christi_ (The\n      Bitter Sufferings of Our Lord Jesus Christ) was issued by Brentano\n      himself in 1834. The _Life of Jesus_ was published on the basis of\n      notes left by him\u2014he died in 1842\u2014in three volumes, 1858\u20101860, at\n      Regensburg, under the sanction of the Bishop of Limberg.\n\n      First volume.\u2014From the death of St. Joseph to the end of the first\n      year after the Baptism of Jesus in Jordan. Communicated between May\n      1, 1821, and October 1, 1822.\n\n      Second volume.\u2014From the beginning of the second year after the\n      Baptism in Jordan to the close of the second Passover in Jerusalem.\n      Communicated between October 1, 1822, and April 30, 1823.\n\n      Third volume.\u2014From the close of the second Passover in Jerusalem to\n      the Mission of the Holy Spirit. Communicated between October 21,\n      1823, and January 8, 1824, and from July 29, 1820, to May 1821.\n\n      Both works have been frequently reissued, the \u201cBitter Sufferings\u201d as\n      late as 1894.\n\n   67 _Ausz\u00fcge aus der Schrift __\u201c__Das Leben Luthers kritisch\n      bearbeitet.__\u201d_ (Extracts from a work entitled \u201cA Critical Study of\n      the Life of Luther.\u201d) By Dr. Casuar (\u201cCassowary\u201d; Strauss =\n      Ostrich). Mexico, 1836. Edited by Julius Ferdinand Wurm.\n\n   68 _Das Leben Napoleons kritisch gepr\u00fcft._ (A Critical Examination of\n      the Life of Napoleon.) From the English, with some pertinent\n      applications to Strauss\u2019s Life of Jesus, 1836. [The English original\n      referred to seems to have been Whateley\u2019s _Historic Doubts relative\n      to Napoleon Bonaparte_, published in 1819, and primarily directed\n      against Hume\u2019s _Essay on Miracles_.\u2014TRANSLATOR.]\n\n   69 _La Vie de Strauss. \u00c9crite en l\u2019an 1839._ Paris, 1839.\n\n   70 Ch. G. Wilke, _Tradition und Mythe_. A contribution to the\n      historical criticism of the Gospels in general, and in particular to\n      the appreciation of the treatment of myth and idealism in Strauss\u2019s\n      \u201cLife of Jesus.\u201d Leipzig, 1837.\n\n      Christian Gottlob Wilke was born in 1786 at Werm, near Zeitz,\n      studied theology and became pastor of Hermannsdorf in the\n      Erzgebirge. He resigned this office in 1837 in order to devote\n      himself to his studies, perhaps also because he had become conscious\n      of an inner unrest. In 1845 he prepared the way for his conversion\n      to Catholicism by publishing a work entitled \u201cCan a Protestant go\n      over to the Roman Church with a good conscience?\u201d He took the\n      decisive step in August 1846. Later he removed to W\u00fcrzburg.\n      Subsequently he recast his famous _Clavis Novi Testamenti\n      Philologica_\u2014which had appeared in 1840\u20101841\u2014in the form of a\n      lexicon for Catholic students of theology. His _Hermeneutik des\n      Neuen Testaments_, published in 1843\u20101844, appeared in 1853 as\n      _Biblische Hermeneutik nach katholischen Grunds\u00e4tzen_ (The Science\n      of Biblical Interpretation according to Catholic principles). He was\n      engaged in recasting his Clavis when he died in 1854.\n\n      Of later works dealing with the question of myth, we may refer to\n      Emanuel Marius, _Die Pers\u00f6nlichkeit Jesu mit besonderer R\u00fccksicht\n      auf die Mythologien und Mysterien der alten V\u00f6lker_ (The Personality\n      of Jesus, with special reference to the Mythologies and Mysteries of\n      Ancient Nations), Leipzig, 1879, 395 pp.; and Otto Frick, _Mythus\n      und Evangelium_ (Myth and Gospel), Heilbronn, 1879, 44 pp.\n\n   71 See p. 89 above.\n\n   72 _Streitschriften._ Drittes Heft, pp. 55\u2010126: _Die Jahrb\u00fccher f\u00fcr\n      wissenschaftliche Kritik_: i. _Allgemeines Verh\u00e4ltnis der\n      Hegel\u2019schen Philosophie zur theologischen Kritik_: ii. _Hegels\n      Ansicht \u00fcber den historischen Wert der evangelischen Geschichte_\n      (Hegel\u2019s View of the Historical Value of the Gospel History); iii.\n      _Verschiedene Richtungen innerhalb der Hegel\u2019schen Schule in Betreff\n      der Christologie_ (Various Tendencies within the Hegelian School in\n      regard to Christology). 1837.\n\n   73 _Wissenschaftliche Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte._ (Scientific\n      Criticism of the Gospel History.) August Ebrard. Frankfort, 1842;\n      3rd ed., 1868.\n\n      Johannes Heinrich Aug. Ebrard was born in 1818 at Erlangen, was,\n      first, Professor of Reformed Theology at Zurich and Erlangen,\n      afterwards (1853) went to Speyer as \u201cKonsistorialrat,\u201d but was\n      unable to cope with the Liberal opposition there, and returned in\n      1861 to Erlangen, where he died in 1888.\n\n      A characteristic example of Ebrard\u2019s way of treating the subject is\n      his method of meeting the objection that a fish with a piece of\n      money in its jaws could not have taken the hook. \u201cThe fish might\n      very well,\u201d he explains, \u201chave thrown up the piece of money from its\n      belly into the opening of the jaws in the moment in which Peter\n      opened its mouth.\u201d Upon this Strauss remarks: \u201cThe inventor of this\n      argument tosses it down before us as who should say, \u2018I know very\n      well it is bad, but it is good enough for you, at any rate so long\n      as the Church has livings to distribute and we Konsistorialrats have\n      to examine the theological candidates.\u2019 \u201d Strauss, therefore,\n      characterises Ebrard\u2019s Life of Jesus as \u201cOrthodoxy restored on a\n      basis of impudence.\u201d The pettifogging character of this work made a\n      bad impression even in Conservative quarters.\n\n   74 _Chronologische Synopse der vier Evangelien._ (Chronological\n      Synopsis of the four Gospels.) By Karl Georg Wieseler. Hamburg,\n      1843. Wieseler was born in 1813 at Altencelle (Hanover), and was\n      Professor successively at G\u00f6ttingen, Kiel, and Greifswald. He died\n      in 1883.\n\n   75 Johann Peter Lange, Pastor in Duisburg, afterwards Professor at\n      Zurich in place of Strauss. _Das Leben Jesu._ 5 vols., 1844\u20101847.\n\n   76 Georg Heinrich August Ewald, _Geschichte des Volkes Israel_.\n      (History of the People of Israel.) 7 vols. G\u00f6ttingen, 1843\u20101859; 3rd\n      ed., 1864\u20101870. Fifth vol., _Geschichte Christus\u2019 und seiner Zeit_.\n      (History of Christ and His Times.) 1855; 2nd ed., 1857.\n\n      Ewald was born in 1803 at G\u00f6ttingen, where in 1827 he was appointed\n      Professor of Oriental Languages. Having made a protest against the\n      repeal of the fundamental law of the Hanoverian Constitution he was\n      removed from his office and went to T\u00fcbingen, first as Professor of\n      philology; in 1841 he was transferred to the theological faculty. In\n      1848 he returned to G\u00f6ttingen. When, in 1866, he refused to take the\n      oath of allegiance to the King of Prussia, he was compulsorily\n      retired, and, in consequence of imprudent expressions of opinion,\n      was also deprived of the right to lecture. The town of Hanover chose\n      him as its representative in the North German and in the German\n      Reichstag, where he sat among the Guelph opposition, in the middle\n      of the centre party. He died in 1875 at G\u00f6ttingen. His contributions\n      to New Testament studies were much inferior to his Oriental and Old\n      Testament researches. His Life of Jesus, in particular, is\n      worthless, in spite of the Old Testament and Oriental learning with\n      which it was furnished forth. He lays great stress upon making the\n      genitive of \u201cChristus\u201d not \u201cChristi,\u201d but, according to German\n      inflection, \u201cChristus\u2019.\u201d\n\n   77 Ammon, _Johannem evangelii auctorem ab editore huius libri fuisse\n      diversum_, Erlangen, 1811.\n\n   78 No value whatever can be ascribed to the Life of Jesus by Werner\n      Hahn, Berlin, 1844, 196 pp. The \u201cdidactic presentation of the\n      history\u201d which the author offers is not designed to meet the demands\n      of historical criticism. He finds in the Gospels no bare history,\n      but, above all, the inculcation of the principle of love. He casts\n      to the winds all attempt to draw the portrait of Jesus as a true\n      historian, being only concerned with its inner truth and \u201cidealises\n      artistically and scientifically\u201d the actual course of the outward\n      life of Jesus. \u201cIt is never the business of a history,\u201d he explains,\n      \u201cto relate only the bare truth. It belongs to a mere planless and\n      aimless chronicle to relate everything that happened in such a way\n      that its words are a mere slavish reflection of the outward course\n      of events.\u201d\n\n   79 Hase, _Geschichte Jesu_, 1876, p. 128.\n\n   80 _Philosophische Dogmatik oder Philosophie des Christentums._\n      Leipzig, 1855\u20101862.\n\n   81 At the end of his preface he makes the striking remark: \u201cI confess I\n      cannot conceive of any possible way by which Christianity can take\n      on a form which will make it once more the truth for our time,\n      without having recourse to the aid of philosophy; and I rejoice to\n      believe that this opinion is shared by many of the ablest and most\n      respected of present\u2010day theologians.\u201d\n\n   82 Vol. ii. pp. 438\u2010543. _Philosophische Schlussbetrachtung \u00fcber die\n      religi\u00f6se Bedeutung der Pers\u00f6nlichkeit Christi und der evangelischen\n      \u00dcberlieferung._ (Concluding Philosophical Estimate of the\n      Significance of the Person of Christ and of the Gospel Tradition.)\n\n   83 Christian Gottlob Wilke, formerly pastor of Hermannsdorf in the\n      Erzgebirge. _Der Urevangelist, oder eine exegetisch\u2010kritische\n      Untersuchung des Verwandschaftsverh\u00e4ltnisses der drei ersten\n      Evangelien._ (The Earliest Evangelist, a Critical and Exegetical\n      Inquiry into the Relationship of the First Three Gospels.) The\n      subsequent course of the discussion of the Marcan hypothesis was as\n      follows:\u2014\n\n      In answer to Wilke there appeared a work signed Philosophotos\n      Aletheias, _Die Evangelien, ihr Geist, ihre Verfasser, und ihr\n      Verh\u00e4ltnis zu einander_. (The Gospels, their Spirit, their Authors,\n      and their relation to one another.) Leipzig, 1845, 440 pp. The\n      author sees in Paul the evil genius of early Christianity, and\n      thinks that the work of scientific criticism must be directed to\n      detecting and weeding out the Pauline elements in the Gospels. Luke\n      is in his opinion a party\u2010writing, biased by Paulinism; in fact Paul\n      had a share in its preparation, and this is what Paul alludes to\n      when he speaks in Romans ii. 16, xi. 28, and xvi. 25 of \u201chis\u201d\n      Gospel. His hand is especially recognisable in chapters i.\u2010iii.,\n      vii., ix., xi., xviii., xx., xxi., and xxiv. Mark consists of\n      extracts from Matthew and Luke; John presupposes the other three.\n      The T\u00fcbingen standpoint was set forth by Baur in his work,\n      _Kritische Untersuchungen \u00fcber die kanonischen Evangelien_. (A\n      Critical Examination of the Canonical Gospels.) T\u00fcbingen, 1847, 622\n      pp. According to him Mark is based on Matthew and Luke. At the same\n      time, however, the irreconcilability of the Fourth Gospel with the\n      Synoptists is for the first time fully worked out, and the\n      refutation of its historical character is carried into detail.\n\n      The order Matthew, Mark, Luke is defended by Adolf Hilgenfeld in his\n      work _Die Evangelien_. Leipzig, 1854, 355 pp.\n\n      Karl Reinhold K\u00f6stlin\u2019s work, _Der Ursprung und die Komposition der\n      synoptischen Evangelien_ (Origin and Composition of the Synoptic\n      Gospels), is rendered nugatory by obscurities and compromises.\n      Stuttgart, 1853, 400 pp. The priority of Mark is defended by Edward\n      Reuss, _Die Geschichte der heiligen Schriften des Neuen Testaments_\n      (History of the Sacred Writings of the New Testament), 1842; H.\n      Ewald, _Die drei ersten Evangelien_, 1850; A. Ritschl, _Die\n      Entstehung der altkatholischen Kirche_ (Origin of the ancient\n      Catholic Church), 1850; A. R\u00e9ville, _\u00c9tudes critiques sur l\u2019\u00c9vangile\n      selon St. Matthieu_, 1862. In 1863 the foundations of the Marcan\n      hypothesis were relaid, more firmly than before, by Holtzmann\u2019s\n      work, _Die synoptischen Evangelien_. Leipzig, 1863, 514 pp.\n\n   84 Alexander Schweizer, _Das Evangelium Johannis nach seinem inneren\n      Werte and seiner Bedeutung f\u00fcr das Leben Jesu kritisch untersucht_.\n      1841. (A Critical Examination of the Intrinsic Value of the Gospel\n      of John and of its Importance as a Source for the Life of Jesus.)\n      Alexander Schweizer was born in 1808 at Murten, was appointed\n      Professor of Pastoral Theology at Zurich in 1835, and continued to\n      lecture there until his death in 1888, remaining loyal to the ideas\n      of his teacher Schleiermacher, though handling them with a certain\n      freedom. His best\u2010known work is his _Glaubenslehre_ (System of\n      Doctrine), 2 vols., 1863\u20101872; 2nd ed., 1877.\n\n   85 The German is _Mirakeln_, the usual word being _Wunder_, which,\n      though constantly used in the sense of actual \u201cmiracles,\u201d has, from\n      its obvious derivation, a certain ambiguity.\n\n   86 \u201cAnd the glory of the Lord abode upon Mount Sinai, and the cloud\n      covered it six days.\u201d\n\n   87 We subjoin the titles of the divisions of this work, which are of\n      some interest:\n\n      Vol. i. Book  i. The Sources of the Gospel History.\n      Vol. i. Book ii. The Legends of the Childhood.\n      Vol. i. Book iii. General Sketch of the Gospel History.\n      Vol. i. Book iv. The Incidents and Discourses according to Mark.\n      Vol. ii. Book v. The Incidents and Discourses according to Matthew\n      and Luke.\n      Vol. ii. Book vi. The Incidents and Discourses according to John.\n      Vol. ii. Book vii. The Resurrection and the Ascension.\n      Vol. ii. Book viii. Concluding Philosophical Exposition of the\n      Significance of the Person of Christ and of the Gospel Tradition.\n\n   88 _Geschichte Christus\u2019 und seiner Zeit._ (History of Christ and His\n      Times.) By Heinrich Ewald, G\u00f6ttingen, 1855, 450 pp.\n\n   89 _Kritik der Geschichte der Offenbarung._\n\n   90 _Das entdeckte Christentum._ See also _Die gute Sache der Freiheit\n      und meine eigene Angelegenheit_. (The Good Cause of Freedom, in\n      Connexion with my own Case.) Zurich, 1843.\n\n   91 _Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte des Johannes._\n\n   92 Here and elsewhere Bauer seems to use \u201cChristologie\u201d in the sense of\n      Messianic doctrine, rather than in the more general sense which is\n      usual in theology.\u2014TRANSLATOR.\n\n   93 We retain the German phrase, which has naturalised itself in\n      Synoptic criticism as the designation of an assumed primary gospel\n      lying behind the canonical Mark.\n\n   94 _Kritik der Paulinischen Briefe._ (Criticism of the Pauline\n      Epistles.) Berlin, 1850\u20101852.\n\n   95 _Kritik der Evangelien und Geschichte ihres Ursprungs._ (Criticism\n      of the Gospels and History of their Origin.) 2 vols., Berlin,\n      1850\u20101851.\n\n   96 _Christus und die C\u00e4saren. Der Ursprung des Christentums aus dem\n      r\u00f6mischen Griechentum._ Berlin, 1877.\n\n   97 Hennell, a London merchant, withdrew himself from his business\n      pursuits for two years in order to make the preparatory studies for\n      this Life of Jesus. [He is best known as a friend of George Eliot,\n      who was greatly interested and influenced by the\n      \u201cInquiry.\u201d\u2014TRANSLATOR.] To the same category as Hennell\u2019s work\n      belongs the _Wohlgepr\u00fcfte Darstellung des Lebens Jesu_ (An Account\n      of the Life of Jesus based on the closest Examination) of the\n      Heidelberg mathematician, Karl von Langsdorf, Mannheim, 1831.\n      Supplement, with preface to a future second edition, 1833.\n\n   98 Hase seems not to have recognised that the \u201cDisclosures\u201d were merely\n      a plagiarism from Venturini. He mentions them in connexion with\n      Bruno Bauer and appears to make him responsible for inspiring them;\n      at least that is suggested by his formula of transition when he\n      says: \u201cIt was primarily to him that the frivolous apocryphal\n      hypotheses attached themselves.\u201d This is quite inaccurate. The\n      anonymous epitomist of Venturini had nothing to do with Bauer, and\n      had probably not read a line of his work. Venturini, whom he had\n      read, he does not name.\n\n   99 One of the most ingenious of the followers of Venturini was the\n      French Jew Salvator. In his _J\u00e9sus\u2010Christ et sa doctrine_ (Paris, 2\n      vols., 1838), he seeks to prove that Jesus was the last\n      representative of a mysticism which, drawing its nutriment from the\n      other Oriental religions, was to be traced among the Jews from the\n      time of Solomon onwards. In Jesus this mysticism allied itself with\n      Messianic enthusiasm. After He had lost consciousness upon the cross\n      He was succoured by Joseph of Arimathea and Pilate\u2019s wife, contrary\n      to His own expectation and purpose. He ended His days among the\n      Essenes.\n\n      Salvator looks to a spiritualised mystical Mosaism as destined to be\n      the successful rival of Christianity.\n\n  100 The reference should be Micah iv. 8.\u2014F. C. B.\n\n  101 \u201cIch bin der Geist, der stets verneint.\u201d\u2014Mephistopheles in _Faust_.\n\n  102 _Aus der Jordanwiege nach Golgatha; vier B\u00fccher \u00fcber das Evangelium\n      und die Evangelien._\n\n  103 _Die Geschichte Jesu auf Grund freier geschichtlicher Untersuchungen\n      \u00fcber das Evangelium and die Evangelien._\n\n  104 For Noack\u2019s reconstruction of it see Book iii. pp. 196\u2010225.\n\n  105 For the reconstruction see Book iii. pp. 326\u2010386.\n\n  106 _Tharraqah und Sunamith._ The Song of Solomon in its historical and\n      topographical setting. 1869.\n\n  107 _La Vie de J\u00e9sus de D. Fr. Strauss._ Traduite par M. Littr\u00e9, 1840.\n\n  108 Bruno Bauer in _Philo, Strauss, und Renan_.\n\n  109 Renan does not hesitate to apply this tasteless parallel.\n\n  110 Charles \u00c9mile Freppel (Abb\u00e9), Professeur d\u2019\u00e9loquence sacr\u00e9e \u00e0 la\n      Sorbonne. _Examen critique de la vie de J\u00e9sus de M. Renan._ Paris,\n      1864. 148 pp.\n\n      Henri Lasserre\u2019s pamphlet, _L\u2019\u00c9vangile selon Renan_ (The Gospel\n      according to Renan), reached its four\u2010and\u2010twentieth edition in the\n      course of the same year.\n\n  111 _Lettre pastorale de Monseigneur l\u2019Archev\u00eaque de Paris (Georges\n      Darboy) sur la divinit\u00e9 de J\u00e9sus\u2010Christ, et mandement pour le car\u00eame\n      de 1864._\n\n  112 See, for example, F\u00e9lix Antoine Philibert Dupanloup, Bishop of\n      Orl\u00e9ans, _Avertissement \u00e0 la jeunesse et aux p\u00e8res de famille sur\n      les attaques dirig\u00e9es contre la religion par quelques \u00e9crivains de\n      nos jours._ (Warning to the Young, and to Fathers of Families,\n      concerning some Attacks directed against Religion by some Writers of\n      our Time.) Paris, 1864. 141 pp.\n\n  113 Amad\u00e9e Nicolas, _Renan et sa vie de J\u00e9sus sous les rapports moral,\n      l\u00e9gal, et litt\u00e9raire. Appel \u00e0 la raison et la conscience du monde\n      civilis\u00e9._ Paris\u2010Marseille, 1864.\n\n  114 Ernest Havet, Professeur au Coll\u00e8ge de France, _J\u00e9sus dans\n      l\u2019histoire_. _Examen de la vie de J\u00e9sus par M. Renan._ Extrait de la\n      _Revue des deux mondes_. Paris, 1863. 71 pp.\n\n  115 _Zwei franz\u00f6sische Stimmen \u00fcber Renans Leben\u2010Jesu, von Edmond\n      Scherer und Athanase Coquerel, d.J. Ein Beitrag zur Kenntnis des\n      franz\u00f6sischen Protestantismus._ Regensburg, 1864. (Two French\n      utterances in regard to Renan\u2019s Life of Jesus, by Edmond Scherer and\n      Athanase Coquerel the younger. A contribution to the understanding\n      of French Protestantism.)\n\n  116 E. de Pressens\u00e9, _L\u2019\u00c9cole critique et J\u00e9sus\u2010Christ, \u00e0 propos de la\n      vie de J\u00e9sus de M. Renan_.\n\n  117 E. de Pressens\u00e9, _J\u00e9sus\u2010Christ, son temps, sa vie, son \u0153uvre_.\n      Paris, 1865. 684 pp. In general the plan of this work follows\n      Renan\u2019s. He divides the Life of Jesus into three periods: i. The\n      Time of Public Favour; ii. The Period of Conflict; iii. The Great\n      Week. Death and Victory. By way of introduction there is a long\n      essay on the supernatural which sets forth the supernaturalistic\n      views of the author.\n\n  118 _La Vie de J\u00e9sus de Renan devant les orthodoxes et devant la\n      critique._ 1864.\n\n  119 T. Colani, Pasteur, \u201cExamen de la vie de J\u00e9sus de M. Renan,\u201d _Revue\n      de th\u00e9ologie_. Issued separately, Strasbourg\u2010Paris, 1864. 74 pp.\n\n  120 Lasserre, _Das Evangelium nach Renan_. Munich, 1864.\n\n      Freppel, _Kritische Beleuchtung der E. Renan\u2019schen Schrift_.\n      Translated by Kallmus. Vienna, 1864.\n\n      See also Lamy, Professor of the Theological Faculty of the Catholic\n      University of Louvain, _Renans Leben\u2010Jesu vor dem Richterstuhle der\n      Kritik_. (Renan\u2019s Life of Jesus before the Judgment Seat of\n      Criticism.) Translated by August Rohling, Priest. M\u00fcnster, 1864.\n\n  121 Dr. Michelis, _Renans Roman vom Leben Jesu_. _Eine deutsche Antwort\n      auf eine franz\u00f6sische Blasphemie._ (Renan\u2019s Romance on the Life of\n      Jesus. A German answer to a French blasphemy.) M\u00fcnster, 1864.\n\n      Dr. Sebastian Brunner, _Der Atheist Renan und sein Evangelium_. (The\n      Atheist Renan and his Gospel.) Regensburg, 1864.\n\n      Albert Wiesinger, _Aphorismen gegen Renans Leben\u2010Jesu_. Vienna,\n      1864.\n\n      Dr. Martin Deutlinger, _Renan und das Wunder_. (Renan and Miracle. A\n      contribution to Christian Apologetic.) Munich, 1864. 159 pp.\n\n      Dr. Daniel Bonifacius Haneberg, _Ernest Renans Leben\u2010Jesu_.\n      Regensburg, 1864.\n\n  122 Willibald Beyschlag, Doctor and Professor of Theology, _\u00dcber das\n      Leben\u2010Jesu von Renan_. A Lecture delivered at Halle, January 13,\n      1864. Berlin.\n\n  123 Chr. Ernst Luthardt, Doctor and Professor of Theology, _Die modernen\n      Darstellungen des Lebens Jesu_. (Modern Presentations of the Life of\n      Jesus.) A discussion of the writings of Strauss, Renan, and\n      Schenkel, and of the essays of Coquerel the younger, Scherer,\n      Colani, and Keim. A Lecture. Leipzig, 1864.\n\n      Of the remaining Protestant polemics we may name:\u2014\n\n      Dr. Hermann Gerlach, _Gegen Renans Leben\u2010Jesu 1864_. Berlin.\n\n      Br. Lehmann, _Renan wider Renan_. (Renan _versus_ Renan.) A Lecture\n      addressed to cultured Germans. Zwickau, 1864.\n\n      Friedrich Baumer, _Schwarz, Strauss, Renan_. A Lecture. Leipzig,\n      1864.\n\n      John Cairns, D. D. (of Berwick). _Falsche Christi und der wahre\n      Christus, oder Verteidigung der evangelischen Geschichte gegen\n      Strauss und Renan._ (False Christs and the True, a Defence of the\n      Gospel History against Strauss and Renan.) A Lecture delivered\n      before the Bible Society. Translated from the English. Hamburg,\n      1864.\n\n      Bernhard ter Haar, Doctor of Theology and Professor at Utrecht,\n      _Zehn Vorlesungen \u00fcber Renans Leben\u2010Jesu_. (Ten Lectures on Renan\u2019s\n      Life of Jesus.) Translated by H. Doermer. Gotha, 1864.\n\n      Paulus Cassel, Professor and Licentiate in Theology, _Bericht \u00fcber\n      Renans Leben\u2010Jesu_. (A Report upon Renan\u2019s Life of Jesus.)\n\n      J. J. van Oosterzee, Doctor and Professor of Theology at Utrecht,\n      _Geschichte oder Roman? Das Leben\u2010Jesu von Renan vorl\u00e4ufig\n      beleuchtet._ (History or Fiction? A Preliminary Examination of\n      Renan\u2019s Life of Jesus.) Hamburg, 1864.\n\n  124 Strauss\u2019s second Life of Jesus appeared in French in 1864.\n\n  125 \u201cI can now say without incurring the reproach of self\u2010glorification,\n      and almost without needing to fear contradiction, that if my Life of\n      Jesus had not appeared in the year after Schleiermacher\u2019s death, his\n      would not have been withheld for so long. Up to that time it would\n      have been hailed by the theological world as a deliverer; but for\n      the wounds which my work inflicted on the theology of the day, it\n      had neither anodyne nor dressing; nay, it displayed the author as in\n      a measure responsible for the disaster, for the waters which he had\n      admitted drop by drop were now, in defiance of his prudent\n      reservations, pouring in like a flood.\u201d\u2014From the Introduction to\n      _The Christ of Faith and the Jesus of History_, 1865.\n\n  126 \u201cNow that Schleiermacher\u2019s Life of Jesus at last lies before us in\n      print, all parties can gather about it in heartfelt rejoicing. The\n      appearance of a work by Schleiermacher is always an enrichment to\n      literature. Any product of a mind like his cannot fail to shed light\n      and life on the minds of others. And of works of this kind our\n      theological literature has certainly in these days no superfluity.\n      Where the living are for the most part as it were dead, it is meet\n      that the dead should arise and bear witness. These lectures of\n      Schleiermacher\u2019s, when compared with the work of his pupils, show\n      clearly that the great theologian has let fall upon them only his\n      mantle and not his spirit.\u201d\u2014_Ibid._\n\n  127 The lines of Schleiermacher\u2019s work were followed by Bunsen. His Life\n      of Jesus forms vol. ix. of his _Bibelwerk_. (Edited by Holtzmann,\n      1865.) He accepts the Fourth Gospel as an historical source and\n      treats the question of miracle as not yet settled. Christian Karl\n      Josias von Bunsen, born in 1791 at Korbach in Waldeck, was Prussian\n      ambassador at Rome, Berne, and London, and settled later in\n      Heidelberg. He was well read in theology and philology, and\n      gradually came, in spite of his friendly relations with Friedrich\n      Wilhelm IV., to entertain more liberal views on religion. The issue\n      of his _Bibelwerk f\u00fcr die Gemeinde_ was begun in 1858. He died in\n      1860. (Best known in England as the Chevalier Bunsen.)\n\n  128 Ch. H. Weisse, _Die evangelische Geschichte_, Leipzig, 1838. _Die\n      Evangelienfrage in ihrem gegenw\u00e4rtigen Stadium._ (The Present\n      Position of the Problem of the Gospels.) Leipzig, 1856. He regarded\n      the discourses as historical, the narrative portions as of secondary\n      origin. Alexander Schweizer, again, wished to distinguish a\n      Jerusalem source and a Galilaean source, the latter being\n      unreliable. _Das Evangelium Johannis nach seinem inneren Werte und\n      seiner Bedeutung f\u00fcr das Leben Jesu_, 1841. (The Gospel of John\n      considered in Relation to its Intrinsic Value and its Importance as\n      a Source for the Life of Jesus.) See p. 127 f. Renan takes the\n      narrative portions as authentic and the discourses as secondary.\n\n  129 Karl Heinrich Weizs\u00e4cker was born in 1822 at \u00d6hringen in W\u00fcrtemberg.\n      He qualified as Privat\u2010Docent in 1847 and, after acting in the\n      meantime as Court\u2010Chaplain and Oberkonsistorialrat at Stuttgart,\n      became in 1861 the successor of Baur at T\u00fcbingen. He died in 1899.\n\n  130 The works of a Dutch writer named Stricker, _Jesus von Nazareth_\n      (1868), and of the Englishman Sir Richard Hanson, _The Jesus of\n      History_ (1869), were based on Mark without any reference to John.\n\n  131 1, Mark i.; 2, Mark ii. 1\u2010iii. 6; 3, Mark iii. 7\u201019; 4, Mark iii.\n      19\u2010iv. 34; 5, Mark iv. 35\u2010vi. 6; 6, Mark vi. 7\u2010vii. 37; 7, Mark\n      viii. 1\u2010ix. 50.\n\n  132 Holtzmann, _Kommentar zu den Synoptikern_, 1889, p. 184. The form of\n      the expression (_Fluchtwege und Reisen_) is derived from Keim.\n\n  133 \u201cThus the course of Jesus\u2019 life hastened forward to its tragic\n      close, a close which was foreseen and predicted by Jesus Himself\n      with ever\u2010growing clearness as the sole possible close, but also\n      that which alone was worthy of Himself, and which was necessary as\n      being foreseen and predetermined in the counsel of God. The hatred\n      of the Pharisees and the indifference of the people left from the\n      first no other prospect open. That hatred could not but be called\n      forth in the fullest measure by the ruthless severity with which\n      Jesus exposed all that it was and implied\u2014a heart in which there was\n      no room for love, a morality inwardly riddled with decay, an outward\n      show of virtue, a hypocritical arrogance. Between two such\n      unyielding opponents\u2014a man who, to all appearance, aimed at using\n      the Messianic expectations of the people for his own ends, and a\n      hierarchy as tenacious of its claims and as sensitive to their\n      infringement as any that has ever existed\u2014it was certain that the\n      breach must soon become irreparable. It was easy to foresee, too,\n      that even in Galilee only a minority of the people would dare to\n      face with Him the danger of such a breach. There was only one thing\n      that could have averted the death sentence which had been early\n      determined upon\u2014a series of vigorous, unambiguous demonstrations on\n      the part of the people. In order to provoke such demonstrations\n      Jesus would have needed, if only for the moment, to take into His\n      service the popular, powerful, inflammatory Messianic ideas, or\n      rather, would have needed to place Himself at their service. His\n      refusal to enter, by so much as a single step, upon this course,\n      which from any ordinary point of view of human policy would have\n      been legitimate, because the only practicable one, was the sole\n      sufficient and all\u2010explaining cause of His destruction.\u201d\u2014Holtzmann,\n      _Die synoptischen Evangelien_, 1863, pp. 485, 486.\n\n  134 \u201cEin innerliches Reich der Sinnes\u00e4nderung.\u201d \u201cSinnes\u00e4nderung\u201d\n      corresponds more exactly than \u201crepentance\u201d to the Greek \u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03ac\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9\u03b1\n      (change of mind, change of attitude), but the _phrase_ is no less\n      elliptical in German than in English. The meaning is doubtless\n      \u201ckingdom based upon repentance, consisting of those who have\n      fulfilled this condition.\u201d\n\n  135 Omitted in some of the best texts.\u2014F. C. B.\n\n  136 Oskar Holtzmann, _Das Leben Jesu_, 1901.\n\n  137 _Die modernen Darstellungen des Lebens Jesu._ (Modern Presentments\n      of the Life of Jesus.) A discussion of the works of Strauss, Renan,\n      and Schenkel, and of the Essays of Coquerel the younger, Scherer,\n      Colani, and Keim. A lecture by Chr. Ernest Luthardt, Leipzig. 1st\n      and 2nd editions, 1864. Luthardt was born in 1823 at Maroldsweisach\n      in Lower Franconia, became Docent at Erlangen in 1851, was called to\n      Marburg as Professor Extraordinary in 1854, and to Leipzig as\n      Ordinary Professor in 1856. He died in 1902.\n\n  138 _Zur Orientierung \u00fcber meine Schrift __\u201c__Das Charakterbild\n      Jesu.__\u201d_ (Explanations intended to place my work \u201cA Picture of the\n      Character of Jesus\u201d in the proper light.) 1864. _Die protestantische\n      Freiheit in ihrem gegenw\u00e4rtigen Kampfe mit der kirchlichen\n      Reaktion._ (Protestant Freedom in its present Struggle with\n      Ecclesiastical Reaction.) 1865.\n\n  139 _Der Schenkel\u2019sche Handel in Baden._ (The Schenkel Controversy in\n      Baden.) (A corrected reprint from number 441 of the _National\u2010\n      Zeitung_ of September 21, 1864.) An appendix to _Der Christus des\n      Glaubens und der Jesus der Geschichte_. 1865.\n\n  140 Theodor Keim, _Die Geschichte Jesu von Nazara, in ihrer Verhaltung\n      mit dem Gesamtleben seines Volkes frei untersucht und ausf\u00fchrlich\n      erz\u00e4hlt_. (The History of Jesus of Nazara in Relation to the General\n      Life of His People, freely examined and fully narrated.) 3 vols.\n      Zurich, 1867\u20101872. Vol. i. The Day of Preparation; vol. ii. The Year\n      of Teaching in Galilee; vol. iii. The Death\u2010Passover (_Todesostern_)\n      in Jerusalem. A short account in a more popular form appeared in\n      1872, _Geschichte Jesu nach den Ergebnissen heutiger Wissenschaft\n      f\u00fcr weitere Kreise \u00fcbersichtlich erz\u00e4hlt_. (The History of Jesus\n      according to the Results of Present\u2010day Criticism, briefly narrated\n      for the General Reader.) 2nd ed., 1875.\n\n      Karl Theodor Keim was born in 1825 at Stuttgart, was Repetent at\n      T\u00fcbingen from 1851 to 1855, and after he had been five years in the\n      ministry, became Professor at Zurich in 1860. In 1873 he accepted a\n      call to Giessen, where he died in 1878.\n\n  141 _Die menschliche Entwicklung Jesu Christi._ See Holtzmann, _Die\n      synoptischen Evangelien_, 1863, pp. 7\u20109. This dissertation was\n      followed by _Der geschichtliche Christus_. 3rd ed., 1866.\n\n  142 _Geschichte Jesu._ 2nd ed., 1875, pp. 228 and 229.\n\n  143 The ultimate reason why Keim deliberately gives such prominence to\n      the eschatology is that he holds to Matthew, and is therefore more\n      under the direct impression of the masses of discourse in this\n      Gospel, charged, as they are, with eschatological ideas, than those\n      writers who find their primary authority in Mark, where these\n      discourses are lacking.\n\n  144 _Geschichte Jesu. Nach akademischen Vorlesungen von Dr. Karl Hase._\n      1876. Special mention ought also to be made of the fine sketch of\n      the Life of Jesus in A. Hausrath\u2019s _Neutestamentliche\n      Zeitgeschichte_ (History of New Testament Times), 1st ed., Munich,\n      1868 ff.; 3rd ed., 1 vol., 1879, pp. 325\u2010515; _Die\n      zeitgeschichtlichen Beziehungen des Lebens Jesu_ (The Relations of\n      the Life of Jesus to the History of His time).\n\n      Adolf Hausrath was born at Karlsruhe. He was appointed Professor of\n      Theology at Heidelberg in 1867, and died in 1909.\n\n  145 _Das Leben Jesu_, von Willibald Beyschlag: Pt. i. Preliminary\n      Investigations, 1885, 450 pp.; pt. ii. Narrative, 1886, 495 pp. Joh.\n      Heinr. Christoph Willibald Beyschlag was born in 1823 at Frankfort\u2010\n      on\u2010Main, and went to Halle as Professor in 1860. His splendid\n      eloquence made him one of the chief spokesmen of German\n      Protestantism. As a teacher he exercised a remarkable and salutary\n      influence, although his scientific works are too much under the\n      dominance of an apologetic of the heart. He died in 1900.\n\n  146 Bernhard Weiss, _Das Leben Jesu_. 2 vols. Berlin, 1882. See also\n      _Das Markusevangelium_, 1872; _Das Matth\u00e4usevangelium_, 1876; and\n      the _Lehrbuch der neutestamentlichen Theologie_, 5th ed., 1888.\n      Bernhard Weiss was born in 1827 at K\u00f6nigsberg, where he qualified as\n      Privat\u2010Docent in 1852. In 1863 he went as Ordinary Professor to\n      Kiel, and was called to Berlin in the same capacity in 1877.\n\n      Among the distinctly liberal Lives of Jesus of an earlier date, that\n      of W. Kr\u00fcger\u2010Velthusen (Elberfeld, 1872, 271 pp.) might be mentioned\n      if it were not so entirely uncritical. Although the author does not\n      hold the Fourth Gospel to be apostolic he has no hesitation in\n      making use of it as an historical source.\n\n      There is more sentiment than science, too, in the work of M. G.\n      Weitbrecht, _Das Leben Jesu nach den vier Evangelien_, 1881.\n\n      A weakness in the treatment of the Johannine question and a want of\n      clearness on some other points disfigures the three\u2010volume Life of\n      Jesus of the Paris professor, E. Stapfer, which is otherwise marked\n      by much acumen and real depth of feeling. Vol. i. _J\u00e9sus\u2010Christ\n      avant son minist\u00e8re_ (Fischbacher, Paris, 1896); vol. ii. _J\u00e9sus\u2010\n      Christ pendant son minist\u00e8re_ (1897); vol. iii. _La Mort et la\n      r\u00e9surrection de J\u00e9sus\u2010Christ_ (1898).\n\n      F. Godet writes of \u201cThe Life of Jesus before His Public Appearance\u201d\n      (German translation by M. Reineck, _Leben Jesu vor seinem\n      \u00f6ffentlichen Auftreten_. Hanover, 1897).\n\n      G. L\u00e4ngin founds his _Der Christus der Geschichte und sein\n      Christentum_ (The Christ of History and His Christianity) on a\n      purely Synoptic basis. 2 vols., 1897\u20101898.\n\n      The English _Life of Jesus Christ_, by James Stalker, D. D. (now\n      Professor of Church History in the United Free Church College,\n      Aberdeen), passed through numberless editions (German, 1898;\n      T\u00fcbingen, 4th ed., 1901).\n\n      Very pithy and interesting is Dr. Percy Gardner\u2019s _Exploratio\n      Evangelica_. _A Brief Examination of the Basis and Origin of\n      Christian Belief._ 1899; 2nd ed., 1907.\n\n      A work which is free from all compromise is H. Ziegler\u2019s _Der\n      geschichtliche Christus_ (The Historical Christ). 1891. For this\n      reason the five lectures, delivered in Liegnitz, out of which it is\n      composed, attracted such unfavourable attention that the\n      Ecclesiastical Council took proceedings against the author. (See the\n      _Christliche Welt_, 1891, pp. 563\u2010568, 874\u2010877.)\n\n  147 Holtzmann, _Neutestamentliche Einleitung_, 2nd ed., 1886. Weizs\u00e4cker\n      declares himself in the _Theologische Literaturzeitung_ for 1882,\n      No. 23, and _Das apostolische Zeitalter_, 2nd ed., 1890.\n\n      Hase and Schenkel accepted this position in principle, but were\n      careful to keep open a line of retreat.\n\n      Towards the end of the \u2019seventies the rejection of the Fourth Gospel\n      as an historical source was almost universally recognised in the\n      critical camp. It is taken for granted in the Life of Jesus by Karl\n      Wittichen (Jena, 1876, 397 pp.), which might be reckoned one of the\n      most clearly conceived works of this kind based on the Marcan\n      hypothesis if its arrangement were not so bad. It is partly in the\n      form of a commentary, inasmuch as the presentment of the life takes\n      the form of a discussion of sixty\u2010seven sections. The detail is very\n      interesting. It makes an impression of _na\u00efvet\u00e9_ when we find a\n      series of sections grouped under the title, \u201cThe establishment of\n      _Christianity_ in Galilee.\u201d No stress is laid on the significance of\n      Jesus\u2019 journey to the north. Wittichen, also, misled by Luke,\n      asserts, just as Weisse had done, that Jesus had worked in Judaea\n      for some time prior to the triumphal entry.\n\n  148 H. H. Wendt, _Die Lehre Jesu_, vol. i. _Die evangelischen\n      Quellenberichte \u00fcber die Lehre Jesu._ (The Record of the Teaching of\n      Jesus in the Gospel Sources.) 354 pp. G\u00f6ttingen, 1886; vol. ii.,\n      1890; Eng. trans., 1892. Second German edition in one vol., 626 pp.,\n      1901. See also the same writer\u2019s _Das Johannesevangelium_.\n      _Untersuchung seiner Entstehung und seines geschichtlichen Wertes_,\n      1900. (The Gospel of John: an Investigation of its Origin and\n      Historical Value.) Hans Heinrich Wendt was born in 1853 at Hamburg,\n      qualified as Privat\u2010Docent in 1877 at G\u00f6ttingen, was subsequently\n      Extraordinary Professor at Kiel and Heidelberg, and now works at\n      Jena.\n\n  149 _Johannis Lightfooti, Doctoris Angli et Collegii S. Catharinae in\n      Cantabrigiensi Academia Praefecti, Horae Hebraicae et Talmudicae in\n      Quatuor Evangelistas ... nunc secundum in Germania junctim cum\n      Indicibus locorum Scripturae rerumque ac verborum necessariis editae\n      e Museo Io. Benedicti Carpzovii. Lipsiae. Anno MDCLXXXIV._\n\n  150 The pioneer works in the study of apocalyptic were Dillmann\u2019s\n      _Henoch_, 1851; and Hilgenfeld\u2019s _J\u00fcdische Apokalyptik_, 1857.\n\n  151 _Jesus Nazarenus und die erste christliche Zeit, mit den beiden\n      ersten Erz\u00e4hlern_, von Gustav Volkmar, Zurich, 1882. To which must\n      be added: _Markus und die Synopse der Evangelien, nach dem\n      urkundlichen Text; und das Geschichtliche vom Leben Jesu_. (Mark and\n      Synoptic Material in the Gospels, according to the original text;\n      and the historical elements in the Life of Jesus.) Zurich, 1869; 2nd\n      edition, 1876, 738 pp. Volkmar was born in 1809, and was living at\n      Fulda as a Gymnasium (High School) teacher, when in 1852 he was\n      arrested by the Hessian Government on account of his political\n      views, and subsequently deprived of his post. In 1853 he went to\n      Zurich, where a new prospect opened to him as a Docent in theology.\n      He died in 1893.\n\n  152 Kienlen, \u201cDie eschatologische Rede Jesu Matt. xxiv. cum Parall.\u201d\n      (The Eschatological Discourse of Jesus in Matt. xxiv. with the\n      parallel passages), _Jahrbuch f\u00fcr die Theologie_, 1869, pp. 706\u2010709.\n      Analysis of other attempts directed to the same end in Weiffenbach,\n      _Der Wiederkunftsgedanke_, p. 31 ff.\n\n  153 Wilhelm Weiffenbach, Director of the Seminary for Theological\n      Students at Friedberg, was born in 1842 at Bornheim in Rhenish\n      Hesse.\n\n  154 The English reader will find a constructive analysis of what is\n      known as the \u201cLittle Apocalypse\u201d in _Encyclopaedia Biblica_, art.\n      \u201cGospels,\u201d col. 1857. It consists of the verses Matt. xxiv. 6\u20108,\n      15\u201022, 29\u201031, 34, corresponding to Mark xiii. 7\u20109_a_, 14\u201020, 24\u201027,\n      30. According to the theory first sketched by Colani these verses\n      formed an independent Apocalypse which was embedded in the Gospel by\n      the Evangelist.\u2014F. C. B.\n\n  155 _Untersuchungen \u00fcber die evangelische Geschichte_, 1864, pp.\n      121\u2010126.\n\n  156 \u201c\u00dcber die Komposition der eschatologischen Rede Matt. xxiv. 4 ff.\u201d\n      (The Composition of the Eschatological Discourse in Matt. xxiv. 4\n      ff.), _Jahrbuch f. d. Theol._ vol. xiii., 1868, pp. 134\u2010149.\n\n  157 By \u201cCapernaitic\u201d Weiffenbach apparently means literalistic; cf. John\n      vi. 52 f.\n\n  158 Wilhelm Baldensperger, at present Professor at Giessen, was born in\n      1856 at M\u00fclhausen in Alsace.\n\n  159 A new edition appeared in 1891. There is no fundamental alteration,\n      but in consequence of the polemic against opponents who had arisen\n      in the meantime it is fuller. The first part of a third edition\n      appeared in 1903 under the title _Die messianisch\u2010apokalyptischen\n      Hoffnungen des Judentums_.\n\n      See also the interesting use made of Late\u2010Jewish and Rabbinic ideas\n      in Alfred Edersheim\u2019s _The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah_, 2nd\n      ed., London, 1884, 2 vols.\n\n  160 Emil Sch\u00fcrer, _Geschichte des j\u00fcdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu\n      Christi_. (History of the Jewish People in the Time of Christ.) 2nd\n      ed., part second, 1886, pp. 417 ff. Here is to be found also a\n      bibliography of the older literature of the subject. 3rd ed., 1889,\n      vol. ii. pp. 498 ff.\n\n      Emil Sch\u00fcrer was born at Augsburg in 1844, and from 1873 onwards was\n      successively Professor at Leipzig, Giessen, and Kiel, and is now\n      (1909) at G\u00f6ttingen.\n\n      The latest presentment of Jewish apocalyptic is _Die j\u00fcdische\n      Eschatologie von Daniel bis Akiba_, by Paul Volz, Pastor in\n      Leonberg. T\u00fcbingen, 1903. 412 pp. The material is very completely\n      given. Unfortunately the author has chosen the systematic method of\n      treating his subject, instead of tracing the history of its\n      development, the only right way. As a consequence Jesus and Paul\n      occupy far too little space in this survey of Jewish apocalyptic.\n      For a treatment of the origin of Jewish eschatology from the point\n      of view of the history of religion see Hugo Gressmann, now Professor\n      at Berlin, _Der Ursprung der israelitisch\u2010j\u00fcdischen Eschatologie_\n      (The Origin of the Israelitish and Jewish Eschatology), G\u00f6ttingen,\n      1905. 377 pp.\n\n  161 Johannes Weiss, now Professor at Marburg, was born at Kiel in 1863.\n\n  162 It may be mentioned that this work had been preceded (in 1891) by\n      two Leiden prize dissertations, _\u00dcber die Lehre vom Reich Gottes im\n      Neuen Testament_ (Concerning the Kingdom of God in the New\n      Testament), one of them by Issel, the other, which lays especially\n      strong emphasis upon the eschatology, by Schmoller.\n\n  163 Wilhelm Bousset, now Professor in G\u00f6ttingen, born 1865 at L\u00fcbeck\n\n  164 _Theol. Rundschau_ (1901), 4, pp. 89\u2010103.\n\n  165 W. Bousset, _Die j\u00fcdische Apokalyptik in ihrer\n      religionsgeschichtlichen Herkunft und ihrer Bedeutung f\u00fcr das Neue\n      Testament_. (The Origin of Apocalyptic as indicated by Comparative\n      Religion, and its significance for the understanding of the New\n      Testament.) Berlin, 1903. 67 pp. See also W. Bousset, _Die Religion\n      des Judentums im neutestamentlichen Zeitalter_, 512 pp., 1902. For\n      the assertion of Parsic influences see also Stave, _Der Einfluss des\n      Parsismus auf das Judentum_. Haarlem, 1898.\n\n  166 _Der Grundcharakter der Ethik Jesu im Verh\u00e4ltnis zu den\n      messianischen Hoffnungen seines Volkes und zu seinem eigenen\n      Messiasbewusstsein._ Freiburg, 1895, 119 pp. See also his inaugural\n      dissertation of 1896, _Le Principe de la morale de J\u00e9sus_. Paris,\n      1896.\n\n      A. K. Rogers, _The Life and Teachings of Jesus; a Critical Analysis,\n      etc._ (London and New York, 1894), regards Jesus\u2019 teaching as purely\n      ethical, refusing to admit any eschatology at all.\n\n  167 Paris, 2 vols., 500 and 512 pp.\n\n  168 W. Weiffenbach, _Die Frage der Wiederkunst Jesu_. (The Question\n      concerning the Second Coming of Jesus.) Friedberg, 1901.\n\n  169 A. Titius, _Die neutestamentliche Lehre von der Seligkeit und ihre\n      Bedeutung f\u00fcr die Gegenwart_. I. Teil: _Jesu Lehre vom Reich\n      Gottes_. (The New Testament Doctrine of Blessedness and its\n      Significance for the Present. Pt. I., Jesus\u2019 Doctrine of the Kingdom\n      of God.) Arthur Titius, now Professor at Kiel, was born in 1864 at\n      Sensburg.\n\n  170 _Die eschatologischen Aussagen Jesu in den synoptischen Evangelien_,\n      167 pp. Erich Haupt, now Professor in Halle, was born in 1841 at\n      Stralsund.\n\n  171 Cf. the preface to the 2nd ed. of Joh. Weiss\u2019s _Die Predigt Jesu vom\n      Reiche Gottes_. G\u00f6ttingen, 1900.\n\n  172 T\u00fcbingen\u2010Leipzig, 1901, 410 pp.; 2nd ed., 1904. Paul Wernle, now\n      Professor of Church History at Basle, was born in Zurich, 1872.\n\n  173 _Israelitische und j\u00fcdische Geschichte_, 1st ed., 1894, pp. 163\u2010168;\n      2nd ed., 1895, pp. 198\u2010204; 3rd ed., 1897; 4th ed., 1901, pp.\n      380\u2010394. See also his _Skizzen_ (Sketches), pp. 6, 187 ff.\n\n      See also J. Wellhausen, _Das Evangelium Marci_, 1903, 2nd ed., 1909;\n      _Das Evangelium Matth\u00e4i_, 1904; _Das Evangelium Lucae_, 1904.\n\n      Julius Wellhausen, now Professor at G\u00f6ttingen, was born in 1844 at\n      Hameln.\n\n  174 Emil Sch\u00fcrer, _Das messianische Selbstbewusstsein Jesu Christi_.\n      (The Messianic Self\u2010consciousness of Jesus Christ.) 1903, 24 pp.\n\n      According to J. Meinhold, too, in _Jesus und das alte Testament_\n      (Jesus and the Old Testament), 1896, Jesus did not purpose to be the\n      Messiah of Israel.\n\n  175 _Die evangelische Geschichte und der Ursprung des Christentums auf\n      Grund einer Kritik der Berichte \u00fcber das Leiden und die Auferstehung\n      Jesu._ (The Gospel History and the Origin of Christianity considered\n      in the light of a critical investigation of the Reports of the\n      Suffering and Resurrection of Jesus.) By Dr. W. Brandt, Leipzig,\n      1893, 588 pp.\n\n      Wilhelm Brandt was born in 1855 of German parents in Amsterdam and\n      became a pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1891 he resigned\n      this office and studied in Strassburg and Berlin. In 1893 he was\n      appointed to lecture in General History of Religion as a member of\n      the theological faculty of Amsterdam.\n\n  176 Ad. J\u00fclicher, _Die Gleichnisreden Jesu_. Vol. i., 1888. The\n      substance of it had already been published in a different form.\n      Freiburg, 1886.\n\n      Adolf J\u00fclicher, at present Professor in Marburg, was born in 1857 at\n      Falkenberg.\n\n  177 W. Bousset, _Jesu Predigt in ihrem Gegensatz zum Judentum_.\n      G\u00f6ttingen, 1892.\n\n  178 Ad. J\u00fclicher, _Die Gleichnisreden Jesu_, 2nd pt. (Exposition of the\n      Parables in the first three Gospels.) Freiburg, 1899, 641 pp.\n\n      Chr. A. Bugge, _Die Hauptparabeln Jesu_ (The most important Parables\n      of Jesus), German, from the Norwegian, Giessen, 1903, rightly\n      remarks on the obscure and inexplicable character of some of the\n      parables, but makes no attempt to deal with it from the historical\n      point of view.\n\n  179 Arnold Meyer, _Jesu Muttersprache_, 1896. P. W. Schmidt, too, in his\n      _Geschichte Jesu_ (Freiburg, 1899), defends the same interpretation,\n      and seeks to explain this obscure saying by the other about the\n      \u201cstrait gate.\u201d\n\n  180 _Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes_, 2nd ed., 1900, p. 192 ff.\n\n  181 _Stud. Krit._, 1836, pp. 90\u2010122.\n\n  182 See also _Die Vorstellungen vom Messias und vom Gottesreich bei den\n      Synoptikern_. (The Conceptions of the Messiah and the Kingdom of God\n      in the Synoptic Gospels.) By Ludwig Paul. Bonn, 1895. 130 pp. This\n      comprehensive study discusses all the problems which are referred to\n      below. Matt. xi. 12\u201014 is discussed under the heading \u201cThe Hinderers\n      of the Kingdom of God.\u201d\n\n  183 A. Hilgenfeld, _Zeitschr. f. wiss. Theol._, 1888, pp. 488\u2010498; 1892,\n      pp. 445\u2010464.\n\n  184 Orello Cone, \u201cJesus\u2019 Self\u2010designation in the Synoptic Gospels,\u201d _The\n      New World_, 1893, pp. 492\u2010518.\n\n  185 H. L. Oort, _Die uitdrukking \u1f41 \u03c5\u1f31\u1f78\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u1f00\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 in het Nieuwe\n      Testament_. (The Expression Son of Man in the New Testament.)\n      Leyden, 1893.\n\n  186 R. H. Charles, \u201cThe Son of Man,\u201d _Expos. Times_, 1893.\n\n  187 _Die j\u00fcdische Apokalyptik in ihrer religionsgeschichtlichen Herkunft\n      und ihrer Bedeutung f\u00fcr das Neue Testament._ (Jewish Apocalyptic in\n      its religious\u2010historical origin and in its significance for the New\n      Testament.) 1903.\n\n      On the eschatology of Jesus see also Schwartzkoppf, _Die\n      Weissagungen Jesu Christi von seinen Tode, seiner Auferstehung und\n      Wiederkunft und ihre Erf\u00fcllung_. (The Predictions of Jesus Christ\n      concerning His Death, His Resurrection, and Second Coming, and their\n      Fulfilment.) 1895.\n\n      P. Wernle, _Die Reichgotteshofnung in den \u00e4ltesten christlichen\n      Dokumenten und bei Jesus_. (The Hope of the Kingdom of God in the\n      most ancient Christian Documents and as held by Jesus.)\n\n  188 Arnold Meyer, now Professor of New Testament Theology and Pastoral\n      Theology at Zurich, and formerly at Bonn, was born at Wesel in 1861.\n\n  189 Giambern. de Rossi, _Dissertazione della lingua propria di Christo e\n      degli Ebrei nazionali della Palestina da\u2019 Tempi de\u2019 Maccabei in\n      disamina del sentimento di un recente scrittore Italiano_. Parma,\n      1772.\n\n  190 _Der Bericht des Matth\u00e4us von Jesu dem Messias._ (Matthew\u2019s account\n      of Jesus the Messiah.) Altona, 1792. According to Meyer, p. 105 ff.,\n      this was a very striking performance.\n\n  191 The name Chaldee was due to the mistaken belief that the language in\n      which parts of Daniel and Ezra were written was really the\n      vernacular of Babylonia. That vernacular, now known to us from\n      cuneiform tablets and inscriptions, is a Semitic language, but quite\n      different from Aramaic.\u2014F. C. B.\n\n  192 Emil Friedrich Kautzsch was born in 1841 at Plauen in Saxony, and\n      studied in Leipzig, where he became Privat\u2010Docent in 1869. In 1872\n      he was called as Professor to Basle, in 1880 to T\u00fcbingen, in 1888 to\n      Halle.\n\n  193 Gustaf Dalman, Professor at Leipzig, was born in 1865 at Niesky. In\n      addition to the works of his named above, see also _Der leidende und\n      der sterbende Messias_ (The Suffering and Dying Messiah), 1888; and\n      _Was sagt der Talmud \u00fcber Jesum?_ (What does the Talmud say about\n      Jesus?), 1891.\n\n  194 2 Kings xviii. 26 ff.\n\n  195 _Studia Biblica_ I. _Essays in Biblical Arch\u00e6ology and Criticism and\n      Kindred Subjects by Members of the University of Oxford_. Clarendon\n      Press, 1885, pp. 39\u201074. See Meyer, p. 29 ff.\n\n  196 Franz Delitzsch, _Die B\u00fccher des Neuen Testaments aus dem\n      Griechischen ins Hebr\u00e4ische \u00fcbersetzt_. 1877. (The Books of the N.T.\n      translated from Greek into Hebrew.) This work has been circulated by\n      thousands among Jews throughout the whole world.\n\n      Delitzsch was born in 1813 at Leipzig and became Privat\u2010Docent there\n      in 1842, went to Rostock as Professor in 1846, to Erlangen in 1850,\n      and returned in 1867 to Leipzig. By conviction he was a strict\n      Lutheran in theology. He was one of the leading experts in Late\u2010\n      Jewish and Talmudic literature. He died in 1890.\n\n  197 See Meyer, p. 47 ff.\n\n  198 See Meyer, p. 61 ff.\n\n  199 Hans Lietzmann, now Professor in Jena, was born in 1875 at\n      D\u00fcsseldorf. Until his call to Jena he worked as a Privat\u2010Docent at\n      Bonn. He has done some very meritorious work in the publication of\n      Early Christian writings.\n\n  200 See Meyer, p. 141 ff.\n\n  201 \u201cDe Oorsprong van de uitdrukking \u2019Zoon des Menschen\u2019 als\n      evangelische Messiastitel,\u201d _Theol. Tijdschr._, 1894. (The Origin of\n      the Expression \u201cSon of Man\u201d as a Title of the Messiah in the\n      Gospels.)\n\n  202 H. Lietzmann, \u201cZur Menschensohnfrage\u201d (The Son\u2010of\u2010Man Problem),\n      _Theol. Arb. des Rhein. wissenschaftl. Predigervereins_, 1898.\n\n  203 N. Schmidt, \u201cWas \u05d1\u05df \u05e0\u05e9\u05d0 a Messianic title?\u201d _Journal of the Society\n      for Biblical Literature_, xv., 1896.\n\n  204 P. Schmiedel, \u201cDer Name Menschensohn und das Messiasbewusstsein\n      Jesu\u201d (The Designation Son of Man and the Messianic Consciousness of\n      Jesus), 1898, _Prot. Monatsh._ 2, pp. 252\u2010267.\n\n  205 H. Gunkel, _Z. w. Th._, 1899, 42, pp. 581\u2010611.\n\n  206 For the last phase of the discussion we may name:\n\n      Wellhausen, _Skizzen und Vorarbeiten_ (Sketches and Studies), 1899,\n      pp. 187\u2010215, where he throws further light on Dalman\u2019s philological\n      objections; and goes on to deny Jesus\u2019 use of the expression.\n\n      W. Baldensperger, \u201cDie neueste Forschung \u00fcber den Menschensohn,\u201d\n      _Theol. Rundschau_, 1900, 3, pp. 201\u2010210, 243\u2010255.\n\n      P. Fiebig, _Der Menschensohn_. T\u00fcbingen, 1901.\n\n      P. W. Schmiedel, \u201cDie neueste Auffassung des Namens Menschensohn,\u201d\n      _Prot. Monatsh._ 5, pp. 333\u2010351, 1901. (The Latest View of the\n      Designation Son of Man.)\n\n      P. W. Schmidt, _Die Geschichte Jesu_, ii.\n      (_Erl\u00e4uterungen_\u2014Explanations). T\u00fcbingen, 1904, p. 157 ff.\n\n  207 Dalman\u2019s reputation as an authority upon Jewish Aramaic is so\n      deservedly high, that it is necessary to point out that his solution\n      did not, as Dr. Schweitzer seems to say, entirely dispose of the\n      linguistic difficulties raised by Lietzmann as to the meaning and\n      use of _barn\u00e2sh_ and _barn\u00e2sh\u00e2_ in Aramaic. The English reader will\n      find the linguistic facts well put in sections 4 and 32 of N.\n      Schmidt\u2019s article \u201cSon of Man\u201d in _Encyclop\u00e6dia Biblica_ (cols.\n      4708, 4723), or he may consult Prof. Bevan\u2019s review of Dalman\u2019s\n      _Worte Jesu_ in the _Critical Review_ for 1899, p. 148 ff. The main\n      point is that \u1f41 \u1f04\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03c9\u03c0\u03bf\u03c2 and \u1f41 \u03c5\u1f31\u1f78\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u1f00\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 are equally\n      legitimate translations of _barn\u00e2sh\u00e2_. Thus the contrast in the\n      Greek between \u1f41 \u1f04\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03c9\u03c0\u03bf\u03c2 and \u1f41 \u03c5\u1f31\u1f78\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u1f00\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 in Mark ii. 27 and\n      28, or again in Mark viii. 36 and 38, disappears on retranslation\n      into the dialect spoken by Jesus. Whether this linguistic fact makes\n      the sayings in which \u1f41 \u03c5\u1f31\u1f78\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u1f00\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 occurs unhistorical is a\n      further question, upon which scholars can take, and have taken,\n      opposite opinions.\u2014F. C. B.\n\n  208 See _Worte Jesu_, 1898, p. 191 ff. (= E. T. p. 234 ff.).\n\n  209 See the classical discussion in J. Weiss, _Die Predigt Jesus vom\n      Reiche Gottes_, 1892, 1st ed., p. 52 ff.\n\n      In the second edition, of 1900, p. 160 ff., he allows himself to be\n      led astray by the \u201cchiefest apostles\u201d of modern theology to indulge\n      in the subtleties of fine\u2010spun psychology, and explain Jesus\u2019 way of\n      speaking of Himself in the third person as the Son of Man as due to\n      the \u201cextreme modesty of Jesus,\u201d a modesty which did not forsake Him\n      in the presence of His judges. This recent access of psychologising\n      exegesis has not conduced to clearness of presentation, and the\n      preference for the Lucan narrative does not so much contribute to\n      throw light on the facts as to discover in the thoughts of Jesus\n      subtleties of which the historical Jesus never dreamt. If the Lord\n      always used the term Son of Man when speaking of His Messiahship,\n      the reason was that this was the only way in which He could speak of\n      it at all, since the Messiahship was not yet realised, but was only\n      to be so at the appearing of the Son of Man. For a consistent,\n      purely historical, non\u2010psychological exposition of the Son\u2010of\u2010Man\n      passages see Albert Schweitzer, _Das Messianit\u00e4ts\u2010 und\n      Leidensgeheimnis_. (The Secret of the Messiahship and the Passion.)\n      A sketch of the Life of Jesus. T\u00fcbingen, 1901.\n\n  210 See Dalman, p. 60 ff.\n\n      John Lightfoot, _Horae Hebraicae et Talmudicae in quatuor\n      Evangelistas_. Edited by J. B. Carpzov. Leipzig, 1684.\n\n      Christian Sch\u00f6ttgen, _Horae Hebraicae et Talmudicae in universum\n      Novum Testamentum_. Dresden\u2010Leipzig, 1733.\n\n      Joh. Gerh. Meuschen, _Novum Testamentum ex Talmude et antiquitatibus\n      Hebraeorum illustratum_. Leipzig, 1736.\n\n      J. Jakob. Wettstein, _Novum Testamentum Graecum_. Amsterdam, 1751\n      and 1752.\n\n      F. Nork, _Rabbinische Quellen und Parallelen zu neutestamentlichen\n      Schriftstellen_, Leipzig, 1839.\n\n      Franz Delitzsch, \u201cHorae Hebraicae et Talmudicae,\u201d in the _Luth.\n      Zeitsch._, 1876\u20101878.\n\n      Carl Siegfried, _Analecta Rabbinica_, 1875; \u201cRabbin. Analekten,\u201d\n      _Jahrb. f. prot. Theol._, 1876.\n\n      A. W\u00fcnsche, _Neue Beitr\u00e4ge zur Erl\u00e4uterung der Evangelien aus Talmud\n      und Midrasch_. (Contributions to the Exposition of the Gospels from\n      Talmud and Midrash.) G\u00f6ttingen, 1878.\n\n  211 Leipzig, 1880; 2nd ed., 1897.\n\n  212 Cf. for what follows, J\u00fclicher, _Die Gleichnisreden Jesu_, i., 1888,\n      p. 164 ff.\n\n  213 Robert Sheringham of Caius College, Cambridge, a royalist divine,\n      published an edition of the Talmudic tractate _Yoma_. London,\n      1648.\u2014F. C. B.\n\n  214 T. Tal, _Professor Oort und der Talmud_, 1880. See upon this Van\n      Manen, _Jahrb. f. prot. Theol._, 1884, p. 569. The best collection\n      of Talmudic parables is, according to J\u00fclicher, that of Prof. Guis.\n      Levi, translated by L. Seligman as _Parabeln, Legenden und Gedanken\n      aus Talmud und Midrasch_. Leipzig, 2nd ed., 1877.\n\n  215 The question may be said to have been provisionally settled by Paul\n      Fiebig\u2019s work, _Altj\u00fcdische Gleichnisse und die Gleichnisse Jesu_\n      (Ancient Jewish Parables and the Parables of Jesus), T\u00fcbingen, 1904,\n      in which he gives some fifty Late\u2010Jewish parables, and compares them\n      with those of Jesus, the final result being to show more clearly\n      than ever the uniqueness and absoluteness of His creations.\n\n  216 See the explanation by means of the Aramaic of a selection of the\n      sayings of Jesus in Meyer, pp. 72\u201090. A Judaism more under Parsee\n      influence is assumed as explaining the origin of Christianity by E.\n      B\u00f6klen, _Die Verwandschaft der j\u00fcdisch\u2010christlichen mit der\n      parsischen Eschatologie_ (The Relation of Jewish\u2010Christian to\n      Persian Eschatology), 1902, 510 ff.\n\n  217 The same view is expressed by Wellhausen, _Israelitische und\n      j\u00fcdische Geschichte_, 3rd ed., p. 381, note 2; and by Albert\n      Schweitzer, _Das Messianit\u00e4ts\u2010 und Leidensgeheimnis_, 1901.\n\n  218 See the Apocalypse of Baruch, and Fourth Ezra.\n\n  219 _La Vie inconnue de J\u00e9sus\u2010Christ_, par Nicolas Notowitsch. Paris,\n      1894.\n\n  220 See J\u00fclicher, _Gleichnisreden Jesu_, i., 1888, p. 172 ff.\n\n  221 Max M\u00fcller, _India, What can it teach us?_ London, 1883, p. 279.\n\n  222 Rudolf Seydel, Professor in the University of Leipzig, _Das\n      Evangelium von Jesu in seinen Verh\u00e4ltnissen zu Buddha\u2010Sage und\n      Buddha\u2010Lehre mit fortlaufender R\u00fccksicht auf andere\n      Religionskreise_. (The Gospel of Jesus in its relation to the Buddha\n      Legend and the Teaching of Buddha, with constant reference to other\n      religious groups.) Leipzig, 1882, p. 337.\n\n      Other works by the same author are _Buddha und Christus_. Deutsche\n      B\u00fccherei No. 33, Breslau, Schottl\u00e4nder, 1884.\n\n      _Die Buddha\u2010Legende und das Leben Jesu nach den Evangelien._ 2nd ed.\n      Weimar, 1897. (Edited by the son of the late author.) 129 pp.\n\n      See also on this question Van den Bergh van Eysinga, _Indische\n      Einfl\u00fcsse auf evangelische Erz\u00e4hlungen_. G\u00f6ttingen, 1904. 104 pp.\n\n      According to J. M. Robertson, _Christianity and Mythology_ (London,\n      1900), the Christ\u2010Myth is merely a form of the Krishna\u2010Myth. The\n      whole Gospel tradition is to be symbolically interpreted.\n\n  223 _Das Christentum des Neuen Testaments_, 1905.\n\n  224 Heinrich Julius Holtzmann, _Handkommentar_. _Die Synoptiker._ 1st\n      ed., 1889; 3rd ed., 1901. _Lehrbuch der neutestamentlichen\n      Theologie_, 1896, vol. i.\n\n  225 In the Catholic Church the study of the Life of Jesus has remained\n      down to the present day entirely free from scepticism. The reason of\n      that is, that in principle it has remained at a pre\u2010Straussian\n      standpoint, and does not venture upon an unreserved application of\n      historical considerations either to the miracle question or to the\n      Johannine question, and naturally therefore resigns the attempt to\n      take account of and explain the great historical problems.\n\n      We may name the following Lives of Jesus produced by German Catholic\n      writers:\u2014\n\n      Joh. Nep. Sepp, _Das Leben Jesu Christi_. Regensburg, 1843\u20101846. 7\n      vols., 2nd ed., 1853\u20101862.\n\n      Peter Schegg, _Sechs B\u00fccher des Lebens Jesu_. (The Life of Jesus in\n      Six Books.) Freiburg, 1874\u20101875. c. 1200 pp.\n\n      Joseph Grimm, _Das Leben Jesu_. W\u00fcrzburg, 2nd ed., 1890\u20101903. 6\n      vols.\n\n      Richard von Kralik, _Jesu Leben und Werk_. Kempten\u2010N\u00fcrnberg, 1904.\n      481 pp.\n\n      W. Capitaine, _Jesus von Nazareth_. Regensburg, 1905. 192 pp.\n\n      How narrow are the limits within which the Catholic study of the\n      life of Jesus moves even when it aims at scientific treatment, is\n      illustrated by Hermann Schell\u2019s _Christus_ (Mainz, 1903. 152 pp.).\n      After reading the forty\u2010two questions with which he introduces his\n      narrative one might suppose that the author was well aware of the\n      bearing of all the historical problems of the life of Jesus, and\n      intended to supply an answer to them. Instead of doing so, however,\n      he adopts as the work proceeds more and more the r\u00f4le of an\n      apologist, not facing definitely either the miracle question or the\n      Johannine question, but gliding over the difficulties by the aid of\n      ingenious headings, so that in the end his book almost takes the\n      form of an explanatory text to the eighty\u2010nine illustrations which\n      adorn the book and make it difficult to read.\n\n      In France, Renan\u2019s work gave the incentive to an extensive Catholic\n      \u201cLife\u2010of\u2010Jesus\u201d literature. We may name the following:\u2014\n\n      Louis Veuillot, _La Vie de notre Seigneur J\u00e9sus\u2010Christ_. Paris,\n      1864. 509 pp. German by Waldeyer. K\u00f6ln\u2010Neuss, 1864. 573 pp.\n\n      H. Wallon, _Vie de notre Seigneur J\u00e9sus\u2010Christ_. Paris, 1865. 355\n      pp.\n\n      A work which met with a particularly favourable reception was that\n      of P\u00e8re Didon, the Dominican, _J\u00e9sus\u2010Christ_, Paris, 1891, 2 vols.,\n      vol. i. 483 pp., vol. ii. 469 pp. The German translation is dated\n      1895.\n\n      In the same year there appeared a new edition of the \u201cBitter\n      Sufferings of Our Lord Jesus Christ\u201d (see above, p. 109 f.) by\n      Katharina Emmerich; the cheap popular edition of the translation of\n      Renan\u2019s \u201cLife of Jesus\u201d; and the eighth edition of Strauss\u2019s \u201cLife\n      of Jesus for the German People.\u201d\n\n      We may quote from the ecclesiastical _Approbation_ printed at the\n      beginning of Didon\u2019s Life of Jesus. \u201cIf the author sometimes seems\n      to speak the language of his opponents, it is at once evident that\n      he has aimed at defeating them on their own ground, and he is\n      particularly successful in doing so when he confronts their\n      irreligious a priori theories with the positive arguments of\n      history.\u201d\n\n      As a matter of fact the work is skilfully written, but without a\n      spark of understanding of the historical questions.\n\n      All honour to Alfred Loisy! (_Le Quatri\u00e8me \u00c9vangile_, Paris, 1903,\n      960 pp.), who takes a clear view on the Johannine question, and\n      denies the existence of a Johannine historical tradition. But what\n      that means for the Catholic camp may be recognised from the\n      excitement produced by the book and its express condemnation. See\n      also the same writer\u2019s _L\u2019\u00c9vangile et l\u2019\u00c9glise_ (German translation,\n      Munich, 1904, 189 pp.), in which Loisy here and there makes good\n      historical points against Harnack\u2019s \u201cWhat is Christianity?\u201d\n\n  226 Oskar Holtzmann, Professor of Theology at Giessen, was born in 1859\n      at Stuttgart.\n\n  227 This suggestion reminds us involuntarily of the old rationalistic\n      Lives of Jesus, which are distressed that Jesus should have injured\n      the good people of the country of the Gesarenes by sacrificing their\n      swine in healing the demoniac. A good deal of old rationalistic\n      material crops up in the very latest Lives of Jesus, as cannot\n      indeed fail to be the case in view of the arbitrary interpretation\n      of detail which is common to both. According to Oskar Holtzmann the\n      barren fig\u2010tree has also a symbolical meaning. \u201cIt is a pledge given\n      by God to Jesus that His faith shall not be put to shame in the\n      great work of His life.\u201d\n\n  228 Isaiah lxii. 11, \u201cSay ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy\n      salvation cometh.\u201d\n\n  229 \u201cFor Jesus Himself,\u201d Oskar Holtzmann argues, \u201cthis discovery\u201d\u2014he\n      means the antinomy which He had discovered in Psalm cx.\u2014\u201cdisposed of\n      a doubt which had always haunted him. If He had really known Himself\n      to be descended from the Davidic line, He would certainly not have\n      publicly suggested a doubt as to the Davidic descent of the\n      Messiah.\u201d\n\n  230 Oskar Holtzmann\u2019s work, _War Jesus Ekstatiker?_ (T\u00fcbingen, 1903, 139\n      pp.) is in reality a new reading of the life of Jesus. By\n      emphasising the ecstatic element he breaks with the \u201cnatural\u201d\n      conception of the life and teaching of Jesus; and, in so far,\n      approaches the eschatological view. But he gives a very wide\n      significance to the term ecstatic, subsuming under it, it might\n      almost be said, all the eschatological thoughts and utterances of\n      Jesus. He explains, for instance, that \u201cthe conviction of the\n      approaching destruction of existing conditions is ecstatic.\u201d At the\n      same time, the only purpose served by the hypothesis of ecstasy is\n      to enable the author to attribute to Jesus \u201cThe belief that in His\n      own work the Kingdom of God was already beginning, and the promise\n      of the Kingdom to individuals; this can only be considered\n      ecstatic.\u201d The opposites which Bousset brings together by the\n      conception of paradox are united by Holtzmann by means of the\n      hypothesis of ecstasy. That is, however, to play fast and loose with\n      the meaning of \u201cecstasy.\u201d An ecstasy is, in the usual understanding\n      of the word, an abnormal, transient condition of excitement in which\n      the subject\u2019s natural capacity for thought and feeling, and\n      therewith all impressions from without, are suspended, being\n      superseded by an intense mental excitation and activity. Jesus may\n      possibly have been in an ecstatic state at His baptism and at the\n      transfiguration. What O. Holtzmann represents as a kind of permanent\n      ecstatic state is rather an eschatological fixed idea. With\n      eschatology, ecstasy has no essential connexion. It is possible to\n      be eschatologically minded without being an ecstatic, and vice\n      versa. Philo attributes a great importance to ecstasy in his\n      religious life, but he was scarcely, if at all, interested in\n      eschatology.\n\n  231 P. W. Schmidt, now Professor in Basle, was born in Berlin in 1845.\n\n  232 Otto Schmiedel, Professor at the Gymnasium at Eisenach, _Die\n      Hauptprobleme der Leben\u2010Jesu\u2010Forschung_. T\u00fcbingen, 1902. 71 pp.\n      Schmiedel was born in 1858.\n\n      Hermann Freiherr von Soden, _Die wichtigsten Fragen im Leben Jesu_.\n      Von Soden, Professor in Berlin, and preacher at the Jerusalem\n      Kirche, was born in 1852.\n\n      We may mention also the following works:\u2014\n\n      Fritz Barth (born 1856, Professor at Bern), _Die Hauptprobleme des\n      Lebens Jesu_. 1st ed., 1899; 2nd ed., 1903.\n\n      Friedrich Nippold\u2019s _Der Entwicklungsgang des Lebens Jesu im\n      Wortlaut der drei ersten Evangelien_ (The Course of the Life of\n      Jesus in the Words of the First Three Evangelists) (Hamburg, 1895,\n      213 pp.) is only an arrangement of the sections.\n\n      Konrad Furrer\u2019s _Vortr\u00e4ge \u00fcber das Leben Jesu Christi_ (Lectures on\n      the Life of Jesus Christ) have a special charm by reason of the\n      author\u2019s knowledge of the country and the locality. Furrer, who was\n      born in 1838, is Professor at Zurich.\n\n      Another work which should not be forgotten is R. Otto\u2019s _Leben und\n      Wirken Jesu nach historisch\u2010kritischer Auffassung_ (Life and Work of\n      Jesus from the Point of View of Historical Criticism). A Lecture.\n      G\u00f6ttingen, 1902. Rudolf Otto, born in 1869, is Privat\u2010Docent at\n      G\u00f6ttingen.\n\n  233 Schmiedel is not altogether right in making \u201cthe Heidelberg\n      Professor Paulus\u201d follow the same lines as Reimarus, \u201cexcept that\n      his works, of 1804 and 1828, are less malignant, but only the more\n      dull for that.\u201d In reality the deistic Life of Jesus by Reimarus,\n      and the rationalistic Life by Paulus have nothing in common. Paulus\n      was perhaps influenced by Venturini, but not by Reimarus. The\n      assertion that Strauss wrote his \u201cLife of Jesus for the German\n      people\u201d because \u201cRenan\u2019s fame gave him no peace\u201d is not justified,\n      either by Strauss\u2019s character or by the circumstances in which the\n      second Life of Jesus was produced.\n\n  234 Von Soden gives on pp. 24 ff. the passages of Mark which he supposes\n      to be derived from the Petrine tradition in a different order from\n      that in which they occur in Mark, regrouping them freely. He puts\n      together, for instance, Mark i. 16\u201020, iii. 13\u201019, vi. 7\u201016, viii.\n      27\u2010ix. 1, ix. 33\u201040, under the title \u201cThe formation and training of\n      the band of disciples.\u201d He supposes Mark, the pupil of Peter, to\n      have grouped in this way by a kind of association of ideas \u201cwhat he\n      had heard Peter relate in his missionary journeys, when writing it\n      down after Peter\u2019s death, not connectedly, but giving as much as he\n      could remember of it\u201d; this would be in accordance with the\n      statement of Papias that Mark wrote \u201cnot in order.\u201d Papias\u2019s\n      statement, therefore, refers to an \u201cUr\u2010Markus,\u201d which he found\n      lacking in historical order.\n\n      But what are we to make of a representative of the early Church thus\n      approaching the Gospels with the demand for historical arrangement?\n      And good, simple old Papias, of all people!\n\n      But if the Marcan plan was not laid down in \u201cUr\u2010Markus,\u201d there is\n      nothing for it\u2014since the plan was certainly not given in the\n      collection of Logia\u2014but to ascribe it to the author of our Gospel of\n      Mark, to the man, that is, who wrote down for the first time these\n      \u201cPauline conceptions,\u201d those reflections of experiences of\n      individual believers and of the community, and inserted them into\n      the Gospel. It is proposed, then, to retain the outline which he has\n      given of the life of Jesus, and reject at the same time what he\n      relates. That is to say, he is to be believed where it is convenient\n      to believe him, and silenced where it is inconvenient. No more\n      complete refutation of the Marcan hypothesis could possibly be given\n      than this analysis, for it destroys its very foundation, the\n      confident acceptance of the historicity of the Marcan plan.\n\n      If there is to be an analysis of sources in Mark, then the Marcan\n      plan must be ascribed to \u201cUr\u2010Markus,\u201d otherwise the analysis renders\n      the Markan hypothesis historically useless. But if \u201cUr\u2010Markus\u201d is to\n      be reconstructed on the basis of assigning to it the Marcan plan,\n      then we cannot separate the natural from the supernatural, for the\n      supernatural scenes, like the feeding of the multitude and the\n      transfiguration, are among the main features of the Marcan outline.\n\n      No hypothetical analysis of \u201cUr\u2010Markus\u201d has escaped this dilemma;\n      what it can effect by literary methods is historically useless, and\n      what would be historically useful cannot be attained nor \u201cpresented\u201d\n      by literary methods.\n\n  235 Von Soden, for instance, germanises Jesus when he writes, \u201cand this\n      nature is sound to the core. In spite of its inwardness there is no\n      trace of an exaggerated sentimentality. In spite of all the\n      intensity of prayer there is nothing of ecstasy or vision. No\n      apocalyptic dream\u2010pictures find a lodging\u2010place in His soul.\u201d\n\n      Is a man who teaches a world\u2010renouncing ethic which sometimes soars\n      to the dizzy heights such as that of Matt. xix. 12, according to our\n      conceptions \u201csound to the core\u201d? And does not the life of Jesus\n      present a number of occasions on which He seems to have been in an\n      ecstasy?\n\n      Thus, von Soden has not simply read his Jesus out of the texts, but\n      has added something of his own, and that something is Germanic in\n      colouring.\n\n  236 _i.e._ the MS. Life of Jesus written by Kai Jans, one of the\n      characters of the novel. The way in which the whole life\u2010experience\n      of this character prepares him for the writing of the Life is\n      strikingly\u2014if not always acceptably\u2014worked out.\u2014TRANSLATOR.\n\n  237 Frenssen\u2019s Kai Jans professes to have used the \u201cresults of the whole\n      range of critical investigation\u201d in writing his work. Among the\n      books which he enumerates and recommends in the after\u2010word, we miss\n      the works of Strauss, Weisse, Keim, Volkmar, and Brandt, and,\n      generally speaking, the names of those who in the past have done\n      something really great and original. Of the moderns, Johannes Weiss\n      is lacking. Wrede is mentioned, but is virtually ignored.\n      Pfleiderer\u2019s remarkable and profound presentation of Jesus in the\n      _Urchristentum_ (E. T. \u201cPrimitive Christianity,\u201d vol. ii., 1909) is\n      non\u2010existent so far as he is concerned.\n\n  238 _Heimatkunst_, the ideal that every production of German art should\n      be racy of the soil. It has its relative justification as a protest\n      against the long subservience of some departments of German art to\n      French taste.\u2014TRANSLATOR.\n\n  239 The Jesus of H. S. Chamberlain\u2019s _Worte Christi_, 1901, 286 pp., is\n      also modern. But the modernity is not so obtrusive, because he\n      describes only the teaching of Jesus, not His life.\n\n  240 Born in 1839 at Stettin. Studied at T\u00fcbingen, was appointed\n      Professor in 1870 at Jena and in 1875 at Berlin. (Died 1908.)\n\n  241 _Das Urchristentum, seine Schriften und Lehren in geschichtlichem\n      Zusammenhang beschrieben._ 2nd ed. Berlin, 1902. Vol. i. (696 pp.),\n      615 ff.: _Die Predigt Jesu und der Glaube der Urgemeinde_ (English\n      Translation, \u201cPrimitive Christianity,\u201d chap. xvi.). Pfleiderer\u2019s\n      latest views are set forth in his work, based on academic lectures,\n      _Die Entstehung des Urchristentums_. (How Christianity arose.)\n      Munich, 1905. 255 pp.\n\n  242 Albert Kalthoff, _Das Christusproblem_. _Grundlinien zu einer\n      Sozialtheologie._ (The Problem of the Christ: Ground\u2010plan of a\n      Social Theology.) Leipzig, 1902. 87 pp.\n\n      _Die Entstehung des Christentums. Neue Beitr\u00e4ge zum\n      Christusproblem._ (How Christianity arose.) Leipzig, 1904. 155 pp.\n\n      Albert Kalthoff was born in 1850 at Barmen, and is engaged in\n      pastoral work in Bremen.\n\n  243 _Das Leben Jesu._ Lectures delivered before the Protestant Reform\n      Society at Berlin. Berlin, 1880. 173 pp.\n\n  244 If Kalthoff would only have spoken of the conception of the\n      resurrection instead of the conception of immortality! Then his\n      subjective knowledge would have been more or less tolerable.\n\n  245 Against Kalthoff: Wilhelm Bousset, _Was wissen wir von Jesus?_ (What\n      do we know about Jesus?) Lectures delivered before the\n      Protestantenverein at Bremen. Halle, 1904. 73 pp. In reply: Albert\n      Kalthoff, _Was wissen wir von Jesus?_ A settlement of accounts with\n      Professor Bousset. Berlin, 1904. 43 pp.\n\n      A sound historical position is set forth in the clear and trenchant\n      lecture of W. Kapp, _Das Christus\u2010 und Christentumsproblem bei\n      Kalthoff_. (The problem of the Christ and of Christianity as handled\n      by Kalthoff.) Strassburg, 1905. 23 pp.\n\n  246 Eduard von Hartmann, _Das Christentum des Neuen Testaments_. (The\n      Christianity of the N.T.) 2nd, revised and altered, edition of the\n      \u201cLetters on the Christian Religion.\u201d Sachsa\u2010in\u2010the\u2010Harz, 1905. 311\n      pp.\n\n  247 Eduard von Hartmann ought, therefore, to have given his assistance\n      to the others who have made this assertion in proving that there\n      really existed Messianic claimants before and at the time of Jesus.\n\n  248 \u201cJesus,\u201d by J\u00fclicher, in _Die Kultur der Gegenwart_. (An\n      encyclopaedic publication which is appearing in parts.) Teubner,\n      Berlin, 1905, pp. 40\u201069.\n\n      See also W. Bousset, \u201cJesus,\u201d _Religionsgeschichtliche Volksb\u00fccher_.\n      (A series of religious\u2010historical monographs.) Published by Schiele,\n      Halle, 1904.\n\n      Here should be mentioned also the thoughtful book, following very\n      much the lines of J\u00fclicher, by Eduard Grimm, entitled _Die Ethik\n      Jesu_, Hamburg, 1903, 288 pp. The author, born in 1848, is the chief\n      pastor at the Nicolaikirche in Hamburg.\n\n      Another work which deserves mention is Arno Neumann, _Jesu wie er\n      geschichtlich war_ (Jesus as he historically existed), Freiburg,\n      1904, 198 pp. (New Paths to the Old God), a Life of Jesus\n      distinguished by a lofty vein of natural poetry and based upon solid\n      theological knowledge. Arno Neumann is headmaster of a school at\n      Apolda.\n\n  249 _Jeschua. Der klassische j\u00fcdische Mann. Zerst\u00f6rung des kirchlichen,\n      Enth\u00fcllung des j\u00fcdischen Jesus\u2010Bildes._ Berlin, 1904, 112 pp.\n      Earlier studies of the Life of Jesus from the Jewish point of view\n      had been less ambitious. Dr. Aug. W\u00fcnsche had written in 1872 on\n      \u201cJesus in His attitude towards women\u201d from the Talmudic standpoint\n      (146 pp.), and had described Him from the same standpoint as a Jesus\n      who rejoiced in life, _Der lebensfreudige Jesus der synoptischen\n      Evangelien im Gegensatz zum leidenden Messias der Kirche_. Leipzig,\n      1876, 444 pp. The basis is so far correct, that the eschatological,\n      world\u2010renouncing ethic which we find in Jesus was due to temporary\n      conditions and is therefore transitory, and had nothing whatever to\n      do with Judaism as such. The spirit of the Law is the opposite of\n      world\u2010renouncing. But the Talmud, be its traditions never so\n      trustworthy, could teach us little about Jesus because it has\n      preserved scarcely a trace of that eschatological phase of Jewish\n      religion and ethics.\n\n  250 Wolfgang Kirchbach, _Was lehrte Jesus? Zwei Urevangelien_. Berlin,\n      1897, 248 pp.; second greatly enlarged and improved edition, 1902,\n      339 pp. By the same author, _Das Buch Jesus_. _Die Urevangelien. Neu\n      nachgewiesen, neu \u00fcbersetzt, geordnet und aus der Ursprache\n      erkl\u00e4rt_. (The Book of Jesus. The Primitive Gospels. Newly traced,\n      translated, arranged, and explained on the basis of the original.)\n      Berlin, 1897.\n\n  251 Before him, Hugo Delff, in his _History of the Rabbi Jesus of\n      Nazareth_ (Leipzig, 1889, 428 pp.), had confined himself to the\n      Fourth Gospel, and even within that Gospel he drew some critical\n      distinctions. His Jesus at first conceals His Messiahship from the\n      fear of arousing the political expectations of the people, and\n      speaks to them of the Son of Man in the third person. At His second\n      visit to Jerusalem He breaks with the rulers, is subsequently\n      compelled, in consequence of the conflict over the Sabbath, to leave\n      Galilee, and then gives up His own people and turns to the heathen.\n      Delff explains the raising of Lazarus by supposing him to have been\n      buried in a state of trance.\n\n  252 Albert Dulk, _Der Irrgang des Lebens Jesu_. _In geschichtlicher\n      Aufassung dargestellt. Erster Teil: Die historischen Wurzeln und die\n      galil\u00e4ische Bl\u00fcte_, 1884. 395 pp. _Zweiter Teil: Der Messiaseinzug\n      und die Erhebung ans Kreuz_, 1885, 302 pp. (The Error of the Life of\n      Jesus. Historically apprehended and set forth. Pt. i., The\n      Historical Roots and the Galilaean Blossom. Pt. ii., The Messianic\n      Entry and the Crucifixion.) The course of Dulk\u2019s own life was\n      somewhat erratic. Born in 1819, he came prominently forward in the\n      revolution of 1848, as a political pamphleteer and agitator. Later,\n      though almost without means, he undertook long journeys, even to\n      Sinai and to Lapland. Finally, he worked as a social democratic\n      reformer. He died in 1884.\n\n  253 A scientific treatment of this subject is supplied by Fr. Nippold,\n      _Die psychiatrische Seite der Heilst\u00e4tigkeit Jesu_ (The Psychiatric\n      Side of Jesus\u2019 Works of Healing), 1889, in which a luminous review\n      of the medical material is to be found. See also Dr. K. Kunz,\n      _Christus medicus_, Freiburg in Baden, 1905, 74 pp. The scientific\n      value of this work is, however, very much reduced by the fact that\n      the author has no acquaintance with the preliminary questions\n      belonging to the sphere of history and literature, and regards all\n      the miracles of healing as actual events, believing himself able to\n      explain them from the medical point of view. The tendency of the\n      work is mainly apologetic.\n\n  254 _Jesus von Nazareth. Described from the Scientific, Historical, and\n      Social Point of View._ Translated from the French (into German) by\n      A. Just. Leipzig, 1894. The author, whose real name is P. A.\n      Desjardin, is a practising physician. De R\u00e9gla, too, makes the\n      Fourth Gospel the basis of his narrative.\n\n  255 Pierre Nahor (Emilie Lerou), _Jesus_. Translated from the French by\n      Walter Bloch. Berlin, 1905. Its motto is: The figure of Jesus\n      belongs, like all mysterious, heroic, or mythical figures, to legend\n      and poetry. In the introduction we find the statement, \u201cThis book is\n      a confession of faith.\u201d The narrative is based on the Fourth Gospel.\n\n  256 _La Vie inconnue de J\u00e9sus\u2010Christ._ Paris, 1894. 301 pp. German,\n      under the title _Die L\u00fccke im Leben Jesu_ (The Gap in the Life of\n      Jesus). Stuttgart, 1894. 186 pp. See Holtzmann in the _Theol.\n      Jahresbericht_, xiv. p. 140.\n\n      In a certain limited sense the work of A. Lillie, _The Influence of\n      Buddhism on Primitive Christianity_ (London, 1893), is to be\n      numbered among the fictitious works on the life of Jesus. The\n      fictitious element consists in Jesus being made an Essene by the\n      writer, and Essenism equated with Buddhism.\n\n      Among \u201cedifying\u201d romances on the life of Jesus intended for family\n      reading, that of the English writer J. H. Ingraham, _The Prince of\n      the House of David_, has had a very long lease of life. It appeared\n      in a German translation as early as 1858, and was reissued in 1906\n      (Brunswick).\n\n      A fictitious life of Jesus of wonderful beauty is Peter Rosegger\u2019s\n      _I.N.R.I. Frohe Botschaft eines armen S\u00fcnders_ (The Glad Tidings of\n      a poor Sinner). Leipzig, 6th\u201010th thousand, 1906. 293 pp.\n\n      A feminine point of view reveals itself in C. Rauch\u2019s _Jeschua ben\n      Joseph_. Deichert, 1899.\n\n  257 _La Vie \u00e9sot\u00e9rique de J\u00e9su\u2010Christ et les origines orientales du\n      christianisme._ Paris, 1902. 445 pp.\n\n      That Jesus was of Aryan race is argued by A. M\u00fcller, who assumes a\n      Gaulish immigration into Galilee. _Jesus ein Arier._ Leipzig, 1904.\n      74 pp.\n\n  258 _Did Jesus live 100 __B.C.__?_ London and Benares. Theosophical\n      Publishing Society, 1903. 440 pp.\n\n      A scientific discussion of the \u201cToledoth Jeshu,\u201d with citations from\n      the Talmudic tradition concerning Jesus, is offered by S. Krauss,\n      _Das Leben Jesu nach j\u00fcdischen Quellen_, 1902. 309 pp. According to\n      him the _Toledoth Jeshu_ was committed to writing in the fifth\n      century, and he is of opinion that the Jewish legend is only a\n      modified version of the Christian tradition.\n\n  259 William Wrede, born in 1859 at B\u00fccken in Hanover, was Professor at\n      Breslau. (He died in 1907.)\n\n      Wrede names as his real predecessors on the same lines Bruno Bauer,\n      Volkmar, and the Dutch writer Hoekstra (\u201cDe Christologie van het\n      canonieke Marcus\u2010Evangelie, vergeleken met die van de beide andere\n      synoptische Evangelien,\u201d _Theol. Tijdschrift_, v., 1871).\n\n      In a certain limited degree the work of Ernest Havet (_Le\n      Christianisme et ses origines_) has a claim to be classed in the\n      same category. His scepticism refers principally to the entry into\n      Jerusalem and the story of the passion.\n\n  260 These and the following questions are raised more especially in the\n      _Sketch of the Life of Jesus_.\n\n  261 It would perhaps be more historical to say \u201cas a prophet.\u201d\n\n  262 The difficulties which the incident at Caesarea Philippi places in\n      the way of Wrede\u2019s construction may be realised by placing two of\n      his statements side by side. P. 101: \u201cFrom this it is evident that\n      this incident contains no element which cannot be easily understood\n      on the basis of Mark\u2019s ideas.\u201d P. 238: \u201cBut in another aspect this\n      incident stands in direct contradiction to the Marcan view of the\n      disciples. It is inconsistent with their general \u2018want of\n      understanding,\u2019 and can therefore hardly have been created by Mark\n      himself.\u201d\n\n  263 The question of the attitude of pre\u2010Origenic theology towards the\n      historical Jesus, and of the influence exercised by dogma upon the\n      evangelical tradition regarding Jesus in the course of the first two\n      centuries, is certainly deserving of a detailed examination.\n\n  264 Certain of the conceptions with which Wrede operates are simply not\n      in accordance with the text, because he gives them a different\n      significance from that which they have in the narrative. Thus, for\n      example, he always takes the \u201cresurrection,\u201d when it occurs in the\n      mouth of Jesus, as a reference to that resurrection which as an\n      historical fact became a matter of apprehended experience to the\n      apostles. But Jesus speaks without any distinction of His\n      resurrection and of His Parousia. The conception of the\n      resurrection, therefore, if one is to arrive at it inductively from\n      the Marcan text, is most closely bound up with the Parousia. The\n      Evangelist would thus seem to have made Jesus predict a different\n      kind of resurrection from that which actually happened. The\n      resurrection, according to the Marcan text, is an eschatological\n      event, and has no reference whatever to Wrede\u2019s \u201chistorical\n      resurrection.\u201d Further, if their resurrection experience was the\n      first and fundamental point in the Messianic enlightenment of the\n      disciples, why did they only begin to proclaim it some weeks later?\n      This is a problem which was long ago recognised by Reimarus, and\n      which is not solved by merely assuming that the disciples were\n      afraid.\n\n  265 P. 33 ff. The prohibitions in Mark i. 43 and 44, v. 43, vii. 36, and\n      viii. 26 are put on the same footing with the really Messianic\n      prohibitions in viii. 30 and ix. 9, with which may be associated\n      also the imposition of silence upon the demoniacs who recognise his\n      Messiahship in Mark i. 34 and iii. 12.\n\n  266 The narrative in Matt. xiv. 22\u201033, according to which the disciples,\n      after seeing Jesus walk upon the sea, hail Him on His coming into\n      the boat as the Son of God, and the description of the deeds of\n      Jesus as \u201cdeeds of Christ,\u201d in the introduction to the Baptist\u2019s\n      question in Matt. xi. 2, do not cancel the old theory even in\n      Matthew, because the Synoptists, differing therein from the fourth\n      Evangelist, do not represent the demand for a sign as a demand for a\n      Messianic sign, nor the cures wrought by Jesus as Messianic proofs\n      of power. The action of the demons in crying out upon Jesus as the\n      Son of God betokens their recognition of Him; it has nothing to do\n      with the miracles of healing as such.\n\n  267 For further examples of the pressing of the theory to its utmost\n      limits, see Wrede, p. 134 ff.\n\n  268 It is always assumed as self\u2010evident that Jesus is speaking of the\n      sufferings and persecutions which would take place after His death,\n      or that the Evangelist, in making Him speak in this way, is thinking\n      of these later persecutions. There is no hint of that in the text.\n\n  269 That the eschatological school showed a certain timidity in drawing\n      the consequences of its recognition of the character of the\n      preaching of Jesus and examining the tradition from the\n      eschatological standpoint can be seen from Johannes Weiss\u2019s work,\n      \u201cThe Earliest Gospel\u201d (_Das \u00e4lteste Evangelium_), G\u00f6ttingen, 1903,\n      414 pp. Ingenious and interesting as this work is in detail, one is\n      surprised to find the author of the \u201cPreaching of Jesus\u201d here\n      endeavouring to distinguish between Mark and \u201cUr\u2010Markus,\u201d to point\n      to examples of Pauline influence, to exhibit clearly the\n      \u201ctendencies\u201d which guided, respectively, the original Evangelist and\n      the redactor\u2014all this as if he did not possess in his eschatological\n      view of the preaching of Jesus a dominant conception which gives him\n      a clue to quite a different psychology from that which he actually\n      applies. Against Wrede he brings forward many arguments which are\n      worthy of attention, but he can hardly be said to have refuted him,\n      because it is impossible for Weiss to treat the question in the\n      exact form in which it was raised by Wrede.\n\n  270 Wrede certainly goes too far in asserting that even in Mark\u2019s\n      version the experience at the baptism is conceived as an open\n      miracle, perceptible to others. The way in which the revelations to\n      the prophets are recounted in the Old Testament does not make in\n      favour of this. Otherwise we should have to suppose that the\n      Evangelist described the incident as a miracle which took place in\n      the presence of a multitude without perceiving that in this case the\n      Messianic secret was a secret no longer. If so, the story of the\n      baptism stands on the same footing as the story of the Messianic\n      entry: it is a revelation of the Messiahship which has absolutely no\n      results.\n\n  271 The statement of Mark that Jesus, coming out of the north, appeared\n      for a moment again in Decapolis and Capernaum, and then started off\n      to the north once more (Mark vii. 31\u2010viii. 27), may here\n      provisionally be left out of account since it stands in relation\n      with the twofold account of the feeding of the multitude. So too the\n      enigmatic appearance and disappearance of the people (Mark viii.\n      34\u2010ix. 30) may here be passed over. These statements make no\n      difference to the fact that Jesus really broke off his work in\n      Galilee shortly after the Mission of the Twelve, since they imply at\n      most a quite transient contact with the people.\n\n  272 On the theory of the successful and unsuccessful periods in the work\n      of Jesus see the \u201cSketch,\u201d p. 3 ff., \u201cThe four Pre\u2010suppositions of\n      the Modern Historical Solution.\u201d\n\n  273 Weisse found that there was no hint in the sources of the desertion\n      of the people, since according to these, Jesus was opposed only by\n      the Pharisees, not by the people. The abandonment of the Galilaean\n      work, and the departure to Jerusalem, must, he thought, have been\n      due to some unrecorded fact which revealed to Jesus that the time\n      had come to act in this way. Perhaps, he adds, it was the waning of\n      Jesus\u2019 miracle\u2010working power which caused the change in His\n      attitude, since it is remarkable that He performed no further\n      miracles during His sojourn at Jerusalem.\n\n  274 The most logical attitude in regard to it is Bousset\u2019s, who proposes\n      to treat the mission and everything connected with it as a \u201cconfused\n      and unintelligible\u201d tradition.\n\n  275 Joel iii. 13, \u201cPut in the sickle for the harvest is ripe!\u201d In the\n      Apocalypse of John, too, the Last Judgment is described as the\n      heavenly harvest: \u201cThrust in thy sickle and reap; for the time is\n      come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe. And he\n      that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the\n      earth was reaped\u201d (Rev. xiv. 15 and 16).\n\n      The most remarkable parallel to the discourse at the sending forth\n      of the disciples is offered by the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch:\n      \u201cBehold, the days come, when the time of the world shall be ripe,\n      and the harvest of the sowing of the good and of the evil shall\n      come, when the Almighty shall bring upon the earth and upon its\n      inhabitants and upon their rulers confusion of spirit and terror\n      that makes the heart stand still; and they shall hate one another\n      and provoke one another to war; and the despised shall have power\n      over them of reputation, and the mean shall exalt themselves over\n      them that are highly esteemed. And the many shall be at the mercy of\n      the few ... and all who shall be saved and shall escape the before\u2010\n      mentioned (dangers) ... shall be given into the hands of my servant,\n      the Messiah.\u201d (Cap. lxx. 2, 3, 9. Following the translation of E.\n      Kautzsch.)\n\n      The connexion between the ideas of harvest and of judgment was\n      therefore one of the stock features of the apocalyptic writings. And\n      as the Apocalypse of Baruch dates from the period about A.D. 70, it\n      may be assumed that this association of ideas was also current in\n      the Jewish apocalyptic of the time of Jesus. Here is a basis for\n      understanding the secret of the Kingdom of God in the parables of\n      sowing and reaping historically and in accordance with the ideas of\n      the time. What Jesus did was to make known to those who understood\n      Him that the coming earthly harvest was the last, and was also the\n      token of the coming heavenly harvest. The eschatological\n      interpretation is immensely strengthened by these parallels.\n\n  276 With what right does modern critical theology tear apart even the\n      discourse in Matt. xi. in order to make the \u201ccry of jubilation\u201d into\n      the cry with which Jesus saluted the return of His disciples, and to\n      find lodgment for the woes upon Chorazin and Bethsaida somewhere\n      else in an appropriately gloomy context? Is not all this apparently\n      disconnected material held together by an inner bond of\n      connexion\u2014the secret of the Kingdom of God which is imminently\n      impending over Jesus and the people? Or, is Jesus expected to preach\n      like one who has a thesis to maintain and seeks about for the most\n      logical arrangement? Does not a certain lack of orderly connexion\n      belong to the very idea of prophetic speech?\n\n  277 If, therefore, Jesus at a later point predicted to His disciples His\n      resurrection, He means by that, not a single isolated act, but a\n      complex occurrence consisting of His metamorphosis, translation to\n      heaven, and Parousia as the Son of Man. And with this is associated\n      the general eschatological resurrection of the dead. It is,\n      therefore, one and the same thing whether He speaks of His\n      resurrection or of His coming on the clouds of heaven.\n\n  278 The title of Baldensperger\u2019s book, _The Self\u2010consciousness of Jesus\n      in the Light of the Messianic Hopes of His Time_, really contains a\n      promise which is impossible of fulfilment. The contemporary\n      \u201cMessianic hopes\u201d can only explain the hopes of Jesus so far as they\n      corresponded thereto, not His view of His own Person, in which He is\n      absolutely original.\n\n  279 Even Baldensperger\u2019s book, _Die messianisch\u2010apokalyptischen\n      Hoffnungen des Judentums_ (1903), passes at a stride from the Psalms\n      of Solomon to Fourth Ezra. The coming volume is to deal with the\n      eschatology of Jesus. That is a \u201ctheological,\u201d but not an historical\n      division of the material. The second volume should properly come in\n      the middle of the first.\n\n  280 The fact that in the Psalms of Solomon the Messiah is designated by\n      the ancient prophetic name of the Son of David is significant of the\n      rising influence of the ancient prophetic literature. This\n      designation has nothing whatever to do with a political ideal of a\n      kingly Messiah. This Davidic King and his Kingdom are, in their\n      character and the manner of their coming, every whit as supernatural\n      as the Son of Man and His coming. The same historical fact was read\n      into both Daniel and the prophets.\n\n  281 Enoch is an offshoot of the Danielic apocalyptic writings. The\n      earliest portion, the Apocalypse of the Ten Weeks, is independent of\n      Daniel and of contemporary origin. The Similitudes (capp.\n      xxxvii.\u2010lxix.), which, with their description of the Judgment of the\n      Son of Man, are so important in connexion with the thoughts of\n      Jesus, may be placed in 80\u201070 B.C. They do not presuppose the taking\n      of Jerusalem by Pompey.\n\n  282 The Psalms of Solomon are therefore a decade later than the\n      Similitudes.\n\n  283 The Apocalypse of Baruch seems to have been composed not very long\n      after the Fall of Jerusalem. Fourth Ezra is twenty to thirty years\n      later.\n\n  284 The Psalms of Solomon form the last document of Jewish eschatology\n      before the coming of the Baptist. For almost a hundred years, from\n      60 B.C. until A.D. 30, we have no information regarding\n      eschatological movements! And do the Psalms of Solomon really point\n      to a deep eschatological movement at the time of the taking of\n      Jerusalem by Pompey? Hardly, I think. It is to be noticed in\n      studying the times of Jesus that the surrounding circumstances have\n      no eschatological character. The Fall of Jerusalem marks the next\n      turning\u2010point in the history of the apocalyptic hope, as Baruch and\n      Fourth Ezra show.\n\n  285 Jesus promises them expressly that at the appearing of the Son of\n      Man they shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of\n      Israel (Matt. xix. 28). It is to their part in the judgment that\n      belong also the authority to bind and to loose which He entrusts to\n      them\u2014first to Peter personally (Matt. xvi. 19) and afterwards to all\n      the Twelve (Matt. xviii. 18)\u2014in such a way, too, that their present\n      decisions will be somehow or other binding at the Judgment. Or does\n      the \u201cupon earth\u201d refer only to the fact that the Messianic Last\n      Judgment will be held on earth? \u201cI give unto thee the Keys of the\n      Kingdom of Heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be\n      bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be\n      loosed in heaven\u201d (Matt. xvi. 19). Why should these words not be\n      historical? Is it because in the same context Jesus speaks of the\n      \u201cchurch\u201d which He will found upon the Rock\u2010disciple? But if one has\n      once got a clear idea from Paul, a Clement, the Epistle to the\n      Hebrews, and the Shepherd of Hermas, what the pre\u2010existing \u201cchurch\u201d\n      was which was to appear in the last times, it will no longer appear\n      impossible that Jesus might have spoken of the church against which\n      the gates of hell shall not prevail. Of course, if the passage is\n      given an uneschatological reference to the Church as we know it, it\n      loses all real meaning and becomes a treasure\u2010trove to the Roman\n      Catholic exegete, and a terror to the Protestant.\n\n  286 That he could be taken for the Baptist risen from the dead shows how\n      short a time before the death of the Baptist His ministry had begun.\n      He only became known, as the Baptist\u2019s question shows, at the time\n      of the mission of the disciples; Herod first heard of Him after the\n      death of the Baptist. Had he known anything of Jesus beforehand, it\n      would have been impossible for him suddenly to identify Him with the\n      Baptist risen from the dead. This elementary consideration has been\n      overlooked in all calculations of the length of the public ministry\n      of Jesus.\n\n  287 That had been rightly remarked by Colani. Later, however, theology\n      lost sight of the fact because it did not know how to make any\n      historical use of it.\n\n  288 Psal. Sol. xv. 8.\n\n  289 That the baptism of John was essentially an act which gave a claim\n      to something future may be seen from the fact that Jesus speaks of\n      His sufferings and death as a special baptism, and asks the sons of\n      Zebedee whether they are willing, for the sake of gaining the\n      thrones on His right hand and His left, to undergo this baptism. If\n      the baptism of John had had no real sacramental significance it\n      would be unintelligible that Jesus should use this metaphor.\n\n  290 The thought of the Messianic feast is found in Isaiah lv. 1 ff. and\n      lxv. 12 ff. It is very strongly marked in Isa. xxv. 6\u20108, a passage\n      which perhaps dates from the time of Alexander the Great, \u201cand\n      Jahweh of Hosts will prepare upon this mountain for all peoples a\n      feast of fat things, a feast of wine on the lees, of fat things\n      prepared with marrow, of wine on the lees well refined. He shall\n      destroy, in this mountain, among all peoples, the veil which has\n      veiled all peoples and the covering which has covered all nations.\n      He shall destroy death for ever, and the Lord Jahweh shall wipe away\n      the tears from off all faces; and the reproach of His people shall\n      disappear from the earth.\u201d (The German follows Kautzsch\u2019s\n      translation.)\n\n      In Enoch xxiv. and xxv. the conception of the Messianic feast is\n      connected with that of the tree of life which shall offer its fruits\n      to the elect upon the mountain of the King. Similarly in the\n      Testament of Levi, cap. xviii. 11.\n\n      The decisive passage is in Enoch lxii. 14. After the Parousia of the\n      Son of Man, and after the Judgment, the elect who have been saved\n      \u201cshall eat with the Son of Man, shall sit down and rise up with Him\n      to all eternity.\u201d\n\n      Jesus\u2019 references to the Messianic feast are therefore not merely\n      images, but point to a reality. In Matt. viii. 11 and 12 He\n      prophesies that many shall come from the East and from the West to\n      sit at meat with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In Matt. xxii. 1\u201014 the\n      Messianic feast is pictured as a royal marriage, in Matt. xxv. 1\u201013\n      as a marriage feast.\n\n      The Apocalypse is dominated by the thought of the feast in all its\n      forms. In Rev. ii. 7 it appears in connexion with the thought of the\n      tree of life; in ii. 17 it is pictured as a feeding with manna; in\n      iii. 21 it is the feast which the Lord will celebrate with His\n      followers; in vii. 16, 17 there is an allusion to the Lamb who shall\n      feed His own so that they shall no more hunger or thirst; chapter\n      xix. describes the marriage feast of the Lamb.\n\n      The Messianic feast therefore played a dominant part in the\n      conception of blessedness from Enoch to the Apocalypse of John. From\n      this we can estimate what sacramental significance a guarantee of\n      taking part in that feast must have had. The meaning of the\n      celebration was obvious in itself, and was made manifest in the\n      conduct of it. The sacramental effect was wholly independent of the\n      apprehension and comprehension of the recipient. Therefore, in this\n      also the meal at the lake\u2010side was a true sacrament.\n\n  291 Weisse rightly remarks that the task of the historian in dealing\n      with Mark must consist in explaining how such \u201cmyths\u201d could be\n      accepted by a chronicler who stood so relatively near the events as\n      our Mark does.\n\n  292 It is to be noticed that the cry of Jesus from the cross, \u201cEli,\n      Eli,\u201d was immediately interpreted by the bystanders as referring to\n      Elias.\n\n  293 From this difficulty we can see, too, how impossible it was for any\n      of them to have \u201carrived gradually at the knowledge of the\n      Messiahship of Jesus.\u201d\n\n  294 For the hypothesis of the two sets of narratives which have been\n      worked into one another, see the \u201cSketch of the Life of Jesus,\u201d\n      1901, p. 52 ff., \u201cAfter the Mission of the Disciples. Literary and\n      historical problems.\u201d A theory resting on the same principle was\n      lately worked out in detail by Johannes Weiss, _Das \u00e4lteste\n      Evangelium_ (The Earliest Gospel), 1903, p. 205 ff.\n\n  295 It is typical of the constant agreement of the critical conclusions\n      in thoroughgoing scepticism and thoroughgoing eschatology that Wrede\n      also observes: \u201cThe transfiguration and Peter\u2019s confession are\n      closely connected in content\u201d (p. 123). He also clearly perceives\n      the inconsistency in the fact that Peter at Caesarea Philippi gives\n      evidence of possessing a knowledge which he and his fellow\u2010disciples\n      do not show elsewhere (p. 119), but the fact that it is Peter, not\n      Jesus, who reveals the Messianic secret, constitutes a very serious\n      difficulty for Wrede\u2019s reading of the facts, since this assumes\n      Jesus to have been the revealer of it.\n\n  296 \u201cAfter these years shall my Son, the Christ, die, together with all\n      who have the breath of men. Then shall the Age be changed into the\n      primeval silence; seven days, as at the first beginning so that no\n      man shall be left. After seven days shall the Age, which now sleeps,\n      awake, and perishability shall itself perish.\u201d\n\n  297 Difficult problems are involved in the prediction of the\n      resurrection in Mark xiv. 28. Jesus there promises His disciples\n      that He will \u201cgo before them\u201d into Galilee. That cannot mean that He\n      will go alone into Galilee before them, and that they shall there\n      meet with Him, their risen Master; what He contemplates is that He\n      shall return _with_ them, at their head, from Jerusalem to Galilee.\n      Was it that the manifestation of the Son of Man and of the Judgment\n      should take place there? So much is clear: the saying, far from\n      directing the disciples to go away to Galilee, chains them to\n      Jerusalem, there to await Him who should lead them home. It should\n      not therefore be claimed as supporting the tradition of the\n      Galilaean appearances.\n\n      We find it \u201ccorrected\u201d by the saying of the \u201cyoung man\u201d at the\n      grave, who says to the women, \u201cGo, tell His disciples and Peter that\n      He goeth before you into Galilee. There shall ye see Him as He said\n      unto you.\u201d\n\n      Here then the idea of following in point of time is foisted upon the\n      words \u201che goeth before you,\u201d whereas in the original the word has a\n      purely local sense, corresponding to the \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f26\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03ac\u03b3\u03c9\u03bd \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u1f7a\u03c2 \u1f41\n      \u0399\u03b7\u03c3\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2 in Mark x. 32.\n\n      But the correction is itself meaningless since the visions took\n      place in Jerusalem. We have therefore in this passage a more\n      detailed indication of the way in which Jesus thought of the events\n      subsequent to His Resurrection. The interpretation of this\n      unfulfilled saying is, however, wholly impossible for us: it was not\n      less so for the earliest tradition, as is shown by the attempt to\n      give it a meaning by the \u201ccorrection.\u201d\n\n  298 Here it is evident also from the form taken by the prophecy of the\n      sufferings that the section Mark viii. 34 ff. cannot possibly come\n      after the revelation at Caesarea Philippi, since in it, it is the\n      thought of the general sufferings which is implied. For the same\n      reason the predictions of suffering and tribulation in the Synoptic\n      Apocalypse in Mark xiii. cannot be derived from Jesus.\n\n  299 Weisse and Bruno Bauer had long ago pointed out how curious it was\n      that Jesus in the sayings about His sufferings spoke of \u201cmany\u201d\n      instead of speaking of \u201cHis own\u201d or \u201cthe believers.\u201d Weisse found in\n      the words the thought that Jesus died for the nation as a whole;\n      Bruno Bauer that the \u201cfor many\u201d in the words of Jesus was derived\n      from the view of the later theology of the Christian community. This\n      explanation is certainly wrong, for so soon as the words of Jesus\n      come into any kind of contact with early theology the \u201cmany\u201d\n      disappear to give place to the \u201cbelievers.\u201d In the Pauline words of\n      institution the form is: My body for you (1 Cor. xi. 24).\n\n      Johannes Weiss follows in the footsteps of Weisse when he interprets\n      the \u201cmany\u201d as the nation (_Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes_, 2nd\n      ed., 1909, p. 201). He gives however, quite a false turn to this\n      interpretation by arguing that the \u201cmany\u201d cannot include the\n      disciples, since they \u201cwho in faith and penitence have received the\n      tidings of the Kingdom of God no longer need a special means of\n      deliverance such as this.\u201d They are the chosen, to them the Kingdom\n      is assured. But a ransom, a special means of salvation, is needful\n      for the mass of the people, who in their blindness have incurred the\n      guilt of rejecting the Messiah. For this grave sin, which is,\n      nevertheless, to some extent excused as due to ignorance, there is a\n      unique atoning sacrifice, the death of the Messiah.\n\n      This theory is based on a distinction of which there is no hint in\n      the teaching of Jesus; and it takes no account of the\n      predestinarianism which is an integral part of eschatology, and\n      which, in fact, dominated the thoughts of Jesus. The Lord is\n      conscious that He dies only for the elect. For others His death can\n      avail nothing, nor even their own repentance. Moreover, He does not\n      die in order that this one or that one may come into the Kingdom of\n      God; He provides the atonement in order that the Kingdom itself may\n      come. Until the Kingdom comes even the elect cannot possess it.\n\n  300 One might use it as a principle of division by which to classify the\n      lives of Jesus, whether they make Him go to Jerusalem to work or to\n      die. Here as in so many other places Weisse\u2019s clearness of\n      perception is surprising. Jesus\u2019 journey was according to him a\n      pilgrimage to death, not to the Passover.\n\n  301 \u201cThat ye enter not into temptation\u201d is the content of the prayer\n      that they are to offer while watching with Him.\n\n  302 As long ago as 1880, H. W. Bleby (_The Trial of Jesus considered as\n      a Judicial Act_) had emphasised this circumstance as significant.\n      The injustice in the trial of Jesus consisted, according to him, in\n      the fact that He was condemned on His own admission without any\n      witnesses being called. Dalman, it is true, will not admit that this\n      technical error was very serious.\n\n      But the really important point is not whether the condemnation was\n      legal or not; it is the significant fact that the High Priest called\n      no witnesses. Why did he not call any? This question was obscured\n      for Bleby and Dalman by other problems.\n\n  303 That would have been to utter a heresy which would alone have\n      sufficed to secure His condemnation. It would certainly have been\n      brought up as a charge against Him.\n\n  304 When it is assumed that the Messianic claims of Jesus were generally\n      known during those last days at Jerusalem there is a temptation to\n      explain the absence of witnesses in regard to them by supposing that\n      they were too much a matter of common knowledge to require evidence.\n      But in that case why should the High Priest not have fulfilled the\n      prescribed formalities? Why make such efforts first to establish a\n      different charge? Thus the obscure and unintelligible procedure at\n      the trial of Jesus becomes in the end the clearest proof that the\n      public knew nothing of the Messiahship of Jesus.","title":"The quest of the historical Jesus : $b a critical study of its progress from Reimarus to Wrede","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":199281}