CONTENTS OF THE QUEST OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS

BY ALBERT SCHWEITZER

PREFACE

THE BOOK HERE TRANSLATED IS OFFERED TO THE ENGLISH-

SPEAKING public in the belief that it sets before them, as no other book has
ever done, the history of the struggle which the best-equipped intellects of the
modern world have gone through in endeavouring to realise for themselves the
historical personality of our Lord.
Every one nowadays is aware that traditional Christian doctrine about Jesus
Christ is encompassed with difficulties, and that many of the statements in the
Gospels appear incredible in the light of modern views of history and nature.
But when the alternative of "Jesus or Christ" is put forward, as it has been in a
recent publication, or when we are bidden to choose between the Jesus of
history and the Christ of dogma, few except professed students know what a
protean and kaleidoscopic figure the "Jesus of history" is. Like the Christ in the
Apocryphal Acts of John, He has appeared in different forms to different minds.
"We know Him right well," says Professor Weinel.[1] What a claim!
Among the many bold paradoxes enunciated in this history of the Quest, there
is one that meets us at the outset, about which a few words may be said here, if
only to encourage those to persevere to the end who might otherwise be
repelled half-way—the paradox that the greatest attempts to write a Life of
Jesus have been written with hate.[2] It is in full accordance with this faith that
Dr. Schweitzer gives, in paragraph after paragraph, the undiluted expression of
the views of men who agree only in their unflinching desire to attain historical
truth. We are not accustomed to be so ruthless in England. We sometimes tend
to forget that the Gospel has moved the world, and we think our faith and
devotion to it so tender and delicate a thing that it will break, if it be not handled
with the utmost circumspection. So we become dominated by phrases and
afraid of them. Dr. Schweitzer is not afraid of phrases, if only they have been
beaten out by real contact with facts. And those who read to the end will see
that the crude sarcasm of Reimarus and the unflinching scepticism of Bruno
Bauer are not introduced merely to shock and by way of contrast. Each in his
own way made a real contribution to our understanding of the greatest historical
problem in the
[1] Quoted by Dr. Inge in the Hibbert Journal for Jan. 1910, p. 438 (from "Jesus
ur Christ," p. 32).
[2] "Quest," p. 4.
vi
history of our race. We see now that the object of attack was not the historical
Jesus after all, but a temporary idea of Him, inadequate because it did not truly
represent Him or the world in which He lived. And by hearing the writers'
characteristic phrases, uncompromising as they may be, by looking at things for

1
a moment from their own point of view, different as it may be from ours, we are
able to be more just, not only to these men of a past age, but also to the great
Problem that occupied them, as it also occupies us.
For, as Father Tyrrell has been pointing out in his last most impressive
message to us all, Christianity is at the Cross Roads. If the Figure of our Lord is
to mean anything for us we must realise it for ourselves. Most English readers
of the New Testament have been too long content with the rough and ready
Harmony of the Four Gospels that they unconsciously construct. This kind of
"Harmony" is not a very convincing picture when looked into, if only because it
almost always conflicts with inconvenient statements of the Gospels
themselves, statements that have been omitted from the "Harmony," not on any
reasoned theory, but simply from inadvertence or the difficulty of fitting them in.
We treat the Life of our Lord too much as it is treated in the Liturgical "Gospels,"
as a simple series of disconnected anecdotes.
Dr. Schweitzer's book does not pretend to be an impartial survey. He has his
own solution of the problems, and it is not to be expected that English students
will endorse the whole of his view of the Gospel History, any more than his
German fellow-workers have done. But valuable and suggestive as I believe his
constructive work to be in its main outlines, I venture to think his grasp of the
nature and complexity of the great Quest is even more remarkable, and his
exposition of it cannot fail to stimulate us in England. Whatever we may think of
Dr. Schweitzer's solution or that of his opponents, we too have to reckon with
the Son of Man who was expected to come before the apostles had gone over
the cities of Israel, the Son of Man who would come in His Kingdom before
some that heard our Lord speak should taste death, the Son of Man who came
to give His life a ransom for many, whom they would see hereafter coming with
the clouds of heaven. "Who is this Son of Man?" Dr. Schweitzer's book is an
attempt to give the full historical value and the true historical setting to these
fundamental words of the Gospel of Jesus.
Our first duty, with the Gospel as with every other ancient document, is to
interpret it with reference to its own time. The true view of the Gospel will be
that which explains the course of events in the first cen- tury and the second
century, rather than that which seems to have spiritual and imaginative value for
the twentieth century. Yet I cannot refrain from pointing out here one feature of
the theory of thorough-
vii
going eschatology, which may appeal to those who are accustomed to the
venerable forms of ancient Christian aspiration and worship. It may well be that
absolute truth cannot be embodied in human thought and that its expression
must always be clothed in symbols. It may be that we have to translate the
hopes and fears of our spiritual ancestors into the language of our new world.
We have to learn, as the Church in the second century had to learn, that the
End is not yet, that New Jerusalem, like all other objects of sense, is an image
of the truth rather than the truth itself. But at least we are beginning to see that

2
the apocalytic vision, the New Age which God is to bring in, is no mere
embroidery of Christianity, but the heart of its enthusiasm. And therefore the
expectations of vindication and judgment to come, the imagery of the Messianic
Feast, the "other-worldliness" against which so many eloquent words were said
in the nineteenth century, are not to be regarded as regrettable accretions
foisted on by superstition to the pure morality of the original Gospel. These
ideas are the Christian Hope, to be allegorised and "spiritualised" by us for our
own use whenever necessary, but not to be given up so long as we remain
Christians at all. Books which teach us boldly to trust the evidence of our
documents, and to accept the eschatology of the Christian Gospel as being
historically the eschatology of Jesus, help us at the same time to retain a real
meaning and use for the ancient phrases of the Te Deum, and for the
mediaeval strain of "Jerusalem the Golden."
F. C. Burkitt, Cambridge, 1910.
*I*
THE PROBLEM
WHEN, AT SOME FUTURE DAY, OUR PERIOD OF CIVILISATION SHALL
LIE, closed and completed, before the eyes of later generations, German
theology will stand out as a great, a unique phenomenon in the mental and
spiritual life of our time. For nowhere save in the German temperament can
there be found in the same perfection the living complex of conditions and
factors — of philosophic thought, critical acumen, historical insight, and religious
feeling — without which no deep theology is possible.
And the greatest achievement of German theology is the critical investigation of
the life of Jesus. What it has accomplished here has laid down the conditions
and determined the course of the religious thinking of the future.
In the history of doctrine its work has been negative; it has, so to speak, cleared
the site for a new edifice of religious thought. In describing how the ideas of
Jesus were taken possession of by the Greek spirit, it was tracing the growth of
that which must necessarily become strange to us, and, as a matter of fact, has
become strange to us.
Of its efforts to create a new dogmatic we scarcely need to have the history
written; it is alive within us. It is no doubt interesting to trace how modern
thoughts have found their way into the ancient dogmatic system, there to
combine with eternal ideas to form new constructions; it is interesting to
penetrate into the mind of the thinker in which this process is at work; but the
real truth of that which here meets us as history we experience within ourselves.
As in the monad of Leibnitz the whole universe is reflected, so we intuitively
experience within us, even apart from any clear historical knowledge, the
successive stages of the progress of modern dogma, from rationalism to
Ritschl. This experience is true knowledge, all the truer because we are
conscious of the whole as something indefinite, a slow and difficult movement
towards a goal which is still shrouded in obscurity. We have not yet arrived at

3
any reconciliation between history and modern thought — only between half-
way history and half-way thought. What the ultimate goal towards
2
which we are moving will be, what this something is which shall bring new life
and new regulative principles to coming centuries, we do not know. We can only
dimly divine that it will be the mighty deed of some mighty original genius,
whose truth and rightness will be proved by the fact that we, working at our poor
half thing, will oppose him might and main — we who imagine we long for
nothing more eagerly than a genius powerful enough to open up with authority a
new path for the world, seeing that we cannot succeed in moving it forward
along the track which we have so laboriously prepared.
For this reason the history of the critical study of the life of Jesus is of higher
intrinsic value than the history of the study of ancient dogma or of the attempts
to create a new one. It has to describe the most tremendous thing which the
religious consciousness has ever dared and done. In the study of the history of
dogma German theology settled its account with the past; in its attempt to
create a new dogmatic, it was endeavouring to keep a place for the religious life
in the thought of the present; in the study of the life of Jesus it was working for
the future — in pure faith in the truth, not seeing whereunto it wrought.
Moreover, we are here dealing with the most vital thing in the world's history.
There came a Man to rule over the world; He ruled it for good and for ill, as
history testifies; He destroyed the world into which He was born; the spiritual life
of our own time seems like to perish at His hands, for He leads to battle against
our thought a host of dead ideas, a ghostly army upon which death has no
power, and Himself destroys again the truth and goodness which His Spirit
creates in us, so that it cannot rule the world. That He continues,
notwithstanding, to reign as the alone Great and alone True in a world of which
He denied the continuance, is the prime example of that antithesis between
spiritual and natural truth which underlies all life and all events, and in Him
emerges into the field of history.
It is only at first sight that the absolute indifference of early Christianity towards
the life of the historical Jesus is disconcerting. When Paul, representing those
who recognise the signs of the times, did not desire to know Christ after the
flesh, that was the first expression of the impulse of self-preservation by which
Christianity continued to be guided for centuries. It felt that with the introduction
of the historic Jesus into its faith, there would arise something new, something
which had not been foreseen in the thoughts of the Master Himself, and that
thereby a contradiction would be brought to light, the solution of which would
constitute one of the great problems of the world.
Primitive Christianity was therefore right to live wholly in the future with the
Christ who was to come, and to preserve of the historic Jesus only detached
sayings, a few miracles, His death and resurrection. By
3

4
abolishing both the world and the historical Jesus it escaped the inner division
described above, and remained consistent in its point of view. We, on our part,
have reason to be grateful to the early Christians that, in consequence of this
attitude they have handed down to us, not biographies of Jesus but only
Gospels, and that therefore we possess the Idea and the Person with the
minimum of historical and contemporary limitations.
But the world continued to exist, and its continuance brought this one-sided
view to an end. The supra-mundane Christ and the historical Jesus of Nazareth
had to be brought together into a single personality at once historical and raised
above time. That was accomplished by Gnosticism and the Logos Christology.
Both, from opposite standpoints, because they were seeking the same goal,
agreed in sublimating the his- torical Jesus into the supra-mundane Idea. The
result of this development, which followed on the discrediting of eschatology,
was that the historical Jesus was again introduced into the field of view of
Christianity, but in such a way that all justification for, and interest in, the
investigation of His life and historical personality were done away with.
Greek theology was as indifferent in regard to the historical Jesus who lives
concealed in the Gospels as was the early eschatological theology. More than
that, it was dangerous to Him; for it created a new supernatural-historical
Gospel, and we may consider it fortunate that the Synoptics were already so
firmly established that the Fourth Gospel could not oust them; instead, the
Church, as though from the inner necessity of the antitheses which now began
to be a constructive element in her thought, was obliged to set up two antithetic
Gospels alongside of one another.
When at Chalcedon the West overcame the East, its doctrine of the two natures
dissolved the unity of the Person, and thereby cut off the last possibility of a
return to the historical Jesus. The self-contradiction was elevated into a law. But
the Manhood was so far admitted as to preserve, in appearance, the rights of
history. Thus by a deception the formula kept the life prisoner and prevented the
leading spirits of the Reformation from grasping the idea of a return to the
historical Jesus.
This dogma had first to be shattered before men could once more go out in
quest of the historical Jesus, before they could even grasp the thought of His
existence. That the historic Jesus is something different from the Jesus Christ of
the doctrine of the Two Natures seems to us now self-evident. We can, at the
present day, scarcely imagine the long agony in which the historical view of the
life of Jesus came to birth. And even when He was once more recalled to life.
He was still, like Lazarus of old, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes — the
grave-clothes of the dogma of the Dual Nature. Hase relates, in the preface to
his first Life of
4
Jesus (1829), that a worthy old gentleman, hearing of his project, advised him
to treat in the first part of the human, in the second of the divine Nature. There
was a fine simplicity about that. But does not the simplicity cover a presentiment

5
of the revolution of thought for which the historical method of study was
preparing the way — a presentiment which those who were engaged in the
work did not share in the same measure? It was fortunate that they did not; for
otherwise how could they have had the courage to go on?
The historical investigation of the life of Jesus did not take its rise from a purely
historical interest; it turned to the Jesus of history as an ally in the struggle
against the tyranny of dogma. Afterwards when it was freed from this it
sought to present the historic Jesus in a form intelligible to its own time. For
Bahrdt and Venturini He was the tool of a secret order. They wrote under the
impression of the immense influence exercised by the Order of the Illuminati[1]
at the end of the eighteenth century. For Reinhard, Hess, Paulus, and the rest
of the rationalistic writers He is the admirable revealer of true virtue, which is
coincident with right reason. Thus each successive epoch of theology found its
own thoughts in Jesus; that was, indeed, the only way in which it could make
Him live.
But it was not only each epoch that found its reflection in Jesus; each individual
created Him in accordance with his own character. There is no historical task
which so reveals a man's true self as the writing of a Life of Jesus. No vital force
comes into the figure unless a man breathes into it all the hate or all the love of
which he is capable. The stronger the love, or the stronger the hate, the more
life-like is the figure which is produced. For hate as well as love can write a Life
of Jesus, and the greatest of them are written with hate: that of Reimarus, the
Wolfenbiittel Fragmentist, and that of David Friedrich Strauss. It was not so
much hate of the Person of Jesus as of the supernatural nimbus with which it
was so easy to surround Him, and with which He had in fact been surrounded.
They were eager to picture Him as truly and purely human, to strip from Him the
robes of splendour with which He had been apparelled, and clothe Him once
more with the coarse garments in which He had walked in Galilee.
And their hate sharpened their historical insight. They advanced the study of the
subject more than all the others put together. But for the offence which they
gave, the science of historical theology would not
[1] An order founded in 1776 by Professor Adam Weishaupt of Ingolstadt in
Bavaria. Its aim was the furtherance of rational religion as opposed to orthodox
dogma; its organisation was largely modelled on that of the Jesuits. At its most
flourishing period it numbered over 2000 members, including the rulers of
several German States.—TRANSLATOR.
5
have stood where it does to-day. "It must needs be that offences come; but woe
to that man by whom the offence cometh." Reimarus evaded that woe by
keeping the offence to himself and preserving silence during his lifetime — his
work, "The Aims of Jesus and His Disciples," was only published after his
death, by Lessing. But in the case of Strauss, who, as a young man of twenty-
seven, cast the offence openly in the face of the world, the woe fulfilled itself.
His "Life of Jesus" was his ruin. But he did not cease to be proud of it in spite of

6
all the misfortune that it brought him. "I might well bear a grudge against my
book," he writes twenty-five years later in the preface to the "Conversations of
Ulrich von Hutten," [1] "for it has done me much evil ('And rightly so!' the pious
will exclaim). It has excluded me from public teaching in which I took pleasure
and for which I had perhaps some talent; it has torn me from natural
relationships and driven me into unnatural ones; it has made my life a lonely
one. And yet when I consider what it would have meant if I had refused to utter
the word which lay upon my soul, if I had suppressed the doubts which were at
work in my mind — then I bless the book which has doubtless done me
grievous harm outwardly, but which preserved the inward health of my mind and
heart, and, I doubt not, has done the same for many others also."
Before him, Bahrdt had his career broken in consequence of revealing his
beliefs concerning the Life of Jesus; and after him, Bruno Bauer.
It was easy for them, resolved as they were to open the way even with seeming
blasphemy. But the others, those who tried to bring Jesus to life at the call of
love, found it a cruel task to be honest. The critical study of the life of Jesus has
been for theology a school of honesty. The world had never seen before, and
will never see again, a struggle for truth so full of pain and renunciation as that
of which the Lives of Jesus of the last hundred years contain the cryptic record.
One must lead the successive Lives of Jesus with which Hase followed the
course of the study from the 'twenties to the 'seventies of the nineteenth century
to get an inkling of what it must have cost the men who lived through that
decisive period really to maintain that "courageous freedom of investigation"
which the great Jena professor, in the preface to his first Life of Jesus, claims
for his researches. One sees in him the marks of the struggle with which he
gives up, bit by bit, things which, when he wrote that preface, he never dreamed
he would have to surrender. It was fortunate for these men that their sympathies
sometimes obscured their critical vision, so that, without becoming insincere,
they were able to take white clouds for distant mountains. That was the kindly
fate of Hase and Beyschlag.
[1] D. Fr. Strauss, Gesprache van Ulrich von Hutten. Leipzig, 1860.
6
The personal character of the study is not only due, however, to the fact that a
personality can only be awakened to life by the touch of a personality; it lies in
the essential nature of the problem itself. For the problem of the life of Jesus
has no analogue in the field of history. No historical school has ever laid down
canons for the investigation of this problem, no professional historian has ever
lent his aid to theology in dealing with it. Every ordinary method of historical
investigation proves inadequate to the complexity of the conditions. The
standards of ordinary historical science are here inadequate, its methods not
immediately applicable. The historical study of the life of Jesus has had to
create its own methods for itself. In the constant succession of unsuccessful
attempts, five or six problems have emerged side by side which together
constitute the fundamental problem. There is, however, no direct method of

7
solving the problem in its complexity; all that can be done is to experiment
continuously, starting from definite assumptions; and in this experimentation the
guiding principle must ultimately rest upon historical intuition.
The cause of this lies in the nature of the sources of the life of Jesus, and in the
character of our knowledge of the contemporary religious world of thought. It is
not that the sources are in themselves bad. When we have once made up our
minds that we have not the materials for a complete Life of Jesus, but only for a
picture of His public ministry, it must be admitted that there are few characters
of antiquity about whom we possess so much indubitably historical information,
of whom we have so many authentic, discourses. The position is much more
favourable, for instance, than in the case of Socrates; for he is pictured to us by
literary men who exercised their creative ability upon the portrait. Jesus stands
much more immediately before us, because He was depicted by simple
Christians without literary gift.
But at this point there arises a twofold difficulty. There is first the fact that what
has just been said applies only to the first three Gospels, while the fourth, as
regards its character, historical data, and discourse material, forms a world of its
own. It is written from the Greek standpoint, while the first three are written from
the Jewish. And even if one could get over this, and regard, as has often been
done, the Synoptics and the Fourth Gospel as standing in something of the
same relation to one another as Xenophon does to Plato as sources for the life
of Socrates, yet the complete irreconcilability of the historical data would compel
the critical investigator to decide from the first in favour of one source or the
other. Once more it is found true that "No man can serve two masters." This
stringent dilemma was not recognised from the beginning; its emergence is one
of the results of the whole course of experiment.
The second difficulty regarding the sources is the want of any thread
7
of connexion in the material which they offer us. While the Synoptics are only
collections of anecdotes (in the best, historical sense of the word), the Gospel of
John — as stands on record in its closing words — only professes to give a
selection of the events and discourses.
From these materials we can only get a Life of Jesus with yawning gaps. How
are these gaps to be filled? At the worst with phrases, at the best with historical
imagination. There is really no other means of arriving at the order and inner
connexion of the facts of the life of Jesus than the making and testing of
hypotheses. If the tradition preserved by the Synoptists really includes all that
happened during the time that Jesus was with his disciples, the attempt to
discover the connexion must succeed sooner or later. It becomes more and
more clear that this presupposition is indispensable to the investigation. If it is
merely a fortuitous series of episodes that the Evangelists have handed down to
us, we may give up the attempt to arrive at a critical reconstruction of the life of
Jesus as hopeless.

8
But it is not only the events which lack historical connexion, we are without any
indication of a thread of connexion in the actions and discourses of Jesus,
because the sources give no hint of the character of His self-consciousness.
They confine themselves to outward facts. We only begin to understand these
historically when we can mentally place them in an intelligible connexion and
conceive them as the acts of a clearly defined personality. All that we know of
the development of Jesus and of His Messianic self-consciousness has been
arrived at by a series of working hypotheses. Our conclusions can only be
considered valid so long as they are not found incompatible with the recorded
facts as a whole.
It may be maintained by the aid of arguments drawn from the sources that the
self-consciousness of Jesus underwent a development during the course of His
public ministry; it may, with equally good grounds, be denied. For in both cases
the arguments are based upon little details in the narrative in regard to which
we do not know whether they are purely accidental, or whether they belong to
the essence of the facts. In each case, moreover, the experimental working out
of the hypothesis leads to a conclusion which compels the rejection of some of
the actual data of the sources. Each view equally involves a violent treatment of
the text.
Furthermore, the sources exhibit, each within itself, a striking contradiction.
They assert that Jesus felt Himself to be the Messiah; and yet from their
presentation of His life it does not appear that He ever publicly claimed to be so.
They attribute to Him, that is, an attitude which has absolutely no connexion
with the consciousness which they assume that He possessed. But once admit
that the outward acts are not the natural expression of the self-consciousness
and all exact historical
8
knowledge is at an end; we have to do with an isolated fact which is not
referable to any law.
This being so, the only way of arriving at a conclusion of any value is to
experiment, to test, by working them out, the two hypotheses — that Jesus felt
Himself to be the Messiah, as the sources assert, or that He did not feel Himself
to be so, as His conduct implies; or else to try to conjecture what kind of
Messianic consciousness His must have been, if it left His conduct and His
discourses unaffected. For one thing is certain; the whole account of the last
days at Jerusalem would be unintelligible, if we had to suppose that the mass of
the people had a shadow of a suspicion that Jesus held Himself to be the
Messiah.
Again, whereas in general a personality is to some extent defined by the world
of thought which it shares with its contemporaries, in the case of Jesus this
source of information is as unsatisfactory as the documents.
What was the nature of the contemporary Jewish world of thought? To that
question no clear answer can be given. We do not know whether the
expectation of the Messiah was generally current or whether it was the faith of a

9
mere sect. With the Mosaic religion as such it had nothing to do. There was no
organic connexion between the religion of legal observance and the future
hope. Further, if the eschatological hope was generally current, was it the
prophetic or the apocalyptic form of that hope? We know the Messianic
expectations of the prophets; we know the apocalyptic picture as drawn by
Daniel, and, following him, by Enoch and the Psalms of Solomon before the
coming of Jesus, and by the Apocalypses of Ezra and Baruch about the time of
the destruction of Jerusalem. But we do not know which was the popular form;
nor, supposing that both were combined into one picture, what this picture really
looked like. We know only the form of eschatology which meets us in the
Gospels and in the Pauline epistles; that is to say, the form which it took in the
Christian community in consequence of the coming of Jesus. And to combine
these three — the prophetic, the Late-Jewish apocalyptic, and the Christian —
has not proved possible.
Even supposing we could obtain more exact information regarding the popular
Messianic expectations at the time of Jesus, we should still not know what form
they assumed in the self-consciousness of One who knew Himself to be the
Messiah but held that the time was not yet come for Him to reveal Himself as
such. We only know their aspect from without, as a waiting for the Messiah and
the Messianic Age; we have no clue to their aspect from within as factors in the
Messianic self-consciousness. We possess no psychology of the Messiah. The
Evangelists have nothing to tell us about it, because Jesus told them nothing
about it; the sources for the contemporary spiritual life inform us only
concerning
9
the eschatological expectation. For the form of the Messianic self-
consciousness of Jesus we have to fall back upon conjecture.
Such is the character of the problem, and, as a consequence, historical
experiment must here take the place of historical research. That being so, it is
easy to understand that to take a survey of the study of the life of Jesus is to be
confronted, at first sight, with a scene of the most boundless confusion. A series
of experiments are repeated with constantly varying modifications suggested by
the results furnished by the subsidiary sciences. Most of the writers, however,
have no suspicion that they are merely repeating an experiment which has often
been made before. Some of them discover this in the course of their work to
their own great astonishment — it is so, for instance, with Wrede, who
recognises that he is working out, though doubtless with a clearer
consciousness of his aim, an idea of Bruno Bauer's.[1] If old Reimarus were to
come back again, he might confidently give himself out to be the latest of the
moderns, for his work rests upon a recognition of the exclusive importance of
eschatology, such as only recurs again in Johannes Weiss.
Progress, too, is curiously fitful, with long intervals of marking time between the
advances. From Strauss down to the 'nineties there was no real progress, if one
takes into consideration only the complete Lives of Jesus which appeared. But

10
a number of separate problems took a more clearly defined form, so that in the
end the general problem suddenly moved forward, as it seemed, with a jerk.
There is really no common standard by which to judge the works with which we
have to do. It is not the most orderly narratives, those which weave in
conscientiously every detail of the text, which have advanced the study of the
subject, but precisely the eccentric ones, those that take the greatest liberties
with the text. It is not by the mass of facts that a writer sets down alongside of
one another as possible — because he writes easily and there is no one there
to contradict him, and because facts on paper do not come into collision so
sharply as they do in reality — it is not in that way that he shows his power of
reconstructing history, but by that which he recognises as impossible. The
constructions of Reimarus and Bruno Bauer have no solidity; they are mere
products of the imagination. But there is much more historical power in their
clear grasp of a single definite problem, which has blinded them to all else, than
there is in the circumstantial works of Beyschlag and Bernard Weiss.
But once one has accustomed oneself to look for certain definite landmarks
amid this apparent welter of contusion one begins at last to dis-
[1] W. Wrede, Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien. (The Messianic Secret
in the Gospels.) Gottingen, 1901, pp. 280-282.
10
cover in vague outline the course followed, and the progress made, by the
critical study of the life of Jesus.
It falls, immediately, into two periods, that before Strauss and that after Strauss.
The dominant interest in the first is the question of miracle. What terms are
possible between a historical treatment and the acceptance of supernatural
events? With the advent of Strauss this problem found a solution, viz., that
these events have no rightful place in the history, but are simply mythical
elements in the sources. The way was thus thrown open. Meanwhile, alongside
of the problem of the supernatural, other problems had been dimly
apprehended. Reimarus had drawn attention to the contemporary
eschatological views; Hase, in his first Life of Jesus (1829), had sought to trace
a development in the self-consciousness of Jesus.
But on this point a clear view was impossible, because all the students of the
subject were still basing their operations upon the harmony of the Synoptics and
the Fourth Gospel; which means that they had not so far felt the need of a
historically intelligible outline of the life of Jesus. Here, too, Strauss, was the
lightbringer. But the transient illumination was destined to be obscured by the
Marcan hypothesis,[1] which now came to the front. The necessity of choosing
between John and the Synoptists was first fully established by the Tubingen
school; and the right relation of this question to the Marcan hypothesis was
subsequently shown by Holtzmann.
While these discussions of the preliminary literary questions were in progress
the main historical problem of the life of Jesus was slowly rising into view. The
question began to be mooted: what was the significance of eschatology for the

11
mind of Jesus? With this problem was associated, in virtue of an inner
connexion which was not at first suspected, the problem of the self-
consciousness of Jesus. At the beginning of the 'nineties it was generally felt
that, in the solution given to this dual problem, and in some measure assured
knowledge of the outward and inward course of the life of Jesus had been
reached. At this point Johannes Weiss revived the comprehensive claim of
Reimarus on behalf of eschatology; and scarcely had criticism adjusted its
attitude to this question when Wrede renewed the attempt of Bauer and
Volkmar to eliminate altogether the Messianic element from the life of Jesus.
We are now once more in the midst of a period of great activity in the study of
the subject. On the one side we are offered a historical solution, on the other a
literary. The question at issue is: Is it possible to
[1] In the author's usage "the Marcan hypothesis" means the theory that the
Gospel of Mark is not only the earliest and most valuable source for the facts,
but differs from the other Gospels in embodying a more or less clear and
historically intelligible view of the connexion of events. See Chaps. X. and XIV.
below.-TRANSLATOR.
11
explain the contradiction between the Messianic consciousness of Jesus and
His non-Messianic discourses and actions by means of a conception of His
Messianic consciousness which will make it appear that He could not have
acted otherwise than as the Evangelists describe; or must we endeavour to
explain the contradiction by taking the non-Messianic discourses and actions as
our fixed point, denying the reality of His Messianic self-consciousness and
regarding it as a later interpolation of the beliefs of the Christian community into
the life of Jesus? In the latter case the Evangelists are supposed to have
attributed these Messianic claims to Jesus because the early Church held Him
to be the Messiah, but to have contradicted themselves by describing His life as
it actually was, viz., as the life of a prophet, not of one who held Himself to be
the Messiah. To put it briefly: Does the difficulty of explaining the historical
personality of Jesus lie in the history itself, or only in the way in which it is
represented in the sources?
This alternative will be discussed in all the critical studies of the next few years.
Once clearly posed it compels a decision. But no one can really understand the
problem who has not a clear notion of the way in which it has shaped itself in
the course of the investigation; no one can justly criticise, or appraise the value
of, new contributions to the study of this subject unless he knows in what forms
they have been presented before.
The history of the study of the life of Jesus has hitherto received surprisingly
little attention. Hase, in his Life of Jesus of 1829, briefly records the previous
attempts to deal with the subject. Friedrich von Ammon, himself one of the most
distinguished students in this department, in his "Progress of Christianity," [l]
gives some information regarding "the most notable biographies of Jesus of the
last fifty years." In the year 1865 Uhlhorn treated together the Lives of Jesus of

12
Renan, Schenkel, and Strauss; in 1876 Hase, in his "History of Jesus," gave the
only complete literary history of the subject; [2] in 1892 Uhlhorn extended his
former lecture to include the works of Keim, Deiff, Beyschlag, and Weiss; [3] in
1898 Frentzen described, in a short essay, the progress of the study since
Strauss; [4] in 1899 and 1900 Baldensperger gave, in the Theologische
Rundschau, a survey of the most recent publications; [5] Weinel's book, "Jesus
in the Nineteenth Century," naturally only gives an analysis of a few classical
works; Otto Schmiedel's lecture on the
[2] Dr. Christoph Friedrich von Ammon, Fortbildung des Christentums, Leipzig,
1840, vol. iv. p. 156 ff.
[2] Hase, Geschichte Jesu, Leipzig, 1876, pp. 110—162. The second edition,
published in 1891, carries the survey no further than the first.
[3] Das Leben Jesu in seinen neueren Darstellungen, 1892, five lectures.
[4] W. Frantzen, Die "Leben-Jesu" Bewegung seit Strauss, Dorpat, 1898.
[5] Theol. Rundschau. ii. 59-67 (1899) ; iii. 9-19 (1900).
12
"Main Problems of the Critical Study of the Life of Jesus" (1902) merely
sketches the history of the subject in broad outline.[1]
Apart from scattered notices in histories of theology this is practically all the
literature of the subject. There is room for an attempt to bring order into the
chaos of the Lives of Jesus. Hase made ingenious comparisons between them,
but he was unable to group them according to inner principles, or to judge them
justly. Weiss is for him a feebler descendant of Strauss, Bruno Bauer is the
victim of a fantastic imagination. It would indeed have been difficult for Hase to
discover in the works of his time any principle of division. But now, when the
literary and eschatological methods of solution have led to complementary
results, when the post-Straussian period of investigation seems to have
reached a provisional close, and the goal to which it has been tending has
become clear, the time seems ripe for the attempt to trace genetically in the
successive works the shaping of the problem as it now confronts us, and to give
a systematic historical account of the critical study of the life of Jesus. Our
endeavour will be to furnish a graphic description of all the attempts to deal with
the subject; and not to dismiss them with stock phrases or traditional labels, but
to show clearly what they really did to advance the formulation of the problem,
whether their contemporaries recognised it or not. In accordance with this
principle many famous Lives of Jesus which have prolonged an honoured
existence through many successive editions, will make but a poor figure, while
others, which have received scant notice, will appear great. Behind Success
comes Truth, and her reward is with her.
[1] Von Soden's study, Die wichtigsten Fragen im Leben Jesu, 1904, belongs
here only in a very limited sense, since it does not seek to show how the
problems have gradually emerged in the various Lives of Jesus.
* II *
HERMANN SAMUEL REIMARUS

13
"Von dem Zwecke Jesu und seiner Junger." Noch ein Fragment des
Wolfenbuttelschen Ungenannten. Herausgegeben von Gotthold Ephraim
Lessing. Braun- schweig, 1778, 276 pp. (The Aims of Jesus and His Disciples A
further Instal- ment of the anonymous Woltenbiittel Fragments. Published by
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Brunswick, 1778.)
Johann Salomo Semler. Beantwortung der Fragmente eines Ungenannten ins'
besondere vom Zwecke Jesu und seiner Jiinger. (Reply to the anonymous
Fragments, especially to that entitled "The Aims of Jesus and His Disciples.")
Halle, 1779, 432 pp.
BEFORE REIMARUS, NO ONE HAD ATTEMPTED TO FORM A HISTORICAL
CONCEPTION of the life of Jesus. Luther had not so much as felt that he cared
to gain a clear idea of the order of the recorded events. Speaking of the
chronology of the cleansing of the Temple, which in John falls at the beginning,
in the Synoptists near the close, of Jesus' public life, he remarks: "The Gospels
follow no order in recording the acts and miracles of Jesus, and the matter is
not, after all, of much importance. If a difficulty arises in regard to the Holy
Scripture and we cannot solve it, we must just let it alone." When the Lutheran
theologians began to consider the question of harmonising the events, things
were still worse. Osiander (1498-1552), in his "Harmony of the Gospels,"
maintained the principle that if an event is recorded more than once in the
Gospels, in different connexions, it happened more than once and in different
connexions. The daughter of Jairus was therefore raised from the dead several
times; on one occasion Jesus allowed the devils whom He cast out of a single
demoniac to enter into a herd of swine, on another occasion, those whom He
cast out of two demoniacs; there were two cleansings of the Temple, and so
forth.[1] The correct view of the Synoptic Gospels as being interdependent was
first formulated by Griesbach.
The only Life of Jesus written prior to the time of Reimarus which has any
interest for us, was composed by a Jesuit in the Persian language.
[1] Hase, Geschichte Jesu, 1876, pp. 112, 113.
14
The author was the Indian missionary Hieronymus Xavier, nephew of Francis
Xavier, and it was designed for the use of Akbar, the Moghul Emperor, who, in
the latter part of the sixteenth century, had become the most powerful potentate
in Hindustan. In the seventeenth century the Persian text was brought to
Europe by a merchant, and was translated into Latin by Louis de Dieu, a
theologian of the Reformed Church, whose intention in publishing it was to
discredit Catholicism.[1] It is a skilful falsification of the life of Jesus in which the
omissions, and the additions taken from the Apocrypha, are inspired by the sole
purpose of presenting to the open-minded ruler a glorious Jesus, in whom there
should be nothing to offend him.
Thus there had been nothing to prepare the world for a work of such power as
that of Reimarus. It is true, there had appeared earlier, in 1768, a Life of Jesus
by Johann Jakob Hess [2] (1741-1828), written from the standpoint of the older

14
rationalism, but it retains so much supernaturalism and follows so much the
lines of a paraphrase of the Gospels, that there was nothing to indicate to the
world what a master-stroke the spirit of the time was preparing. Not much is
known about Reimarus. For his contemporaries he had no existence, and it was
Strauss who first made his name known in literature. [3] He was born in
Hamburg on the 22nd of December, 1694, and spent his life there as a
professor of Oriental Languages. He died in 1768. Several of his writings
appeared during his lifetime, all of them asserting the claims of rational religion
as against the faith of the Church; one of them, for example, being an essay on
"The Leading Truths of Natural Religion." His magnum opus, however, which
laid the historic basis of his attacks, was only circulated, during his lifetime,
among his acquaintances, as an anonymous manuscript. In 1774 Lessing
began to publish the most important portions of it, and up to 1778 had published
seven fragments, thereby involving himself in a quarrel with Goetze, the Chief
Pastor of Hamburg. The manuscript of the whole, which runs to 4000 pages, is
preserved in the Hamburg municipal library.
The following are the titles of Fragments which he published:
The Toleration of the Deists.
The Decrying of Reason in the Pulpit.
[1] Historia Christi persice conscripts simulqwe mvltis modis contaminata a
Hieronymo Xavier, lat. reddita et animadd, notata a Ludovico de Dieu. Lugd.
1639.
[2] Johann Jacob Hess, Geschichte der drei letzten Lebensjahre Jesu. (History
of the Last Three Years of the Life of Jesus.) 3 vols. 1768ft.
[3] D. F. Strauss, Hermann Samuel Reimarus and seine Schutzschrift fiir die
tierniinftigen Verehrer Gottes. (Reimarus and His Apology for the Rational
Worshippers of God.) 1862.
15
The impossibility of a Revelation which all men should have good grounds for
believing.
The Passing of the Israelites through the Red Sea.
Showing that the books of the Old Testament were not written to reveal a
Religion.
Concerning the story of the Resurrection.
The Aims of Jesus and His Disciples.
The monograph on the passing of the Israelites through the Red Sea is one of
the ablest, wittiest, and most acute which has ever been written. It exposes all
the impossibilities of the narrative in the Priestly Codex, and all the
inconsistencies which arise from the combination of various sources; although
Reimarus has not the slightest inkling that the separation of these sources
would afford the real solution of the problem.
To say that the fragment on "The Aims of Jesus and His Disciples" is a
magnificent piece of work is barely to do it justice. This essay is not only one of
the greatest events in the history of criticism, it is also a masterpiece of general

15
literature. The language is as a rule crisp and terse, pointed and epigrammatic
— the language of a man who is not "engaged in literary composition" but is
wholly concerned with the facts. At times, however, it rises to heights of
passionate feeling, and then it is as though the fires of a volcano were painting
lurid pictures upon dark clouds. Seldom has there been a hate so eloquent, so
lofty a scorn; but then it is seldom that a work has been written in the just
consciousness of so absolute a superiority to contemporary opinion. And withal,
there is dignity and serious purpose; Reimarus' work is no pamphlet.
Lessing could not, of course, accept its standpoint. His idea of revelation, and
his conception of the Person of Jesus, were much deeper than those of the
Fragmentist. He was a thinker; Reimarus only a historian. But this was the first
time that a really historical mind, thoroughly conversant with the sources, had
undertaken the criticism of the tradition. It was Lessing's greatness that he
grasped the significance of this criticism, and felt that it must lead either to the
destruction or to the recasting of the idea of revelation. He recognised that the
introduction of the historical element would transform and deepen rationalism.
Convinced that the fateful moment had arrived, he disregarded the scruples of
Reimarus' family and the objections of Nicolai and Mendelssohn, and, though
inwardly trembling for that which he himself held sacred, he flung the torch with
his own hand.
Semler, at the close of his refutation of the fragment, ridicules its editor in the
following apologue. "A prisoner was once brought before
16
the Lord Mayor of London on a charge of arson. He had been seen coming
down from the upper story of the burning house. 'Yesterday,' so ran his
defence, 'about four o'clock I went into my neighbour's storeroom and saw there
a burning candle which the servants had carelessly forgotten. In the course of
the night it would have burned down, and set fire to the stairs. To make sure
that the fire should break out in the day-time, I threw some straw upon it. The
flames burst out at the skylight, the fire-engines came hurrying up, and the fire,
which in the night might have been dangerous, was promptly extinguished.'
'Why did you not yourself pick up the candle and put it out?' asked the Lord
Mayor. 'If I had put out the candle the servants would not have learned to be
more careful; now that there has been such a fuss about it, they will not be so
careless in future.' 'Odd, very odd,' said the Lord Mayor, 'he is not a criminal,
only a little weak in the head.' So he had him shut up in the mad-house, and
there he lies to this day."
The story is extraordinarily apposite — only that Lessing was not mad; he knew
quite well what he was doing. His object was to show how an unseen enemy
had pushed his parallels up to the very walls, and to summon to the defence
"some one who should be as nearly the ideal defender of religion as the
Fragmentist was the ideal assailant." Once, with prophetic insight into the
future, he says: "The Christian traditions must be explained by the inner truth of

16
Christianity, and no written traditions can give it that inner truth, if it does not
itself possess it."
Reimarus takes as his starting-point the question regarding the content of the
preaching of Jesus. "We are justified," he says, "in drawing an absolute
distinction between the teaching of the Apostles in their writings and what Jesus
Himself in His own lifetime proclaimed and taught." What belongs to the
preaching of Jesus is clearly to be recognised. It is contained in two phrases of
identical meaning, "Repent, and believe the Gospel," or, as it is put elsewhere,
"Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand."
The Kingdom of Heaven must however be understood "according to Jewish
ways of thought." Neither Jesus nor the Baptist ever explain this expression;
therefore they must have been content to have it understood in its known and
customary sense. That means that Jesus took His stand within the Jewish
religion, and accepted its Messianic expectations without in any way correcting
them. If He gives a new development to this religion it is only in so far that He
proclaims as near at hand the realisation of ideals and hopes which were alive
in thousands of hearts.
There was thus no need for detailed instruction regarding the nature of the
Kingdom of Heaven; the catechism and confession of the Church at its
commencement consisted of a single phrase. Belief was not difficult: "they need
only believe the Gospel, namely that Jesus was about to bring
17
in the Kingdom of God." [1] As there were many among the Jews who were
already waiting for the Kingdom of God, it was no wonder that in a few days,
nay in a few hours, some thousands believed, although they had been told only
that Jesus was the promised prophet.
This was the sum total of what the disciples knew about the Kingdom of God
when they were sent out by their Master to proclaim its coming. Their hearers
would naturally think of the customary meaning of the term and the hopes which
attached themselves to it. "The purpose of sending out such propagandists
could only be that the Jews who groaned under the Roman yoke and had long
cherished the hope of deliverance should be stirred up all over Judaea and
assemble themselves in their thousands."
Jesus must have known, too, that if the people believed His messengers they
would look about for an earthly deliverer and turn to Him for this purpose. The
Gospel, therefore, meant nothing more or less to all who heard it than that,
under the leadership of Jesus, the Kingdom of Messiah was about to be brought
in. For them there was no difficulty in accepting the belief that He was the
Messiah, the Son of God, for this belief did not involve anything metaphysical.
The nation was the Son of God; the kings of the covenant-people were Sons of
God; the Messiah was in a pre-eminent sense the Son of God. Thus even in His
Messianic claims Jesus remained "within the limits of humanity."
The fact that He did not need to explain to His contemporaries what He meant
by the Kingdom of God constitutes a difficulty for us. The parables do not

17
enlighten us, for they presuppose a knowledge of the conception. "If we could
not gather from the writings of the Jews some further information as to what
was understood at that time by the Messiah and the Kingdom of God, these
points of primary importance would be very obscure and incomprehensible."
If, therefore, we desire to gain a historical understanding of Jesus' teaching, we
must leave behind what we learned in our catechism regarding the
metaphysical Divine Sonship, the Trinity, and similar dogmatic conceptions, and
go out into a wholly Jewish world of thought. Only those who carry the
teachings of the catechism back into the preaching of the Jewish Messiah will
arrive at the idea that He was the founder of a new religion. To all unprejudiced
persons it is manifest "that Jesus had not the slightest intention of doing away
with the Jewish religion and putting another in its place."
From Matt. v. 18 it is evident that Jesus did not break with the Law, but took His
stand upon it unreservedly. If there was anything at all new
[1] The quotations inserted without special introduction are, of course, from
Reimarus. It is Dr. Schweitzer's method to lead up by a paragraph of exposition
to one of these characteristic phrases.—TRANSLATOR.
18
in His preaching, it was the righteousness which was requisite for the Kingdom
of God. The righteousness of the Law will no longer suffice in the time of the
coming Kingdom; a new and deeper morality must come into being. This
demand is the only point in which the preaching of Jesus went beyond the ideas
of His contemporaries. But this new morality does not do away with the Law, for
He explains it as a fulfilment of the old commandments. His followers, no doubt,
broke with the Law later on. They did so, however, not in pursuance of a
command of Jesus, but under the pressure of circumstances, at the time when
they were forced out of Judaism and obliged to found a new religion.
Jesus shared the Jewish racial exclusiveness wholly and unreservedly.
According to Matt. x. 5 He forbade His disciples to declare to the Gentiles the
coming of the Kingdom of God. Evidently, therefore. His purpose did not
embrace them. Had it been otherwise, the hesitation of Peter in Acts x. and xi.,
and the necessity of justifying the conversion of Cornelius, would be
incomprehensible.
Baptism and the Lord's Supper are no evidence that Jesus intended to found a
new religion. In the first place the genuineness of the command to baptize in
Matt. xxviii. 19 is questionable, not only as a saying ascribed to the risen Jesus,
but also because it is universalistic in outlook, and because it implies the
doctrine of the Trinity and, consequently, the metaphysical Divine Sonship of
Jesus. In this it is inconsistent with the earliest traditions regarding the practice
of baptism in the Christian community, for in the earliest times, as we learn from
the Acts and from Paul, it was the custom to baptize, not in the name of the
Trinity, but in the name of Jesus, the Messiah.
But, furthermore, it is questionable whether Baptism really goes back to Jesus
at all. He Himself baptized no one in His own lifetime, and never commanded

18
any of His converts to be baptized. So we cannot be sure about the origin of
Baptism, though we can be sure of its meaning. Baptism in the name of Jesus
signified only that Jesus was the Messiah. "For the only change which the
teaching of Jesus made in their religion was that whereas they had formerly
believed in a Deliverer of Israel who was to come in the future, they now
believed in a Deliverer who was already present."
The "Lord's Supper," again, was no new institution, but merely an episode at the
last Paschal Meal of the Kingdom which was passing away, and was intended
"as an anticipatory celebration of the Passover of the New Kingdom." A Lord's
Supper in our sense, "cut loose from the Passover," would have been
inconceivable to Jesus, and not less so to His disciples.
It is useless to appeal to the miracles, any more than to the "Sacraments," as
evidence for the founding of a new religion. In the first place,
19
we have to remember what happens in the case of miracles handed down by
tradition. That Jesus effected cures, which in the eyes of His contemporaries
were miraculous, is not to be denied. Their purpose was to prove Him to be the
Messiah. He forbade these miracles to be made known, even in cases where
they could not possibly be kept hidden, "with the sole purpose of making people
more eager to talk of them." Other miracles, however, have no basis in fact, but
owe their place in the narrative to the feeling that the miracle-stories of the Old
Testament must be repeated in the case of Jesus, but on a grander scale. He
did no really miraculous works; otherwise, the demands for a sign would be
incomprehensible. In Jerusalem when all the people were looking eagerly for an
overwhelming manifestation of His Messiahship, what a tremendous effect a
miracle would have produced! If only a single miracle had been publicly,
convincingly, undeniably, performed by Jesus before all the people on one of
the great days of the Feast, such is human nature that all the people would at
once have nocked to His standard.
For this popular uprising, however, He waited in vain. Twice He be- lieved that it
was near at hand. The first time was when He was sending out the disciples
and said to them: "Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel before the
Son of Man comes" (Matt. x. 23). He thought that, at the preaching of the
disciples, the people would flock to Him from every quarter and immediately
proclaim Him Messiah; but His expectation was disappointed.
The second time, He thought to bring about the decisive issue in Jerusalem. He
made His entry riding on an ass's colt, that the Messianic prophecy of Zechariah
might be fulfilled. And the people actually did cry "Hosanna to the Son of
David!" Relying on the support of His followers He might now, He thought, bid
defiance to the authorities. In the temple He arrogates to Himself supreme
power, and in glowing words calls for an open revolt against the Sanhedrin and
the Pharisees, on the ground that they have shut the doors of the Kingdom of
Heaven and forbidden others to go in. There is no doubt, now, that He will carry
the people with Him! Confident in the success of His cause, He closes the great

19
incendiary harangue in Matt. xxiii. with the words "Truly from henceforth ye shall
not see me again until ye shall say Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the
Lord"; that is, until they should hail Him as Messiah.
But the people in Jerusalem refused to rise, as the Galilaeans had refused at
the time when the disciples were sent out to rouse them. The Council prepared
for vigorous action. The voluntary concealment by which Jesus had thought to
whet the eagerness of the people became involuntary. Before His arrest He was
overwhelmed with dread, and on the cross He closed His life with the words "My
God! my God! why
20
hast Thou forsaken me?" "This avowal cannot, without violence, be interpreted
otherwise than as meaning that God had not aided Him in His aim and purpose
as He had hoped. That shows that it had not been His purpose to suffer and
die, but to establish an earthly kingdom and deliver the Jews from political
oppression — and in that God's help had failed Him."
For the disciples this turn of affairs meant the destruction of all the dreams for
the sake of which they had followed Jesus. For if they had given up anything on
His account, it was only in order to receive it again an hundredfold when they
should openly take their places in the eyes of all the world as the friends and
ministers of the Messiah, as the rulers of the twelve tribes of Israel. Jesus never
disabused them of this sensuous hope, but, on the contrary, confirmed them in
it. When He put an end to the quarrel about pre-eminence, and when He
answered the request of the sons of Zebedee, He did not attack the assumption
that there were to be thrones and power, but only addressed Himself to the
question how men were in the present to establish their claims to that position
of authority.
All this implies that the time of the fulfilment of these hopes was not thought of
by Jesus and His disciples as at all remote. In Matt. xvi. 28, for example, He
says: "Truly I say unto you there are some standing here who shall not taste of
death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom." There is no
justification for twisting this about or explaining it away. It simply means that
Jesus promises the fulfilment of all Messianic hopes before the end of the
existing generation.
Thus the disciples were prepared for anything rather than that which actually
happened. Jesus had never said a word to them about His dying and rising
again, otherwise they would not have so played the coward at His death, nor
have been so astonished at His "resurrection." The three or four sayings
referring to these events must therefore have been put into His mouth later, in
order to make it appear that He had foreseen these events in His original plan.
How, then, did they get over this apparently annihilating blow? By falling back
upon the second form of the Jewish Messianic hope. Hitherto their thoughts,
like those of their Master, had been dominated by the political ideal of the
prophets — the scion of David's line who should appear as the political deliverer
of the nation. But alongside of that there existed another Messianic expectation

20
which transferred everything to the supernatural sphere. Appearing first in
Daniel, this expectation can still be traced in the Apocalypses, in Justin's
"Dialogue with Trypho," and in certain Rabbinic sayings. According to these —
Reimarus makes use especially of the statements of Trypho — the Messiah is
to appear twice; once in human lowliness, the second time upon the
21
clouds of heaven. When the first systema, as Reimarus calls it, was annihilated
by the death of Jesus, the disciples brought forward the second, and gathered
followers who shared their expectation of a second coming of Jesus the
Messiah. In order to get rid of the difficulty of the death of Jesus, they gave it
the significance of a spiritual redemption — which had not previously entered
their field of vision or that of Jesus Himself.
But this spiritual interpretation of His death would not have helped them if they
had not also invented the resurrection. Immediately after the death of Jesus,
indeed, such an idea was far from their thoughts. They were in deadly fear and
kept close within doors. "Soon, however, one and another ventures to slip out.
They learn that no judicial search is being made for them." Then they consider
what is to be done. They did not take kindly to the idea of returning to their old
haunts; on their journeyings the companions of the Messiah had forgotten how
to work. They had seen that the preaching of the Kingdom of God will keep a
man. Even when they had been sent out without wallet or money they had not
lacked. The women who are mentioned in Luke viii. 2, 3, had made it their
business to make good provision for the Messiah and His future ministers.
Why not, then, continue this mode of life? They would surely find a sufficient
number of faithful souls who would join them in directing their hopes towards a
second coming of the Messiah, and while awaiting the future glory, would share
their possessions with them. So they stole the body of Jesus and hid it, and
proclaimed to all the world that He would soon return. They prudently waited,
however, for fifty days before making this announcement, in order that the body,
if it should be found, might be unrecognisable.
What was much in their favour was the complete disorganisation of the Jewish
state. Had there been an efficient police administration the disciples would not
have been able to plan this fraud and organise their communistic fellowship.
But, as it was, the new society was not even subjected to any annoyance in
consequence of the remarkable death of a married couple who were buried
from the apostles' house, and the brotherhood was even allowed to confiscate
their property to its own uses.
It appears, then, that the hope of the Parousia was the fundamental thing in
primitive Christianity, which was a product of that hope much more than of the
teaching of Jesus. Accordingly, the main problem of primitive dogmatics was
the delay of the Parousia. Already in Paul's time the problem was pressing, and
he had to set to work in 2 Thessalonians to discover all possible and impossible
reasons why the Second Coming should be delayed. Reimarus mercilessly

21
exposes the position of the apostle, who was obliged to fob people off somehow
or other. The
22
author of 2 Peter has a much clearer notion of what he would be at, and
undertakes to restore the confidence of Christendom once for all with the
sophism of the thousand years which are in the sight of God as one day,
ignoring the fact that in the promise the reckoning was by man's years, not by
God's. "Nevertheless it served the turn of the Apostles so well with those simple
early Christians, that after the first believers had been bemused with it, and the
period originally fixed had elapsed, the Christians of later generations, including
Fathers of the Church, could continue ever after to feed themselves with empty
hopes." The saying of Christ about the generation which should not die out
before His return clearly fixes this event at no very distant date. But since Jesus
has not yet appeared upon the clouds of heaven "these words must be strained
into meaning, not that generation, but the Jewish people. Thus by exegetical art
they are saved for ever, for the Jewish race will never die out."
In general, however, "the theologians of the present day skim lightly over the
eschatological material in the Gospels because it does not chime in with their
views, and assign to the coming of Christ upon the clouds quite a different
purpose from that which it bears in the teaching of Christ and His apostles."
Inasmuch as the non-fulfilment of its eschatology is not admitted, our
Christianity rests upon a fraud. In view of this fact, what is the evidential value of
any miracle, even if it could be held to be authentic? "No miracle would prove
that two and two make five, or that a circle has four angles; and no miracles,
however numerous, could remove a contradiction which lies on the surface of
the teachings and records of Christianity." Nor is there any weight in the appeal
to the fulfilment of prophecy, for the cases in which Matthew countersigns it with
the words "that the Scripture might be fulfilled" are all artificial and unreal; and
for many incidents the stage was set by Jesus, or His disciples, or the
Evangelists, with the deliberate purpose of presenting to the people a scene
from the fulfilment of prophecy.
The sole argument which could save the credit of Christianity would be a proof
that the Parousia had really taken place at the time for which it was announced;
and obviously no such proof can be produced.
Such is Reimarus' reconstruction of the history. We can well understand that his
work must have given offence when it appeared, for it is a polemic, not an
objective historical study. But we have no right simply to dismiss it in a word, as
a Deistic production, as Otto Schmiedel, for example, does; [1] it is time that
Reimarus came to his own, and that we should recognise a historical
performance of no mean order in this piece of Deistic polemics. His work is
perhaps the most splendid achieve-
[1] Otto Schmiedel, Die Hauptprobleme der Leben-Jesu-Forschitng. Tubingen,
1902.
23

22
ment in the whole course of the historical investigation of the life of Jesus, for he
was the first to grasp the fact that the world of thought in which Jesus moved
was essentially eschatological. There is some justification for the animosity
which flames up in his writing. This historical truth had taken possession of his
mind with such overwhelming force that he could no longer understand his
contemporaries, and could not away with their profession that their beliefs were,
as they professed to be, directly derived from the preaching of Jesus.
What added to the offence was that he saw the eschatology in a wrong
perspective. He held that the Messianic ideal which dominated the preaching of
Jesus was that of the political ruler, the son of David. All his other mistakes are
the consequence of this fundamental error. It was, of course, a mere makeshift
hypothesis to derive the beginnings of Christianity from an imposture. Historical
science was not at that time sufficiently advanced to lead even the man who
had divined the fundamentally eschatological character of the preaching of
Jesus onward to the historical solution of the problem; it needed more than a
hundred and twenty years to fill in the chasm which Reimarus had been forced
to bridge with that makeshift hypothesis of his.
In the light of the clear perception of the elements of the problem which
Reimarus had attained, the whole movement of theology, down to Johannes
Weiss, appears retrograde. In all its work the thesis is ignored or obscured that
Jesus, as a historical personality, is to be regarded, not as the founder of a new
religion, but as the final product of the eschatological and apocalyptic thought of
Late Judaism. Every sentence of Johannes Weiss's Die Predigt Jesu vom
Reiche Gottes (1892) is a vindication, a rehabilitation, of Reimarus as a
historical thinker.
Even so the traveller on the plain sees from afar the distant range of mountains.
Then he loses sight of them again. His way winds slowly upwards through the
valleys, drawing ever nearer to the peaks, until at last, at a turn of the path, they
stand before him, not in the shapes which they had seemed to take from the
distant plain, but in their actual forms. Reimarus was the first, after eighteen
centuries of misconception, to have an inkling of what eschatology really was.
Then theology lost sight of it again, and it was not until after the lapse of more
than a hundred years that it came in view of eschatology once more, now in its
true form, so far as that can be historically determined, and only after it had
been led astray, almost to the last, in all its historical researches by the sole
mistake of Reimarus — the assumption that the eschatology was earthly and
political in character. Thus theology shared at least the error of the man whom it
knew only as a Deist, not as an historian, and whose true greatness was not
recognised even by Strauss, though he raised a literary monument to him.
24
The solution offered by Reimarus may be wrong; the data of observation from
which he starts out are, beyond question, right, because the primary datum of
all is genuinely historical. He recognised that two systems of Messianic
expectation were present side by side in Late Judaism. He endeavoured to

23
bring them into mutual relations in order to represent the actual movement of
the history. In so doing he made the mistake of placing them in consecutive
order, ascribing to Jesus the political Son-of-David conception, and to the
Apostles, after His death, the apocalyptic system based on Daniel, instead of
superimposing one upon the other in such a way that the Messianic King might
coincide with the Son of Man, and the ancient prophetic conception might be
inscribed within the circumference of the Daniel-descended apocalyptic, and
raised along with it to the supersensuous plane. But what matters the mistake in
comparison with the fact that the problem was really grasped?
Reimarus felt that the absence in the preaching of Jesus of any definition of the
principal term (the Kingdom of God), in conjunction with the great and rapid
success of His preaching constituted a problem, and he formulated the
conception that Jesus was not a religious founder and teacher, but purely a
preacher.
He brought the Synoptic and Johannine narratives into harmony by practically
leaving the latter out of account. The attitude of Jesus towards the law, and the
process by which the disciples came to take up a freer attitude, was grasped
and explained by him so accurately that modern historical science does not
need to add a word, but would be well pleased if at least half the theologians of
the present day had got as far.
Further, he recognised that primitive Christianity was not something which grew,
so to speak, out of the teaching of Jesus, but that it came into being as a new
creation, in consequence of events and circumstances which added something
to that preaching which it did not previously contain; and that Baptism and the
Lord's Supper, in the historical sense of these terms, were not instituted by
Jesus, but created by the early Church on the basis of certain historical
assumptions.
Again, Reimarus felt that the fact that the "event of Easter" was first proclaimed
at Pentecost constituted a problem, and he sought a solution for it. He
recognised, further, that the solution of the problem of the life of Jesus calls for
a combination of the methods of historical and literary criticism. He felt that
merely to emphasise the part played by eschatology would not suffice, but that
it was necessary to assume a creative element in the tradition, to which he
ascribed the miracles, the stories which turn on the fulfilment of Messianic
prophecy, the universalistic traits and the predictions of the passion and the
resurrection. Like Wrede, too he feels that the prescription of silence in the case
of miracles of healing
25
and of certain communications to the disciples constitutes a problem which
demands solution.
Still more remarkable is his eye for exegetical detail. He has an unfailing instinct
for pregnant passages like Matt. x. 23, xvi. 28, which are crucial for the
interpretation of large masses of the history. The fact is there are some who are
historians by the grace of God, who from their mother's womb have an

24
instinctive feeling for the real. They follow through all the intricacy and confusion
of reported fact the pathway of reality, like a stream which, despite the rocks
that encumber its course and the windings of its valley, finds its way inevitably
to the sea. No erudition can supply the place of this historical instinct, but
erudition sometimes serves a useful purpose, inasmuch as it produces in its
possessors the pleasing belief that they are historians, and thus secures their
services for the cause of history. In truth they are at best merely doing the
preliminary spade-work of history, collecting for a future historian the dry bones
of fact, from which, with the aid of his natural gift, he can recall the past to life.
More often, however, the way in which erudition seeks to serve history is by
suppressing historical discoveries as long as possible, and leading out into the
field to oppose the one true view an army of possibilities. By arraying these in
support of one another it finally imagines that it has created out of possibilities a
living reality.
This obstructive erudition is the special prerogative of theology, in which, even
at the present day, a truly marvellous scholarship often serves only to blind the
eyes to elementary truths, and to cause the artificial to be preferred to the
natural. And this happens not only with those who deliberately shut their minds
against new impressions, but also with those whose purpose is to go forward,
and to whom their contemporaries look up as leaders. It was a typical illustration
of this fact when Semler rose up and slew Reimarus in the name of scientific
theology.[1]
Reimarus had discredited progressive theology. Students — so Semler tells us
in his preface — became unsettled and sought other callings. The great Halle
theologian — born in 1725 — the pioneer of the historical view of the Canon,
the precursor of Baur in the reconstruction of primitive Christianity, was urged to
do away with the offence. As Origen of yore with Celsus, so Semler takes
Reimarus sentence by sentence, in such a way that if his work were lost it could
be recovered from the refutation. The fact was that Semler had nothing in the
nature of a complete or well-articulated argument to oppose to him; therefore he
inaugurated
[1] Doderlein also wrote a defence of Jesus against the Fragmentist: Fragments
und Antifragmente. Nuremberg, 1778.
26
in his reply the "Yes, but" theology, which thereafter, for more than three
generations, while it took, itself, the most various modifications, imagined that it
had finally got rid of Reimarus and his discovery.
Reimarus — so ran the watchword of the guerrilla warfare which Semler waged
against him — cannot be right, for he is one-sided. Jesus and His disciples
employed two methods of teaching: one sensuous, pictorial, drawn from the
sphere of Jewish ideas, by which they adapted their meaning to the
understanding of the multitude, and endeavoured to raise them to a higher way
of thinking; and alongside of that a purely spiritual teaching which was
independent of that kind of imagery. Both methods of teaching continued to be

25
used side by side, because there were always contemporary representatives of
the two degrees of capability and the two kinds of temperament. "This is
historically so certain that the Fragmentist's attack must inevitably be defeated
at this point, because he takes account only of the sensuous representation."
But his attack was not defeated. What happened was that, owing to the respect
in which Semler was held, and the absolute incapacity of contemporary
theology to overtake the long stride forward made by Reimarus, his work was
neglected, and the stimulus which it was capable of imparting failed to take
effect. He had no predecessors; neither had he any disciples. His work is one of
those supremely great works which pass and leave no trace, because they are
before their time; to which later generations pay a just tribute of admiration, but
owe no gratitude. Indeed it would be truer to say that Reimarus hung a mill-
stone about the neck of the rising theological science of his time. He avenged
himself on Semler by shaking his faith in historical theology and even in the
freedom of science in general. By the end of the eighth decade of the century
the Halle professor was beginning to retrace his steps, was becoming more and
more disloyal to the cause which he had formerly served; and he finally went so
far as to give his approval to Wollner's edict for the regulation of religion (1788),
His friends attributed this change of front to senility — he died 1791.
Thus the magnificent overture in which are announced all the motifs of the
future historical treatment of the life of Jesus breaks off with a sudden discord,
remains isolated and incomplete, and leads to nothing further.
* III *
THE LIVES OF JESUS OF THE EARLIER RATIONALISM
Johann Jakob Bess. Geschichte der drei letzten Lebensjahre Jesu. (History of
the Last Three Years of the Life of Jesus.) 3 vols., 1400 pp. Leipzig-Zurich,
1768-1772; 3rd ed., 1774 ff.; 7th ed., 1823 ff.
Franz Volkmar Reinhard. Versuch liber den Plan, welchen der Stifter der
christlichen Religion zum Besten der Menschheit entwarf. (Essay upon the Plan
which the Founder of the Christian Religion adopted for the Benefit of Man-
kind.) 500 pp. 1781; 4th ed., 1798; 5th ed., 1830. Our account is based on the
4th ed. The 5th contains supplementary matter by Heubner.
Ernst August Opitz. Preacher at Zscheppelin. Geschichte und Characterziige
Jesu. (History of Jesus, with a Delineation of His Character.) Jena and Leipzig,
1812. 488 pp.
Johann Adolph Jakobi. Superintendent at Waltershausen. Die Geschichte Jesu
fiir denkende und gemiitvolle Leser, 1816. (The History of Jesus for thoughtful
and sympathetic readers.) A second volume, containing the history of the
apostolic age, followed in 1818.
Johann Gottfried Herder. Vom Erioser der Menschen. Nach unsern drei ersten
Evangelien. (The Redeemer of men, as portrayed in our first three Gospels.)
1796. Von Gottes Sohn, der Welt Heiland. Nach Johannes Evangelium. (The
Son of God, the Saviour of the World, as portrayed by John's Gospel.)
Accompanied by a rule for the harmonisation of our Gospels on the basis of

26
their origin and order. Riga, published by Hartknoch, 1797. See Herder's
complete works, ed. Suphan, vol. xix.
THAT THOROUGH-GOING THEOLOGICAL RATIONALISM WHICH
ACCEPTS ONLY so much of religion as can justify itself at the bar of reason,
and which conceives and represents the origin of religion in accordance with
this principle, was preceded by a rationalism less complete, as yet not wholly
dissociated from a simple-minded supernaturalism. Its point of view is one at
which it is almost impossible for the modern man to place himself. Here, in a
single consciousness, orthodoxy and rationalism lie stratified in successive
layers. Here, to change the metaphor, rationalism surrounds religion without
touching it, and, like a lake surrounding some ancient castle, mirrors its image
with curious refractions.
28
This half-developed rationalism was conscious of an impulse — it is the first
time in the history of theology that this impulse manifests itself — to write the
Life of Jesus; at first without any suspicion whither this undertaking would lead
it. No rude hands were to be laid upon the doctrinal conception of Jesus; at
least these writers had no intention of laying hands upon it. Their purpose was
simply to gain a clearer view of the course of our Lord's earthly and human life.
The theologians who undertook this task thought of themselves as merely
writing an historical supplement to the life of the God-Man Jesus. These "Lives"
are, therefore, composed according to the prescription of the "good old
gentleman" who in 1829 advised the young Hase to treat first of the divine, and
then of the human side of the life of Jesus.
The battle about miracle had not yet begun. But miracle no longer plays a part
of any importance; it is a firmly established principle that the teaching of Jesus,
and religion in general, hold their place solely in virtue of their inner
reasonableness, not by the support of outward evidence.
The only thing that is really rationalistic in these older works is the treatment of
the teaching of Jesus. Even those that retain the largest share of
supernaturalism are as completely undogmatic as the more advanced in their
reproduction of the discourses of the Great Teacher. All of them make it a
principle to lose no opportunity of reducing the number of miracles; where they
can explain a miracle by natural causes, they do not hesitate for a moment. But
the deliberate rejection of all miracles, the elimination of everything supernatural
which intrudes itself into the life of Jesus, is still to seek. That principle was first
consistently carried through by Paulus. With these earlier writers it depends on
the degree of enlightenment of the individual whether the irreducible minimum
of the supernatural is larger or smaller.
Moreover, the period of this older rationalism, like every period when human
thought has been strong and vigorous, is wholly unhistorical. What it is looking
for is not the past, but itself in the past. For it, the problem of the life of Jesus is
solved the moment it succeeds in bringing Jesus near to its own time, in

27
portraying Him as the great teacher of virtue, and showing that His teaching is
identical with the intellectual truth which rationalism deifies.
The temporal limits of this half-and-half rationalism are difficult to define. For the
historical study of the life of Jesus the first landmark which it offers is the work
of Hess, which appeared in 1768. But it held its ground for a long time side by
side with rationalism proper, which failed to drive it from the field. A seventh
edition of Hess's Life of Jesus appeared as late as 1823; while a fifth edition of
Reinhard's work saw the light in 1830. And when Strauss struck the death-blow
of out-
29
and-out rationalism, the half-and-half rationalism did not perish with it, but allied
itself with the neo-supernaturalism which Strauss's treatment of the life of Jesus
had called into being; and it still prolongs an obscure existence in a certain
section of conservative literature, though it has lost its best characteristics, its
simple-mindedness and honesty.
These older rationalistic Lives of Jesus are, from the aesthetic point of view,
among the least pleasing of all theological productions. The sentimentality of
the portraiture is boundless. Boundless, also, and still more objectionable, is the
want of respect for the language of Jesus. He must speak in a rational and
modern fashion, and accordingly all His utterances are reproduced in a style of
the most polite modernity. None of the speeches are allowed to stand as they
were spoken; they are taken to pieces, paraphrased, and expanded, and
sometimes, with the view of making them really lively, they are recast in the
mould of a freely invented dialogue. In all these Lives of Jesus, not a single one
of His sayings retains its authentic form.
And yet we must not be unjust to these writers. What they aimed at was to bring
Jesus near to their own time, and in so doing they became the pioneers of the
historical study of His life. The defects of their work in regard to aesthetic feeling
and historical grasp are outweighed by the attractiveness of the purposeful,
unprejudiced thinking which here awakens, stretches itself, and begins to move
with freedom.
Johann Jakob Hess was born in 1741 and died in 1828. After working as a
curate for seventeen years he became one of the assistant clergy at the
Frauminster at Zurich, and later "Antistes," president, of the cantonal synod. In
this capacity he guided the destinies of the Church in Zurich safely through the
troublous times of the Revolution. He was not a deep thinker, but was well read
and not without ability. As a man, he did splendid work.
His Life of Jesus still keeps largely to the lines of a paraphrase of the Gospels;
indeed, he calls it a paraphrasing history. It is based upon a harmonising
combination of the four Gospels. The matter of the Synoptic narratives is, as in
all the Lives of Jesus prior to Strauss — with the sole exception of Herder's —
fitted more or less arbitrarily into the intervals between the Passovers in the
fourth Gospel.

28
In regard to miracles, he admits that these are a stumblingblock. But they are
essential to the Gospel narrative and to revelation; had Jesus been only a moral
teacher and not the Son of God they would not have been necessary. We must
be careful, however, not to prize miracles for their own sake, but to look
primarily to their ethical teaching. It was, he remarks, the mistake of the Jews to
regard all the acts of Jesus solely from the point of view of their strange and
miraculous character, and to
30
forget their moral teaching; whereas we, from distaste for miracle as such, run
the risk of excluding from the Gospel history events which are bound up with the
Gospel revelation.
Above all, we must retain the supernatural birth and the bodily resurrection,
because on the former depends the sinlessness of Jesus, on the latter the
certainty of the general resurrection of the dead. The temptation of Jesus in the
wilderness was a stratagem of Satan by which he hoped to discover "whether
Jesus of Nazareth was really so extraordinary a person that he would have
cause to fear Him." The resurrection of Lazarus is authentic.
But the Gospel narrative is rationalised whenever it can be done. It was not the
demons, but the Gadarene demoniacs themselves, who rushed among the
swine. Alarmed by their fury the whole herd plunged over the precipice into the
lake and were drowned; while by this accommodation to the fixed idea of the
demoniacs, Jesus effected their cure. Perhaps, too, Hess conjectures, the Lord
desired to test the Gadarenes, and to see whether they would attach greater
importance to the good deed done to two of their number than to the loss of
their swine. This explanation, reinforced by its moral, held its ground in theology
for some sixty years and passed over into a round dozen Lives of Jesus.
This plan of "presenting each occurrence in such a way that what is valuable
and instructive in it immediately strikes the eye" is followed out by Hess so
faithfully that all clearness of impression is destroyed. The parables are barely
recognisable, swathed, as they are, in the mummy-wrappings of his
paraphrase; and in most cases their meaning is completely travestied by the
ethical or historical allusions which he finds in them. The parable of the pounds
is explained as referring to a man who went, like Archelaus, to Rome to obtain
the kingship, while his subjects intrigued behind his back.
Of the peculiar beauty of the speech of Jesus not a trace remains. The parable
of the Sower, for instance, begins: "A countryman went to sow his field, which
lay beside a country-road, and was here and there rather rocky, and in some
places weedy, but in general was well cultivated, and had a good sort of soil."
The beatitude upon the mourners appears in the following guise: "Happy are
they who amid the adversities of the present make the best of things and submit
themselves with patience; for such men, if they do not see better times here,
shall certainly elsewhere receive comfort and consolation." The question
addressed by the Pharisees to John the Baptist, and his answer, are given
dialogue-wise, in fustian of this kind:—The Pharisees: "We are directed to

29
enquire of you, in the name of our president, who you profess to be? As people
are at present expecting the Messiah, and seem not indisposed to accept you in
that capacity, we are the more anxious that you should declare your-
31
self with regard to your vocation and person." John: "The conclusion might have
been drawn from my discourses that I was not the Messiah. Why should people
attribute such lofty pretensions to me?" etc. In order to give the Gospels the true
literary flavour, a characterisation is tacked on to each of the persons of the
narrative. In the case of the disciples, for instance, this runs: "They had sound
common sense, but very limited insight; the capacity to receive teaching, but an
incapacity for reflective thought; a knowledge of their own weakness, but a
difficulty in getting rid of old prejudices; sensibility to right feeling, but weakness
in following out a pre-determined moral plan."
The simplest occurrences give occasion for sentimental portraiture. The saying
"Except ye become as little children" is introduced in the following fashion:
"Jesus called a boy who was standing near. The boy came. Jesus took his hand
and told him to stand beside Him, nearer than any of His disciples, so that he
had the foremost place among them. Then Jesus threw His arm round the boy
and pressed him tenderly to His breast. The disciples looked on in
astonishment, wondering what this meant. Then He explained to them," etc. In
these expansions Hess does not always escape the ludicrous. The saying of
Jesus in John x. 9, "I am the door," takes on the following form: "No one,
whether he be sheep or shepherd, can come into the fold (if, that is to say, he
follows the right way) except in so far as he knows me and is admitted by me,
and included among the flock."
Remhard's work is on a distinctly higher level. The author was born in 1753. In
1792, after he had worked for fourteen years as Docent in Wittenberg, he was
appointed Senior Court Chaplain at Dresden. He died in 1812.
"I am, as you know, a very prosaic person," writes Reinhard to a friend, and in
these words he has given an admirable characterisation of himself. The writers
who chiefly appeal to him are the ancient moralists; he acknowledges that he
has learned more from them than from a "collegium homileticum." In his
celebrated "System of Christian Ethics" (5 vols., 1788-1815) he makes copious
use of them. His sermons — they fill thirty-five volumes, and in their day were
regarded as models — show some power and depth of thought, but are all cast
in the same mould. He seems to have been haunted by a fear that it might
some time befall him to admit into his mind a thought which was mystical or
visionary, not justifiable by the laws of logic and the canons of the critical
reason. With all his philosophising and rationalising, however, certain pillars of
the supernaturalistic view of history remain for him immovable.
At first sight one might be inclined to suppose that he frankly shared the belief in
miracle. He mentions the raising of the widow's son, and of
32

30
Lazarus, and accepts as an authentic saying the command of the risen Jesus to
baptize all nations. But if we look more closely, we find that he deliberately
brings very few miracles into his narrative, and the definition by which he
disintegrates the conception of miracle from within leaves no doubt as to his
own position. What he says is this: "All that which we call miraculous and
supernatural is to be understood as only relatively so, and implies nothing
further than an obvious exception to what can be brought about by natural
causes, so far as we know them and have experience of their capacity. A
cautious thinker will not venture in any single instance to pronounce an event to
be so extraordinary that God could not have brought it about by the use of
secondary causes, but must have intervened directly."
The case stands similarly with regard to the divinity ot Christ. Reinhard
assumes it, but his "Life" is not directed to prove it; it leads only to the
conclusion that the Founder of Christianity is to be regarded aa a wonderful
"divine" teacher. In order to prove His uniqueness, Reinhard has to show that
His plan for the welfare of mankind was something incomparably higher than
anything which hero or sage has ever striven for. Reinhard makes the first
attempt to give an account of the teaching of Jesus which should be historical in
the sense that all dogmatic considerations should be excluded. "Above all
things, let us collect and examine the indications which we find in the writings of
His companions regarding the designs which He had in view."
The plan of Jesus shows its greatness above all in its universality. Reinhard is
well aware of the difficulty raised in this connexion by those sayings which
assert the prerogative of Israel, and he discusses them at length. He finds the
solution in the assumption that Jesus in His own lifetime naturally confined
Himself to working among His own people, and was content to indicate the
future universal development of His plan.
With the intention of "introducing a universal change, tending to the benefit of
the whole human race," Jesus attaches His teaching to the Jewish eschatology.
It is only the form of His teaching, however, which is affected by this, since He
gives an entirely different significance to the terms Kingdom of Heaven and
Kingdom of God, referring them to a universal ethical reorganisation of
mankind. But His plan was entirely independent of politics. He never based His
claims upon His Davidic descent. This was, indeed, the reason why He held
aloof from His family. Even the entry into Jerusalem had no Messianic
significance. His plan was so entirely non-political that He would, on the
contrary, have welcomed the severance of all connexion between the state and
religion, in order to avoid the risk of a conflict between these two powers.
Reinhard explains the voluntary death of Jesus as due to this endeavour. "He
33
quitted the stage of the world by so early and shameful a death because He
wished to destroy at once and for ever the mistaken impression that He was
aiming at the foundation of an earthly kingdom, and to turn the thoughts,
wishes, and efforts of His disciples and companions into another channel."

31
In order to make the Kingdom of God a practical reality, it was necessary for
Him to dissociate it from all the forces of this world, and to bring morality and
religion into the closest connexion. "The law of love was the indissoluble bond
by which Jesus for ever united morality with religion." "Moral instruction was the
principal content and the very essence of all His discourses." His efforts "were
directed to the establishment of a purely ethical organisation."
It was important, therefore, to overthrow superstition and to bring religion within
the domain of reason. First of all the priesthood must be deprived for ever of its
influence. Then an improvement of the social condition of mankind must be
introduced, since the level of morality depends upon social conditions. Jesus
was a social reformer. Through the attainment of "the highest perfection of
which Society is capable, universal peace" was "gradually to be brought about."
But the point of primary importance for Him was the alliance of religion with
reason. Reason was to maintain its freedom by the aid of religion, and religion
was not to be withdrawn from the critical judgment of reason: all things were to
be tested, and only the best retained.
"From these data it is easy to determine the characteristics of a religion which is
to be the religion of all mankind: it must be ethical, intelligible, and spiritual."
After the plan of Jesus has been expounded on these lines, Reinhard shows, in
the second part of his work, that, prior to Jesus, no great man of antiquity had
devised a plan of beneficence of a scope commensurate with the whole human
race. In the third part the conclusion is drawn that Jesus is the uniquely divine
Teacher.
But before the author can venture to draw this conclusion, he feels it necessary
first to show that the plan of Jesus was no chimera. If we were obliged to admit
its impracticability Jesus would have to be ranked with the visionaries and
enthusiasts; and these, however noble and virtuous, can only injure the cause
of rational religion. "Visionary enthusiasm and enlightened reason — who that
knows anything of the human mind can conceive these two as united in a single
soul?" But Jesus was no visionary enthusiast. "With what calmness, self-
mastery, and cool determination does He think out and pursue His divine
purpose?" By the truths which He revealed and declared to be divine
communications He did not desire to put pressure upon the human mind, but
only to guide it. "It would be impossible to show a more conscientious respect
34
and a more delicate consideration for the rights of human reason than is shown
by Jesus. He will conquer only by convincing." "He is willing to bear with
contradiction, and condescends to meet the most irrational objections and the
most ill-natured misrepresentations with the most incredible patience."
It was well for Reinhard that he had no suspicion how full of enthusiasm Jesus
was, and how He trod reason under His feet!
But what kind of relation was there between this rational religion taught by
Jesus and the Christian theology which Reinhard accepted? How does he
harmonise the symbolical view of Baptism and the Lord's Supper which he here

32
expounds with ecclesiastical doctrine? How does he pass from the conception
of the divine teacher to that of the Son of God?
This is a question which he does not feel himself obliged to answer. For him the
one circle of thought revolves freely within the other, but they never come into
contact with each other.
So far as concerns the presentation of the teaching, the Life of Jesus by Opitz
follows the same lines as that of Reinhard. It is disfigured, however, by a
number of lapses of taste, and by a crass supernaturalism in the description of
the miracles and experiences of the Great Teacher.

Jakobi writes "for thoughtful and sympathetic readers." He recognises that

much of the miraculous is a later addition to the facts, but he has a rooted
distrust of thoroughgoing rationalism, "whose would-be helpful explanations are
often stranger than the miracles themselves." A certain amount of miracle must
be maintained, but not for the purpose of founding belief upon it: "the miracles
were not intended to authenticate the teaching of Jesus, but to surround His life
with a guard of honour." [1]
Whether Herder, in his two Lives of Jesus, is to be classed with the older
rationalists is a question to which the answer must be "Yes, and No," as in the
case of every attempt to classify those men of lonely greatness who stand apart
from their contemporaries, but who nevertheless are not in all points in advance
of them.
Properly speaking, he has really nothing to do with the rationalists, since he is
distinguished from them by the depth of his insight and his power of artistic
apprehension, and he is far from sharing their lack of taste. Further, his horizon
embraces problems of which rationalism, even in its developed form, never
came in sight. He recognises that all attempts to harmonise the Synoptists with
John are unavailing; a conclusion which he had avowed earlier in his "Letters
referring to the Study
[1] This is perhaps the place to mention the account of the life of Jesus which is
given in the first part of Plank's Geschichte des Christentums. Gottingen, 1818.
35
of Theology." [l] He grasps this incompatibility, it is true, rather by the aid of
poetic, than of critical insight. "Since they cannot be united," he writes in his
"Life of Jesus according to John," "they must be left stand- ing independently,
each evangelist with his own special merit. Man, Ox, Lion, and Eagle, they
advance together, supporting the throne of glory, but they refuse to coalesce
into a single form, to unite into a Diatessaron." But to him belongs the honour of
being the first and the only scholar, prior to Strauss, to recognise that the life of
Jesus can be construed either according to the Synoptists, or according to
John, but that a Life of Jesus based on the four Gospels is a monstrosity. In
view of this intuitive historical grasp, it is not surprising that the commentaries of
the theologians were an abomination to him.

33
The fourth Gospel is, in his view, not a primitive historical source, but a protest
against the narrowness of the "Palestinian Gospels." It gives free play, as the
circumstances of the time demanded, to Greek ideas. "There was need, in
addition to those earlier, purely historical Gospels, of a Gospel at once
theological and historical, like that of John," in which Jesus should be
presented, not as the Jewish Messiah, "but as the Saviour of the World."
The additions and omissions of this Gospel are alike skilfully planned. It retains
only those miracles which are symbols of a continuous permanent miracle,
through which the Saviour of the World works constantly, unintermittently,
among men. The Johannine miracles are not there for their own sakes. The
cures of demoniacs are not even represented among them. These had no
interest for the Graeco-Roman world, and the Evangelist was unwilling "that this
Palestinian superstition should become a permanent feature of Christianity, to
be a reproach of scoffers or a belief of the foolish." His recording of the raising
of Lazarus is, in spite of the silence of the Synoptists, easily explicable. The
latter could not yet tell the story "without exposing a family which was still living
near Jerusalem to the fury of that hatred which had sworn with an oath to put
Lazarus to death." John, however, could recount it without scruple, "for by this
time Jerusalem was probably in ruins, and the hospitable family of Bethany
were perhaps already with their Friend in the other world." This most naive of
explanations is reproduced in a whole series of Lives of Jesus.
In dealing with the Synoptists, Herder grasps the problem with the same
intuitive insight. Mark is no epitomist, but the creator of the archetype of the
Synoptic representation. "The Gospel of Mark is not an epitome; it is an original
Gospel. What the others have, and he has not,
[1] Briefe das Stadium der Theologie betreffend, 1st ed., 1780-1781; 2nd ed.,
178S- 1786; Verke, ed. Suphan, vol. x.
36
has been added by them, not omitted by him. Consequently Mark is a witness
to an original shorter Gospel-scheme, to which the additional matter of the
others ought properly to be regarded as a supplement."
Mark is the "unornamented central column, or plain foundation stone, on which
the others rest." The birth-stories of Matthew and Luke are "a new growth to
meet new needs." The different tendencies, also, point to a later period. Mark is
still comparatively friendly towards the Jews, because Christianity had not yet
separated itself from Judaism. Matthew is more hostile towards them because
his Gospel was written at a time when Christians had given up the hope of
maintaining amicable relations with the Jews and were groaning under the
pressure of persecution. It is for that reason that the Jesus of the Matthaean
discourses lays so much stress upon His second coming, and presupposes the
rejection of the Jewish nation as something already in being, a sign of the
approaching end.
Pure history, however, is as little to be looked for in the first three Gospels as in
the fourth. They are the sacred epic of Jesus the Messiah, and model the

34
history of their hero upon the prophetic words of the Old Testament. In this
view, also, Herder is a precursor of Strauss.
In essence, however, Herder represents a protest of art against theology. The
Gospels, if we are to find the life of Jesus in them, must be read, not with
pedantic learning, but with taste. From this point of view, miracles cease to
offend. Neither Old Testament prophecies, nor predictions of Jesus, nor
miracles, can be adduced as evidence for the Gospel; the Gospel is its own
evidence. The miracles stand outside the possibility of proof, and belong to
mere "Church belief," which ought to lose itself more and more in the pure
Gospel. Yet miracles, in a limited sense, are to be accepted on the ground of
the historic evidence. To refuse to admit this is to be like the Indian king who
denied the existence of ice because he had never seen anything like it. Jesus,
in order to help His miracle-loving age, reconciled Himself to the necessity of
performing miracles. But, in any case, the reality of a miracle is of small moment
in comparison with its symbolic value.
In this, therefore, Herder, though in his grasp of many problems he was more
than a generation in advance of his time, belongs to the primitive rationalists.
He allows the supernatural to intrude into the events of the life of Jesus, and
does not feel that the adoption of the historical standpoint involves the necessity
of doing away with miracle. He contributed much to the clearing up of ideas, but
by evading the question of miracle he slurred over a difficulty which needed to
be faced and solved before it should be possible to entertain the hope of
forming a really historical conception of the life of Jesus. In reading Herder one
is apt to fancy that it would be possible to pass straight on to Strauss. In reality,
37
it was necessary that a very prosaic spirit, Paulus, should intervene, and should
attack the question of miracle from a purely historical standpoint, before Strauss
could give expression to the ideas of Herder in an effectual way, i.e. in such a
way as to produce offence. The fact is that in theology the most revolutionary
ideas are swallowed quite readily so long as they smooth their passage by a
few small concessions. It is only when a spicule of bone stands out obstinately
and causes choking that theology begins to take note of dangerous ideas.
Strauss is Herder with just that little bone sticking out — the absolute denial of
miracle on historical grounds. That is to say, Strauss is a Herder who has
behind him the uncompromising rationalism of Paulus.
* IV *
THE EARLIEST FICTITIOUS LIVES OF JESUS
Karl Friedrich Bahrdt. Briefe fiber die Bibel im Volkston. Eine 'Wochenschrift von
einem Prediger auf dem Lande. (Popular Letters about the Bible. A weekly
paper by a country clergyman.) J. Fr. Dost, Halle, 1782. 816 pp.
Ausfuhrung des Plans und Zwecks Jesu. In Briefen an Wahrheit suchende
Leser. (An Explanation of the Plans and Aims of Jesus. In letters addressed to
readers who seek the truth.) 11 vols., embracing 3000 pp. August Mylius,
Berlin, 1784- 1792. This work is a sequel to the Popular Letters about the Bible.

35
Die samtlichen Reden Jesu aus den Evangelisten ausgezogen. (The Whole of
the Discourses of Jesus, extracted from the Gospels.) Berlin, 1786,
Karl Heinrich Venturini. Natiirliche Geschichte des grossen Propheten von
Naza- reth. (A Non-supernatural History of the Great Prophet of Nazareth.)
Bethlehem (Copenhagen), 1st ed., 1800-1802; 2nd ed., 1806. 4 vols.,
embracing 2700 pp. The work appeared anonymously. The description given
below is based on the 2nd ed., which shows dependence, in some of the
exegetical details, upon the then recently published commentaries of Paulus.
IT IS STRANGE TO NOTICE HOW OFTEN IN THE HISTORY OF OUR
SUBJECT a few imperfectly equipped free-lances have attacked and attempted
to carry the decisive positions before the ordered ranks of professional theology
have pushed their advance to these decisive points.
Thus, it was the fictitious "Lives" of Bahrdt and Venturini which, at the end of the
eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries, first attempted to apply,
with logical consistency, a non-supernatural interpretation to the miracle stories
of the Gospel. Further, these writers were the first who, instead of contenting
themselves with the simple reproduction of the successive sections of the
Gospel narrative, endeavoured to grasp the inner connexion of cause and effect
in the events and experiences of the life of Jesus. Since they found no such
connexion indicated in the Gospels, they had to supply it for themselves. The
particular form which their explanation takes — the hypothesis of a secret
society of which Jesus is the tool — is, it is true, rather a sorry makeshift. Yet, in
a sense, these Lives of Jesus, for all their colouring of fiction, are the first
39
which deserve the name. The rationalists, and even Paulus, confine themselves
to describing the teaching of Jesus; Bahrdt and Venturini make a bold attempt
to paint the portrait of Jesus Himself. It is not surprising that their portraiture is
at once crude and fantastic, like the earliest attempts of art to represent the
human figure in living movement.
Karl Friedrich Bahrdt was born in 1741 at Bischofswerda. Endowed with brilliant
abilities, he made, owing to a bad upbringing and an undisciplined sensuous
nature, a miserable failure. After being first Catechist and afterwards Professor
Extraordinary of Sacred Philology at Leipzig, he was, in 1766, requested to
resign on account of scandalous life. After various adventures, and after holding
for a time a professorship at Giessen, he received under Frederick's minister
Zedlitz authorisation to lecture at Halle. There he lectured to nearly nine
hundred students who were attracted by his inspiring eloquence. The
government upheld him, in spite of his serious failings, with the double motive of
annoying the faculty and maintaining the freedom of learning. After the death of
Frederick the Great, Bahrdt had to resign his post, and took to keeping an inn at
a vineyard near Halle. By ridiculing Wollner's edict (1788), he brought on
himself a year of confinement in a fortress. He died in disrepute, in 1792.
Bahrdt had begun as an orthodox cleric. In Halle he gave up his belief in
revelation, and endeavoured to explain religion on the ground of reason. To this

36
period belong the "Popular Letters about the Bible," which were afterwards
continued in the further series, "An Explanation of the Plans and Aims of
Jesus."
His treatment of the life of Jesus has been too severely censured. The work is
not without passages which show a real depth of feeling, espe- cially in the
continually recurring explanations regarding the relation of belief in miracle to
true faith, in which the actual description of the life of Jesus lies embedded. And
the remarks about the teaching of Jesus are not always commonplace. But the
paraphernalia of dialogues of portentous length make it, as a whole, formless
and inartistic. The introduction of a galaxy of imaginary characters — Haram,
Schimah, Avel, Limmah, and the like — is nothing less than bewildering.
Bahrdt finds the key to the explanation of the life of Jesus in the appearance in
the Gospel narrative of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. They are not
disciples of Jesus, but belong to the upper classes; what role, then, can they
have played in the life of Jesus, and how came they to intercede on His behalf?
They were Essenes. This Order had secret members in all ranks of society,
even in the Sanhedrin. It had set itself the task of detaching the nation from its
sensuous Messianic hopes and leading it to a higher knowledge of spiritual
truths. It had the most widespread ramifications, extending to Babylon and to
Egypt. In order
40
to deliver the people from the limitations of the national faith, which could only
lead to disturbance and insurrection, they must find a Messiah who would
destroy these false Messianic expectations. They were therefore on the look-out
for a claimant of the Messiahship whom they could make subservient to their
aims.
Jesus came under the notice of the Order immediately after His birth. As a child
He was watched over at every step by the Brethren. At the feasts at Jerusalem,
Alexandrian Jews, secret members of the Essene Order, put themselves into
communication with Him, explained to Him the falsity of the priests, inspired
Him with a horror of the bloody sacrifices of the Temple, and made him
acquainted with Socrates and Plato. This is set forth in dialogues of a hundred
pages long. At the story of the death of Socrates, the boy bursts into a tempest
of sobs which His friends are unable to calm. He longs to emulate the martyr-
death of the great Athenian.
On the market-place at Nazareth a mysterious Persian gives Him two sovereign
remedies — one for affections of the eye, the other for nervous disorders.
His father does his best for Him, teaching Him, along with His cousin John,
afterwards the Baptist, about virtue and immortality. A priest belonging to the
Essene Order, who makes their acquaintance disguised as a shepherd, and
takes part in their conversations, leads the lads deeper into the knowledge of
wisdom. At twelve years old, Jesus is already so far advanced that He argues
with the Scribes in the Temple concerning miracles, maintaining the thesis that
they are impossible.

37
When they feel themselves ready to appear in public the two cousins take
counsel together how they can best help the people. They agree to open the
eyes of the people regarding the tyranny and hypocrisy of the priests. Through
Haram, a prominent member of the Essene Order, Luke the physician is
introduced to Jesus and places all his science at His disposal.
In order to produce any effect they were obliged to practise accommodation to
the superstitions of the people, and introduce their wisdom to them under the
garb of folly, in the hope that, beguiled by its attractive exterior, the people
would admit into their minds the revelation of rational truth, and after a time be
able to emancipate themselves from superstition. Jesus, therefore, sees
Himself obliged to appear in the role of the Messiah of popular expectation, and
to make up His mind to work by means of miracles and illusions. About this He
felt the gravest scruples. He was obliged, however, to obey the Order; and His
scruples were quieted by the reminder of the lofty end which was to be reached
by these means. At last, when it is pointed out to Him that even Moses had
followed the same plan. He submits to the necessity. The influential
41
Order undertakes the duty of stage-managing the miracles, and that of
maintaining His father. On the reception of Jesus into the number of the
Brethren of the First Degree of the Order it is made known to Him that these
Brethren are bound to face death in the cause of the Order; but that the Order,
on its part, undertakes so to use the machinery and influence at its disposal that
the last extremity shall always be avoided and the Brother mysteriously
preserved from death.
Then begins the cleverly staged drama by means of which the people are to be
converted to rational religion. The members of the Order are divided into three
classes: The Baptized, The Disciples, The Chosen Ones. The Baptized receive
only the usual popular teaching; the Disciples are admitted to further
knowledge, but are not entrusted with the highest mysteries; the Chosen Ones,
who in the Gospels are also spoken of as "Angels," are admitted into all
wisdom. As the Apostles were only members of the Second Degree, they had
not the smallest suspicion of the secret machinery which was at work. Their part
in the drama of the life of Jesus was that of zealous "supers." The Gospels
which they composed therefore report, in perfect good faith, miracles which
were really clever illusions produced by the Essenes, and they depict the life of
Jesus only as seen by the populace from the outside.
It is therefore not always possible for us to discover how the events which they
record as miracles actually came about. But whether they took place in one way
or another — and as to this we can sometimes get a clue from a hint in the text
— it is certain that in all cases the process was natural. With reference to the
feeding of the five thousand, Bahrdt remarks: "It is more reasonable here to
think of a thousand ways by which Jesus might have had sufficient supplies of
bread at hand, and by the distribution of it have shamed the disciples' lack of
courage, than to believe in a miracle." The explanation which he himself prefers

38
is that the Order had collected a great quantity of bread in a cave and this was
gradually handed out to Jesus, who stood at the concealed entrance and took
some every time the apostles were occupied in distributing the lormer supply to
the multitude. The walking on the sea is to be explained by supposing that
Jesus walked towards the disciples over the surface of a great floating raft;
while they, not being able to see the raft, must needs suppose a miracle. When
Peter tried to walk on the water he failed miserably. The miracles of healing are
to be attributed to the art of Luke. He also called the attention of Jesus to
remarkable cases of apparent death, which He then took in hand, and restored
the apparently dead to their sorrowing friends. In such cases, however, the Lord
never failed expressly to inform the disciples that the persons were not really
dead. They, however, did not permit this assurance to deprive them of their faith
in the miracle which thev felt thev had themselves witnessed.
42
In teaching, Jesus had two methods: one, exoteric, simple, for the world; the
other, esoteric, mystic, for the initiate. "No attentive reader of the Bible," says
Bahrdt, "can fail to notice that Jesus made use of two different styles of speech.
Sometimes He spoke so plainly and in such universally intelligible language,
and declared truths so simply and so well adapted to the general
comprehension of mankind that even the simplest could follow Him. At other
times he spoke so mystically, so obscurely, and in so veiled a fashion that
words and thoughts alike baffled the understandings of ordinary people, and
even by more practised minds were not to be grasped without close reflection,
so that we are told in John vi. 60 that 'many of His disciples, when they heard
this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?' And Jesus Himself did not
deny it, but only told them that the reason of their not understanding His sayings
lay in their prejudices, which made them interpret everything literally and
materially, and overlook the ethical meaning which •underlay His figurative
language." Most of these mystical discourses are to be found in John, who
seems to have preserved for us the greater part of the secret teaching imparted
to the initiate. The key to the understanding of this esoteric teaching is to be
found, therefore, in the prologue to John's Gospel, and in the sayings about the
new birth. "To be born again" is identical with the degree of perfection which
was attained in the highest class of the Brotherhood.
The members of the Order met on appointed days in caves among the hills.
When we are told in the Gospels that Jesus went alone into a mountain to pray,
this means that He repaired to one of these secret gatherings, but the disciples,
of course, knew nothing about that. The Order had its hidden caves
everywhere; in Galilee as well as in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem.
"Only by sensuous means can sensuous ideas be overcome." The Jewish
Messiah must die and rise again, in order that the false conceptions of the
Messiah which were cherished by the multitude might be destroyed in the
moment of their fulfilment — that is, might be spiritualised. Nicodemus, Haram,
and Luke met in a cave in order to take counsel how they might bring about the

39
death of Jesus in a way favourable to their plans. Luke guaranteed that by the
aid of powerful drugs which he would give Him the Lord should be enabled to
endure the utmost pain and suffering and yet resist death for a long time.
Nicodemus undertook so to work matters in the Sanhedrin that the execution
should follow immediately upon the sentence, and the crucified remain only a
short time upon the cross. At this moment Jesus rushed into the cave. He had
scarcely had time to replace the stone which concealed the entrance, so closely
had He been pursued over the rocks by hired assassins. He Himself is firmly
resolved to die, but care must be taken that He shall not be
43
simply assassinated, or the whole plan fails. If He falls by the assassin's knife,
no resurrection will be possible.
In the end, the piece is staged to perfection. Jesus provokes the authorities by
His triumphal Messianic entry. The unsuspected Essenes in the council urge on
His arrest and secure His condemnation — though Pilate almost frustrates all
their plans by acquitting Him. Jesus, by uttering a loud cry and immediately
afterwards bowing His head, shows every appearance of a sudden death. The
centurion has been bribed not to allow any of His bones to be broken. Then
comes Joseph of Ramath, as Bahrdt prefers to call Joseph of Arimathea, and
removes the body to the cave of the Essenes, where he immediately
commences measures of resuscitation. As Luke had prepared the body of the
Messiah by means of strengthening medicines to resist the fearful ill-usage
which He had gone through — the being dragged about and beaten and finally
crucified — these efforts were crowned with success. In the cave the most
strengthening nutriment was supplied to Him. "Since the humours of the body
were in a thoroughly healthy condition, His wounds healed very readily, and by
the third day He was able to walk, in spite of the fact that the wounds made by
the nails were still open."
On the morning of the third day they forced away the stone which closed the
mouth of the grave. As Jesus was descending the rocky slopes the watch
awakened and took to flight in alarm. One of the Essenes appeared, in the garb
of an angel, to the women and announced to them the resurrection of Jesus.
Shortly afterwards the Lord appeared to Mary. At the sound of His voice she
recognises Him. "Thereupon Jesus tells her that He is going to His Father (to
heaven — in the mystic sense of the word — that is to say, to the Chosen Ones
in their peaceful dwellings of truth and blessedness — to the circle of His faithful
friends, among whom He continued to live, unseen by the world, but still
working for the advancement of His purpose). He bade her tell His disciples that
He was alive."
From His place of concealment He appeared several times to His disciples.
Finally He bade them meet Him at the Mount of Olives, near Bethany, and there
took leave of them. After exhorting them, and embracing each of them in turn,
He tore Himself away from them and walked away up the mountain. "There
stood those poor men, amazed — beside themselves with sorrow — and looked

40
after Him as long as they could. But as He mounted higher, He entered ever
deeper into the cloud which lay upon the hill-top, until finally He was no longer
to be seen. The cloud received Him out of their sight."
From the mountain He returned to the chief lodge of the Brotherhood. Only at
rare intervals did He again intervene in active life — as on the occasion when
He appeared to Paul upon the road to Damascus. But,
44
though unseen. He continued to direct the destinies of the community until His
death.
Venturini's "Non-supernatural History of the Great Prophet of Nazareth" is
related to Bahrdt's work as the finished picture to the sketch.
Karl Heinrich Venturini was born at Brunswick in 1768. On the completion of his
theological studies he vainly endeavoured to secure a post as Docent in the
theological faculty at Helmstadt, or as Librarian at Wolfenbiittel.
His life was blameless and his personal piety beyond reproach, but he was
considered to be too free in his ideas. The Duke of Brunswick was personally
well disposed towards him, but did not venture to give him a post on the
teaching staff in face of the opposition of the consistories. He was reduced to
earning a bare pittance by literary work, and finally in 1806 was thankful to
accept a small living in Hordorf near Brunswick. He then abandoned theological
writing and devoted his energies to recording the events of contemporary
history, of which he published a yearly chronicle — a proceeding which under
the Napoleonic regime was not always unattended with risk, as he more than
once had occasion to experience. He continued this undertaking till 1841. In
1849 death released him from his tasks.
Venturini's fundamental assumption is that it was impossible, even for the
noblest spirit of mankind, to make Himself understood by the Judaism of His
time except by clothing His spiritual teaching in a sensuous garb calculated to
please the oriental imagination, "and, in general, by bringing His higher spiritual
world into such relations with the lower sensuous world of those whom He
wished to teach as was necessary to the accomplishment of His aims." "God's
Messenger was morally bound to perform miracles for the Jews. These miracles
had an ethical purpose, and were especially designed to counteract the
impression made by the supposed miracles of the deceivers of the people, and
thus to hasten the overthrow of the kingdom of Satan."
For modern medical science the miracles are not miraculous. He never healed
without medicaments and always carried His "portable medicine chest" with
Him. In the case of the Syrophoenician woman's daughter, for example, we can
still detect in the narrative a hint of the actual course of events. The mother
explains the case to Jesus. After enquiring where her dwelling was He made a
sign to John, and continued to hold her in conversation. The disciple went to the
daughter and gave her a sedative, and when the mother returned she found her
child cured.

41
The raisings from the dead were cases of coma. The nature-miracles were due
to a profound acquaintance with the powers of Nature and the
45
order of her processes. They involve fore-knowledge rather than control.
Many miracle stories rest on obvious misunderstandings. Nothing could be
simpler than the explanation of the miracle at Cana. Jesus had brought with
Him as a wedding-gift some jars of good wine and had put them aside in
another room. When the wine was finished and His mother became anxious, He
still allowed the guests to wait a little, as the stone vessels for purification had
not yet been filled with water. When that had been done He ordered the
servants to pour out some of his wine, but to tell no one whence it came. When
John, as an old man, wrote his Gospel, he got all this rather mixed up — had
not indeed observed it very closely at the time, "had perhaps been the least
thing merry himself," says Venturini, and had believed in the miracle with the
rest. Perhaps, too, he had not ventured to ask Jesus for an explanation, for he
had only become His disciple a few days before.
The members of the Essene Order had watched over the child Jesus even in
Egypt. As He grew older they took charge of His education along with that of
His cousin, John, and trained them both for their work as deliverers of the
people. Whereas the nation as a whole looked to an insurrection as the means
of its deliverance, they knew that freedom could only be achieved by means of
a spiritual renewal. Once Jesus and John met a band uf insurgents: Jesus
worked on them so powerfully by His fervid speech that they recognised the
impiousness of their purpose. One of them sprang towards Him and laid down
his arms; it was Simon, who afterwards became His disciple.
When Jesus was about thirty years old, and, owing to the deep experiences of
His inner life, had really far outgrown the aims of the Essene Order, He entered
upon His office by demanding baptism from John. Just as this was taking place
a thunderstorm broke, and a dove, frightened by the lightning, fluttered round
the head of Jesus. Both Jesus and John took this as a sign that the hour
appointed by God had come.
The temptations in the wilderness, and upon the pinnacle of the Temple, were
due to the machinations of the Pharisee Zadok, who pretended to enter into the
plans of Jesus and feigned admiration for Him in order the more surely to entrap
Him. It was Zadok, too, who stirred up opposition to Him in the Sanhedrin.
But Jesus did not succeed in destroying the old Messianic belief with its earthly
aims. The hatred of the leading circles against Him grew, although He avoided
everything "that could offend their prejudices." It was for this reason that He
even forbade His disciples to preach the Gospel beyond the borders of Jewish
territory. He paid the temple-tax, also, although he had no fixed abode. When
the collector went to Peter about it, the following dialogue took place.
Tax-collector (drawing Peter aside). Tell me, Simon, does the Rabbi
46

42
pay the didrachma to the Temple treasury, or should we not trouble Him about
it?
Peter. Why shouldn't He pay it? Why do you ask?
Tax-collector. It's been owing from both of you since last Nisan, as our books
show. We did not like to remind your Master, out of reverence.
Peter. I'll tell Him at once. He will certainly pay the tax. You need have no fear
about that.
Tax-collector. That's good. That will put everything straight, and we shall have
no trouble over our accounts. Good-bye!
When Jesus hears of it He commands Peter to go and catch a fish, and to take
care, in removing the hook, not to tear its mouth, that it may be fit for salting (!)
In that case it will doubtless be worth a stater.
The time arrived when an important move must be made. In full conclave of the
Secret Society it was resolved that Jesus should go up to Jerusalem and there
publicly proclaim Himself as the Messiah. Then He was to endeavour to
disabuse the people of their earthly Messianic expectations.
The triumphal entry succeeded. The whole people hailed Him with
acclamations. But when He tried to substitute for their picture of the Messiah
one of a different character, and spoke of times of severe trial which should
come upon all, when He showed Himself but seldom in the Temple, instead of
taking His place at the head of the people, they began to doubt Him.
Jesus was suddenly arrested and put to death. Here, then, the death is not, as
in Bahrdt, a piece of play-acting, stage-managed by the Secret Society. Jesus
really expected to die, and only to meet His disciples again in the eternal life of
the other world. But when He so soon gave up the ghost, Joseph of Arimathea
was moved by some vague premonition to hasten at once to Pontius Pilate and
make request for His body. He offers the Procurator money. Pilate (sternly and
emphatically): "Dost thou also mistake me? Am I, then, such an insatiable
miser? Still, thou art a Jew—how could this people do me justice? Know, then,
that a Roman can honour true nobility wherever he may find it. (He sits down
and writes some words on a strip of parchment.) Give this to the captain of the
guard. Thou shall be permitted to remove the body. I ask nothing for this. It is
granted to thee freely."
"A tender embrace from his wife rewarded the noble deed of the Roman, while
Joseph left the Praetorium, and with Nicodemus, who was impatiently awaiting
him, hastened to Golgotha." There he received the body; he washed it, anointed
it with spices, and laid it on a bed of moss in the rock-hewn grave. From the
blood which was still flowing from the wound in the side, he ventured to draw a
hopeful augury, and sent word to the Essene Brethren. They had a hold close
by, and promised to watch
47
over the body. In the first four-and-twenty hours no movement of life showed
itself. Then came the earthquake. In the midst of the terrible commotion a
Brother, in the white robes of the Order, was making his way to the grave by a

43
secret path. When he, illumined by a flash of lightning, suddenly appeared
above the grave, and at the same moment the earth shook violently, panic
seized the watch, and they fled. In the morning the Brother hears a sound from
the grave: Jesus is moving. The whole Order hastens to the spot, and Jesus is
removed to their Lodge. Two brethren remain at the grave—these were the
"angels" whom the women saw later. Jesus, in the dress of a gardener, is
afterwards recognised by Mary Magdalene. Later, He comes out at intervals
ficm the hiding-place, where He is kept by the Brethren, and appears to the
disciples. After forty days He took His leave of them: His strength was
exhausted. The farewell scene gave rise to the mistaken impression of His
Ascension.
From the historical point of view these lives are not such contemptible
performances as might be supposed. There is much penetrating observation in
them. Bahrdt and Venturini are right in feeling that the connexion of events in
the life of Jesus has to be discovered; the Gospels give only a series of
occurrences, and offer no explanation why they happened just as they did. And
if, in making Jesus subservient to the plans of a secret society, they
represented Him as not acting with perfect freedom, but as showing a certain
passivity, this assumption of theirs was to be brilliantly vindicated, a hundred
years later, by the eschatological school, which asserts the same remarkable
passivity on the part of Jesus, in that He allows His actions to be determined,
not indeed by a secret society, but by the eschatological plan of God. Bahrdt
and Venturini were the first to see that, of all Jesus' acts, His death was most
distinctively His own, because it was by this that He purposed to found the
kingdom.
Venturini's "Non-supernatural History of the Great Prophet of Nazareth" may
almost be said to be reissued annually down to the present day, for all the
fictitious "Lives" go back directly or indirectly to the type which he created. It is
plagiarised more freely than any other Life of Jesus, although practically
unknown by name.
*V*
FULLY DEVELOPED RATIONALISM — PAULUS
Heinrich Eberhard Gottlob Paulus. Das Leben Jesu als Grundlage einer reinen
Geschichte des Urchristentums. Heidelberg, C. F. Winter. (The Life of Jesus as
the Basis of a purely Historical Account of Early Christianity.) 1828. 2 vols.,
1192 pp.
Freut euch mit Gottesandacht, wenn es gewahrt euch ist,
Dem, so kurz er war, weltumschaffenden Lebensgang
Nach Jahrhunderten fern zu folgen,
Denket, glaubet, folget des Vorbildes Spur!
(Closing words of vol. ii.)
(Rejoice with grateful devotion, if unto you 'tis permitted,
After the lapse of centuries, still to follow afar off

44
That Life which, short as it was, changed the course of the ages;
Think ye well, and believe; follow the path of our Pattern.)
PAULUS WAS NOT THE MERE DRY-AS-DUST RATIONALIST THAT HE IS
USUALLY represented to have been, but a man of very versatile abilities. His
limitation was that, like Reinhard, he had an unconquerable distrust of anything
that went outside the boundaries of logical thought. That wag due in part to the
experiences of his youth. His father, a deacon in Leonberg, half-mystic, half-
rationalist, had secret difficulties about the doctrine of immortality, and made his
wife promise on her death-bed that, if it were possible, she would appear to him
after her death in bodily form. After she was dead he thought he saw her raise
herself to a sitting posture, and again sink down. From that time onwards he
firmly believed himself to be in communication with departed spirits, and he
became so dominated by this idea that in 1771 he had to be removed from his
office. His children suffered sorely from a regime of compulsory spiritualism,
which pressed hardest upon Heinrich Eberhard Gottlob, born in 1761, who, for
the sake of peace, was obliged to pretend to his father that he was in
communication with his mother's spirit.
He himself had inherited only the rationalistic side of his father's temperament.
As a student at the Tubingen Stift (theological institute) he
49
formed his views on the writings of Semler and Michaelis. In 1789 he was called
to Jena as Professor of Oriental Languages, and succeeded in 1793 to the third
ordinary professorship of theology. The naturalistic interpretation of miracles
which he upheld in his commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, published in
1800-1802, aroused the indignation of the consistories of Meiningen and
Eisenach. But their petition for his removal from the professorship was
unsuccessful, since Herder, who was president of the consistorium, used his
influence to protect him. In 1799 Paulus, as Pro-rector, used his influence on
behalf of his colleague Fichte, who was attacked on the ground of atheism; but
in vain, owing to the passionate conduct of the accused.
With Goethe, Schiller, and Wieland, Paulus and his wife, a lively lady of some
literary talents, stood in the most friendly relations.
When the Jena circle began to break up, he accepted, in 1803, an invitation
from the Elector of Bavaria, Maximilian Joseph II., to go to Wiirzburg as
Konsistorialrat and professor. There the liberal minister, Montgelas, was
desirous of establishing a university founded on the principles of illuminism—
Schelling, Hufeland, and Schleiermacher were among those whom he
contemplated appointing as Docents. Here the Catholic theological students
were obliged to attend the lectures of the Protestant professor of theology, as
there were no Protestants to form an audience. His first course was on
"Encyclopadie" (i.e. introduction to the literature of theology).
The plan failed. Paulus resigned his professorship and became in 1807 a
member of the Bavarian educational council (Schulrat). In this capacity he
worked at the reorganisation of the Bavarian school system at the time when

45
Hegel was similarly engaged. He gave four years to this task, which he felt to be
laid upon him as a duty. Then, in 1811, he went to Heidelberg as professor of
theology; and he remained there until his death, in 1851, at the age of ninety.
One of his last sayings, a few hours before he died, was, "I am justified before
God, through my desire to do right." His last words were, "There is another
world."
The forty years of his Heidelberg period were remarkably productive; there was
no department of knowledge on which he did not write. He expressed his views
about homoeopathy, about the freedom of the Press, about academic freedom,
and about the duelling nuisance. In 1831, he wrote upon the Jewish Question;
and there the veteran rationalist showed himself a bitter anti-Semite, and
brought upon himself the scorn of Heine. On politics and constitutional
questions he fought for his opinions so openly and manfully that he had to be
warned to be more discreet. In philosophy he took an especially keen interest.
When in Jena he had, in conjunction with Schiller, busied himself in the study of
Kant. He did a particularly meritorious service in preparing an edition of
Spinoza's
50
writings, with a biography of that thinker, in 1803, at the time when neo-
Spinozism was making its influence felt in German philosophy. He constituted
himself the special guardian of philosophy, and the moment he detected the
slightest hint of mysticism, he sounded the alarm. His pet aversion was
Schelling, who was born fourteen years later than he, in the very same house at
Leonberg, and whom he had met as colleague at Jena and at Wiirzburg. The
works, avowed and anonymous, which he directed against this "charlatan,
juggler, swindler, and obscurantist," as he designated him, fill an entire library.
In 1841, Schelling was called to the chair of philosophy in Berlin, and in the
winter of 1841-1842 he gave his lectures on "The Philosophy of Revelation"
which caused the Berlin reactionaries to hail him as their great ally. The veteran
rationalist — he was eighty years old — was transported with rage. He had had
the lectures taken down for him, and he published them with critical remarks
under the title "The Philosophy of Revelation at length Revealed, and set forth
for General Examination, by Dr. H. E. G. Paulus" (Darmstadt, 1842). Schelling
was furious, and dragged "the impudent scoundrel" into a court of law on the
charge of illicit publication. In Prussia the book was suppressed. But the courts
decided in favour of Paulus, who coolly explained that "the philosophy of
Schelling appeared to him an insidious attack upon sound reason, the
unmasking of which by every possible means was a work of public utility, nay,
even a duty." He also secured the result at which he aimed; Schelling resigned
his lectureship.
In his last days the veteran rationalist was an isolated survival from an earlier
age into a period which no longer understood him. The new men reproached
him for standing in the old ways; he accused them of a want of honesty. It was
just in his immobility and his one-sidedness that his significance lay. By his

46
consistent carrying through of the rationalistic explanation he performed a
service to theology more valuable than those who think themselves so vastly his
superiors are willing to acknowledge.
His Life of Jesus is awkwardly arranged. The first part gives a historical
exposition of the Gospels, section by section. The second part is a synopsis
interspersed with supplementary matter. There is no attempt to grasp the life of
Jesus as a connected whole. In that respect he is far inferior to Venturini.
Strictly regarded, his work is only a harmony of the Gospels with explanatory
comments, the ground plan of which is taken from the Fourth Gospel.[1]
[1] A Life of Jesus which is completely dependent on the Commentaries of
Paulus is that of Greiling, superintendent at Aschersleben, Das Leben Jesu van
Nazareth, Ein religioses Handbuch fur Ceist und Herz der Freunde Jesu unter
den Gebildeten, (The Life of Jesus of Nazareth, a religious Handbook for the
Minds and Hearts of the Friends of Jesus among the Cultured.) Halle, 1813.
51
The main interest centres in the explanations of the miracles, though the author,
it must be admitted, endeavoured to guard against this. "It is my chief desire,"
he writes in his preface, "that my views regarding the miracle stories should not
be taken as by any means the principal thing. How empty would devotion or
religion be if one's spiritual well-being depended on whether one believed in
miracles or no!" "The truly miraculous thing about Jesus is Himself, the purity
and serene holiness of His character, which is, notwithstanding, genuinely
human, and adapted to the imitation and emulation of mankind."
The question of miracle is therefore a subsidiary question. Two points of
primary importance are certain from the outset: (1) that unexplained alterations
of the course of nature can neither overthrow nor attest a spiritual truth, (2) that
everything which happens in nature emanates from the omnipotence of God.
The Evangelists intended to relate miracles; of that there can be no doubt. Nor
can any one deny that in their time miracles entered into the plan of God, in the
sense that the minds of men were to be astounded and subdued by inexplicable
facts. This effect, however, is past. In periods to which the miraculous makes
less appeal, in view of the advance in intellectual culture of the nations which
have been led to accept Christianity, the understanding must be satisfied if the
success of the cause is to be maintained.
Since that which is produced by the laws of nature is really produced by God,
the Biblical miracles consist merely in the fact that eye-witnesses report events
of which they did not know the secondary causes. Their knowledge of the laws
of nature was insufficient to enable them to understand what actually happened.
For one who has discovered the secondary causes, the fact remains, as such,
but not the miracle.
The question of miracle, therefore, does not really exist, or exists only for those
"who are under the influence of the sceptical delusion that it is possible really to
think any kind of natural powers as existing apart from God, or to thiink the
Being of God apart from the primal potentialities which unfold themselves in the

47
never-ceasing process of Becoming." The difficulty arises from the "original sin"
of dissolving the inner unity of God and nature, of denying the equivalence
implied by Spinoza in his "Deus sive Natura."
For the normal intelligence the only problem is to discover the secondary
causes of the "miracles" of Jesus. It is true there is one miracle which Paulus
retains — the miracle of the birth, or at least the possibility of it; in the sense
that it is through holy inspiration that Mary receives the hope and the power of
conceiving her exalted Son, in whom the spirit of the Messiah takes up its
dwelling. Here he indirectly denies the natural generation, and regards the
conception as an act of the self-consciousness of the mother.
52
With the miracles of healing, however, the case is very simple. Sometimes
Jesus worked through His spiritual power upon the nervous system of the
sufferer; sometimes He used medicines known to Him alone. The latter applies,
for instance, to the cures of the blind. The disciples, too, as appears from Mark
vi. 7 and 13, were not sent out without medicaments, for the oil with which they
were to anoint the sick was, of course, of a medicinal character; and the casting
out of evil spirits was effected partly by means of sedatives.
Diet and after-treatment played a great part, though the Evangelists say little
about this because directions on these points would not be given publicly. Thus,
the saying, "This kind goeth not out save by prayer and fasting," is interpreted
as an instruction to the father as to the way in which he could make the sudden
cure of the epileptic into a permanent one, viz. by keeping him to a strict diet
and strengthening his character by devotional exercises.
The nature miracles suggest their own explanation. The walking on the water
was an illusion of the disciples. Jesus walked along the shore, and in the mist
was taken for a ghost by the alarmed and excited occupants of the boat. When
Jesus called to them, Peter threw himself into the water, and was drawn to
shore by Jesus just as he was sinking. Immediately after taking Jesus into the
boat they doubled a headland and drew clear of the storm centre; they therefore
supposed that He had calmed the sea by His command. It was the same in the
case where He was asleep during the storm. When they waked Him He spoke
to them about the wind and the weather. At that moment they gained the shelter
of a hill which protected them from the wind that swept down the valley; and
they marvelled among themselves that even the winds and the sea obeyed their
Messiah.
The feeding of the five thousand is explained in the following way. When Jesus
saw the multitude an hungered. He said to His disciples, "We will set the rich
people among them a good example, that they may share their supplies with
the others," and he began to distribute His own provisions, and those of the
disciples, to the people who were sitting near them. The example had its effect,
and soon there was plenty for every one.
The explanation of the transfiguration is somewhat more complicated. While
Jesus was lingering with a few followers in this mountainous district He had an

48
interview upon a high mountain at night with two dignified-looking men whom
His three companions took for Moses and Elias. These unknown persons, as
we learn from Luke ix. 31, informed Him of the fate which awaited Him at
Jerusalem. In the early morning, as the sun was rising, the three disciples, only
half awake, looked upwards from the hollow in which they had been sleeping
and saw Jesus
53
with the two strangers upon the higher part of the mountain, illuminated by the
beams of the rising sun, and heard them speak, now of the fate which
threatened Him in the capital, now of the duty of steadfastness and the hopes
attached thereto, and finally heard an exhortation addressed to themselves,
bidding them ever to hold Jesus to be the beloved Son of the Deity, whom they
must obey. . . . Their drowsiness, and the clouds which in an autumnal sunrise
float to and fro over those mountains, [1] left them no clear recollection of what
had happened. This only added to the wonder of the vague undefined
impression of having been in contact with apparitions from a higher sphere. The
three who had been with Him on the mount never arrived at any more definite
knowledge of the facts, because Jesus forbade them to speak of what they had
seen until the end should come.
In dealing with the raisings from the dead the author is in his element. Here he
is ready with the unfailing explanation taken over from Bahrdt that they were
only cases of coma. These narratives should not be headed "raisings from the
dead," but "deliverances from premature burial." In Judaea, interment took
place three hours after death. How many seemingly dead people may have
returned to consciousness in their graves, and then have perished miserably!
Thus Jesus, owing to a presentiment suggested to Him by the father's story,
saves the daughter of Jairus from being buried while in a cataleptic trance. A
similar presentiment led Him to remove the covering of the bier which He met at
the gate of Nain, and to discover traces of life in the widow's son. A similar
instinct moved Him to ask to be taken to the grave of Lazarus. When the stone
is rolled away He sees His friend standing upright and calls to him joyfully,
"Come forth!"
The Jewish love of miracle "caused everything to be ascribed immediately to
the Deity, and secondary causes to be overlooked; consequently no thought
was unfortunately given to the question of how to prevent these horrible cases
of premature burial from taking place!" But why does it not appear strange to
Paulus that Jesus did not enlighten His countrymen as to the criminal character
of over-hasty burial, instead of allowing even his closest followers to believe in
miracle? Here the hypothesis condemns itself, although it has a foundation of
fact, in so far as cases of premature burial are abnormally frequent in the East.
The resurrection of Jesus must be brought under the same category if we are to
hold fast to the facts that the disciples saw Him in His natural body with the print
of the nails in His hands, and that He took food in

49
[1] Paulus prided himself on a very exact acquaintance with the physical and
geographical conditions of Palestine. He had a wide knowledge of the Literature
of Eastern travel.—TRANSLATOR.
54
their presence. Death from crucifixion was in fact due to a condition of rigor,
which extended gradually inwards. It was the slowest of all deaths. Josephus
mentions in his Contra Apionem that it was granted to him as a favour by Titus,
at Tekoa, that he might have three crucified men whom he knew taken down
from the cross. Two of them died, but one recovered. Jesus, however, "died"
surprisingly quickly. The loud cry which he uttered immediately before His head
sank shows that His strength was far from being exhausted, and that what
supervened was only a death-like trance. In such trances the process of dying
continues until corruption sets in. "This alone proves that the process is
complete and that death has actually taken place."
In the case of Jesus, as in that of others, the vital spark would have been
gradually extinguished, had not Providence mysteriously effected on behalf of
its favourite that which in the case of others was sometimes effected in more
obvious ways by human skill and care. The lance-thrust, which we are to think
of rather as a mere surface wound, served the purpose of a phlebotomy. The
cool grave and the aromatic unguents continued the process of resuscitation,
until finally the storm and the earthquake aroused Jesus to full consciousness.
Fortunately the earthquake also had the effect of rolling away the stone from the
mouth of the grave. The Lord stripped off the grave-clothes and put on a
gardener's dress which He managed to procure. That was what made Mary, as
we are told in John xx. 15, take Him for the gardener. Through the women, He
sends a message to His disciples bidding them meet Him in Galilee, and
Himself sets out to go thither. At Emmaus, as the dusk was falling, He met two
of His followers, who at first failed to recognize Him because His countenance
was so disfigured by His sufferings. But His manner of giving thanks at the
breaking of bread, and the nail-prints in His uplifted hands, revealed to them
who He was. From them He learns where His disciples are, returns to
Jerusalem, and appears unexpectedly among them. This is the explanation of
the apparent contradiction between the message pointing to Galilee and the
appearances in Jerusalem. Thomas was not present at this first appearance,
and at a later interview was suffered to put his hand into the marks of the
wounds. It is a misunder- standing to see a reproach in the words which Jesus
addresses to him. What, then, is the meaning of "Blessed are they that have not
seen and have believed"? It is a benediction upon Thomas for what he has
done in the interests of later generations. "Now," Jesus says, "thou, Thomas, art
convinced because thou hast so unmistakably seen Me. It is well for those who
now or in the future shall not see Me; for after this they can feel a firm
conviction, because thou hast convinced thyself so completely that to thee,
whose hands have touched Me, no possible doubt can remain of My corporeal
reanimation." Had it not been for Thomas's peculiar

50
55
mental constitution we should not have known whether what was seen was a
phantom or a real appearance of the reanimated Jesus.
In this way Jesus lived with them for forty days, spending part of that time with
them in Galilee. In consequence of the ill-treatment which He had undergone.
He was not capable of continuous exertion. He lived quietly and gathered
strength for the brief moments in which He appeared among His own followers
and taught them. When He felt His end drawing near He returned to Jerusalem.
On the Mount of Olives, in the early sur. light, He assembled His followers for
the last time. He lifted up His hands to fcfcss them, and with hands still raised in
benediction He moved away from them. A cloud interposes itself between them
and Him, so that their eyes cannot follow Him. As he disappeared there stood
before them, clothed in white, the two dignified figures whom the three disciples
who were present at the transfiguration had taken for Moses and Elias, but who
were really among the secret adherents of Jesus in Jerusalem. These men
exhorted them not to stand waiting there but to be up and doing.
Where Jesus really died they never knew, and so they came to describe His
departure as an ascension.
This Life of Jesus is not written without feeling. At times, in moments of
exaltation, the writer even dashes into verse. If only the lack of all natural
aesthetic feeling did not ruin everything! Paulus constantly falls into a style that
sets the teeth on edge. The episode of the death of the Baptist is headed
"Court-and-Priest intrigues enhance themselves to a judicial murder." Much is
spoiled by a kind of banality. Instead of "disciples," he always says "pupils,"
instead of "faith," "sincerity of conviction." The appeal which the father of the
lunatic boy addresses to Jesus, "Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief," runs "I
am sincerely convinced; help me, even if there is anything lacking in the
sincerity of my conviction."
The beautiful saying in the story of Martha and Mary, "One thing is needful," is
interpreted as meaning that a single course will be sufficient for the meal. [1]
The scene in the home at Bethany rejoices in the heading, "Genially of Jesus
among sympathetic friends in a hospitable family circle at Bethany. A Messiah
with no stiff solemnity about Him." The following is the explanation which Paulus
discovers for the saying about the tribute-money: "So long as you need the
Romans to maintain some sort of order among you," says Jesus, "you must
provide the means thereto. If you were fit to be independent you would not need
to serve any one but God."
[1] This interpretation, it ought to be remarked, seems to be implied by the
ancient reading. "Few things are needful, or one," given in the margin of the
Revised Version.—TRANSLATOR.
56
Among the historical problems, Paulus is especially interested in the idea of the
Messiahship, and in the motives of the betrayal. His sixty-five pages on the
history of the conception of the Messiah are a real contribution to the subject.

51
The Messianic idea, he explains, goes back to the Davidic kingdom; the
prophets raised it to a higher religious plane; in the times of the Maccabees the
ideal of the kingly Messiah perished and its place was taken by that of the
super-earthly deliverer. The only mistake which Paulus makes is in supposing
that the post-Maccabean period went back to the political ideal of the Davidic
king. On the other hand, he rightly interprets the death of Jesus as the deed by
which He thought to win the Messiahship proper to the Son of Man.
With reference to the question of the High Priest at the trial, he remarks that it
does not refer to the metaphysical Divine Sonship, but to the Messiahship in the
ancient Jewish sense, and accordingly Jesus answers by pointing to the coming
of the Son of Man.
The importance of eschatology in the preaching of Jesus is clearly recognised,
but Paulus proceeds to nullify this recognition by making the risen Lord cut short
all the questions of the disciples in regard to this subject with the admonition
"that in whatever way all this should come about, and whether soon or late, their
business was to see that they had done their own part."
How did Judas come to play the traitor? He believed in the Messiahship of
Jesus and wanted to force Him to declare Himself. To bring about His arrest
seemed to Judas the best means of rousing the people to take His side openly.
But the course of events was too rapid for him. Owing to the Feast the news of
the arrest spread but slowly. In the night "when people were sleeping off the
effects of the Passover supper," Jesus was condemned; in the morning, before
they were well awake, He was hurried away to be crucified. Then Judas was
overcome with despair, and went and hanged himself. "Judas stands before us
in the history of the Passion as a warning example of those who allow their
cleverness to degenerate into cunning, and persuade themselves that it is
permissible to do evil that good may come—to seek good objects, which they
really value, by intrigue and chicanery. And the underlying cause of their errors
is that they have failed to overcome their passionate desire for self-
advancement."
Such was the consistently rationalistic Life of Jesus, which evoked so much
opposition at the time of its appearance, and seven years later received its
death-blow at the hands of Strauss. The method is doomed to failure because
the author only saves his own sincerity at the expense of that of his characters.
He makes the disciples of Jesus see miracles where they could not possibly
have seen them; and makes Jesus Himself allow miracles to be imagined
where He must necessarily have protested
57
against such a delusion. His exegesis, too, is sometimes violent. But in this,
who has the right to judge him? If the theologians dragged him before the Lord,
He would command, as of old, "Let him that is without sin among you cast the
first stone at him," and Paulus would go forth unharmed.
Moreover, a number of his explanations are right in principle. The feeding of the
multitudes and the walking on the sea must be explained somehow or other as

52
misunderstandings of something that actually happened. And how many of
Paulus' ideas are still going about in all sorts of disguises, and crop up again
and again in commentaries and Lives of Jesus, especially in those of the "anti-
rationalists"! Nowadays it belongs to the complete duty of the well-trained
theologian to renounce the rationalists and all their works; and yet how poor our
time is in comparison with theirs—how poor in strong men capable of loyalty to
an ideal, how poor, so far as theology is concerned, in simple commonplace
sincerity!
* VI *
THE LAST PHASE OF RATIONALISM - HASE AND SCHLEIERMACHER
Karl August Hase. Das Leben Jesu zunachst fur akademische Studien. (The
Life of Jesus, primarily for the use of students.) 1829. 205 pp. This work
contains a bibliography of the earliest literature of the subject. 5th ed., 1865.
Friedrich Ernst Daniel Schleiermacher. Das Leben Jesu. 1864. Edited by
Riitenik. The edition is based upon a student's note-book of a course of lectures
de- livered in 1832.
David Friedrich Strauss. Der Christus des Glaubens und der Jesus der
Geschichte. Eine Kritik des Schleiermacher'schen Lebens Jesu. (The Christ of
Faith and the Jesus of History. A criticism of Schleiermacher's Life of Jesus.)
1865.
IN THEIR TREATMENT OF THE LIFE OF JESUS, HASE AND
SCHLEIERMACHER are in one respect still wholly dominated by rationalism.
They still cling to the rationalistic explanation of miracle; although they have no
longer the same ingenuous confidence in it as their predecessors, and although
at the decisive cases they are content to leave a question-mark instead of
offering a solution. They might, in fact, be described as the sceptics of
rationalism. In another respect, however, they aim at something beyond the
range of rationalism, inasmuch as they endeavour to grasp the inner connexion
of the events of Jesus' ministry, which in Paulus had entirely fallen out of sight.
Their Lives of Jesus are transitional, in the good sense of the word as well as in
the bad. In respect of progress, Hase shows himself the greater of the two.
Scarcely thirteen years have elapsed since the death of the great Jena
professor, his Excellency von Hase, and already we think of him as a man of
the past. Theology has voted to inscribe his name upon its records in letters of
gold — and has passed on to the order of the day. He was no pioneer like Baur,
and he does not meet the present age on the footing of a contemporary,
offering it problems raised by him and still unsolved. Even his "Church History,"
with its twelve editions, has already had its day, although it is still the most
brilliantly written work in this department, and conceals beneath its elegance of
form a massive erudi-
59
tion. He was more than a theologian; he was one of the finest monuments of
German culture, the living embodiment of a period which for us lies under the
sunset glow of the past, in the land of "once upon a time."

53
His path in life was unembarrassed; he knew toil, but not disappointment. Born
in 1800, he finished his studies at Tiibingen, where he qualified as a Privat-
Docent in 1823. In 1824-1825 he spent eleven months in the fortress of
Hohenasperg, where he was confined for taking the part of the
Burschenschaften, [1] and had leisure for meditation and literary plans. In 1830
he went to Jena, where, with a yearly visit to Italy to lay in a store of sunshine
and renewed strength, he worked until 1890.
Not without a certain reverence does one take this little textbook of 205 pages
into one's hands. This is the first attempt by a fully equipped scholar to
reconstruct the life of Jesus on a purely historical basis. There is more creative
power in it than in almost any of his later works. It manifests already the brilliant
qualities of style for which he was distinguished — clearness, terseness,
elegance. What a contrast with that of Bahrdt, Venturini, or Paulus!
And yet the keynote of the work is rationalistic, since Hase has recourse to the
rationalistic explanation of miracles wherever that appears possible. He seeks
to make the circumstances of the baptism intelligible by supposing the
appearance of a meteor. In the story of the transfiguration, the fact which is to
be retained is that Jesus, in the company of two unknown persons, appeared to
the disciples in unaccustomed splendour. Their identification of His companions
as Moses and Elias is a conclusion which is not confirmed by Jesus, and owing
to the position of the eyewitnesses, is not sufficiently guaranteed by their
testimony. The abrupt breaking off of the interview by the Master, and the
injunction of silence, point to some secret circumstance in His history. By this
hint Hase seems to leave room for the "secret society" of Bahrdt and Venturini.
He makes no difficulty about the explanation of the story of the stater. It is only
intended to show "how the Messiah avoided offence in submitting Himself to the
financial burdens of the community." In regard to the stilling of the storm, it
seems uncertain whether Jesus through His knowledge of nature was enabled
to predict the end of the storm or whether He brought it about by the possession
of power over nature. The "sceptic of rationalism" thus leaves open the
possibility of miracle. He proceeds somewhat similarly in explaining the raisings
from the dead. They can be made intelligible by supposing that they were cases
of coma, but it is also possible to look upon them as supernatural. For
[1] Associations of students, at that time of a political character.—
TRANSLATOR.
60
the two great Johannine miracles, the change of the water into wine and the
increase of the loaves, no naturalistic explanation can be admitted. But how
unsuccessful is his attempt to make the increase of the bread intelligible! "Why
should not the bread have been increased?" he asks. "If nature every year in
the period between seed-time and harvest performs a similar miracle, nature
might also, by unknown laws, bring it about in a moment." Here crops up the
dangerous anti-rationalistic intellectual supernaturalism which sometimes brings

54
Hase and Schleiermacher very close to the frontiers of the territory occupied by
the disingenuous reactionaries.
The crucial point is the explanation of the resurrection of Jesus. A stringent
proof that death had actually taken place cannot, according to Hase, be given,
since there is no evidence that corruption had set in, and that is the only
infallible sign of death. It is possible, therefore, that the resurrection was only a
return to consciousness after a trance. But the direct impression made by the
sources points rather to a supernatural event. Either view is compatible with the
Christian faith. "Both the historically possible views — either that the Creator
gave new life to a body which was really dead, or that the latent life reawakened
in a body which was only seemingly dead — recognise in the resurrection a
manifest proof of the care of Providence for the cause of Jesus, and are
therefore both to be recognised as Christian, whereas a third view — that Jesus
gave Himself up to His enemies in order to defeat them by the bold Stroke of a
seeming death and a skilfully prepared resurrection — is as contrary to
historical criticism as to Christian faith."
Hase, however, quietly lightens the difficulty of the miracle question in a way
which must not be overlooked. For the rationalists all miracles stood on the
same footing, and all must equally be abolished by a naturalistic explanation. If
we study Hase carefully, we find that he accepts only the Johannine miracles as
authentic, whereas those of the Synoptists may be regarded as resting upon a
misunderstanding on the part of the authors, because they are not reported at
first hand, but from tradition. Thus the discrimination of the two lines of Gospel
tradition comes to the aid of the anti-rationalists, and enables them to get rid of
some of the greatest difficulties. Half playfully, it might almost be said, they
sketch out the ideas of Strauss, without ever suspecting what desperate earnest
the game will become, if the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel has to be given
up.
Hase surrenders the birth-story and the "legends of the Childhood" — the
expression is his own — almost without striking a blow. The same fate befalls
all the incidents in which angels figure, and the miracles at the time of the death
of Jesus. He describes these as "mythical touches." The ascension is merely "a
mythical version of His departure to the Father."
61
Hase's conception even of the non-miraculuous portion of the history of Jesus is
not free from rationalistic traits. He indulges in the following speculations with
regard to the celibacy of the Lord. "If the true grounds of the celibacy of Jesus
do not lie hidden in the special circumstances of His youth, the conjecture may
be permitted that He from whose religion was to go forth the ideal view of
marriage, so foreign to the ideas of antiquity, found in His own time no heart
worthy to enter into this covenant with Him." It is on rationalistic lines also that
Hase explains the betrayal by Judas. "A purely intellectual, worldly, and
unscrupulous character, he desired to compel the hesitating Messiah to found
His Kingdom upon popular violence. ... It is possible that Judas in his terrible

55
blindness took that last word addressed to him by Jesus, 'What thou doest, do
quickly,' as giving consent to his plan."
But Hase again rises superior to this rationalistic conception of the history when
he refuses to explain away the Jewish elements in the plan and preaching of
Jesus as due to mere accommodation, and maintains the view that the Lord
really, to a certain extent, shared this Jewish, system of ideas. According to
Hase there are two periods in the Messianic activity of Jesus. In the first He
accepted almost without reservation the popular ideas regarding the Messianic
age. In consequence, however, of His experience of the practical results of
these ideas. He waa led to abandon this error, and in the second period He
developed His own distinctive views. Here we meet for the first time the idea of
two different periods in the life of Jesus, which, especially through the influence
of Holtzmann and Keim, became the prevailing view, and down to Johannes
Weiss, determined the plan of all Lives of Jesus. Hase created the modern
historico-psychological picture of Jesus. The introduction of this more
penetrating psychology would alone suffice to place him in advance of the
rationalists.
Another interesting point is the thorough way in which he traces out the
historical and literary consequences of this idea of development. The apostles,
he thinks, did not understand this progress of thought on the part of Jesus, and
did not distinguish between the sayings of the first and second periods. They
remained wedded to the eschatological view. After the death of Jesus this view
prevailed so strongly in the primitive community of disciples that they
interpolated their expectations into the last discourses of Jesus. According to
Hase, the apocalyptic discourse in Matt. xxiv. was originally only a prediction of
the judgment upon and destruction of Jerusalem, but this was obscured later by
the influx of the eschatological views of the apostolic community. Only John
remained free from this error. Therefore the non-eschatological Fourth Gospel
preserves in their pure form the ideas of Jesus in His second period.
Hase rightly observes that the Messiahship of Jesus plays next to no
62
part in His preaching, at any rate at first, and that, before the incident at
Caesarea Philippi, it was only in moments of enthusiastic admiration, rather
than with settled conviction, that even the disciples looked on Him as the
Messiah. This indication of the central importance of the declaration of the
Messiahship at Caesarea Philippi is another sign-post pointing out the direction
which the future study of the life of Jesus was to follow.
Schleiermacher's Life of Jesus introduces us to quite a different order of
transitional ideas. Its value lies in the sphere of dogmatics, not of history.
Nowhere, indeed, is it so clear that the great dialectician had not really a
historical mind than precisely in his treatment of the history of Jesus.
From the first it was no favourable star which presided over this undertaking. It
is true that in 1819 Schleiermacher was the first theologian who had ever
lectured upon this subject. But his Life of Jesus did not appear until 1864. Its

56
publication had been so long delayed, partly because it had to be reconstructed
from students' note-books, partly because immediately after Schleiermacher, in
1832, had delivered the course for the last time, it was rendered obsolete by the
work of Strauss. For the questions raised by the latter's Life of Jesus, published
in 1835, Schleiermacher had no answer, and for the wounds which it made, no
healing. When, in 1864, Schleiermacher's work was brought forth to view like an
embalmed corpse, Strauss accorded to the dead work of the great theologian a
dignified and striking funeral oration.
Schleiermacher is not in search of the historical Jesus, but of the Jesus Christ
of his own system of theology; that is to say, of the historic figure which seems
to him appropriate to the self-consciousness of the Redeemer as he represents
it. For him the empirical has simply no existence. A natural psychology is
scarcely attempted. He comes to the facts with a ready-made dialectic
apparatus and sets his puppets in lively action. Schleiermacher's dialectic is not
a dialectic which generates reality, like that of Hegel, of which Strauss availed
himself, but merely a dialectic of exposition. In this literary dialectic he is the
greatest master that ever lived.
The limitations of the historical Jesus both in an upward and downward direction
are those only which apply equally to the Jesus of dogma. The uniqueness of
His Divine self-consciousness is not to be tampered with. It is equally necessary
to avoid Ebionism which does away with the Divine in Him, and Docetism which
destroys His humanity. Schleiermacher loves to make his hearers shudder by
pointing out to them that the least false step entails precipitation into one or
other of these
63
abysses; or at least would entail it for any one who was not under the guidance
of his infallible dialectic.
In the course of this dialectic treatment, all the historical questions involved in
the life of Jesus come into view one after another, but none of them is posed or
solved from the point of view of the historian; they are "moments" in his
argument.
He is like a spider at work. The spider lets itself down from aloft, and after
making fast some supporting threads to points below, it runs back to the centre
and there keeps spinning away. You look on fascinated, and before you know it,
you are entangled in the web. It is difficult even for a reader who is strong in the
consciousness of possessing a sounder grasp of the history than
Schleiermacher to avoid being caught in the toils of that magical dialectic.
And how loftily superior the dialectician is! Paulus had shown that, in view of the
use of the title Son of Man, the Messianic self-consciousness of Jesus must be
interpreted in accordance with the passage in Daniel. On this Schleiermacher
remarks: "I have already said that it is inherently improbable that such a
predilection (sc. for the Book of Daniel) would have been manifested by Christ,
because the Book of Daniel does not belong to the prophetic writings properly
so-called, but to the third division of the Old Testament literature."

57
In his estimate of the importance to be attached to the story of the baptism, too,
he falls behind the historical knowledge of his day. "To lay such great stress
upon the baptism," he says, "leads either to the Gnostic view that it was only
there that the united itself with Jesus, or to the rationalistic view that it
was only at the baptism that He became conscious of His vocation." But what
does history care whether a view is gnostic or rationalistic if only it is historical!
This dialectic, so fatal often to sound historical views, might have been
expressly created to deal with the question of miracle. Compared •with
Schleiermacher's discussions all that has been written since upon this subject is
mere honest—or dishonest—bungling. Nothing new has been added to what h°
says, and no one else has succeeded in saying it with the same amazing
subtlety. It is true, also that no one else has shown the same skill in concealing
how much in the way of miracle he ultimately retains and how much he rejects.
His solution of the problem is, in fact, not historical, but dialectical, an attempt to
transcend the necessity for a rationalistic explanation of miracle which does not
really succeed in getting rid of it.
Schleiermacher arranges the miracles in an ascending scale of probability
according to the degree in which they can be seen to depend on the known
influence of spirit upon organic matter. The most easily ex-
64
plained are the miracles of healing "because we are not without analogies to
show that pathological conditions of a purely functional nature can be removed
by mental influence." But where, on the other hand, the effect produced by
Christ lies outside the sphere of human life, the difficulties involved become
insoluble. To get rid, in some measure, of these difficulties he makes use of two
expedients. In the first place, he admits that in particular cases the rationalistic
method may have a certain limited application; in the second place he, like
Hase, recognises a difference between the miracle stories themselves, retaining
the Johannine miracles, but surrendering, more or less completely, the Synoptic
miracles as not resting on evidence of the same certainty and exactness.
That he is still largely under the sway of rationalism can be seen in the fact that
he admits on an equal footing, as conceptions of the resurrection of Jesus, a
return to consciousness from a trance-state, or a supernatural restoration to life,
thought of as a resurrection. He goes so far as to say that the decision of this
question has very little interest for him. He fully accepts the principle of Paulus
that apart from corruption there is no certain indication of death.
"All that we can say on this point," he concludes, "is that even to those whose
business it was to ensure the immediate death of the crucified, in order that the
bodies might at once be taken down, Christ appeared to be really dead, and
this, moreover, although it was contrary to their expectations, for it was a
subject of astonishment. It is no use going any further into the matter, since
nothing can be ascertained in regard to it."
What is certain is that Jesus in His real body lived on for a time among His
followers; that the Fourth Gospel requires us to believe. The reports of the

58
resurrection are not based upon "apparitions." Schleiermacher's own opinion is
what really happened was reanimation after apparent death. "If Christ had only
eaten to show that He could eat, while He really had no need of nourishment, it
would have been a pretence — something docetlc. This gives us a clue to all
the rest, teaching us to hold firmly to the way in which Christ intends Himself to
be represented, and to put down all that is miraculous in the accounts of the
appearances to the prepossessions of the disciples."
When He revealed Himself to Mary Magdalene He had no certainty that He
would frequently see her again. "He was conscious that His present condition
was that of genuine human life, but He had no confidence in its continuance."
He bade His disciples meet Him in Galilee because He could there enjoy
greater privacy and freedom from observation in His intercourse with them. The
difference between the present and the past was only that He no longer showed
Himself to the world. "It was possible that a movement in favour of an earthly
Messianic King-
65
dom might break out, and we need only take this possibility into account in
order to explain completely why Jesus remained in such close retirement." "It
was the premonition of the approaching end of this second life which led Him to
return from Galilee to Jerusalem."
Of the ascension he says: "Here, therefore, something happened, but what was
seen was incomplete, and has been conjecturally supplemented." The
underlying rationalistic explanation shows through!
But if the condition in which Jesus lived on after His crucifixion was "a condition
of reanimation," by what right does Schleiermacher constantly speak of it as a
"resurrection," as if resurrection and reanimation were synonymous terms?
Further, is it really true that faith has no interest whatever in the question
whether it was as risen from the dead, or merely as recovered from a state of
suspended animation, that Jesus showed Himself to His disciples? In regard to
this, it might seem, the rationalists were more straight-forward.
The moment one tries to take hold of this dialectic it breaks in one's fingers.
Schleiermacher would not indeed have ventured to play so risky a game if he
had not had a second position to retire to, based on the distinction between the
Synoptic and the Johannine miracle stories. In this respect he simplified matters
for himself, as compared with the rationalists, even more than Hase. The
miracle at the baptism is only intelligible in the narrative of the Fourth Gospel,
where it is not a question of an external occurrence, but of a purely subjective
experience of John, with which we have nothing to do. The Synoptic story of the
temptation has no intelligible meaning. "To change stones into bread, if there
were need for it, would not have been a sin." "A leap from the Temple could
have had no attraction for any one."
The miracles of the birth and childhood are given up without hesitation; they do
not belong to the story of the life of Jesus; and it is the same with the miracles
at His death. One might fancy it was Strauss speaking when Schleiermacher

59
says: "If we give due consideration to the fact that we have certainly found in
these for the most part simple narratives of the last moments of Christ two
incidents, such as the rending of the veil of the Temple and the opening of the
graves, in reference to which we cannot possibly suppose that they are literal
descriptions of actual facts, then we are bound to ask the question whether the
same does not apply to many other points. Certainly the mention of the sun's
light failing and the consequent great darkness looks very much as if it had
been imported by poetic imagination into the simple narrative."
A rebuke could have no possible effect upon the wind and sea. Here we must
suppose either an alteration of the facts or a different causal connexion.
In this way Schleiermacher — and it was for this reason that these lec-
66
tures on the life of Jesus became so celebrated — enabled dogmatics, though
not indeed history, to take a flying leap over the miracle question.
What is chiefly fatal to a sound historical view is his one-sided preference for
the Fourth Gospel. It is, according to him, only in this Gospel that the
consciousness of Jesus is truly reflected. In this connexion he expressly
remarks that of a progress in the teaching of Jesus, and of any "development"
in Him, there can be no question. His development is the unimpeded organic
unfolding of the idea of the Divine Sonship.
For the outline of the life of Jesus, also, the Fourth Gospel is alone authoritative.
"The Johannine representation of the way in which the crisis of His fate was
brought about is the only clear one." The same applies to the narrative of the
resurrection in this Gospel. "Accordingly, on this point also," so he concludes
his discussion, "I take it as established that the Gospel of John is the narrative
of an eyewitness and forms an organic whole. The first three Gospels are
compilations formed uut of various narratives which had arisen independently;
their discourses are composite structures, and their presentation of the history
is such that one can form no idea of the grouping of events." The "crowded
days," such as that of the sermon on the mount and the day of the parables,
exist only in the imagination of the Evangelists. In reality there were no such
days. Luke is the only one of them who has some semblance of historical order.
His Gospel is compiled with much insight and critical tact out of a number of
independent documents, as Schleiermacher believed himself to have shown
convincingly in his critical study of Luke's Gospel, published in 1817. '
It is only on the ground of such a valuation of the sources that we can arrive at a
just estimate of the different representations of the locality of the life of Jesus.
"The contradictions," Schleiermacher proceeds, "could not be explained if all
our Gospels stood equally close to Jesus. But if John stands closer than the
others, we may perhaps find the key in the fact that John, too, mentions it as a
prevailing opinion in Jerusalem that Jesus was a Galilaean, and that Luke,
when he has got to the end of the sections which show skilful arrangement and
are united by similarity of subject, gathers all the rest into the framework of a
journey to Jerusalem. Following this analogy, and not remembering that Jesus

60
had occasion to go several times a year to Jerusalem, the other two gathered
into one mass all that happened there on various occasions. This could only
have been done by Hellenists." [1]
[1] The ground of the inference is that, according to this theory, they did not
attach much importance to the keeping of the Feasts at Jerusalem. Dr.
Schweitzer reminds us in a footnote that a certain want of clearness is due to
the fact of this work having been compiled from lecture-notes.
67
Schleiermacher is quite insensible to the graphic realism of the description of
the last days at Jerusalem in Mark and Matthew, and has no suspicion that if
only a single one of the Jerusalem sayings in the Synoptists is true Jesus had
never before spoken in Jerusalem.
The ground of Schleiermacher's antipathy to the Synoptists lies deeper than a
mere critical view as to their composition. The fact is that their "picture of Christ"
does not agree with that which he wishes to insert into the history. When it
serves his purpose, he does not shrink from the most arbitrary violence. He
abolishes the scene in Gethsemane because he infers from the silence of John
that it cannot have taken place. "The other Evangelists," he explains, "give us
an account of a sudden depression and deep distress of spirit which fell upon
Jesus, and which He admitted to His disciples, and they tell us how He sought
relief from it in prayer, and afterwards recovered His serenity and resolution.
John passes over this in silence, and his narrative of what immediately
precedes is not consistent with it." It is evidently a symbolical story, as the
thrice-repeated petition shows. "If they speak of such a depression of spirit, they
have given the story that form in order that the example of Christ might be the
more applicable to others in similar circumstances."
On these premises it is possible to write a Life of Christ; it is not possible to
write a Life of Jesus. It is, therefore, not by accident that Schleiermacher
regularly speaks, not of Jesus, but of Christ.
* VII *
DAVID FRIEDRICH STRAUSS - THE MAN AND HIS FATE
IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND STRAUSS ONE MUST LOVE HIM. HE WAS
NOT THE greatest, and not the deepest, of theologians, but he was the most
absolutely sincere. His insight and his errors were alike the insight and the
errors of a prophet. And he had a prophet's fate. Disappointment and suffering
gave his life its consecration. It unrolls itself before us like a tragedy, in which, in
the end, the gloom is lightened by the mild radiance which shines forth from the
nobility of the sufferer.
Strauss was born in 1808 at Ludwigsburg. His father was a merchant, whose
business, however, was unsuccessful, so that his means steadily declined. The
boy took his ability from his mother, a good, self-controlled, sensible, pious
woman, to whom he raised a monument in his "Memorial of a Good Mother"
written in 1858, to be given to his daughter on her confirmation-day.

61
From 1821 to 1825 he was a pupil at the "lower seminary" at Blaubeuren, along
with Friedrich Vischer, Pfizer, Zimmermann, Marklin, and Binder. Among their
teachers was Ferdinand Christian Baur, whom they were to meet with again at
the university.
His first year at the university was uninteresting, as it was only in the following
year that the reorganisation of the theological faculty took place, in
consequence of the appointment of Baur. The instruction in the philosophical
faculty was almost equally unsatisfactory, so that the friends would have gained
little from the two years of philosophical propaedeutic which formed part of the
course prescribed for theological students, if they had not combined to
prosecute their philosophical studies for themselves. The writings of Hegel
began to exercise a power ful influence upon them. For the philosophical
faculty, Hegel's philosophy was as yet non-existent.
These student friends were much addicted to poetry. Two journeys which
Strauss made along with his fellow-student Binder to Weinsberg to see Justinus
Kerner made a deep impression upon him. He had to
69
make a deliberate effort to escape from the dream-world of the "Prophetess of
Prevorst." Some years later, in a Latin note to Binder, he speaks of Weinsberg
as "Mecca nostra." [1]
According to Vischer's picture of him, the tall stripling made an impression of
great charm, though he was rather shy except with intimates. He attended
lectures with pedantic regularity.
Baur was at that time still immersed in the prolegomena to his system; but
Strauss already suspected the direction which the thoughts of his young teacher
were to take.
When Strauss and his student friends entered on their duties as clergymen, the
others found great difficulty in bringing their theological views into line with the
popular beliefs which they were expected to preach. Strauss alone remained
free from inner struggles. In a letter to Binder [2] of the year 1831, he explains
that in his sermons — he was then assistant at Klein-Ingersheim near
Ludwigsburg — he did not use "representative notions" (Vorstellungen, used as
a philosophical technicality) such as that of the Devil, which the people were
already prepared to dispense with; but others which still appeared to be
indispensable, such as those of an eschatological character, he merely
endeavoured to present in such a way that the "intellectual concept" (Begriff)
which lay behind, might so far as possible shine through. "When I considered,"
he continues, "how far even in intellectual preaching the expression is
inadequate to the true essence of the concept, it does not seem to me to matter
much if one goes even a step further. I at least go about the matter without the
least scruple, and cannot ascribe this to a mere want of sincerity in myself."
That is Hegelian logic.
After being for a short time Deputy-professor at Maulbronn, he took his doctor's
degree with a dissertation on the (restoration

62
of all things. Acts iii. 21). This work is lost. From his letters it appears that he
treated the subject chiefly from the religious-historical point of view. [3]
When Binder took his doctorate with a philosophical thesis on the immortality of
the soul, Strauss, in 1832, wrote to him expressing the opin-
[1] See Theobald Ziegler, "Zur Biographie von David Friedrich Strauss."
(Materials for the Biography of D. F. S.), in the Deutsche Revue, May, June,
July 1905. The hitherto unpublished letters to Binder throw some light on the
development of Strauss during the formative years before the publication of the
Life of Jesus.
Binder, later Director of the Board of Studies at Stuttgart, was the friend who
delivered the funeral allocution at the grave of Strauss. This last act of
friendship exposed him to enmity and calumny of all kinds. For the text of his
short address, see the Deutsche Revue, 1905, p. 107.
[2] Deutsche Revue, May 1905, p. 199.
[3] Ibid., p. 201.
70
ion that the belief in personal immortality could not properly be regarded as a
consequence of the Hegelian system, since, according to Hegel, it was not the
subjective spirit of the individual person, but only the objective Spirit, the self-
realising Idea which constantly embodies itself in new creations, to which
immortality belongs. [1]
In October 1831 he went to Berlin to hear Hegel and Schleiermacher. On the
14th of November Hegel, whom he had visited shortly before, was carried off by
cholera. Strauss heard the news in Schleiermacher's house, from
Schleiermacher himself, and is said to have exclaimed, with a certain want of
tact, considering who his informant was: "And it was to hear him that I came to
Berlin!"
There was no satisfactory basis for a relationship between Schleiermacher and
Strauss. They had nothing in common. That did not prevent Strauss's Life of
Jesus being sometimes described by opponents of Schleiermacher as a
product of the latter's philosophy of religion. Indeed, as late as the 'sixties,
Tholuck thought it necessary to defend the memory of the great theologian
against this reproach.
As a matter of fact, the plan of the Life of Jesus arose during Strauss's
intercourse with Vatke, to whom he felt himself strongly drawn. Moreover, what
was first sketched out was not primarily the plan of a Life of Jesus, but that of a
history of the ideas of primitive Christianity, intended to serve as a standard by
which to judge ecclesiastical dogma. The Life of Jesus was originally designed,
it might almost be said, as a mere prologue to this work, the plan of which was
subsequently carried out under the title, "Christian Theology in its Historical
Development and in its Antagonism with Modern Scientific Knowledge"
(published in 1840-1841).
When in the spring of 1832 he returned to Tubingen to take up the position of
"Repetent" [2] in the theological college (Stift), these plans were laid on the

63
shelf in consequence of his preoccupation with philosophy, and if things had
gone according to Strauss's wishes, they would perhaps never have come to
fulfilment. The "Repetents" had the right to lecture upon philosophy. Strauss felt
himself called upon to come forward as an apostle of Hegel, and lectured upon
Hegel's logic with tremendous success. Zeiler, who attended these lectures,
records the unforgettable impression which they made on him. Besides
championing Hegel, Strauss also lectured upon Plato, and upon the hiiitory of
modern philosophy. These were three happy semesters.
"In my theology," he writes in a letter of 1833, [3] "philosophy occupies such a
predominant position that my theological views can only be
[1] Deutsche Revue, p. 203.
[2] Assistant lecturer.
[3] Ibid., June 1905, p. 343 ff.
71
worked out to completeness by means of a more thorough study of phi-
losophy, and this course of study I am now going to prosecute uninter- ruptedly
and without concerning myself whether it leads me back to theology or not."
Further on he says: "If I know myself rightly, my position in regard to theology is
that what interests me in theology causes offence, and what does not cause
offence is indifferent to me. For this reason I have refrained from delivering
lectures on theology."
The philosophical faculty was not altogether pleased at the success of the
apostle of Hegel, and wished to have the right of the "Repetents" to lecture on
philosophy curtailed. The latter, however, took their stand upon the tradition.
Straus was desired to intermit his lectures until the matter should be settled. He
would have liked best to end the situation by entering the philosophical faculty.
The other "Repetents," however, begged him not to do so, but to continue to
champion their rights. It is possible also that obstacles were placed in the way
of his plan by the philosophical faculty. However that may be, it was in any case
not carried through. Strauss was forced back upon theology.
According to Hase, [1] Strauss began his studies for the Life of Jesus by writing
a detailed critical review of his (Hase's) text-book. He sent this to Berlin to the
Jahrbucher fur wissenschaftliche Kritik, which, however, refused it. His resolve
to publish first, instead of the general work on the genesis of Christian doctrine,
a critical study on the life of Jesus was doubtless determined by
Schleiermacher's lectures on this subject. When in Berlin he had procured a
copy of a lecture note-book, and the reading of it incited him to opposition.
Considering its character, the work was rapidly produced. He wrote it sitting at
the window of the Repetents' room, which looks out upon the gateway-arch.
When its two volumes appeared in 1835 the name of the author was wholly
unknown, except for some critical studies upon the Gospels. This book, into
which he had poured his youthful enthusiasm, rendered him famous in a
moment—and utterly destroyed his prospects. Among his opponents the most
prominent was Steudel, a member of the theological faculty, who, as president

64
of the Stift, made representations against him to the Ministry, and succeeded in
securing his removal from the post of "Repetent." The hopes which Strauss had
placed upon his friends were disappointed. Only two or three at most dared to
publish anything in his defence.
He first accepted a transfer to the post of Deputy-professor at Ludwigsburg, but
in less than a year he was glad to give it up, and he then returned to Stuttgart.
There he lived for several years, busying himself
[l] See Hase, Leben Jesu, 1876, p. 124. The "text-book" referred to is Hase'a
first Life of Jesus.
72
lit the preparation of new editions of the Life of Jesus, and in writing answers to
the attacks which were made upon him.
Towards the end of the 'thirties he became conscious of a growing impulse
towards more positive views. The criticisms of his opponents had made some
impression upon him. The second volume of polemics was laid aside. In its
place appeared the third edition of the Life of Jesus, 1838-1839, containing a
series of amazing concessions. Strauss explains that in consequence of
reading De Wette's commentary and Neander's Life of Jesus he had begun to
feel some hesitation about his former doubts regarding the genuineness and
credibility of the Fourth Gospel. The historic personality of Jesus again began to
take on intelligible outlines for him. These inconsistencies he removed in the
next edition, acknowledging that he did not know how he could so have
temporarily vacillated in his point of view. The matter admits, however, of a
psychological explanation. He longed for peace, for he had suffered more than
his enemies suspected or his friends knew. The ban of the outlaw lay heavy
upon his soul. In this spirit he composed in 1839 the monologues entitled
Vergangliches und Bleibendes im Christentum ("Transient and Perma- nent
Elements in Christianity"), which appeared again in the following year under the
title Friedliche Blatter ("Leaves of Peace").
For a moment it seemed as though his rehabilitation would be accomplished. In
January 1839 the noble-minded Hitzig succeeded in getting him appointed to
the vacant chair of dogmatics in Zurich. But the orthodox and pietist parties
protested so vehemently that the Government was obliged to revoke the
appointment. Strauss was pensioned off, without ever entering on his office.
About that time his mother died. In 1841 he lost his father. When the estate
came to be settled up, it was found that his affairs were in a less unsatisfactory
condition than had been feared. Strauss was secure against want. The success
of his second great work, his "Christian Theology" (published in 1840-41),
compensated him for his disappointment at Zurich. In conception it is perhaps
even greater than the Life of Jesus; and in depth of thought it is to be classed
with the most im- portant contributions to theology. In spite of that it never
attracted so much attention as the earlier work. Strauss continued to be known
as the author of the Life of Jesus. Any further ground of offence which he might
give was regarded as quite subsidiary.

65
And the book contains matter for offence in no common degree. The point to
which Strauss applies his criticism is the way in which the Christian theology
which grew out of the ideas of the ancient world has been brought into harmony
with the Christianity of rationalism and of speculative philosophy. Either, to use
his own expression, both are so finely pulverised in the process—as in the case
of Schleiermacher's corn-
73
bination of Spinozism with Christianity—that it needs a sharp eye to rediscover
the elements of the mixture; or the two are shaken together like water and oil, in
which case the semblance of combination is only maintained so long as the
shaking continues. For this crude procedure he desires to substitute a better
method, based upon a preliminary historical criticism of dogma, in order that
thought may no longer have to deal with the present form of Church theology,
but with the ideas which worked as living forces in its formation.
This is brilliantly worked out in detail. The result is not a positive, but a negative
Hegelian theology. Religion is not concerned with supra-mundane beings and a
divinely glorious future, but with present spiritual realities which appear as
"moments" in the eternal being and becoming of Absolute Spirit. At the end of
the second volume, where battle is joined on the issue of personal immortality,
all these ideas play their part in the struggle. Personal immortality is finally
rejected in every form, for the critical reasons which Strauss had already set
forth in the letters of 1832. Immortality is not something which stretches out into
the future, but simply and solely the present quality of the spirit, its inner
universality, its power of rising above everything finite to the Idea. Here the
thought of Hegel coincides with that of Schleiermacher. "The saying of
Schleiermacher, 'In the midst of finitude to be one with the Infinite, and to be
eternal in a moment,' is all that modern thought can say about immortality." But
neither Schleiermacher nor Hegel was willing to draw the natural inferences
from their ultimate position, or at least they did not give them any prominence.
It is not the application of the mythological explanation to the Gospel history
which irrevocably divides Strauss from the theologians, but the question of
personal immortality. It would be well for them if they had only to deal with the
Strauss of the Life of Jesus, and not with the thinker who posed this question
with inexorable trenchancy. They might then face the future more calmly,
relieved of the anxiety lest once more Hegel and Schleiermacher might rise up
in some pious but critical spirit, not to speak smooth things, but to ask the
ultimate questions, and might force theology to fight its battle with Strauss all
over again.
At the very time when Strauss was beginning to breathe freely once more, had
turned his back upon all attempts at compromise, and reconciled himself to
giving up teaching; and when, after settling his father's affairs, he had the
certainty of being secure against penury; at that very time he sowed for himself
the seeds of a new, immitigable suffering by his marriage with Agnese
Schebest, the famous singer.

66
They were not made for one another. He could not look to her for any sympathy
with his plans, and she on her part was repelled by the pedantry of his
disposition. Housekeeping difficulties and the trials of
74
a limited income added another element of discord. They removed to Sontheim
near Heilbronn with the idea of learning to adapt themselves to one another far
from the distractions of the town; but that did not better matters. They lived
apart for a time, and after some years they procured a divorce, custody of the
children being assigned to the father. The lady took up her residence in
Stuttgart, and Strauss paid her an allowance up to her death in 1870.
What he suffered may be read between the lines in the passage in "The Old
Faith and the New" where he speaks of the sacredness of marriage and the
admissibility of divorce. The wound bled inwardly. His mental powers were
disabled. At this time he wrote little. Only in the apologue "Julian the Apostate,
or the Romanticist on the throne of the Caesars"—that brilliant satire upon
Frederic William IV., written in 1847—is there a flash of the old spirit.
But in spite of his antipathy to the romantic disposition of the King of Prussia he
entered the lists in 1848 on behalf of the efforts of the smaller German states to
form a united Germany, apart from Austria, under the hegemony of Prussia. He
did not suffer his political acumen to be blunted either by personal antipathies or
by particularism. The citizens of Ludwigsburg wished to have him as their
representative in the Frankfort parliament, but the rural population, who were
pietistic in sympathies, defeated his candidature. Instead, his native town sent
him to the Wiirtemberg Chamber of Deputies. But here his philistinism came to
the fore again. The phrase-mongering revolutionary party in the chamber
disgusted him. He saw himself more and more forced to the "rights," and was
obliged to act politically with men whose reactionary sympathies he was far
from sharing. His constituents, meanwhile, were thoroughly discontented with
his attitude. In the end the position became intolerable. It was also painful to
him to have to reside in Stuttgart, where he could not avoid meeting the woman
who had brought so much misery into his life. Further—he himself mentions this
point in his memoirs—he had no practice in speaking without manuscript, and
cut a poor figure as a debater. Then came the "Blum Case." Robert Blum, a
revolutionary, had been shot by court martial in Vienna. The Wiirtemberg
Chamber desired to vote a public celebration of his funeral. Strauss did not
think there was any ground for making a hero of this agitator, merely because
he had been shot, and was not inclined to blame the Austrian Government very
severely for meting out summary justice to a disturber of the peace. His attitude
brought on him a vote of censure from his constituents. When, subsequently,
the President of the Chamber called him to order for asserting that a previous
speaker had "concealed by sleight of hand" (wegeskamotiert, "juggled away")
an important point in the debate, he refused to accept the vote of censure,
resigned his
75

67
membership, and ceased to attend the diets. As he himself put it, he "jumped
out of the boat." Then began a period of restless wandering, during which he
beguiled his time with literary work. He wrote, inter alia, upon Lessing, Hutten,
and Reimarus, rediscovering the last-named for his fellow-countrymen.
At the end of the 'sixties he returned once more to theology. His "Life of Jesus
adapted for the German People" appeared in 1864. In the preface he refers to
Renan, and freely acknowledges the great merits of his work.
The Prusso-Austrian war placed him in a difficult position. His historical insight
made it impossible for him to share the particularism of his friends; on the
contrary, he recognised that the way was now being prepared for the realisation
of his dream of 1848—an alliance of the smaller German States under the
hegemony of Prussia. As he made no secret of his opinions, he had the bitter
experience of receiving the cold shoulder from men who had hitherto loyally
stood by him.
In the year 1870 it was granted to him to become the spokesman of the German
people; through a publication on Voltaire which had appeared not long before
he had become acquainted with Renap In a letter to Strauss, written after the
first battles, Renan mad" a passing allusion to these great events. Strauss
seized the opportunity to explain to him, in a vigorous "open letter" of the 12th of
August, Germany's reason and justification for going to war. Receiving an
answer from Renan, he then, in a second letter, of the 29th of September, took
occasion to defend Germany's right to demand the cession of Alsace, not on
the ground of its having formerly been German territory, but for the defence of
her natural frontiers. The resounding echo evoked by these words, inspired, as
they were, by the enthusiasm of the moment, compensated him for much of the
obloquy which he had had to bear.
His last work, "The Old Faith and the New," appeared in 1872. Once more, as in
the work on theology published in 1840-1841, he puts to himself the question.
What is there of permanence in this artificial compound of theology and
philosophy, faith and thought? But he puts the question with a certain
bitterness, and shows himself too much under the influence of Darwinism, by
which his mind was at that time dominated. The Hegelian system of thought,
which served as a firm basis for the work of 1840, has fallen in ruins. Strauss is
alone with his own thoughts, endeavouring to raise himself above the new
scientific worldview. His powers of thought, never, for all his critical acumen,
strong on the creative side, and now impaired by age, were unequal to the task.
There is no force and no greatness in the book.
To the question, "Are we still Christians?" he answers, "No." But to his second
question, "Have we still a religion?" he is prepared to give
76
an affirmative answer, if the assumption is granted that the feeling of
dependence, of self-surrender, of inner freedom, which has sprung from the
pantheistic world-view, can be called religion. But instead of developing the idea
of this deep inner freedom, and presenting religion in the form in which he had

68
experienced it, he believes himself obliged to offer some new construction
based upon Darwinism, and sets himself to answer the two questions, "How are
we to understand the world?" and "How are we to regulate our lives?"—the form
of the latter is somewhat lacking in distinction—in a quite impersonal way. It is
only the schoolmaster and pedant in him—who was always at the elbow of the
thinker even in his greatest works—that finds expression here.
It was a dead book, in spite of the many editions which it went through, and the
battle which raged over it was, like the fiercest of the Homeric battles, a combat
over the dead.
The theologians declared Strauss bankrupt, and felt themselves rich because
they had made sure of not being ruined by a similar unimaginative honesty.
Friedrich Nietzsche, from the height of his would-be Schopenhauerian
pessimism, mocked at the fallen hero.
Before the year was out Strauss began to suffer from an internal ulcer. For
many months he bore his sufferings with quiet resignation and inner serenity,
until on the 8th of February 1874, in his native town of Ludwigsburg, death set
him free.
A few weeks earlier, on the 29th of December 1873, his sufferings and his
thoughts received illuminating expression in the following poignant verses:—
Wem ich dieses klage,
Weiss, ich klage nicht;
Der ich dieses sage,
Fiihit, ich zage nicht.
Heute heisst's verglimmen,
Wie ein Licht verglimmt,
In die Luft verschwimmen,
Wie ein Ton verschwimmt.
Moge schwach wie immer,
Aber hell und rein,
Dieser letzte Schimmer
Dieser Ton nur sein.
He was buried on a stormy February day.
He to whom my plaint is
Knows I shed no tear;
She to whom I say this
Feels I have no fear.
77
Time has come for fading,
Like a glimmering ray,
Or a sense-evading
Strain that floats away.
May, though fainter, dimmer,
Only, clear and pure,

69
To the last the glimmer
And the strain endure.
The persons alluded to in the first verse are his son, who, as a physician,
attended him in his illness, and to whom he was deeply attached, and a very old
friend to whom the verses were addressed.—TRANSLATOR.
* VIII *
STRAUSS'S FIRST "LIFE OF JESUS"
First edition, 1835 and 1836. 2 vols. 1480 pp.
The second edition was unaltered.
Third edition, with alterations, 1838-1839.
Fourth edition, agreeing with the first, 1840.
CONSIDERED AS A LITERARY WORK, STRAUSS'S FIRST LIFE OF JESUS
IS ONE of the most perfect things in the whole range of learned literature. In
over fourteen hundred pages he has not a superfluous phrase; his analysis
descends to the minutest details, but he does not lose his way among them; the
style is simple and picturesque, sometimes ironical, but always dignified and
distinguished.
In regard to the application of the mythological explanation to Holy Scripture,
Strauss points out that De Wette, Eichhorn, Gabler, and others of his
predecessors had long ago freely applied it to the Old Testament, and that
various attempts had been made to portray the life of Jesus in accordance with
the critical assumptions upon which his undertaking was based. He mentions
especially Usteri as one who had helped to prepare the way for him. The
distinction between Strauss and those who had preceded him upon this path
consists only in this, that prior to him the conception of myth was neither truly
grasped nor consistently applied. Its application was confined to the account of
Jesus coming into the world and of His departure from it, while the real kernel of
the evangelical tradition—the sections from the Baptism to the Resurrection—
was left outside the field of its application. Myth formed, to use Strauss's
illustration, the lofty gateways at the entrance to, and at the exit from, the
Gospel history; between these two lofty gateways lay the narrow and crooked
streets of the naturalistic explanation.
The principal obstacle, Strauss continues, which barred the way to a
comprehensive application of myth, consisted in the supposition that two of our
Gospels, Matthew and John, were reports of eyewitnesses; and a further
difficulty was the offence caused by the word myth, owing to its associations
with the heathen mythology. But that any of our Evangelists was an eyewitness,
or stood in such relations with eyewitnesses as to
79
make the intrusion of myth unthinkable, is a thesis which there is no extant
evidence sufficient to prove. Even though the earthly life of the Lord falls within
historic times, and even if only a generation be assumed to have elapsed
between His death and the composition of the Gospels; such a period would be

70
sufficient to allow the historical material to become intermixed with myth. No
sooner is a great man dead than legend is busy with his life.
Then, too, the offence of the word myth disappears for any one who has gained
an insight into the essential character of religious myth. It is nothing else than
the clothing in historic form of religious ideas, shaped by the unconsciously
inventive power of legend, and embodied in a historic personality. Even on a
priori grounds we are almost compelled to assume that the historic Jesus will
meet us in the garb of old Testament Messianic ideas and primitive Christian
expectations.
The main distinction between Strauss and his predecessors consisted in the
fact that they asked themselves anxiously how much of the historical life of
Jesus would remain as a foundation for religion if they dared to apply the
conception of myth consistently, while for him this question had no terrors. He
claims in his preface that he possessed one advantage over all the critical and
learned theologians of his time without which nothing can be accomplished in
the domain of history—the inner emancipation of thought and feeling in regard
to certain religious and dogmatic prepossessions which he had early attained as
a result of his philosophic studies. Hegel's philosophy had set him free, giving
him a clear conception of the relationship of idea and reality, leading him to a
higher plane of Christological speculation, and opening his eyes to the mystic
interpenetration of finitude and infinity, God and man.
God-manhood, the highest idea conceived by human thought, is actually
realised in the historic personality of Jesus. But while conventional thinking
supposes that this phenomenal realisation must be perfect, true thought, which
has attained by genuine critical reasoning to a higher freedom, knows that no
idea can realise itself perfectly on the historic plane, and that its truth does not
depend on the proof of its having received perfect external representation, but
that its perfection comes about through that which the idea carries into history,
or through the way in which history is sublimated into idea. For this reason it is
in the last analysis indifferent to what extent God-manhood has been realised in
the person of Jesus; the important thing is that the idea is now alive in the
common consciousness of those who have been prepared to receive it by its
manifestation in sensible form, and of whose thought and imagination that
historical personality took such complete possession, that for them the unity of
Godhood and manhood assumed in Him enters into the common
consciousness, and the "moments" which constitute the out-
80
ward course of His life reproduce themselves in them in a spiritual fashion.
A purely historical presentation of the life of Jesus was in that first period wholly
impossible; what was operative was a creative reminiscence acting under the
impulse of the idea which the personality of Jesus had called to life among
mankind. And this idea of God-manhood, the realisation of which in every
personality is the ultimate goal of humanity, is the eternal reality in the Person of
Jesus, which no criticism can destroy.

71
However far criticism may go in providing the reaction of the idea upon the
presentment of the historical course of the life of Jesus, the fact that Jesus
represented that idea and called it to life among mankind is something real,
something that no criticism can annul. It is alive thenceforward—to this day, and
forever more.
It is in this emancipation of spirit, and in the consciousness that Jesus as the
creator of the religion of humanity is beyond the reach of criticism, that Strauss
goes to work, and batters down the rubble, assured that his pick can make no
impression on the stone. He sees evidence that the time has come for this
undertaking in the condition of exhaustion which characterised contemporary
theology. The supernaturalistic explanation of the events of the life of Jesus liad
been followed by the rationalistic, the one making everything supernatural, the
other setting itself to make all the events intelligible as natural occurrences.
Each had said all that it had to say. From their opposition now arises a new
solution—the mythological interpretation. This is a characteristic example of the
Hegelian method—the synthesis of a thesis represented by the supernaturalistic
explanation with an antithesis represented by the rationalistic interpretation.
Strauss's Life of Jesus is, therefore, like Schleiermacher's, the product of
antithetic conceptions. But whereas in the latter the antitheses Docetism and
Ebionism are simply limiting conceptions, between which his view is statically
suspended, the synthesis with which Strauss operates represents a
composition of forces, of which his view is the dynamic resultant. The dialectic
is in the one case descriptive, in the other creative. This Hegelian dialectic
determines the method of the work. Each incident of the life of Jesus is
considered separately; first as supernaturally explained, and then as
rationalistically explained, and the one explanation is refuted by the other. "By
this means," says Strauss in his preface, "the incidental advantage is secured
that the work is fitted to serve as a repertory of the leading views and
discussions of all parts of the Gospel history."
In every case the whole range of representative opinions is reviewed. Finally
the forced interpretations necessitated by the naturalistic ex-
81
planation of the narrative under discussion drives the reader back upon the
supernaturalistic. That had been recognized by Hase and Schleiermacher, and
they had felt themselves obliged to make a place for inexplicable supernatural
elements alongside of the historic elements of the life of Jesus.
Contemporaneously there had sprung up in all directions new attempts to return
by the aid of a mystical philosophy to the supernaturalistic point of view of our
forefathers. But in these Strauss recognises only the last desperate efforts to
make the past present and to conceive the inconceivable; and in direct
opposition to the reactionary ineptitudes by means of which critical theology
was endeavouring to work its way out of rationalism, he sets up the hypothesis
that these inexplicable elements are mythical.

72
In the stories prior to the baptism, everything is myth. The narratives are woven
on the pattern of Old Testament prototypes, with modifications due to Messianic
or messianically interpreted passages. Since Jesus and the Baptist came into
contact with one another later, it is felt necessary to represent their parents as
having been connected. The attempts to construct Davidic genealogies for
Jesus, show us that there was a period in the formation of the Gospel History
during which the Lord was simply regarded as the son of Joseph and Mary,
otherwise genealogical studies of this kind would not have been undertaken.
Even in the story of the twelve-year-old Jesus in the temple, there is scarcely
more than a trace of historical material.
In the narrative of the baptism we may take it as certainly unhistorical that the
Baptist received a revelation of the Messianic dignity of Jesus, otherwise he
could not later have come to doubt this. Whether his message to Jesus is
historical must be left an open question; its possibility depends on whether the
nature of his confinement admitted of such communication with the outer world.
Might not a natural reluctance to allow the Baptist to depart this life without at
least a dawning recognition of the Messiahship of Jesus have here led to the
insertion of a legendary trait into the tradition? If so, the historical residuum
would be that Jesus was for a time one of the adherents of the Baptist, and was
baptized by him, and that He soon afterwards appeared in Galilee with the
same message which John had proclaimed, and even when He had outgrown
his influence, never ceased to hold John in high esteem, as is shown by the
eulogy which He pronounced upon him. But if the baptism of John was a
baptism of repentance with a view to "him who was to come," Jesus cannot
have held Himself to be sinless when He submitted to it. Otherwise we should
have to suppose that He did it merely for appearance' sake. Whether it was in
the moment of the baptism that the consciousness of His Messiahship dawned
upon Him, we cannot tell. This only is certain, that the conception of Jesus as
having
82
been endowed with the Spirit at His baptism, was independent of, and earlier
than, that other conception which held Him to have been supernaturally born of
the Spirit. We have, therefore, in the Synoptists several different strata of
legend and narrative, which in some cases intersect and in some are
superimposed one upon the other.
The story of the temptation is equally unsatisfactory, whether it be interpreted
as supernatural, or as symbolical either of an inward struggle or of external
events (as for example in Venturini's interpretation of it, where the part of the
Tempter is played by a Pharisee) ; it is simply primitive Christian legend, woven
together out of Old Testament suggestions.
The call of the first disciples cannot have happened as it is narrated, without
their having known anything of Jesus beforehand; the manner of the call is
modelled upon the call of Elisha by Elijah. The further legend attached to it—
Peter's miraculous draught of fishes—has arisen out of the saying about

73
"fishers of men," and the same idea is reflected, at a different angle of
refraction, in John xxi. The mission of the seventy is unhistorical.
Whether the cleansing of the temple is historical, or whether it arose out of a
Messianic application of the text, "My house shall be called a house of prayer,"
cannot be determined. The difficulty of forming a clear idea of the
circumstances is not easily to be removed. How freely the historical material
has been worked up, is seen in the groups of stories which have grown out of a
single incident; as, for example, the anointing of Jesus at Bethany by an
unknown woman, out of which Luke has made an anointing by a penitent
sinner, and John an anointing by Mary of Bethany.
As regards the healings, some of them are certainly historical, but not in the
form in which tradition has preserved them. The recognition of Jesus as
Messiah by the demons immediately arouses suspicion. It is doubtless rather to
be ascribed to the tendency which grew up later to represent Him as receiving,
in His Messianic character, homage even from the world of evil spirits, than to
any advantage in respect of clearness of insight which distinguished the
mentally deranged, in comparison with their contemporaries. The cure of the
demoniac in the synagogue at Capernaum may well be historical, but, in other
cases, the procedure is so often raised into the region of the miraculous that a
psychical influence of Jesus upon the sufferer no longer suffices to explain it;
the creative activity of legend must have come in to confuse the account of what
really happened.
One cure has sometimes given rise to three or four narratives. Sometimes we
can still recognise the influences which have contributed to mould a story.
When, for example, the disciples are unable to heal the
83
lunatic boy during Jesus' absence on the Mount of Transfiguration, we are
reminded of 2 Kings iv., where Elisha's servant Gehazi tries in vain to bring the
dead boy to life by using the staff of the prophet. The immediate healing of
leprosy has its prototype in the story of Naaman the Syrian. The story of the ten
lepers shows so clearly a didactic tendency that its historic value is thereby
rendered doubtful.
The cures of blindness all go back to the case of the blind man at Jericho. But
who can say how far this is itself historical? The cures of paralytics, too, belong
rather to the equipment of the Messiah than to history. The cures through
touching clothes, and the healings at a distance, have myth written on their
foreheads. The fact is, the Messiah must equal, nay, surpass, the deeds of the
prophets. That is why raising from the dead figure among His miracles.
The nature miracles, over a collection of which Strauss puts the heading "Sea-
Stories and Fish-Stories," have a much larger admixture of the mythical. His
opponents took him severely to task for this irreverent superscription.
The repetition of the story of the feeding of the multitude arouses suspicion
regarding the credibility of what is narrated, and at once invalidates the
hypothesis of the apostolic authorship of the Gospel of Matthew. Moreover, the

74
incident was so naturally suggested by Old Testament examples that it would
have been a miracle if such a story had not found its way into the Life of Jesus.
An explanation on the analogy of an expedited process of nature, is here, as in
the case of the miracle at Cana also, to be absolutely rejected. Strauss allows it
to be laughed out of court. The cursing of the fig-tree and its fulfilment go back
in some way or other to a parable of Jesus, which was afterwards made into
history.
More important than the miracles heretofore mentioned are those which have to
do with Jesus Himself and mark the crises of His history. The transfiguration
had to find a place in the life of Jesus, because of the shining of Moses'
countenance. In dealing with the narratives of the resurrection it is evident that
we must distinguish two different strata of legend, an older one, represented by
Matthew, which knew only of appearances in Galilee, and a later, in which the
Galilaean appearances are excluded in favour of appearances in Jerusalem. In
both cases, however, the narratives are mythical. In any attempt to explain them
we are forced on one horn of the dilemma or the other—if the resurrection was
real, the death was not real, and vice versa. That the ascension is a myth is
self-evident.
Such, and so radical, are the results at which Strauss's criticism of the
supernaturalistic and the rationalistic explanations of the life of Jesus ultimately
arrives.
84
In reading Strauss's discussions one is not so much struck with their radical
character, because of the admirable dialectic skill with which he shows the total
impossibility of any explanation which does not take account of myth. On the
whole, the supernaturalistic explanation, which at least represents the plain
sense of the narratives, comes off much better than the rationalistic, the
artificiality of which is everywhere remorselessly exposed.
The sections which we have summarized are far from having lost their
significance at the present day. They marked out the ground which is now
occupied by modern critical study. And they filled in the death-certificates of a
whole series of explanations which, at first sight, have all the air of being alive,
but are not really so. If these continue to haunt present-day theology, it is only
as ghosts, which can be put to flight by simply pronouncing the name of David
Friedrich Strauss, and which would long ago have ceased to "walk," if the
theologians who regard Strauss's book as obsolete would only take the trouble
to read it.
The results so far considered do not represent the elements of the life of Jesus
which Strauss was prepared to accept as historical. He sought to make the
boundaries of the mythical embrace the widest possible area; and it is clear that
he extended them too far.
For one thing, he overestimates the importance of the Old Testament motives in
reference to the creative activity of the legend. He does not see that while in
many cases he has shown clearly enough the source of the form of the

75
narrative in question, this does not suffice to explain its origin. Doubtless, there
is mythical material in the story of the feeding of the multitude. But the existence
of the story is not explained by referring to the manna in the desert, or the
miraculous feeding of a multitude by Elisha. [1] The story in the Gospel has far
too much individuality for that, and stands, moreover, in much too closely
articulated an historical connexion. It must have as its basis some historical fact.
It is not a myth, though there is myth in it. Similarly with the account of the
transfiguration. The substratum of historical fact in the life of Jesus is much
more extensive than Strauss is prepared to admit. Sometimes he fails to see
the foundations, because he proceeds like an explorer who, in working on the
ruins of an Assyrian city, should cover up the most valuable evidence with the
rubbish thrown out from another portion of the excavations.
Again, he sometimes rules out statements by assuming their impossibility on
purely dialectical grounds, or by playing off the narratives one against another.
The Baptist's message to Jesus is a case in point. This is connected with the
fact that he often fails to realise the strong con-
[1] 2 Kings iv, 42-44.
85
armation which the narratives derive from their connexion with the preceding
and following context.
That, however, was only to be expected. Who ever discovered a true principle
without pressing its application too far?
What really alarmed his contemporaries was not so much the comprehensive
application of the mythical theory, as the general mining and sapping operations
which they were obliged to see brought to bear upon the Gospels.
In section after section Strauss cross-examines the reports on every point,
down to the minutest detail, and then pronounces in what proportion an alloy of
myth enters into each of them. In every case the decision is unfavourable to the
Gospel of John. Strauss was the first to take this view. It is true that, at the end
of the eighteenth century, many doubts as to the authenticity of this Gospel had
been expressed, and Bretschneider, the famous General Superintendent at
Gotha (1776-1848), had made a tentative collection of them in his Probabilia. [1]
The essay made some stir at the time. But Schleiermacher threw the aegis of
his authority over the authenticity of the Gospel, and it was the favourite Gospel
of the rationalists because it contained fewer miracles than the others.
Bretschneider himself declared that he had been brought to a better opinion
through the controversy.
After this episode the Johannine question had been shelved for fifteen years.
The excitement was, therefore, all the greater when Strauss re-opened the
discussion. He was opposing a dogma of critical theology, which, even at the
present day, is wont to defend its dogmas with a tenacity beyond that of the
Church itself.
The luminous haze of apparent circumstantiality which had hitherto prevented
men from recognising the true character of this Gospel is completely dissipated.

76
Strauss shows that the Johannine representation of the life of Jesus is
dominated by a theory, and that its portraiture shows the further development of
the tendencies which are perceptible even in the Synoptists. He shows this, for
example, in the case of the Johannine narrative of the baptism of Jesus, in
which critics had hitherto seen the most credible account of what occurred,
pointing out that it is just in this pseudo-simplicity that the process of bringing
Jesus and the Baptist into the closest possible relations reaches its limit.
Similarly, in regard to the call of the first disciples, it is, according to Strauss, a
later postulate that they came from the Baptist's following and were brought by
him to the Lord. Strauss does not scruple even to assert that John introduces
imaginary characters. If this Gospel relates fewer miracles, the miracles which it
retains are proportionately greater; so great, indeed,
[1] Probabilia de evangelii et epistolarum loannis Apostoli indole et origine
cruditorum iudiciis modeste subjecit C. Th. Bretschneider. Leipzig, 1820.
86
that their absolutely miraculous character is beyond the shadow of doubt; and,
moreover, a moral or symbolical significance is added.
Here, therefore, it is no longer the unconscious action of legend which selects,
creates, or groups the incidents, but a clearly-determined apologetic and
dogmatic purpose.
The question regarding the different representations of the locality and
chronology of the life of Jesus, had always been decided, prior to Strauss, in
favour of the Fourth Gospel. De Wette makes it an argument against the
genuineness of Matthew's Gospel that it mistakenly confines the ministry of
Jesus to Galilee. Strauss refuses to decide the question by simply weighing the
chronological and geographical statements one against the other, lest he should
be as one-sided in his own way as the defenders of the authenticity of the
Fourth Gospel were in theirs. On this point, he contents himself with remarking
that if Jesus had really taught in Jerusalem on several occasions, it is absolutely
unintelligible how all knowledge of this could have so completely disappeared
from the Synoptic tradition; for His going up to the Passover at which He met
His death is there represented as His sole journey to Jerusalem. On the other
hand, it is quite conceivable that if Jesus had only once been in Jerusalem there
would be a tendency for legend gradually to make several journeys out of this
one, on the natural assumption that He regularly went up to the Feasts, and that
He would proclaim His Gospel not merely in the remote province, but also in the
capital.
From the triumphal entry to the resurrection, the difference between the
Synoptic and Johannine narratives is so great that all attempts to harmonise
them are to be rejected. How are we to reconcile the statement of the
Synoptists that the ovation at the triumphal entry was offered by Galilaeans who
accompanied him, with that of John, according to which it was offered by a
multitude from Jerusalem which came out to welcome Jesus—who, moreover,
according to John, was not coming from Galilee and Jericho—and escorted Him

77
into the city. To suppose that there were two different triumphal entries is
absurd.
But the decision between John and the Synoptists is not based solely upon their
representation of the facts; the decisive consideration is found in the ideas by
which they are respectively dominated. John represents a more advanced stage
of the mythopoeic process, inasmuch as he has substituted for the Jewish
Messianic conception, the Greek metaphysical conception of the Divine
Sonship, and, on the basis of his acquaintance with the Alexandrian Logos
doctrine, even makes Jesus apply to Himself the Greek speculative conception
of pre-existence. The writer is aware of an already existing danger from the side
of a Gnostic docetism, and has himself an apologetic Christology to propound,
thus fighting the Gnostics as a Gnostic of another kind. That he is free from
87
eschatological conceptions is not, from the historical point of view, an
advantage, but very much the reverse. He is not unacquainted with
eschatology, but deliberately transforms it, endeavouring to substitute for the
expectation of the Second Coming of Christ, as an external event of the future,
the thought of His inward presence.
The most decisive evidence of all is found in the farewell discourses-and in the
absence of all mention of the spiritual struggle in Gethsemane. The intention
here is to show that Jesus not only had a foreknowledge of His death, but had
long overcome it in anticipation, and went to meet His tragic fate with perfect
inward serenity. That, however, is no historical narrative, but the final stage of
reverent idealisation.
The question is decided. The Gospel of John is inferior to the Synoptics as a
historical source just in proportion as it is more strongly dominated than they by
theological and apologetic interests. It is true that the assignment of the
dominant motives for Strauss's criticism mainly a matter of conjecture. He
cannot define in detail the attitude and tendency of this Gospel, because the
development of dogma in the second century was still to a great extent obscure.
He himself admits- that it was only subsequently, through the labours of Baur,
that the posi- tions which he had taken up in 1835 were rendered impregnable.
And yet it is true to say that Johannine study has added in principle nothing new
to what was said by Strauss. He recognised the decisive point. With critical
acumen he resigned the attempt to base a decision on a comparison of the
historical data, and allowed the theological character of the two lines of tradition
to determine the question. Unless this is done the debate is endless, for an able
man who has sworn allegiance to John will always find a thousand ways in
which the Johannine data can be reconciled with those of the Synoptists, and is
finally prepared to stake his life upon the exact point at which the missing
account of the institution of the Lord's Supper must be inserted into the
narrative.
This changed estimate of John carries with it a reversal of the order in which the
Gospels are supposed to have originated. Instead of John, Luke, Matthew, we

78
have Matthew, Luke, and John—the first is last, and the last first. Strauss's
unsophisticated instinct freed Matthew from the humiliating vassalage to which
Schleiermacher's aesthetic had consigned him. The practice of differentiating
between John and the Synoptists, which in the hands of Schleiermacher and
Hase had been an elegant amusement, now received unexpected support, and
it at last became possible for the study of the life of Jesus to go forward.
But no sooner had Strauss opened up the way than he closed it again, by
refusing to admit the priority of Mark. His attitude towards this Gospel at once
provokes opposition. For him Mark is an epitomising narrator, a mere satellite of
Matthew with no independent light. His terse
88
and graphic style makes on Strauss an impression of artificiality. He refuses to
believe this Evangelist when he says that on the first day at Capernaum "the
whole town" (Mark i. 33) came together before Peter's door, and that, on other
occasions (Mark iii. 20, vi. 31), the press was so great that Jesus and His
disciples had no leisure so much as to eat. "All very improbable traits," he
remarks, "the absence of which in Matthew is entirely to his advantage for what
else are they than legendary exaggerations?" In this criticism he is at one with
Schleiermacher, who in his essay on Luke [1] speaks of the unreal vividness of
Mark "which often gives his Gospel an almost apocryphal aspect."
This prejudice against Mark has a twofold cause. In the first place, this Gospel
with its graphic details had rendered great service to the rationalistic
explanation of miracle. Its description of the cure of the blind man at Bethsaida
(Mark viii. 22-26)—whose eyes Jesus first anointed with spittle, whereupon he
at first saw things dimly, and then, after he had felt the touch of the Lord's hand
upon his eyes a second time, saw more clearly—was a veritable treasure-trove
for rationalism. As Strauss is disposed to deal much more peremptorily with the
ration- alists than with the supernaturalists, he puts Mark upon his trial, as their
accessory before the fact, and pronounces upon him a judgment which is not
entirely unprejudiced. Moreover, it is not until the Gospels are looked at from
the point of view of the plan of the history and the inner connexion of events that
the superiority of Mark is clearly realised. But this way of looking at the matter
does not enter into Strauss's purview. On the contrary, he denies that there is
any traceable connexion of events at all, and confines his attention to
determining the proportion if myth in the content of each separate narrative.
Of the Synoptic question he does not, strictly speaking, take any account. That
was partly due to the fact that when he wrote it was in a thoroughly
unsatisfactory position. There was a confused welter of the most various
hypotheses. The priority of Mark, which had had earlier champions in Koppe, [2]
Storr, [3] Gratz, [4] and Herder, [5] was now maintained by Credner and
Lachmann, who saw in Matthew a combination of the logia-document with
Mark. The "primitive Gospel" hypothesis of Eichhorn, according to which the
first three Gospels went back to a common

79
[1] Dr. Fr. Schleiermacher, Uber die Schriften des Lukas. Ein kritischer Versuch.
(The Writings of Luke. A critical essay.) C. Reimer, Berlin, 1817.
[2] Koppe, Marcus non epitomator Matthai, 1782.
[3] Storr, De Fontibus Evangeliorum Mt. et Lc.; 1794.
[4] Gratz, Neuer Versuch, die Entstehung der drei ersten Evangelien zu
erklaren, 1812.
[5] V. sup. p. 35 f. For the earlier history of the question see F. C. Baur, Krit.
Untersuch, uber die kanonischen Evangelien, Tubingen, 1847, pp. 1-76.
89
source, not identical with any of them, had become somewhat discredited.
There had been much discussion and various modifications of Griesbach's
"dependence theory," according to which Mark was pieced together out of
Matthew and Luke, and Schleiermacher's Diegesentheorie, [1] which saw the
primary material not in a gospel, but in unconnected notes; from these,
collections of narrative passages were afterwards formed, which in the post-
apostolic period coalesced into continuous descriptions of the life of Jesus such
as the three which have been preserved in our Synoptic Gospels.
In this matter Strauss is a sceptical eclectic. In the main he may be said to
combine Griesbach's theory of the secondary origin of Mark with
Schleiermacher's Diegesentheorie, the latter answering to his method of
treating the sections separately. But whereas Schleiermacher had used the plan
of John's Gospel as a framework into which to fit the independent narratives,
Strauss's rejection of the Fourth Gospel left him without any means of
connecting the sections. He makes a point, indeed, of sharply emphasising this
want of connexion; and it was just this that made his work appear so extreme.
The Synoptic discourses, like the Johannine, are composite structures, created
by later tradition out of sayings which originally belonged to different times and
circumstances, arranged under certain leading ideas so as to form connected
discourses. The sermon on the mount, the discourse at the sending forth of the
twelve, the great parable-discourse, the polemic against the Pharisees, have all
been gradually formed like geological deposits. So far as the original
juxtaposition may be supposed to have been here and there preserved,
Matthew is doubtless the most trustworthy authority for it. "From the comparison
which we have been making," says Strauss in one passage, "we can already
see that the hard grit of these sayings of Jesus (die kornigen Reden Jesu) has
not indeed been dissolved by the flood of oral tradition, but they have often
been washed away from their original position and like rolling pebbles (Gerolle)
have been deposited in places to which they do not properly belong." [2] And,
moreover, we find this distinction between the first three Evangelists, viz. that
Matthew is a skilful collector who, while he is far from having been able always
to give the original connexion, has at least known how to bring related passages
aptly together, whereas in the other two many fragmentary sayings have been
left exactly where chance had deposited them, which was generally in the
interstices be-

80
[1] So called because largely based on the reference in Luke i. 1, to the "many"
who had "taken in hand to draw up a narrative ( )."—
TRANSLATOR.
[2] We take the translation of this striking image from Sanday's "Survey of the
Synoptic Question," The Expositor, 4th ser. vol. 3, p. 307.
90
tween the larger masses of discourse. Luke, indeed, has in some cases made
an effort to give them an artistic setting, which is, however, by no means a
satisfactory substitute for the natural connexion.
It is in his criticism of the parables that Strauss is most extreme. He Starts out
from the assumption that they have mutually influenced one another, and that
those which may possibly be genuine have only been preserved in a secondary
form. In the parable of the marriage supper of the king's son, for example, he
confidently assumes that the conduct of the invited guests, who finally ill-treated
and slew the messengers, and the question why the guest is not wearing a
wedding-garment are secondary features.
How external he supposes the connexion of the narratives to be is clear from
the way in which he explains the juxtaposition of the story of the transfiguration
with the "discourse while descending the mountain." They have, he says, really
nothing to do with one another. The disciples on one occasion asked Jesus
about the coming of Elijah as forerunner; Elijah also appears in the story of the
transfiguration: accordingly tradition simply grouped the transfiguration and the
discourse together under the heading "Elijah," and, later on, manufactured a
connexion between them.
The tendency of the work to purely critical analysis, the ostentatious avoidance
of any positive expression of opinion, and not least, the man- ner of regarding
the Synoptists as mere bundles of narratives and discourses, make it difficult—
indeed, strictly speaking, impossible—to determine Strauss's own distinctive
conception of the life of Jesus, to discover what he really thinks is moving
behind the curtain of myth. According to the view taken in regard to this point
his work becomes either a negative or a positive life of Jesus. There are, for
instance, a number of incidental remarks which contain the suggestion of a
positive construction of the life of Jesus. If they were taken out of their context
and brought together they would yield a picture which would have points of
contact with the latest eschatological view. Strauss, however, deliberately
restricts his positive suggestions to these few detached remarks. He follows out
no line to its conclusion. Each separate problem is indeed considered, and light
is thrown upon it from various quarters with much critical skill. But he will not
venture on a solution of any of them. Sometimes, when he thinks he has gone
too far in the way of positive suggestion, he deliberately wipes it all out again
with some expression of scepticism.
As to the duration of the ministry he will not even offer a vague conjecture. As to
the connexion of certain events, nothing can, according to him, be known, since

81
the Johannine outline cannot be accepted and the Synoptists arrange
everything with an eye to analogies and associa-
91
tion of ideas, though they flattered themselves that they were giving a
chronologically arranged narrative. From the contents of the narratives,
however, and from the monotonous recurrence of certain formulae of
connexion, it is evident that no clear view of an organically connected whole can
be assumed to be present in their work. We have no fixed points to enable us to
reconstruct even in a measure the chronological order.
Especially interesting is his discussion of the title "Son of Man." In the saying
"the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath day" (Matt. xii. 8), the expression
might, according to Strauss, simply denote "man." In other passages one gets
the impression that Jesus spoke of the Son of Man as a supernatural person,
quite distinct from Himself, but identified with the Messiah. This is the most
natural explanation of the passage in Matt. x. 23, where he promises the
disciples, in sending them forth, that they shall not have gone over the cities of
Israel before the Son of Man shall come. Here Jesus speaks of the Messiah as
if He Himself were his forerunner. These sayings would, therefore, fall in the
first period, before He knew Himself to be the Messiah. Strauss does not
suspect the significance of this incidental remark; it contains the germ of the
solution of the problem of the Son of Man on the lines of Johannes Weiss. But
immediately scepticism triumphs again. How can we tell, asks Strauss, where
the title Son of Man is genuine in the sayings of Jesus, and where it has been
inserted without special significance, merely from habit?
Not less insoluble, in his opinion, is the question regarding the point of time at
which Jesus claimed the Messianic dignity for Himself. "Whereas in John,"
Strauss remarks, "Jesus remains constant in His avowal, his disciples and
followers constant in their conviction, that He is the Messiah; in the Synoptics,
on the other hand, there are, so to speak, relapses to be observed; so that, in
the case of the disciples and the people generally, the conviction of Jesus'
Messiahship expressed on earlier occasions, sometimes, in the course of the
narrative, disappears again and gives place to a much lower view of Him; and
even Jesus Himself, in comparison with His earlier unambiguous declaration, is
more reserved on later occasions." The account of the confession of the
Messiahship at Caesarea Philippi, where Jesus pronounces Peter blessed
because of his confession, and at the same time forbids the Twelve to speak of
it, is unintelligible, since according to this same Gospel His Messiahship had
been mooted by the disciples on several previous occasions, and had been
acknowledged by the demoniacs. The Synoptists, therefore, contradict
themselves. Then there are the further cases in which Jesus forbids the making
known of His Messiahship, without any reason whatever. It would, no doubt, be
historically possible to assume
92

82
that it only gradually dawned upon Him that He was the Messiah—in any case
not until after His baptism by John, as otherwise He would have to be supposed
to have made a pretence upon that occasion—and that as often as the thought
that He might be the Messiah was aroused in others by something that
occurred, and was suggested to Him from without. He was immediately alarmed
at hearing spoken, aloud and definitely, that which He Himself had scarcely
dared to cherish as a possibility, or in regard to which He had only lately
attained to a clear conviction.
From these suggestions one thing is evident, namely, that for Strauss the
Messianic consciousness of Jesus was an historical fact, and is not to be
referred, as has sometimes been supposed, to myth. To assert that Strauss
dissolved the life of Jesus into myth is, in fact, an absurdity which, however
often it may be repeated by people who have not read his book, or have read it
only superficially, does not become any the less absurd by repetition.
To come to detail, Jesus thought of His Messiahship, according to Strauss, in
the form that He, although of human parentage, should after His earthly life be
taken up into heaven, and thence should come again to bring in His Kingdom.
"As, moreover, in the higher Jewish theology, immediately after the time of
Jesus, the idea of the pre-existence of the Messiah was present, the conjecture
naturally suggests itself that it was also present at the time when Jesus'
thoughts were being formed, and that consequently, if He once began to think
of Himself as the Messiah, He might also have referred to Himself this feature of
the Messianic conception. Whether Jesus had been initiated, as Paul was, into
the wisdom of the schools in such a way that He could draw this conception
from it, is no doubt open to question."
In his treatment of the eschatology Strauss makes a valiant effort to escape
from the dilemma "either spiritual or political" in regard to the Messianic plans of
Jesus, and to make the eschatological expectation intelligible as one which did
not set its hopes upon human aid, but on Divine intervention. This is one of the
most important contributions to a real understanding of the eschatological
problem. Sometimes one almost seems to be reading Johannes Weiss; as, for
example, when Strauss explains that Jesus could promise His followers that
they should sit on thrones without thinking of a political revolution, because He
expected a reversal of present conditions to be brought about by God, and
referred this judicial authority and kingly rule to the time of the
. "Jesus, therefore, certainly expected to restore the throne
of David, and, with His disciples, to rule over a people freed from political
bondage, but in this expectation He did not set His hopes on the sword of
human followers (Luke xxii. 38, Matt. xxvi. 52), but upon the legions of angels
93
which His heavenly Father could give Him (Matt. xxvi. 53). When He speaks of
the coming of His Messianic glory, it is with angels and heavenly powers that
He surrounds Himself (Matt. xvi. 27, xxiv. 30 ff., xxv. 31). Before the majesty of
the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven the nations will submit without

83
striking a blow, and at the sound of the angel's trumpet-blast will, with the dead
who shall then arise, range themselves before Him and His disciples for
judgment. All this Jesus did not purpose to bring about by any arbitrary action of
His own, but left it to His heavenly Father, who alone knew the right moment for
this catastrophic change (Mark xiii. 32), to give Him the signal of its coming; and
He did not waver in His failh even when death came upon Him before its
realisation. Any one who shrinks from adopting this view of the Messianic
background of Jesus' plans, because he fears by so doing to make Jesus a
visionary enthusiast, must remember how exactly these hopes corresponded to
the long-cherished Messianic expectation of the Jews; and how easily, on the
supernaturalislic assump- tions of the period and among a people which
preserved so strict an isolation as the Jews, an ideal which was in itself
fantastic, if it were the national ideal and had some true and good features,
could take posses- sion of the mind even of one who was not inclined to
fanaticism."
One of the principal proofs that the preaching of Jesus was eschatologically
conditioned is the Last Supper. "When," says Strauss, "He concluded the
celebration with the saying, 'I will not drink henceforth of the fruit of the vine until
I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom,' He would seem to have
expected that in the Messianic kingdom the Passover would be celebrated with
peculiar solemnity. Therefore, in assuring them that they shall next partake of
the Feast, not in the present age, but in the new era. He evidently expects that
within a year's time the pre-Messianic dispensation will have come to an end
and the Messianic age will have begun." But it must be admitted, Strauss
immediately adds, that the definite assurance which the Evangelists put into His
mouth may after all only have been in reality an expression of pious hope. In a
similar way he qualifies his other statements regarding the eschatological ideas
of Jesus by recalling that we cannot determine the part which the expectations
of primitive Christianity may have had in moulding these sayings.
Thus, for example, the opinions which he expresses on the great Parousia
discourse in Matt. xxiv. are extremely cautious. The detailed prophecies
regarding the Second Coming which the Synoptists put into the mouth of Jesus
cannot be derived from Jesus Himself. The question suggests itself, however,
whether He did not cherish the hope, and make the promise, that He would one
day appear in glory as the Messiah? "If in any period of His life He held Himself
to be the Messiah—and
94
that there was a period when He did so there can be no doubt—and if He
described Himself as the Son of Man, He must have expected the coming in the
clouds which Daniel had ascribed to the Son of Man; but it may be questioned
whether He thought of this as an exaltation which should take place even in His
lifetime, or as something which was only to take place after His death.
Utterances like Matt. x. 23, xvi. 28 rather suggest the former, but the possibility
remains that later, when He had begun to feel that His death was certain, His

84
conception took the latter form, and that Matt. xxvi. 64 was spoken with this in
view." Thus, even for Strauss, the problem of the Son of Man is already the
central problem in which are focused all the questions regarding the
Messiahship and eschatology.
From all this it may be seen how strongly he had been influenced by Reimarus,
whom, indeed, he frequently mentions. It would be still more evident if he had
not obscured his historical views by constantly bringing the mythological
explanation into play.
The thought of the supernatural realisation of the Kingdom of God must also,
according to Strauss, be the starting-point of any attempt to understand Jesus'
attitude towards the Law and the Gentiles, so far as that is possible in view of
the conflicting data. The conservative passages must carry most weight. They
need not necessarily fall at the beginning of His ministry, because it is
questionable whether the hypothesis of a later period of increasing liberality in
regard to the law and the Gentiles can be made probable. There would be more
chance of proving that the conservative sayings are the only authentic ones, for
unless all the indications are misleading the terminus a quo for this change of
attitude is the death of Jesus. He no doubt looked forward to the abolition of the
Law and the removal of the barriers between Jew and Gentile, but only in the
future Kingdom. "If that be so," remarks Strauss, "the difference between the
views of Jesus and of Paul consisted only in this, that while Jesus expected
these limitations to fall away when, at His second coming, the earth should be
renewed, Paul believed himself justified in doing away with them in
consequence of the first coming of the Messiah, upon the still unregenerated
earth."
The eschatological passages are therefore the most authentic of all. If there is
anything historic about Jesus, it is His assertion of the claim that in the coming
Kingdom He would be manifested as the Son of Man.
On the other hand, in the predictions of the passion and resurrection we are on
quite uncertain ground. The detailed statements regarding the manner of the
catastrophe place it beyond doubt that we have here vaticinia ex eventu.
Otherwise the despair of the disciples when the events occurred could not be
explained. Yet it is possible that Jesus had a prevision of His death. Perhaps
the resolve to die was essential to His
95
conception of the Messiahship and He was not forced thereto by circumstances.
This we might be able to determine with certainty if we had more exact
information regarding the conception of the suffering Messiah in contemporary
Jewish theology; which is, however, not available. We do not even know
whether the conception had ever existed in Judaism. "In the New Testament it
almost looks as if no one among the Jews had ever thought of a suffering or
dying Messiah." The conception can, however, certainly be found in later
passages of Rabbinic literature.

85
The question is therefore insoluble. We must be content to work with
possibilities. The result of a full discussion of the resolve to suffer and the
significance attached to the suffering is summed up by Strauss in the following
sentences. "In view of these considerations it is possible that Jesus might, by a
natural process of thought, have come to see how greatly such a catastrophe
would contribute to the spiritual development of His disciples, and in
accordance with national conceptions, interpreted in the light of some Old
Testament passages, might have arrived at the idea of an atoning power in His
Messianic death. At the same time the explicit utterance which the Synoptists
attribute to Jesus describing His death as an atoning sacrifice, might well
belong rather to the system of thought which grew up after the death of Jesus,
and the saying which the Fourth Gospel puts into His mouth regarding the
relation of His death to the coming of the Paraclete might seem to be prophecy
after the event. So that even in these sayings of Jesus regarding ths purpose of
His death, it is necessary to distinguish between the particular and the general."
Strauss's "Life of Jesus" has a different significance for modern theology from
that which it had for his contemporaries. For them it was the work which made
an end of miracle as a matter of historical belief, and gave the mythological
explanation its due.
We, however, find in it also an historical aspect of a positive character,
inasmuch as the historic Personality which emerges from the mist of myth is a
Jewish claimant of the Messiahship, whose world of thought is purely
eschatological. Strauss is, therefore, no mere destroyer of untenable solutions,
but also the prophet of a coming advance in knowledge.
It was, however, his own fault that his merit in this respect was not recognised
in the nineteenth century, because in his "Life of Jesus for the German People"
(1864), where he undertook to draw a positive historic picture of Jesus, he
renounced his better opinions of 1835, eliminated eschatology, and, instead of
the historic Jesus, portrayed the Jesus of liberal theology.
* IX *
STRAUSS'S OPPONENTS AND SUPPORTERS
David Friedrich Strauss. Streitschriften zur Verteidigung meiner Sclirift liber das
Leben-Jesu und zur Charakteristik der gegenwartigen Theologie. (Replies to
criticisms of my work on the Life of Jeaus; with an estimate of present-day
theology.) Tubingen, 1837.
Das Leben-Jesu, 3te verbesserte Auflage (3rd revised edition). 1838-1839.
Tubingen.
August Tholuck. Die Glaubwiirdigkeit der evangelischen Geschichte, zugleich
eine Kritik des Lebens Jesu von Strauss. (The Credibility of the Gospel History,
with an incidental criticism of Strauss's "Leben-Jesu.") Hamburg, 1837.
Aug. Wilh. Neander. Das Leben Jesu-Christi. Hamburg, 1837.
Dr. Neanders auf hohere Verlassung abgefasstes Gutachten liber das Buch des
Dr. Strauss' "Leben-Jesu" und das in Beziehung auf die Verbreitung desselben
zu beachtende Verfahren. (Dr. Neander's report, drawn up at the request of the

86
authorities, upon Dr. Strauss's "Leben-Jesu" and the measures to be adopted in
regard to its circulation.) 1836.
Leonhard Hug. Gutachten liber das Leben-Jesu, kritisch bearbeitet von D. Fr.
Strauss. (Report on D. Fr. Strauss's critical work upon the Life of Jesus.)
Freiburg, 1840.
Christian Gottlob Wilke. Tradition und Mythe. Ein Beitrag zur historischen Kritik
der kanonischen Evangelien uberhaupt, wie insbesondere zur Wiirdigung des
mythischen Idealismus im Leben-Jesu von Strauss. (Tradition and Myth. A
Contribution to the General Historical Criticism of the Gospels; with special
reference to the mythical idealism of Strauss's "Leben-Jesu.") Leipzig, 1837.
August Ebrard. Wissenschaftliche Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte.
(Scientific Criticism of the Gospel History.) Frankfort, 1842.
Georg Heinr. Aug. Ewald. Geschichte Christus' und seiner Zeit. (History of
Christ and His Times.) 1855. Fifth volume of the "Geschichte des Volkes Israel."
Christoph Friedrich von Ammon. Die Geschichte des Lebens Jesu mit steter
Riicksicht auf die vorhandenen Quellen. (History of the Life of Jesus with
constant reference to the extant sources.) 3 vols. 1842-1847.
SCARCELY EVER HAS A BOOK LET LOOSE SUCH A STORM OF
CONTROVERSY; and scarcely ever has a controversy been so barren of
immediate result. The fertilising rain brought up a crop of toad-stools. Of the
forty or fifty essays on the subject which appeared in the next five years, there
are
97
only four or five which are of any value, and even of these the value is very
small.
Strauss's first idea was to deal with each of his opponents separately, and he
published in 1837 three successive Streitschriften.[1] In the preface to the first
of these he states that he has kept silence for two years from a rooted objection
to anything in the nature of reply or counter-criticism, and because he had little
expectation of any good results from such controversy. These essays are able,
and are often written with biting scorn, especially that directed against his
inveterate enemy, Steudel of Tubingen, the representative of intellectual
supernaturalism, and that against Eschenmayer, a pastor, also of Tubingen. To
a work of the latter, "The Iscariotism of our Days" (1835), he had referred in the
preface to the second volume of his Life of Jesus in the following remark: "This
offspring of the legitimate marriage between theological ignorance and religious
intolerance, blessed by a sleep-walking philosophy, succeeds in making itself
so completely ridiculous that it renders any serious reply unnecessary."
But for all his sarcasm Strauss does not show himself an adroit debater in this
controversy, any more than in later times in the Diet.
It is indeed remarkable how unskilled in polemics is this man who had produced
a critical work of the first importance with almost playful ease. If his opponents
made no effort to understand him rightly—and many of them certainly wrote
without having carefully studied the fourteen hundred pages of his two

87
volumes—Strauss on his part seemed to be stricken with a kind of uncertainty,
lost himself in a maze of detail, and failed to keep continually re-formulating the
main problems which he had set up for discussion, and so compelling his
adversaries to face them fairly.
Of these problems there were three. The first was composed of the
[1] For general title see above. First part: "Herr Dr. Steudel, or the Self-
deception of the Intellectual Supernaturalism of our Time." 182 pp. Second part:
"Die Herren Eschenmayer und Menzel." 247 pp. Third part: "Die evangelische
Kirchemeitung, die Jahrbiicher filr wissenschaftliche Kritik und Die
theologischen Studien und Kritiken in ihrer Stellung zu meiner Kritik des Lebens
Jesu." (The attitude taken up by ... in regard to my critical Life of Jesus.) 179 pp.
In the Studien und Kritiken two reviews had appeared: a critical review by Dr.
Ullmann (vol. for 1836, pp. 770-816) and that of Miiller, written from the
standpoint of the "common faith" (vol. for 1836, pp. 816-890). In the
Evangelische Kirchemeitung the articles re- ferred to are the following: Vorwort
(Editorial Survey), 1836, pp. 1-6, 9-14, 17-23, 25-31, 33-38, 41^1,5; "The Future
of our Theology" (1836, pp. 281 ff.) ; "Thoughts suggested by Dr. Strauss's
essay on 'The Relation of Theological Criticism and Speculation to the Church'"
(1836, pp. 382 ff.) ; Strauss's essay had appeared in the Allgemeine
Kirchemeitung for 1836, No. 39. "Die kritische Bearbeitung des Lebens Jesu
von D. F. Strauss nach ihrem wissenschaftlichen Werte beleuchtet." (An Inquiry
into the Scientific Value of D. F. Strauss's Critical Study of the Life of Jesus.) By
Prof. Dr. Harless. Eriangen, 1836.
98
related questions regarding miracle and myth; the second concerned the
connexion of the Christ of faith with the Jesus of history; the third referred to the
relation of the Gospel of John to the Synoptists.
It was the first that attracted most attention; more than half the critics devoted
themselves to it alone. Even so they failed to get a thorough grasp of it. The
only thing that they clearly see is that Strauss altogether denies the miracles;
the full scope of the mythological explanation as applied to the traditional
records of the life of Jesus, and the extent of the historical material which
Strauss is prepared to accept, is still a riddle to them. That is in some measure
due, it must in fairness be said, to the arrangement of Strauss's own work, in
which the unconnected series of separate investigations makes the subject
unnecessarily difficult even for one who wishes to do the author justice.
The attitude towards miracle assumed in the anti-Strauss literature shows how
far the anti-rationalistic reaction had carried professedly scientific theology in
the direction of supernaturalism. Some significant symptoms had begun to show
themselves even in Hase and Schleiermacher of a tendency towards the
overcoming of rationalism by a kind of intellectual gymnastic which ran some
risk of falling into insincerity. The essential character of this new kind of
historical theology first came to light when Strauss put it to the question, and
forced it to substitute a plain yes or no for the ambiguous phrases with which

88
this school had only too quickly accustomed itself to evade the difficulties of the
problem of miracle. The mottoes with which this new school of theology
adorned the works which it sent forth against the untimely troubler of their
peace manifest its complete perplexity, and display the coquettish resignation
with which the sacred learning of the time essayed to cover its nakedness, after
it had succumbed to the temptation of the serpent insincerity. Adolf Harless of
Eriangen chose the melancholy saying of Pascal: "Tout tourne bien pour les
elus, jusqu'aux obscurites de 1'ecriture, car ils les honorent a cause des clartes
divines qu'ils y voient; et tout tourne en mal aux reprouves, jusqu'aux clartes,
car ils les blasphement a cause des obscurites qu'ils n'entendent pas." [1]
Herr Wilhelm Hoffmann, [2] deacon at Winnenden, selected Bacon's aphorism:
"Animus ad amplitudinem mysteriorum pro modulo suo dilatetur, non mysteria
ad angustias animi constringantur." (Let the
[1] "Everything turns to the advantage of the elect, even to the obscurities of
scripture, for they treat them with reverence because of its perspicuities;
everything turns to the disadvantage of the reprobate, even to the perspicuities
of scripture, for they blaspheme them because they cannot understand its
obscurities." For the title of Harless's essay, see end of previous note.
[2] Das Leben-Jesu kritisch bearbeitet van Dr. D. F. Strauss. Cepriift filr
Theologen und Nicht-Theologen, von Wilhelm Hoffmann. 1836. (Strauss's
Critical Study of the Life of Jesus examined for the Benefit of Theologians and
non-Theologians.)
99
mind, so far as possible, be expanded to the greatness of the mysteries, not the
mysteries contracted to the compass of the mind.)
Professor Ernst Osiander, [1] of the seminary at Maulbronn, appeals to Cicero:
"0 magna vis veritatis, quae contra hominum ingenia, callidi- tatem, sollertiam
facillime se per ipsam defendit." (0 mighty power of truth, which against all the
ingenious devices, the craft and subtlety, of men, easily defends itself by its own
strength!)
Franz Baader, of Munich, [2] ornaments his work with the reflection: "II faut que
les hommes soient bien loin de toi, o Verite! puisque tu supporte (sic!) leur
ignorance, leurs erreurs, et leurs crimes." (Men must indeed be far from thee, 0
Truth, since thou art able to bear with their ignorance, their errors, and their
crimes!)
Tholuck [3] girds himself with the Catholic maxim of Vincent of Lerins:
"Teneanmus quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est." (Let
us hold that which has been believed always, every- where, by all.)
The fear of Strauss had, indeed, a tendency to inspire Protestant theologians
with catholicising ideas. One of the most competent reviewers of his book, Dr.
Ullmann in the Studien und Kritiken, had expressed the wish that it had been
written in Latin to prevent its doing harm among the people. [4] An anonymous
dialogue of the period shows us the schoolmaster coming in distress to the
clergyman. He has allowed himself to be persuaded into reading the book by

89
his acquaintance the Major, and he is now anxious to get rid of the doubts
which it has
[1] Apologie des Lebens Jesu gegenuber dem neuesten Versuch, es in Mythem
aufzulosen. (Defence of the Life of Jesus against the latest attempt to resolve it
into myth.) By Job. Ernst Osiander, Professor at the Evangelical Seminary at
Maulbronn.
[2] Uber das Leben-Jesu van Strauss, von Franz Baader, 1836. Here may be
mentioned also the lectures which Krabbe (subsequently Professor at Rostock)
delivered against Strauss: Vorlesungen ilber das Leben-Jesu fur Theologen und
Nicht-Theologen (Lectures on the Life of Jesus for Theologians and non-
Theologians), Hamburg, 1839. They are more tolerable to non-theologians than
to theologians. The author at a later period distinguished himself by the fanatical
zeal with which he urged on the deposition of his colleague, Michael
Baumgarten, whose Geschichte Jesu, published in 1859, though fully accepting
the miracles, was weighed in the balance by Krabbe and found light-weight by
the Rostock standard.
[3] For the title, see head of chapter. Tholuck was born in 1799 at Breslau, and
became in 1826 Professor at Halle, where he worked until his death in 1877.
With the possible exception of Neander, he was the most distinguished
representative of the mediating theology. His piety was deep and his learning
was wide, but his judgment went astray in the effort to steer his freight of
pietism safely between the rocks of rationalism and the shoals of orthodoxy.
[4] Stud. u. Krit., 1836, p. 777. In his "Open letter to Dr. Ullmann," Strauss
examines this suggestion in a serious and dignified fashion, and shows that
nothing would be gained by such expedients.—Streitschriften, 3rd pt., p. 129 ff.
100
aroused in him. When his cure has been safely accomplished, the reverend
gentleman dismisses him with the following exhortation: "Now I hope that after
the experience which you have had you will for the future refrain from reading
books of this kind, which are not written for you, and of which there is no
necessity for you to take any notice; and for the refutation of which, should that
be needful, you have no equipment. You may be quite sure that anything useful
or profitable for you which such books may contain will reach you in due course
through the proper channel and in the right way, and, that being so, you are
under no necessity to jeopardise any part of your peace of mind."
Tholuck's work professedly aims only at presenting a "historical argument for
the credibility of the miracle stories of the Gospels." "Even if we admit," he says
in one place, "the scientific position that no act can have proceeded from Christ
which transcends the laws of nature, there is still room for the mediating view of
Christ's miracle- working activity. This leads us to think of mysterious powers of
nature as operating in the history of Christ—powers such as we have some
partial knowledge of, as, for example, those magnetic powers which have
survived down to our own time, like ghosts lingering on after the coming of day."
From the standpoint of this spurious rationalism he proceeds to take Strauss to

90
task for rejecting the miracles. "Had this latest critic been able to approach the
Gospel miracles without prejudice, in the Spirit of Augustine's declaration,
'dandum est deo, eum aliquid facere posse quod nos investigare non
possumus,' he would certainly—since he is a man who in addition to the
acumen of the scholar possesses sound common sense—have come to a
different conclusion in regard to these difficulties. As it is, however, he has
approached the Gospels with the conviction that miracles are impossible; and
on that assumption, it was certain before the argument began that the
Evangelists were either deceivers or deceived."
Neander, in his Life of Jesus, [1] handles the question with more delicacy
[1] Das Leben Jesu-Christi. Hamburg, 1837. Aug. Wilhelm Neander was born in
1789 at Gottingen, of Jewish parents, his real name being David Mendel. He
was baptized in 1806, studied theology, and in 1813 was appointed to a
professorship in Berlin, where he displayed a many-sided activity and exercised
a beneficent in- fluence. He died in 1850. The best-known of his writings is the
Geschichte der Pflanzung und Leitung der christlichen Kirche durch die Apostel
(History of the Propagation and Administration of the Christian Church by the
Apostles), Ham- burg, 1832-1833, of which a reprint appeared as late as 1890.
Neander was a man not only of deep piety, but also of great solidity of
character.
Strauss, in his Life of Jesus of 1864, passes the following judgment upon
Neander's work: "A book such as in these circumstances Neander's Life of
Jesus was bound to be calls forth our sympathy; the author himself
acknowledges in his preface that it bears upon it only too clearly the marks of
the time of crisis, division, pain, and distress in which it was produced."
Of the innumerable "positive" Lives of Jesus which appeared about the end of
the 'thirties we may mention that of Julius Hartmann (2 vols., 1837-1839).
Among the later Lives of Jesus of the mediating theology may be mentioned
that of Theodore Pressel of Tiibingen, which was much read at the time of its
appearance (1857, 592 pp.). It aims primarily al edification. We may also
mention the Leben des Herrn Jem Christi by Wil. Jak. Lichtenstein (Eriangen,
1856), which reflects the ideas of von Hofmann.
101
of touch, rather in the style of Schleiermacher. "Christ's miracles," he explains,
"are to be understood as an influencing of nature, human or material." He does
not, however, give so much prominence as Schleiermacher had done to the
difficulty involved in the supposition of an influence exercised upon material
nature. He repeats Schleiermacher's assertions, but without the imposing
dialectic which in Schleiermacher's hands almost commands assent. In regard
to the miracle at Cana he remarks: "We cannot indeed form any clear
conception of an effect brought about by the introduction of a higher creative
principle into the natural order, since we have no experience on which to base
such a conception, but we are by no means compelled to take this extreme view
as to what happned; we may quite well suppose that Christ by an immediate

91
influence upon the water communicated to it a higher potency which enabled it
to produce the effects of strong wine." In the case of all the miracles he makes a
point of seeking not only the explanation, but the higher symbolical significance.
The miracle of the fig-tree—which is sui generis—has only this symbolical
significance, seeing that it is not beneficent and creative but destructive. "It nan
only be thought of as a vivid illustration of a prediction of the Divine judgment,
after the manner of the symbolic actions of the Old Testament prophets."
With reference to the ascension and the resurrection he writes: "Even though
we can form no clear idea of the exact way in which the exaltation of Christ from
the earth took place—and indeed there is much that is obscure in regard to the
earthly life of Christ after His resurrection—yet, in its place in the organic unity
of the Christian faith, it is as certain as the resurrection, which apart from it
cannot be recognised in its true significance."
That extract is typical of Neander's Life of Jesus, which in its time was hailed as
a great achievement, calculated to provide a learned refutation of Strauss's
criticism, and of which a seventh edition appeared as late as 1872. The real
piety of heart with which it is imbued cannot conceal the fact that it is a
patchwork of unsatisfactory compromises. It is the child of despair, and has
perplexity for godfather. One cannot read it without pain.
Neander, however, may fairly claim to be judged, not by this work, but by his
personal attitude in the Strauss controversy. And here he ap-
102
pears as a magnanimous and dignified representative of theological science.
Immediately after the appearance of Strauss's book, which, it was at once seen,
would cause much offence, the Prussian Government asked Neander to report
upon it, with a view to prohibiting the circulation, should there appear to be
grounds for doing so. He presented his report on the 15th of November 1835,
and, an inaccurate account of it having appeared in the Allgemeine Zeitung,
subsequently published it.[1] In it he censures the work as being written from a
too purely rationalistic point of view, but strongly urges the Government not to
suppress it by an edict. He describes it as "a book which, it must be admitted,
constitutes a danger to the sacred interests of the Church, but which follows the
method of endeavouring to produce a reasoned conviction by means of
argument. Hence any other method of dealing with it than by meeting argument
with argument will appear in the unfavourable light of an arbitrary interference
with the freedom of science."
In holding that scientific theology will be able by its own strength to overthrow
whatever in Strauss's Life of Jesus deserves to be overthrown, Neander is at
one with the anonymous writer of "Aphorisms in Defence of Dr. Strauss and his
Work," [2] who consoles himself with Goethe's saying—
Das Tiichtige, auch wenn es falsch ist,
Wirkt Tag fur Tag, von Haus zu Haus;
Das Tiichtige, wenn's wahrhaftig ist,
Wirkt liber alle Zeiten hinaus. [3]

92
(Strive hard, and though your aim be wrong,
Your work shall live its little day;
Strive hard, and for the truth be strong,
Your work shall live and grow for aye.)
"Dr. Strauss," says this anonymous writer, "does not represent the author's
views, and he on his pait cannot undertake to defend Dr. Strauss's conclusions.
But it is clear to him that Dr. Strauss's work con- sidered as a scientific
production is more scientific than the works opposed to it from the side of
religion are religious. Otherwise why are they so passionate, so apprehensive,
so unjust?"
This confidence in pure critical science was not shared by Herr Privat-Docent
Daniel Schenkel of Basle, afterwards Professor at Heidelberg. In a dreary work
dedicated to his Gottingen teacher Liicke, on
[1] For title see head of chapter.
[2] Aphorismen zur Apologie des Dr. Strauss und seines Werkes. Grimma,
1838.
[3] From the Xame Xenien, p. 259 of Goethe's Works, ed. Hempel.
103
"Historical Science and the Church," [1] he looks for future salvation towards
that middle region where faith and science interpenetrate, and hails the new
supernaturalism which approximates to a scientific treatment of these subjects
"as a hopeful phenomenon." He rejoices in the violent opposition at Zurich
which led to the cancelling of Strauss's appointment, regarding it as likely to
exercise an elevating influence. A similarly lofty position is taken up by the
anonymous author of "Dr. Strauss and the Zurich Church," [2] to which De
Wette contributed a preface. Though professing great esteem for Strauss, and
admitting that from the purely historical point of view he is in the right, the author
feels bound to congratulate the Zurichers on having refused to admit him to the
office of teacher.
The pure rationalists found it much more difficult than did the mediating
theologians, whether of the older or younger school, to adjust their attitude to
the new solution of the miracle question. Strauss himself had made it difficult for
them by remorselessly exposing the absurd and ridiculous aspects of their
method, and by refusing to recognise them as allies in the battle for truth, as
they really were. Paulus would have been justified in bearing him a grudge. But
the inner greatness of that man of hard exterior comes out in the fact that he put
his personal feelings in the background, and when Strauss became the central
figure in the battle for the purity and freedom of historical science he ignored his
attacks on rationalism and came to his defence. In a very remarkable letter to
the Free Canton of Zurich, on "Freedom in Theological Teaching and in the
Choice of Teachers for Colleges," [3] he urges the council and the people to
appoint Strauss because of the principle at stake, and in order to avoid giving
any encouragement to the retrograde movement in historical science. It is as
though he felt that the end of rationalism had come, but that, in the person of

93
the enemy who had defeated it, the pure love of truth, which was the only thing
that really mattered, would triumph over all the forces of reaction.
It would not, however, be true to say that Strauss had beaten rationalism from
the field. In Ammon's famous Life of Jesus, [4] in which the
[l] Die Wissenschaft und die Kirche. Zur Verstandigung fiber die Straussische
Angelegenheit. (A contribution to the adjustment of opinion regarding the
Strauss affair.) By Daniel Schenke], Licentiate in Theology and Privat-Docent of
the University of Basle, with a dedicatory letter to Herr Dr. Liicke,
Konsistorialrat. Basle, 1839.
[2] Dr. Strauss und die Zilricher Kirche. Eine Stimme aus Norddeutschland. Mit
einer Vorrede von Dr. W. M. L. de Wette. (A voice from North Germany. With an
introduction by Dr. W. M. L. de Wette.) Basle, 1839.
[3] Uber theologische Lehrfreiheit und Lehrerwahl fur Hochschulen. Zurich,
1839.
[4] For full title see head of chapter. Reference may also be made to the same
author's Forthbildung des Christentums zur Weltreligion. (Development of Chris-
tianity into a World-religion.) Leipzig, 1833-1835. 4 vols. Ammon was born in
1766 at Bayreuth; became Professor of theology at Eriangen in 1790; was
Professor in Giittingen from 1794 to 1804, and, after being back in Eriangen in
the meantime, became in 1813 Senior Court Chaplain and "Oberkonsistorialrat"
at Dresden, where he died in 1850. He was the most distinguished
representative of historico-critical rationalism.
104
author takes up a very respectful attitude towards Strauss, there is a vigorous
survival of a peculiar kind of rationalism inspired by Kant. For Ammon, a
miraculous event can only exist when its natural causes have been discovered.
"The sacred history is subject to the same laws as all other narratives of
antiquity." Liicke, in dealing with the raising of Lazarus, had thrown out the
question whether Biblical miracles could be thought of historically at all, and in
so doing supposed that he was putting their absolute character on a firmer
basis. "We," says Ammon, "give the opposite answer from that which is
expected; only historically conceivable miracles can be admitted." He cannot
away wilh the constant confusion of faith and knowledge found in so many
writers "who swim in an ocean of ideas in which the real and the illusory are as
inseparable as salt and sea-water in the actual ocean." In every natural
process, he explains, we have to suppose, according to Kant, an
interpenetration of natural and supernatural. For that very reason the purely
supernatural does not exist for our experience. "It is no doubt certain," so he
lays it down on the lines of Kant's Kritik der reinen Vernunft, "that every act of
causation which goes forth from God must be immediate, universal, and eternal,
because it is thought as an effect of His will, which is exalted above space and
time and interpenetrates both of them, but without abolishing them, leaving
them undisturbed in their continuity and succession. For us men, therefore, all
action of God is mediate, because we are completely surrounded by time and

94
space, as the fish is by the sea or the bird by the air, and apart from these
relations we should be incapable of apperception, and therefore of any real
experience. As free beings we can, indeed, think of miracle as immediately
Divine, but we cannot perceive it as such, because that would be impossible
without seeing God, which for wise reasons is forbidden to us." "In accordance
with these principles, we shall hold it to be our duty in what follows to call
attention to the natural side even of the miracles of Jesus, since apart from this
no fact can become an object of belief."
It is only in this intelligible sense that the cures of Jesus are to be thought of as
"miracles." The magnetic force, with which the mediating theology makes play,
is to be rejected. "The cure of psychical diseases by the power of the word and
of faith is the only kind of cure in which the student of natural science can find
any basis for a conjecture re- garding the way in which the cures of Jesus were
effected."
In the case of the other miracles Ammon assumes a kind of Oc-
105
casionalism, in the sense that it may have pleased the Divine Providence "to
fulfil in fact the confidently spoken promises of Jesus, and in that way to confirm
His personal authority, which was necessary to the establishment of His
doctrine of the Divine salvation."
In most cases, however, he is content to repeat the rationalistic explanation,
and portrays a Jesus who makes use of medicines, allows the demoniac
himself to rush upon the herd of swine, helps a leper, whom he sees to be
suffering only from one of the milder forms of the disease, to secure the public
recognition of his being legally clean, and who exerts himself to prevent by word
and act the premature burial of persons in a state of trance. The story of the
feeding of the multitude is based on some occasion when there was "a bountiful
display of hospitality, a generous sharing of provisions, inspired by Jesus'
prayer of thanksgiving and the example which He set when the disciples were
inclined selfishly to hold back their own supply." The story of the miracle at
Cana rests on a mere misunderstanding, those who report it not having known
that the wine which Jesus caused to be secretly brought forth was the wedding-
gift which he was presenting in the name of the family. As a disciple of Kant,
however, Ammon feels obliged to refute the imputation that Jesus could have
anything to promote excess, and calculates that the present of wine which
Jesus had intended to give the bridal pair may be estimated as equivalent to not
more than eighteen bottles.1 He explains the walking on the sea by claiming for
Jesus an acquaintance with "the art of treading water."
Only in regard to the explanation of the resurrection does Ammon break away
from rationalism. He decides that the reality of the death of Jesus is historically
proved. But he does not venture to suppose a real reawaking to life, and
remains at the standpoint of Herder.
But the way in which, in spite of the deeper view of the conception of miracle
which he owes to Kant, he constantly falls back upon the most pedestrian

95
naturalistic explanations, and his failure to rid himself of the prejudice that an
actual, even if not a miraculous fact must underlie all the recorded miracles, is
in itself sufficient to prove that we have
[1] He is at one with Strauss in rejecting the explanation of this miracle on the
analogy of an expedited natural process, to which Hase had pointed, and which
was first suggested by Augustine in Tract viii. in loann.: "That Christ changed
water into wine is nothing wonderful to those who consider the works of God.
What was there done in the water-pots. God does yearly in the vine."
[Augustine's words are: Miraculum quidem Domini nostri Jesu Christi, quo de
aqua vinum fecit, non est mirum eis qui noverunt quia Deus fecit (i.e. that He
who did it was God.) Ipse enim fecit vinum illo die .... in sex hydriis, qui omni
anno tacit hoc in vitibus.] Nevertheless the poorest naturalistic explanation is at
least better than the resigna- tion of Liicke, who is content to wait "until it please
God through the further prog- ress of Christian thought and life to bring about
the solution of this riddle in its natural and historical aspects." Liicke, Johannes-
Kommentar, p. 474 ff.
106
here to do with a mere revival of rationalism: that is, with an untenable theory
which Strauss's refutation of Paulus had already relegated to the past.
It was an easier task for pure supernaturalism than for pure rationalism to come
to terms with Strauss. For the former Strauss was only the enemy of the
mediating theology—there was nothing to fear from him and much to gain.
Accordingly Hengstenberg's Evangelische Kirchenzeitung hailed Strauss's book
as "one of the most gratifying phenomena in the domain of recent theological
literature," and praises the author for having carried out with logical consistency
the application of the mythical theory which had formerly been restricted to the
Old Testament and certain parts only of the Gospel tradition. "All that Strauss
has done is to bring the spirit of the age to a clear consciousness of itself and of
the necessary consequences which flow from its essential character. He has
taught it how to get rid of foreign elements which were still present in it, and
which marked an imperfect stage of its development."
He has been the most influential factor in the necessary process of separation.
There is no one with whom Hengstenberg feels himself more in agreement than
with the Tiibingen scholar. Had he not shown with the greatest precision how
the results of the Hegelian philosophy, one may say, of philosophy in general,
reacted upon Christian faith? "The relation of speculation to faith has now come
clearly to light."
"Two nations," writes Hengstenberg in 1836, "are struggling in the womb of our
time, and two only. They will be ever more definitely opposed to one another.
Unbelief will more and more cast off the elements of faith to which it still clings,
and faith will cast off its elements of un- belief. That will be an inestimable
advantage. Had the Time-spirit continued to make concessions, concessions
would constantly have been made to it in return." Therefore the man who
"calmly and deliberately laid hands upon the Lord's anointed, undeterred by the

96
vision of the millions who have bowed the knee, and still bow the knee, before
His appearing," has in his own way done a service.
Strauss on his part escaped with relief from the musty atmosphere of the
study—beloved by theology in carpet-slippers—to the bracing air of
Hengstenberg's Kirchenzeitung. In his "Replies" he devotes to it some fifty-four
pages. "I must admit," he says, "that it is a satisfaction to me to have to do with
the Evangelische Kirchenzeitung. In dealing with it one knows where one is and
what one has to expect. If Herr Hengstenberg condemns, he knows why he
condemns, and even one against whom he launches his anathema must admit
that the attitude becomes him. Any one who, like the editor of the Evangelische
Kirchenzeitung, has taken upon him the yoke of confessional doctrine with all its
implica
107
tions, has paid a price which entitles him to the privilege of condemning those
who differ from his opinions." [l]
Hengstenberg's only complaint against Strauss is that he does not go far
enough. He would have liked to force upon him the role of the Wolfenbiittel
Fragmentist, and considers that if Strauss did not, like the latter, go so far as to
suppose the apostles guilty of deliberate deceit, that is not so much from any
regard for the historical kernel of Christianity as in order to mask his attack.
Even in Catholic theology Strauss's work caused a great sensation. Catholic
theology in general did not at that time take up an attitude of absolute isolation
from Protestant scholarship; it had adopted from the latter numerous
rationalistic ideas, and had been especially influenced by Schleiermacher.
Thus, Catholic scholars were almost prepared to regard Strauss as a common
enemy, against whom it was possible to make common cause with Protestants.
In 1837 Joseph Mack, one of the Professors of the Catholic faculty at Tiibingen,
published his "Report on Herr Dr. Strauss's Historical Study of the Life of
Jesus." [2] In 1839 appeared "Dr. Strauss's Life of Jesus, considered from the
Catholic point of view," [3] by Dr. Maurus Hagel, Professor of Theology at the
Lyceum at Dillingen; in 1840 that lover of hypotheses and doughty fighter,
Johann Leonhard Hug,[4] presented his report upon the work. [5]
Even French Catholicism gave some attention to Strauss's work. This marks an
epoch—the introduction of the knowledge of German critical theology into the
intellectual world of the Latin nations. In the Revue des deux mondes for
December 1838, Edgar Quinet gave a clear and accurate account of the
influence of the Hegelian philosophy upon the religious ideas of cultured
Germany. [6] In an eloquent peroration he lays
[1] Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg was born in 1802 at Frondenberg in the
"county" (Grafschaft) of Mark, became Professor of Theology in Berlin in 1826,
and died there in 1869. He founded the Evangelische Kirchenseitung in 1827.
[2] Bericht iiber des Herrn Dr. Strauss' historische Bearbeitung des Lebens
Jesu.
[3] Dr. Strauss' Leben-Jesu aus dem Standpunkt des Catholicismus betrachtvt.

97
[4] Johann Leonhard Hug was born in 1765 at Constance, and had been since
1791 Professor of New Testament Theology at Freiburg, where he died in 1846.
He had a wide knowledge of his own department of theology, and his
Introduction to the New Testament Writings won him some reputation among
Protestant theologians also.
[5] Among the Catholic "Leben-Jesu," of which the authors found their incentive
in the desire to oppose Strauss, the first place belongs to that of Kuhn of
Tubingen. Unfortunately only the first volume appeared (1838, 488 pp.). Here
there is a serious and scholarly attempt to grapple with the problems raised by
Strauss. Of less importance is the work of the same title in seven volumes, by
the Munich Priest and Professor of History, Nepomuk Sepp (1843-1846; 2nd
ed. 1853-1862).
[6] Uber das Leben-Jesu, von Doctor Strauss. By Edgar Quinet. Translated
from the French by Georg Kleine. Published by J. Erdmann and C. C. Muller,
1839. In 1840 Strauss's book was translated into French by M, Littre. It failed,
however, to exercise any influence upon French theology or literature. Strauss
is one of those German thinkers who always remain foreign and unintelligible to
the French mind. Could Reman have written his Life of Jesus as he did if he
had had even a partial understanding of Strauss?
108
bare the danger which was menacing the Church from the nation of Strauss and
Hegel. His countrymen need not think that it could be charmed away by some
ingenious formula; a mighty effort of the Catholic spirit was necessary, if it was
to be successfully opposed. "A new barbarian invasion was rolling up against
sacred Rome. The barbarians were streaming from every quarter of the horizon,
bringing their strange gods with them and preparing to beleaguer the holy city.
As, of yore, Leo went forth to meet Attila, so now let the Papacy put on its
purple and come forth, while yet there is time, to wave back with an
authoritative gesture the devastating hordes into that moral wilderness which is
their native home."
Quinet might have done better still if he advised the Pope to issue, as a
counterblast to the unbelieving critical work of Strauss, the Life of Jesus which
had been revealed to the faith of the blessed Anna Katharina Emmerich. [1]
How thoroughly this refuted Strauss can be seen from the fragment issued in
1834, "The Bitter Sufferings of Our Lord Jesus Christ," where even the age of
Jesus on the day of His death is exactly given. On that Maundy Thursday the
13th Nisan, it was exactly thirty-three years and eighteen weeks less one day.
The "pilgrim" Clement Brentano would certainly have consented, had he been
asked, to allow his note-books to be used in the sacred cause, and to have
given to the world the Life of Jesus as it was revealed to him by this visionary
[1] Anna Katharina Emmerich was born in 1774 at Flamske near Coesfeld. Her
parents were peasants. In 1803 she took up her abode with the Augustinian
nuns of the convent of Agnetenberg at Diilmen. After the dissolution of the
convent, she lived in a single room in Diilmen itself. The "stigmata" showed

98
themselves first in 1812. She died on the 9th of February 1824. Brentano had
been in her neighbourhood since 1819. Das bittere Leiden unseres Herrn Jesu
Christi (The Bitter Sufferings of Our Lord Jesus Christ) was issued by Brentano
himself in 1834. The Life of Jesus was published on the basis of notes left by
him—he died in 1842—in three volumes, 1858-1860, at Regensburg, under the
sanction of the Bishop of Limberg.
First volume.—From the death of St. Joseph to the end of the first year after the
Baptism of Jesus in Jordan. Communicated between May 1, 1821, and October
1, 1822.
Second volume.—From the beginning of the second year after the Baptism in
Jordan to the close of the second Passover in Jerusalem. Communicated
between October 1, 1822, and April 30, 1823.
Third volume.—From the close of the second Passover in Jerusalem to the Mis-
sion of the Holy Spirit. Communicated between October 21, 1823, and January
8, 1824, and from July 29, 1820, to May 1821.
Both works have been frequently reissued, the "Bitter Sufferings" as late as
1894.
109
from the end of July 1820 day by day for three years, instead of allowing this
treasure to remain hidden for moie than twenty years longer. He himself
ascribed to these visions the most strictly historical character, and insisted on
considering them not merely as reflections on what had happened, but as the
immediate reflex of the facts themselves, so that the picture of the life of Jesus
is given in them as in a mirror. Hug, it may be mentioned, in his lectures, called
attention to the exact agreement of the topography of the passion story in
Katharina's vision with the description of the locality in Josephus. If he had
known her complete Life of Jesus he would doubtless have expressed his
admiration for the way in which she harmonises John and the Synoptists; and
with justice, for the harmony is really ingenious and skilfully planned.
Apart from these merits, too, this Life of Jesus, written, it should be observed,
earlier than Strauss's, contains a wealth of interesting information. John at first
baptized at Aenon, but later was directed to remove to Jericho. The baptisms
took place in "baptismal springs."
Peter owned three boats, of which one was fitted up especially for the use of
Jesus, and carried a complement of ten persons. Forward and aft there were
covered-in spaces where all kinds of gear could be kept, and where also they
could wash their feet; along the sides of the boat were hung receptacles for the
fish.
When Judas Iscariot became a disciple of Jesus he was twenty-five years old.
He had black hair and a red beard, but could not be called really ugly. He had
had a stormy past. His mother had been a dancing-woman, and Judas had
been born out of wedlock, his father being a military tribune in Damascus. As an
infant he had been exposed, but had been saved, and later had been taken
charge of by his uncle, a tanner at Iscariot. At the time when he joined the

99
company of Jesus' disciples he had squandered all his possessions. The
disciples at first liked him well enough because of his readiness to make himself
useful; he even cleaned the shoes.
The fish with the stater in its mouth was so large that it made a full meal for the
whole company.
A work to which Jesus devoted special attention—though this is not mentioned
in the Gospels—was the reconciliation of unhappy married couples. Another
matter which is not mentioned in the Gospels is the voyage of Jesus to Cyprus,
upon which He entered after a farewell meal with His disciples at the house of
the Canaanitish woman. This voyage took place during the war between Herod
and Aretas while the disciples were making their missionary journey in
Palestine. As they could not give an eye-witness report of it they were silent; nor
did they make any mention of the feast to which the Proconsul at Salamis
invited the Saviour. In regard to another journey, also, which Jesus made to the
land of the wise men of the East, the "pilgrim's" oracle has the advantage of
knowing more than the Evangelists.
In spite of these additional traits a certain monotony is caused by the fact that
the visionary, in order to fill in the tale of days in the three years, makes the
persons known to us from the Gospel history meet with the Saviour on several
occasions previous to the meeting narrated in the Gospels. Here the artificial
character of the composition comes out too clearly, though in general a lively
imagination tends to conceal this. And yet these naive embellishments and
inventions have something rather attractive about them; one cannot handle the
book without a certain reverence when one thinks amid what pains these
revelations were received. If Brentano had published his notes at the time of the
excitement produced by Strauss's Life of Jesus, the work would have had a
tremendous success. As it was, when the first two volumes appeared at the end
of the 'fifties, there were sold in one year three thousand and several hundred
copies, without reckoning the French edition which appeared
contemporaneously.
In the end, however, all the efforts of the mediating theology, of rationalism and
supernaturalism, could do nothing to shake Strauss's conclusion that it was all
over with supernaturalism as a factor to be reckoned with in the historical study
of the Life of Jesus, and that scientific theology, instead of turning back from
rationalism to supernaturalism, must move straight onward between the two and
seek out a new path for itself. The Hegelian method had proved itself to be the
logic of reality. With Strauss begins the period of the non-miraculous view of the
Life of Jesus; all other views exhausted themselves in the struggle against him,
and subsequently abandoned position after position without waiting to be
attacked. The separation which Hengstenberg had hailed with such rejoicing
was really accomplished; but in the form that supernaturalism practically
separated itself from the serious study of history. It is not possible to date the
stages of this process. After the first outburst of excitement everything seems to
go on as quietly as before; the only difference is that the question of miracle

100
constantly falls more and more into the background. In the modern period of the
study of the Life of Jesus, which begins about the middle of the 'sixties, it has
lost all importance.
That does not mean that the problem of miracle is solved. From the historical
point of view it is really impossible to solve it, since we are not able to
reconstruct the process by which a series of miracle stories arose, or a series of
historical occurrences were transformed into miracle stories, and these
narratives must simply be left with a question mark standing ageinst them. What
has been gained is only that the exclusion
111
of miracle from our view of history has been universally recognised as a
principle of criticism, so that miracle no longer concerns the historian either
positively or negatively. Scientific theologians of the present day who desire to
show their "sensibility," ask no more than that two or three little miracles may be
left to them—in the stories of the childhood, perhaps, or in the narratives of the
resurrection. And these miracles are, moreover, so far scientific that they have
at least no relation to those in the text, but are merely spiritless, miserable little
toy-dogs of criticism, flea-bitten by rationalism, too insignificant to do historical
science any harm, especially as their owners honestly pay the tax upon them by
the way in which they speak, write, and are silent about Strauss.
But even that is better than the delusive fashion in which some writers of the
present day succeed in discussing the narratives of the resurrection "as pure
historians" without betraying by a single word whether they themselves believe
it to be possible or not. But the reason modern theology can allow itself these
liberties is that the foundation laid by Strauss is unshakable.
Compared with the problem of miracle, the question regarding the mythical
explanation of the history takes a very subordinate place in the controversy.
Few understood what Strauss's real meaning was; the general impression was
that he entirely dissolved the life of Jesus into myth.
There appeared. Indeed, three satires ridiculing his method. One showed how,
for the historical science of the future, the life of Luther would also become a
mere myth, [1] the second treated the life of Napoleon in the same way; [2] in
the third, Strauss himself becomes a myth. [3]
M. Eugene Mussard, "candidat au saint ministere," made it his business to set
at rest the minds of the premier faculty at Geneva by his thesis, Du systeme
mythique applique a I'histoire de la vie de Jesus, 1838, which bears the
ingenious motto (not ... in cunningly
devised myths, 2 Peter i. 16). He certainly did not exaggerate the difficulties of
his task, but complacently followed up an "Exposition of the Mythical Theory,"
with a "Refutation of the Mythical Theory as applied to the Life of Jesus."
The only writer who really faced the problem in the form in which it
[1] Ausziige aus der Schrift "Das Leben. Luthers kritisch bearbeitet." (Extracts
from a work entitled "A Critical Study of the Life of Luther.") By Dr. Casuar

101
("Cas- sowary"; Strauss = Ostrich). Mexico, 2836. Edited by Julius Ferdinand
Wurm.
[2] Das Leben Napoleons kritisch gepriift. (A. Critical Examination of the Life of
Napoleon.) From the English, with some pertinent applications to Strauss's Life
of Jesus, 1836. [The English original referred to seems to have been Whateley's
Historic Doubts relative to Napoleon Bonaparte, published in 1819, and
primarily directed against Hume's Essay on Miracles.—TRANSLATOR.]
3 La Vie de Strauss. Scrite en I'an 2839. Paris, 1839.
112
had been raised by Strauss was Wilke in his work "Tradition and Myth." [1] He
recognises that Strauss had given an exceedingly valuable impulse towards the
overcoming of rationalism and supernaturalism and to the rejection of the
abortive mediating theology. "A keener criticism will only establish the truth of
the Gospel, putting what is tenable on a firmer basis, sifting out what is
untenable, and showing up in all its nakedness the counterfeit theology of the
new evangelicalism with its utter lack of understanding and sincerity." Again,
"the approval which Strauss has met with, and the excitement which he has
aroused, sufficiently show what an advantage rationalistic speculation
possesses over the theological second-childishness of the new evangelicals."
The time has come for a rational mysticism, which shall preserve undiminished
the honesty of the old rationalism, making no concessions to supernaturalism,
but, on the other hand, overcoming the "truculent rationalism of the Kantian
criticism" by means of a religious conception in which there is more warmth and
more pious feeling.
This rational mysticism makes it a reproach against the "mythical idealism" of
Strauss that in it philosophy does violence to history, and the historic Christ only
retains His significance as a mere ideal. A new examination of the sources is
necessary to decide upon the extent of the mythical element.
The Gospel of Matthew cannot, Wilke agrees, have been the work of an
eyewitness. "The principal argument against its authenticity is the absence of
the characteristic marks of an eyewitness, which must neces- sarily have been
present in a gospel actually composed by a disciple of the Lord, and which are
not present here. The narrative is lacking in
[1] Ch. G. Wilke, Tradition und Mythe. A contribution to the historical criticism of
the Gospels in general, and in particular to the appreciation of the treatment of
myth and idealism in Strauss's "Life of Jesus." Leipzig, 1837.
Christian Gottlob Wilke was born in 1786 at Werm, near Zeitz, studied theology
and became pastor of Hermannsdorf in the Erzgebirge. He resigned this office
in 1837 in order to devote himself to his studies, perhaps also because he had
become conscious of an inner unrest. In 1845 he prepared the way for his
conversion to Catholicism by publishing a work entitled "Can a Protestant go
over to the Roman Church with a good conscience?" He took the decisive step
in August 1846. Later he removed to Wurzburg. Subsequently he recast his
famous Clavis Nova Testamenti Philogica—which had appeared in 1840-

102
1841—in the form of a lexicon for Catholic students of theology. His
Hermeneutik des Neuen Testaments, published in 1843-1844, appeared in
1853 as Biblische Hermeneutik nach katholischen Grundsatzen (The Science of
Biblical Interpretation according to Catholic principles). He was engaged in
recasting his Clavis when he died in 1854.
Of later works dealing with the question of myth, we may refer to Emanuel
Marius, Die Personlichkeit Jesu mit besonderer Rilcksicht auf die Mythologien
und Mysterien der alten Volker (The Personality of Jesus, with special reference
to the Mythologies and Mysteries of Ancient Nations), Leipzig, 1879, 395 pp.;
and Otto Frick, Mythus und Evangelism (Myth and Gospel), Heilbronn, 1879, 44
pp.
113
precision, fragmentary and legendary, tradition everywhere manifest in its very
form." There are discrepancies in the legends of the first and second chapters,
as well as elsewhere, e.g. the stories of the baptism, the temptation, and the
transfiguration. In other cases, where there is a basis of historic fact, there is an
admixture of legendary material, as in the narratives of the death and
resurrection of Jesus.
In the Gospel of Mark, Wilke recognises the pictorial vividness of many of the
descriptions, and conjectures that in some way or other it goes back to the
Petrine tradition. The author of the Fourth Gospel is not an eyewitness; the
(according to) only indicates the origin of the tradition; the author
received it, either directly or indirectly, from the Apostle, but he gave to it the
gnosticising dialectical form of the Alexandrian theology.
As against the Diegesentheorie [1] Wilke defends the independence and
originality of the individual Gospels. "No one of the Evangelists knew the writing
of any of the others, each produced an independent work drawn from a
separate source."
In the remarks on points of detail in this work of Wilke's there is evidence of a
remarkable grasp of the critical data; we already get a hint of the
"mathematician" of the Synoptic problem, who, two years later, was to work out
convincingly the literary argument for the priority of Mark. But the historian is
quite subordinated to the literary critic, and, when all is said, Wilke takes up no
clearly defined position in regard to Strauss's main problem, as is evident from
his seeking to retain, on more or less plausible grounds, a whole series of
miracles, among them the miracle of Cana and the resurrection.
For most thinkers of that period, however, the question "myth or history" yielded
in interest to the philosophical question of the relation of the historical Jesus to
the ideal Christ. That was the second problem raised by Strauss. Some thought
to refute him by showing that his exposition of the relation of the Jesus of
history to the ideal Christ was not justified even from the point of view of the
Hegelian philosophy, arguing that the edifice which he had raised was not in
harmony with the ground-plan of the Hegelian speculative system. He therefore
felt it necessary, in his reply to the review in the Jahrbucher fur

103
wissenschaftliche Kritik, to expound "the general relationship of the Hegelian
philosophy to theological criticism," [2] and to express in more precise
[1] See p. 89 above.
[2] Streitschriften. Drittes Heft, pp. 55-126: Die Jahrbilcher fiir wissenschaftliche
Kritik: i. Allgemeines Verhaltnis der Hegel'schen Philosophic zur theologischen
Kritik: ii. Hegels Ansicht fiber den historischen. W ert der evangelischen
Geschichte (Hegel's View of the Historical Value of the Gospel History) ; iii.
Verschiedene Richtungen innerhalb der Hegel'schen Schule in Betreff der
Christologie (Various Tendencies within the Hegelian School in regard to
Christology). 1837.
114
form the thoughts upon speculative and historical Christology which he had
suggested at the close of the second volume of his "Life of Jesus."
He admits that Hegel's philosophy is ambiguous in this matter, since it is not
clear "whether the evangelical fact as such, not indeed in its isolation, but
together with the whole series of manifestations of the idea (of God-manhood)
in the history of the world, is the truth; or whether the embodiment of the idea in
that single fact is only a formula of which consciousness makes use in forming
its concept." The Hegelian "right," he says, represented by Marheineke and
Goschel, emphasises the positive side of the master's religious philosophy,
implying that in Jesus the idea of God-manhood was perfectly fulfilled and in a
certain sense intelligibly realised. "If these men," Strauss explains, "appeal to
Hegel and declare that he would not have recognised my book as an
expression of his meaning, they say nothing which is not in accordance with my
own convictions. Hegel was personally no friend co historical criticism. It
annoyed him, as it annoyed Goethe, to see the historic figures of antiquity, on
which their thoughts were accustomed lovingly to dwell, assailed by critical
doubts. Even if it was in some cases wreaths of mist which they took for
pinnacles of rock, they did not want to have this forced upon their attention, nor
to be disturbed in the illusion from which they were conscious of receiving an
elevating influence."
But though prepared to admit that he had added to the edifice of Hegel's
religious philosophy an annexe of historical criticism, of which the master would
hardly have approved, Strauss is convinced that he is the only logical
representative of Hegel's essential view. "The ques- tion which can be decided
from the standpoint of the philosophy of religion is not whether what is narrated
in the Gospels actually happened or not, but whether in view of the truth of
certain conceptions it must necessarily have happened. And in regard to this,
what I assert is that from the general system of the Hegelian philosophy it by no
means necessarily follows that such an event must have happened, but that
from the standpoint of the system the truth of that history from which actually
the conception arose is reduced to a matter of indifference; it may have
happened, but it may just as well not have happened, and the task of deciding
on this point may be calmly handed over to historical criticism."

104
Strauss reminds us that, even according to Hegel, the belief in Jesus as God-
made-man is not immediately given with His appearing in the world of sense,
but only arose after His death and the removal of His sensible presence. The
master himself had acknowledged the existence of mythical elements in the Life
of Jesus; in regard to miracle he had expressed the opinion that the true miracle
was "Spirit." The con-
115
ception of the resurrection and ascension as outward facts of sense was not
recognised by him as true.
Hegel's authority may, no doubt, fairly be appealed to by those who believe, not
only in an incarnation of God in a general sense, "but also that this
manifestation of God in flesh has taken place in this man (Jesus) at this definite
time and place." . . . "In making the asser- tion," concludes Strauss, "that the
truth of the Gospel narrative cannot be proved, whether in whole or in part, from
philosophical considerations, but that the task of inquiring into its truth must be
left to historical criticism, I should like to associate myself with the 'left wing' of
the Hegelian school, were it not that the Hegelians prefer to exclude me
altogether from their borders, and to throw me into the arms of other systems of
thought—only, it must be admitted, to have me tossed back to them like a ball."
In regard to the third problem which Strauss had offered for discussion, the
relation of the Synoptists to John, there was practically no response. The only
one of his critics who understood what was at stake was Hengstenberg. He
alone perceived the significance of the fact that critical theology, having
admitted mythical elements first in the Old Testament, and then in the beginning
and end of the Gospel history, and having, in consequence of the latter
admission, felt obliged to give up the first three Gospels, retaining only the
fourth, was now being besieged by Strauss in its last stronghold. "They
withdrew," says the Evangelische Kirchenzeitung, "into the Gospel of John as
into a fortress, and boasted that they were safe there, though they could not
suppress a secret consciousness that they only held it at the enemy's pleasure;
now the enemy has appeared before it; he is using the same weapons with
which he was formerly victorious; the Gospel of John is in as desperate case as
formerly the Synoptists. The time has come to make a hold resolve, a decisive
choice; either they must give up everything, or else they must successively re-
occupy the more advanced positions which at an earlier date they had
successively abandoned." It would be impossible to give a more accurate
picture of the desperate position into which Hase and Schleiermacher had
brought the mediating theology by their ingenious expedient of giving up the
Synoptics in favour of the Gospel of John. Before any danger threatened, they
had abandoned the outworks and withdrawn into the citadel, oblivious of the
fact that they thereby exposed themselves to the danger of having their own
guns turned upon them from the positions they had abandoned, and being
obliged to surrender without striking a blow the position of which they had
boasted as impregnable. It is impossible to emphasise strongly enough the fact

105
that it was not Strauss, but Hase and Schleiermacher, who had brought the
mediating theology into this hopeless position, in
116
which the fall of the Fourth Gospel carried with it the surrender of the historical
tradition as a whole.
But there is no position so desperate that theology cannot find a way out of it.
The mediating theologians simply ignored the problem which Strauss had
raised. As they had been accustomed to do before, so they continued to do
after, taking the Gospel of John as the authentic framework, and fitting into it the
sections of the Synoptic narrative wherever place could best be found for them.
The difference between the Johan- nine and Synoptic representations of Jesus'
method of teaching, says Neander, is only apparently irreconcilable, and he
calls out in support of this assertion all the reserves of old worn-out expedients
and artifices, among others the argument that the Pauline Christology is only
ex- plicable as a combination of the Synoptic and Johannine views. Other
writers who belong to the same apologetic school, such as Tholuck, Ebrard,1
Wieseler,2 Lange,3 and Ewald,4 maintain the same point of view, only that their
defence is usually much less skilful.
[1] Wissenschaftliche Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte. (Scientific Criticism
of the Gospel History.) August Ebrard. Frankfort, 1842; 3rd ed., 1868.
Johannes Heinrich Aug. Ebrard was born in 1818 at Eriangen, was, first, Pro-
fessor of Reformed Theology at Zurich and Eriangen, afterwards (1853) went to
Speyer as "Konsistorialrat," but was unable to cope with the Liberal opposition
there, and returned in 1861 to Eriangen, where he died in 1888.
A characteristic example of Ebrard's way of treating the subject is his method of
meeting the objection that a fish with a piece of money in its jaws could not
have taken the hook. "The fish might very well," he explains, "have thrown up
the piece of money from its belly into the opening of the jaws in the moment in
which Peter opened its mouth." Upon this Strauss remarks: "The inventor of this
argument tosses it down before us as who should say, 'I know very well it is
bad, but it is good enough for you, at any rate so long as the Church has livings
to distribute and we Konsistorialrats have to examine the theological
candidates.'" Strauss, therefore, characterises Ebrard's Life of Jesus as
"Orthodoxy restored on a basis of impudence." The pettifogging character of
this work made a bad impression even in Conservative quarters.
[2] Chronologische Synapse der vier Evangelien. (Chronological Synopsis of
the four Gospels.) By Karl Georg Wieseler. Hamburg, 1843. Wieseler was born
in 1813 at Altencelle (Hanover), and was Professor successively at Giittingen,
Kiel, and Greifswald. He died in 1883.
[3] Johann Peter Lange, Pastor in Duisburg, afterwards Professor at Zurich in
place of Strauss. Das Leben Jesu. 5 vols., 1844-1847.
[4] Georg Heinrich August Ewald, Geschichte des Volkes Israel. (History of the
People of Israel.) 7 vols. Gottingen, 1843-1859; 3rd ed., 1864-1870. Fifth vol.,

106
Geschichte Christus' und seiner Zeit. (History of Christ and His Times.) 1855;
2nd ed., 1857.
Ewald was born in 1803 at Gottingen, where in 1827 he was appointed
Professor of Oriental Languages. Having made a protest against the repeal of
the fundamental law of the Hanoverian Constitution he was removed from his
office and went to Tubingen, first as Professor of philology; in 1841 he was
transferred to the theological faculty. In 1848 he returned to Gottingen. When, in
1866, he refused to take the oath of allegiance to the King of Prussia, he was
compulsorily retired, and, in consequence of imprudent expressions of opinion,
was also deprived of the right to lecture. The town of Hanover chose him as its
representative in the North German and in the German Reichstag, where he sat
among the Guelph opposition, in the middle of the centre party. He died in 1875
at Gottingen. His contributions to New Testament studies were much inferior to
his Oriental and Old Testament researches. His Life of Jesus, in particular, is
worthless, in spite of the Old Testament and Oriental learning with which it was
furnished forth. He lays great stress upon making the genitive of "Christus" not
"Christi," but, according to German inflection, "Christus'."
117
The only writer who really in some measure enters into the difficulties is
Ammon. He, indeed, is fully conscious of the difference, and thinks we cannot
rest content with merely recognising it, but must find a solution, even if rather a
forced one, "by subordinating the indefinite chronological data of the Synoptists,
of whom, after all, only one was, or could have been, an eyewitness, to the
ordered narrative of John." The fourth Evangelist makes so brief a reference to
the Galilaean period because it was in accordance with his plan to give more
prominence to the discourses of Jesus in the Temple and His dialogues with the
Scribes as compared to the parables and teaching given to the people. The
cleansing of the Temple falls at the outset of Jesus' ministry; Jesus begins His
Messianic work in Jerusalem by this action of making an end of the unseemly
chaffering in the court of the Temple. The question regarding the relative
authenticity of the reports is decisively settled by a comparison of the two
accounts of the triumphal entry, because there it is quite evident that "Matthew,
the chief authority among the Synoptists, adapts his narrative to his special
Jewish-Messianic standpoint." According to Ammon's rationalistic view, the
work of Jesus consisted precisely in the transformation of this Jewish-Messianic
idea into the conception of a "Saviour of the world." In this lies the explanation
of the fate of Jesus: "The mass of the Jewish people were not prepared to
receive a Christ so spiritual as Jesus was, since they were not ripe for so lofty a
view of religion."
Ammon here turns his Kantian philosophy to account. It serves especially to
explain to him the consciousness of pre-existence avowed by the Jesus of the
Johannine narrative as something purely human. We, too, he explains, can
"after the spirit" claim an ideal existence prior to the spatial creation without
indulging any delusion, and without, on the other hand, thinking of a real

107
existence. In this way Jesus is for Himself a Biblical idea, with which He has
become identified. "The purer and deeper a man's self-consciousness is, the
keener may his consciousness of God become, until time disappears for him,
and his partaking in the Divine nature fills his whole soul."
118
But Ammon's support of the authenticity of John's Gospel is, even from a purely
literary point of view, not so unreserved as in the case of the other opponents of
Strauss. In the background stands the hypothesis that our Gospel is only a
working-over of the authentic John, a suggestion in regard to which Ammon can
claim priority, since he had made it as early as 1811, [1] nine years before the
appearance of Bretschneider's Probabilia. Were it not for the ingenuous fashion
in which he works the Synoptic material into the Johannine plan, we might class
him with Alexander Schweizer and Weisse, who in a similar way seek to meet
the objections of Strauss by an elaborate theory of editing. [2]
The first stage of the discussion regarding the relation of John to the Synoptists
passed without result. The mediating theology continued to hold its positions
undisturbed—and, strangest of all, Strauss himself was eager for a suspension
of hostilities.
It is as though history took the trouble to countersign the genuineness of the
great critical discoveries by letting the discoverers themselves attempt to cancel
them. As Kant disfigures his critical idealism by making inconsistent additions in
order to refute a reviewer who had put him in the same category with Berkeley,
so Strauss inserts additions and retractations in the third edition of his Life of
Jesus in deference to the uncritical works of Tholuck and Neander! Wilke, the
only one of his critics from whom he might have learned something, he ignores.
"From the lofty vantage ground of Tholuck's many-sided knowledge I have
sometimes, in spite of a slight tendency to vertigo, gained a juster point of view
from which to look at one matter or another," is the avowal which he makes in
the preface to this ill-starred edition.
It would, indeed, have done no harm if he had confined himself to stating more
exactly here and there the extent of the mythical element, had increased the
numbel of possible cures, had inclined a little less to the negative side in
examining the claims of reported facts to rank as historical, and had been a little
more circumspect in pointing out the factors which produced the myths; the
serious thing was that he now
[1] Ammon, Johannem evangelii auctorem ab editors huius libri fuisse diversum.
Eriangen, 1811.
[2] No value whatever can be ascribed to the Life of Jesus by Werner Hahn,
Berlin, 1844, 196 pp. The "didactic presentation of the history" which the author
offers is not designed to meet the demands of historical criticism. He finds in the
Gospels no bare history, but, above all, the inculcation of the principle of love.
He casts to the winds all attempt to draw the portrait of Jesus as a true
historian, being only concerned with its inner truth and "idealises artistically and
scientifically" the actual course of the outward life of Jesus. "It is never the

108
business of a history," he explains, "to relate only the bare truth. It belongs to a
mere planless and aimless chronicle to relate everything that happened in such
a way that if words are a mere slavish reflection of the outward course of
events."
119
began to hesitate in his denial of the historical character of the Fourth Gospel—
the very foundation of his critical view.
A renewed study of it, aided by De Wette's commentary and Neander's Life of
Jesus, had made him "doubtful about his doubts regarding the genuineness and
credibility of this Gospel." "Not that I am convinced of its genuineness," he
admits, "but I am no longer convinced that it is not genuine."
He feels bound, therefore, to state whatever makes in its favour, and to leave
open a number of possibilities which formerly he had not recognised. The
adhesion of the first disciples may, he now thinks, have happened essentially in
the form in which it is reported in the Fourth Gospel; in transferring the
cleansing of the Temple to the first period of Jesus' ministry, John may be right
as against the Synoptic tradition "which has no decisive evidence in its favour";
in regard to the question whether Jesus had been only once, or several times,
in Jerusalem, his opinion now is that "on this point the superior circumstantiality
of the Fourth Gospel cannot be contested."
As regards the prominence allowed to the eschatology also all is toned down
and softened. Everywhere feeble compromises! But what led Strauss to place
his foot upon this shelving path was the essentially just perception that the
Synoptists gave him no clearly ordered plan to set against that of the Fourth
Gospel; consequently he felt obliged to make some concessions to its strength
in this respect.
Yet he recognised almost immediately that the result was a mere patchwork.
Even in the summer of 1839 be complained to Hase in conversation that he had
been deafened by the clamour of his opponents, and had conceded too much to
them. [1] In the fourth edition he retracted all his concessions. "The Babel of
voices of opponents, critics, and supporters," he says in his preface, "to which I
had felt it my duty to listen, had confused me in regard to the idea of my work; in
my diligent comparison of various views I had lost sight of the thing itself. In this
way I was led to make alterations which, when I came to consider the matter
calmly, surprised myself; and in making which it was obvious that I had done
myself an injustice. In all these passages the earlier text has been restored, and
my work has therefore consisted, it might be said, in removing from my good
sword the notches which had not so much been hewn in it by the enemy as
ground into it by myself."
Strauss's vacillation had, therefore, not even been of any indirect advantage to
him. Instead of endeavouring to find a purposeful connexion in the Synoptic
Gospels by means of which he might test the plan of the Fourth Gospel, he
simply restores his former view unaltered, thereby
[1] Hase, Geschichte Jesu, 1876, p. 128.

109
120
showing that in the decisive point it was incapable of development. In the very
year in which he prepared his improved edition, Weisse, in his Evangelische
Geschichte, had set up the hypothesis that Mark is the ground-document, and
had thus carried criticism past the "dead-point" which Strauss had never been
able to overcome. Upon Strauss, however, the new suggestion made no
impression. He does, it is true, mention Weisse's book in the preface to his third
edition, and describes it as "in many respects a very satisfactory piece of work."
It had appeared too late for him to make use of it in his first volume; but he did
not use it in his second volume either. He had, indeed, a distinct antipathy to the
Marcan hypothesis.
It was unfortunate that in this controversy the highly important suggestions in
regard to various historical problems which had been made incidentally in the
course of Strauss's work were never discussed at all. The impulse in the
direction of progress which might have been given by his treatment of the
relation of Jesus to the law, of the question regarding His particularism, of the
eschatological conception, the Son of Man, and the Messiahship of Jesus,
wholly failed to take effect, and it was only after long and circuitous wanderings
that theology again came in sight of these problems from an equally favourable
point of view. In this respect Strauss shared the fate of Reimarus; the positive
solutions of which the outlines were visible behind their negative criticism
escaped observation in consequence of the offence caused by the negative
side of their work; and even the authors themselves failed to realise their full
significance.
*X*
THE MARCAN HYPOTHESIS
Christian Hermann Weisse. Die evangelische Geschichte kritisch und
philosophiscb bearbeitet. (A Critical and Philosophical Study of the Gospel
History.) 2 vols. Leipzig, Breitkopf and Hartel, 1838. Vol. i. 614 pp. Vol. ii. 543
pp.
Christian Gottlob Wilke. Der Urevangelist. (The Earliest Evangelist.) 1838.
Dresden and Leipzig. 694 pp.
Christian Hermann Weisse. Die Evangelienfrage in ihrem gegenwartigen
Stadium. (The Present Position of the Problem of the Gospels.) Leipzig, 1856.
THE "GOSPEL HISTORY" OF WEISSE WAS WRITTEN, LIKE STRAUSS'S
LIFE of Jesus, by a philosopher who had been driven out of philosophy and
forced back upon theology. Weisse was born in 1801 at Leipzig, and became
Professor Extraordinary of Philosophy in the university there in 1828. In 1837,
finding his advance to the Ordinary Professorship barred by the Herbartians, he
withdrew from academic teaching and gave himself to the preparation of this
work, the plan of which he had had in mind for some time. Having brought it to a
satisfactory completion, he began again in 1841 as a Privat-Docent in
Philosophy, and became Ordinary Professor in 1845. From 1848 onwards he
lectured on Theology also. His work on "Philosophical Dogmatics, or the

110
Philosophy of Christianity," [1] is well known. He died in 1866, of cholera. Lotze
and Lipsius were both much influenced by him.
Weisse admired Strauss and hailed his Life of Jesus as a forward step towards
the reconciliation of religion and philosophy. He expresses his gratitude to him
for clearing the ground of the primeval forest of theology, thus rendering it
possible for him (Weisse) to develop his views without wasting time upon
polemics, "since most of the views which have hitherto prevailed may be
regarded as having received the coup de grace from Strauss." He is at one with
Strauss also in his general view of the relations of philosophy and religion,
holding that it is only it philosophy, by following its own path, attains
independently to the
[1] Philosophische Dogmatik oder Philosophic des Christentums. Leipzig, 1855-
1862.
122
conviction of the truth of Christianity that its alliance with theology and religion
can be welcomed as advantageous. [1] His work, therefore, like that of Strauss,
leads up finally to a philosophical exposition in which he shows how for us the
Jesus of history becomes the Christ of faith. [2]
Weisse is the direct continuator of Strauss. Standing outside the limitations of
the Hegelian formulae, he begins at the point where Strauss leaves off. His aim
is to discover, if possible, some thread of general connexion in the narratives of
the Gospel tradition, which, if present, would represent a historically certain
element in the Life of Jesus, and thus serve as a better standard by which to
determine the extent of myth than can possibly be found in the subjective
impression upon which Strauss relies. Strauss, by way of gratitude, called him a
dilettante. This was most unjust, for if any one deserved to share Strauss's
place of honour, it was certainly Weisse.
The idea that Mark's Gospel might be the earliest of the four, first occurred to
Weisse during the progress of his work. In March 1837, when he reviewed
Tholuck's "Credibility of the Gospel History," he was as innocent of this
discovery as Wilke was at the same period. But when once he had observed
that the graphic details of Mark, which had hitherto been regarded as due to an
attempt to embellish an epitomising narrative, were too insignificant to have
been inserted with this purpose, it became clear to him that only one other
possibility remained open, viz., that their absence in Matthew and Luke was due
to omission. He illustrates this from the description of the first day of Jesus'
ministry at Capernaum. "The relation of the first Evangelist to Mark," he avers,
"in those portions of the Gospel which are common to both is, with few
exceptions, mainly that of an epitomiser."
The decisive argument for the priority of Mark is, even more than his graphic
detail, the composition and arrangement of the whole. "It is true, the Gospel of
Mark shows very distinct traces of having arisen out of spoken discourses,
which themselves were by no means ordered and connected, but disconnected
and fragmentary"—being, he means, in its original form based on notes of the

111
incidents related by Peter. "It is not the work of an eyewitness, nor even of one
who had had an opportunity of questioning eyewitnesses thoroughly and
carefully; nor [1] At the end of his preface he makes the striking remark: "I
confess I cannot conceive of any possible way by which Christianity can take on
a form which will make it once more the truth for our time, without having
recourse to the aid of philosophy; and I rejoice to believe that this opinion is
shared by many of the ablest and most respected of present-day theologians."
[2] Vol. ii. pp. 438-543. Philosophische Schlussbetrachtung ilber die religiose
Bedeutung der Personlichkeit Christi und der evangelischen Uberlieferung.
(Con- cluding Philosophical Estimate of the Significance of the Person of Christ
and of the Gospel Tradition.)
123
even of deriving assistance from inquirers who, on their part, had made a
connected study of the subject, with a view to filling up the gaps and placing
each individual part in its right position, and so articulating the whole into an
organic unity which should be neither merely inward, nor on the other hand
merely external." Nevertheless the Evangelist was guided in his work by a just
recollection of the general course of the life of Jesus. "It is precisely in Mark,"
Weisse explains, "that a closer study unmistabably reveals that the incidental
remarks (referring for the most part to the way in which the fame of Jesus
gradually extended, the way the people began to gather round Him and the sick
to besiege Him), far from shutting off and separating the different narratives,
tend rather to unite them with each other, and so give the impression not of a
series of anecdotes fortuitously thrown together, but of a con- nected history. By
means of these remarks, and by many other connecting links which he works
into the narration of the individual stories, Mark has succeeded in conveying a
vivid impression of the stir which Jesus made in Galileo, and from Galilee to
Jerusalem, of the gradual gathering of the multitudes to Him, of the growing
intensity of loyalty in the inner circle of disciples, and as the counterpart of all
this, of the growing enmity of the Pharisees and Scribes—an impression which
mere isolated narratives, strung together without any living connexion, would
not have sufficed to produce." A connexion of this kind is less clearly present in
the other Synoptists, and is wholly lacking in John. The Fourth Gospel, by itself,
would give us a completely false con- ception of the relation of Jesus to the
people. From the content of its narratives the reader would form the impression
that the attitude of the people towards Jesus was hostile fiom the very first, and
that it was only in isolated occasions, for a brief moment, that Jesus by His
miraculous acts inspired the people with astonishment rather than admiration;
that, surrounded by a little company of disciples he contrived for a time to defy
the enmity of the multitude, and that, having repeatedly provoked it by
intemperate invective, he finally succumbed to it.
The simplicity of the plan of Mark is, in Weisse's opinion, a stronger argument
for his priority than the most elaborate demonstration; one only needs to
compare it with the perverse design of Luke, who makes Jesus undertake a

112
journey through Samaria. "How," asks Weisse, "in the case of a writer who does
things of this kind can it be possible at this time of day to speak seriously of
historical exactitude in the use of his sources?"
To come down to detail, Weisse's argument for the priority of Mark rests mainly
on the following propositions:—
1. In the first and third Gospels, traces of a common plan are found only in
those parts which they have in common with Mark, not in those which are
common to them, but not to Mark also.
124
2. In those parts which the three Gospels have in common, the "agreement" of
the other two is mediated through Mark.
3. In those sections which the First and Third Gospels have, but Mark has not,
the agreement consists in the language and incidents, not in the order. Their
common source, therefore, the "Logia" of Matthew, did not contain any type of
tradition which gave an order of narration different from that of Mark.
4. The divergences of wording between the two other Synoptists is in general
greater in the parts where both have drawn on the Logia document than where
Mark is their source.
5. The first Evangelist reproduces this Logia-document more faithfully than Luke
does; but his Gospel seems to have been of later origin.
This historical argument for the priority of Mark was confirmed in the year in
which it appeared by Wilke's work, "The Earliest Gospel," [1]
[1] Christian Gottlob Wilke, formerly pastor of Hermannsdorf in the Erzgebirge.
Der Urevangelist, oder eine exegetisch-kritische Untersuchung des
Verwandschafts-verhaltnisses der drei ersten Evangelien. (The Earliest
Evangelist, a Critical and Exegetical Inquiry into the Relationship of the First
Three Gospels.) The subse- quent course of the discussion of the Marcan
hypothesis was as follows:—
In answer to Wilke there appeared a work signed Philosophotos Aletheias, Die
Evangelien, ihr Geist, ihre Verfasser, und ihr Verhaltnis zu einander. (The
Gospels, their Spirit, their Authors, and their relation to one another.) Leipzig,
1845, 440 pp. The author sees in Paul the evil genius of early Christianity, and
thinks that the work of scientific criticism must be directed to detecting and
weeding out the Pauline elements in the Gospels. Luke is in his opinion a party-
writing, biased by Paulinism; in fact Paul had a share in its preparation, and this
is what Paul alludes to when he speaks in Romans ii. 16, xi. 28, and xvi. 25 of
"his" Gospel. His hand is especially recognisable in chapters i.-iii., vii., ix., xi.,
xviii., xx., xxi., and xxiv. Mark consists of extracts from Matthew and Luke; John
presupposes the other three. The Tiibingen standpoint was set forth by Baur in
his work, Kritische Untersuchangen liber die kanonischen Evangelien. (A
Critical Examination of the Ca- nonical Gospels.) Tubingen, 1847, 622 pp.
According to him Mark is based on Matthew and Luke. At the same time,
however, the irreconcilability of the Fourth Gospel with the Synoptists is for the

113
first time fully worked out, and the refutation of its historical character is carried
into detail.
The order Matthew, Mark, Luke is defended by Adolf Hilgenfeld in his work Die
Evangelien. Leipzig, 1854, 355 pp.
Karl Reinhold Kostlin's work, Der Ursprung und die Komposition der
synoptischen Evangelien (Origin and Composition of the Synoptic Gospels), is
rendered nugatory by obscurities and compromises. Stuttgart, 1853, 400 pp.
The priority of Mark is defended by Edward Reuss, Die Geschichte der keiligen
Schriften des Neuen Testaments (History of the Sacred Writings of the New
Testament), 1842; H. Ewald, Die drei visten Evangelien, 1850; A. Ritschi Die
Entstehung der altcatholischen Kirche (Origin of the ancient Catholic Church),
1850; A. Reville, Etudes critiques sur l'Evangile selon St Matthieu, 1862. In
1863 the foundations of the Marcan hypothesis were relaid, more firmly than
before, by Holtzmann's work, Die synoptischen Evangelien. Leipzig, 1863, 514
pp.
125
which treated the problem more from the literary side, and, to take an illustration
from astronomy, supplied the mathematical confirmation of the hypothesis.
In regard to the Gospel of John, Weisse fully shared the negative views of
Strauss. What is the use, he asks, of keeping on talking about the plan of this
Gospel, seeing that no one has yet succeeded in showing what that plan is?
And for a very good reason: there is none. One would never guess from the
Gospel of John that Jesus, until His departure from Galilee, had experienced
almost unbroken success. It is no good trying to explain the want of plan by
saying that John wrote with the purpose of supplementing and correcting his
predecessors, and that his omissions and additions were determined by this
purpose. Such a purpose is betrayed by no single word in the whole Gospel.
The want of plan lies in the very plan itself. "It is a fixed idea, one may say, with
the author of this Gospel, who had heard that Jesus had fallen a victim in
Jerusalem to the hatred of the Jewish rulers, especially the Scribes, that he
must represent Jesus as engaged, from His first appearance onward, in an
unceasing struggle with 'the Jews'—whereas we know that the mass of the
people, even to the last, in Jerusalem itself, were on the side of Jesus; so much
so, indeed, that His enemies were only able to get Him into their power by
means of a secret betrayal."
In regard to the graphic descriptions in John, of which so much has been made,
the case is no better. It is the graphic detail of a writer who desires to work up a
vivid picture, not the natural touches of an eyewitness, and there are, moreover,
actual inconsistencies, as in the case of the healing at the pool of Bethesda.
The circumstantiality is due to the care of the author not to assume an
acquaintance, on the part of his readers, with Jewish usages or the topography
of Palestine. "A considerable proportion of the details are of such a character as
inevitably to suggest that the narrator inserts them because of the trouble which
it has cost him to orientate himself in regard to the scene of the action and the

114
dramatis personae, his object being to spare his readers a similar difficulty;
though he does not always go about it in the way best calculated to effect his
purpose."
The impossibility also that the historic Jesus can have preached the doctrine of
the Johannine Christ, is as clear to Weisse as to Strauss. "It is not so much a
picture of Christ that John sets forth, as a conception of Christ; his Christ does
not speak in His own Person, but of His own Person."
On the other hand, however, "the authority of the whole Christian Church from
the second century to the nineteenth" carries too much weight with Weisse for
him to venture altogether to deny the Johannine origin of the Gospel; and he
seeks a middle path. He assumes that the didactic portions really, for the most
part, go back to John the Apostle.
126
"John," he explains, "drawn on by the interest of a system of doctrine which had
formed itself in his mind, not so much as a direct reflex of the teaching of his
Master, as on the basis of suggestions offered by that teaching in combination
with a certain creative activity of his own, endeavoured to find this system also
in the teaching of his Master."
Accordingly, with this purpose, and originally for himself alone, not with the
object of communicating it to others, he made an effort to exhibit, in the light of
this system of thought, what his memory still retained of the discourses of the
Lord. "The Johannine discourses, therefore, were recalled by a laborious effort
of memory on the part of the disciple. When he found that his memory-image of
his Master was threatening to dissolve into a mist-wraith, he endeavoured to
impress the picture more firmly in his recollection, to connect and define its
rapidly disappearing features, reconstructing it by the aid of a theory evolved by
himself or drawn from elsewhere regarding the Person and work of the Master."
For the portrait of Christ in the Synoptic Gospels the mind of the disciples who
describe Him is a neutral medium; for the portrait in John it is a factor which
contributes to the production of the picture. The same portrait is outlined by the
apostle in the first epistle which bears his name.
These tentative "essays," not originally intended for publication, came, after the
death of the apostle, into the hands of his adherents and disciples, and they
chose the form of a complete Life of Jesus as that in which to give them to the
world. They, therefore, added narrative portions, which they distributed here
and there among the speeches, often doing some violence to the latter in the
process. Such was the origin of the Fourth Gospel.
Weisse is not blind to the fact that this hypothesis of a Johannine basis in the
Gospel is beset with the gravest—one might almost say with insuperable—
difficulties. Here is a man who was an immediate disciple of the Lord, one who,
in the Synoptic Gospels, in Acts, and in the Pauline letters, appears in a
character which gives no hint of a coming spiritual metamorphosis, one,
moreover, who at a relatively late period, when it might well have been
supposed that his development was in all essentials closed (at the time of

115
Paul's visit to Jerusalem, which falls at least fourteen years after Paul's
conversion), was chosen, along with James and Peter, and in contrast with the
apostles of the Gentiles, Paul and Barnabas, as an apostle of the Jews—"how
is it possible," asks Weisse, "to explain and make it intelligible, that a man of
these antecedents displays in his thought and speech, in fact in his whole
mental attitude, a thoroughly Hellenistic stamp? How came he, the beloved
disciple, who, according to this very Gospel which bears his name, was
admitted more intimately than any other into the confidence of Jesus, how came
he to
127
clothe his Master in this foreign garb of Hellenistic speculation, and to attribute
to Him this alien manner of speech? But, however difficult the explanation may
be, whatever extreme of improbability may seem to us to be involved in the
assumption of the Johannine authorship of the Epistle and of these essential
elements of the Gospel, it is better to assent to the improbability, to submit to
the burden of being forced to explain the inexplicable, than to set ourselves
obstinately against the weight of testimony, against the authority of the whole
Christian Church from the second century to the present day."
There could be no better argument against the genuineness of the Fourth
Gospel than just such a defence of its genuineness as this. In this form the
hypothesis may well be destined to lead a harmless and never-ending life. What
matters for the historical study of the Life of Jesus is simply that the Fourth
Gospel should be ruled out. And that Weisse does so thoroughly that it is
impossible to imagine its being done more thoroughly. The speeches, in spite of
their apostolic authority, are unhistorical, and need not be taken into account in
describing Jesus' system of thought. As for the unhappy redactor, who by
adding the narrative pictures created the Gospel, all possibility of his reports
being accurate is roundly denied, and as if that was not enough, he must put up
with being called a bungler into the bargain. "I have, to tell the truth, no very
high opinion of the literary art of the editor of the Johannine Gospel-document,"
says Weisse in his "Problem of the Gospels" of 1856, which is the best
commentary upon his earlier work.
His treatment of the Fourth Gospel reminds us of the story that Frederic the
Great once appointed an importunate office-seeker to the post of "Privy
Councillor for War," on condition that he would never presume to offer a syllable
of advice!
The hypothesis which was brought forward about the same time by Alexander
Schweizer, [1] with the intention of saving the genuineness of the Gospel of
John, did not make any real contribution to the subject. The reading of the facts
which form his starting-point is almost the exact converse of that of Weisse,
since he regards, not the speeches, but certain parts of the narrative as
Johannine. That which it is possible, in his opinion, to refer to the apostle is an
account, not involving any

116
[1] Alexander Schweizer, Das Evangelium Johannis nach seinem inneren Werte
md seiner Bedeutung fiir das Leben Jesu kritisch untersucht. 1841. (A Critical
Examination of the Intrinsic Value of the Gospel of John and of its Importance
as a Source for the Life of Jesus.) Alexander Schweizer was born in 1808 at
Murten, was appointed Professor of Pastoral Theology at Zurich in 1835, and
continued to lecture there until his death in 1888, remaining loyal to the ideas of
his teacher Schleiennacher, though handling them with a certain freedom. His
best-known work is his Glaabenslehre (System of Doctrine), 2 vols., 1863-1872;
2nd ed,, 1877.
128
miracles, of the ministry of Jesus at Jerusalem, and the discourses which He
delivered there. The more or less miraculous events which occur in the course
of it—such as, that Jesus had seen Nathanael under the fig-tree, knew the past
life of the Samaritan woman, and healed the sick man at the Pool of
Bethesda—are of a simple character, and contrast markedly with those which
are represented to have occurred in Galilee, where Jesus turned water into
wine and fed a multitude with a few crusts of bread. We must, therefore,
suppose that this short, authentic, spiritual Jerusalem-Gospel has had a
Galilaean Life of Jesus worked into it, and this explains the inconsistencies of
the representation and the oscillation between a sensuous and a spiritual point
of view.
This distinction, however, cannot be made good. Schweizer was obliged to
ascribe the reports of a material resurrection to the Galilaean source, whereas
these, since they exclude the Galilaean appearances of Jesus, must belong to
the Jerusalem Gospel; and accordingly, the whole distinction between a
spiritual and material Gospel falls to the ground. Thus this hypothesis at best
preserves the nominal authenticity of the Fourth Gospel, only to deprive it
immediately of all value as a historical source.
Had Strauss calmly examined the bearing of Weisse's hypothesis, he would
have seen that it fully confirmed the line he had taken in leaving the Fourth
Gospel out of account, and he might have been less unjust towards the
hypothesis of the priority of Mark, for which he cherished a blind hatred,
because, in its fully developed form, it first met him in conjunction with
seemingly reactionary tendencies towards the rehabilitation of John. He never
in the whole course of his life got rid of the prejudice that the recognition of the
priority of Mark was identical With a retrograde movement towards an uncritical
orthodoxy.
This is certainly not true as regards Weisse. He is far from having used Mark
unreservedly as a historical source. On the contrary, he says expressly that the
picture which this Gospel gives of Jesus is drawn by an imaginative disciple of
the faith, filled with the glory of his subject, whose enthusiasm is consequently
sometimes stronger than his judgment. Even in Mark the mythopoeic tendency
is already actively at work, so that often the task of historical criticism is to

117
explain how such myths could have been accepted by a reporter who stands as
near the facts as Mark does.
Of the miracula [1]—so Weisse denominates the "non-genuine" miracles, in
contradistinction to the "genuine"—the feeding of the multitude is
[1] The German is Mirakein, the usual word being Wunder, which, though
constantly used in the sense of actual "miracles," has, from its obvious
derivation, a certain ambiguity.
129
that which, above all others, cries aloud for an explanation. Its historical
strength lies in its being firmly interwoven with the preceding and following
context; and this applies to both the Marcan narratives. It is therefore impossible
to regard the story, as Strauss proposes to do, as pure myth; it is necessary to
show how, growing out of some incident belonging to that context, it assumed
its present literary form. The authentic saying about the leaven of the Pharisees,
which, in Mark viii. 14 and 15, is connected with the two miracles of feeding the
multitude, gives ground for supposing that they rest upon a parabolic discourse
repeated on two occasions, in which Jesus spoke, perhaps with allusion to the
manna, of a miraculous food given through Him. These discourses were later
transformed by tradition into an actual miraculous giving of food. Here,
therefore, Weisse endeavours to substitute for Strauss's "unhistorical"
conception of myth a different conception, which in each case seeks to discover
a sufficient historical cause.
The miracles at the baptism of Jesus are based upon His account of a vision
which He experienced in that moment. The present form of the story of the
transfiguration has a twofold origin. In the first place, it is partly based on a real
experience shared by the three disciples. That there is an historical fact here is
evident from the way in which it is connected with the context by a definite
indication of time. The six days of Mark ix. 2 cannot really be connected, as
Strauss would have us suppose, with Ex. xxiv. 16; [1] the meaning is simply that
between the previously reported discourse of Jesus and the event described
there was an interval of six days. The three disciples had a waking, spiritual
vision, not a dream-vision, and what was revealed in this vision was the
Messiahship of Jesus. But at this point comes in the second, the mythico-
symbolical element. The disciples see Jesus accompanied, according to the
Jewish Messianic expectations, by those whom the people thought of as His
forerunners. He, however, turns away from them, and Moses and Elias, for
whom the disciples were about to build tabernacles, for them to abide in,
disappear. The mythical element is a reflection of the teaching which Jesus
imparted to them on that occasion, in consequence of which there dawned on
them the spiritual "significance of those expectations and predictions, which
they were to recognise as no longer pointing forward to a future fulfilment, but
as already fulfilled." The high mountain upon which, according to Mark, the
event took place is not to be understood in a literal sense, but as symbolical of

118
the sublimity of the revelation; it is to be sought not on the map of Palestine, but
in the recesses of the spirit.
The most striking case of the formation of myth is the story of the
[1] "And the glory of the Lord abode upon Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it
six days."
130
resurrection. Here, too, myth must have attached itself to an historical fact. The
fact in question is not, however, the empty grave. This only came into the story
later, when the Jews, in order to counteract the Christian belief in the
resurrection, had spread abroad the report that the body had been stolen from
the grave. In consequence of this report the empty grave had necessarily to be
taken up into the story, the Christian account now making use of the fact that
the body of Jesus was not found as a proof of His bodily resurrection. The
emphasis laid on the identity of the body which was buried with that which rose
again, of which the Fourth Evangelist makes so much, belongs to a time when
the Church had to oppose the Gnostic conception of a spiritual, incorporeal
immortality. The reaction against Gnosticism is, as Weisse rightly remarks, one
of the most potent factors in the development of myth in the Gospel history. As
an additional instance of this he might have cited the anti-gnostic form of the
Johannine account of the baptism of Jesus.
What, then, is the historical fact in the resurrection? "The historical fact," replies
Weisse, "is only the existence of a belief—not the belief of the later Christian
Church in the myth of the bodily resurrection of the Lord—but the personal
belief of the Apostles and their companions in the miraculous presence of the
risen Christ in the visions and appearances which they experienced." "The
question whether those extraordinary phenomena which, soon after the death of
the Lord, actually and undeniably took place within the community of His
disciples, rest upon fact or illusion—that is, whether in them the departed spirit
of the Lord, of whose presence the disciples supposed themselves to be
conscious, was really present, or whether the pheonomena were produced by
natural causes of a different kind, spiritual and psychical, is a question which
cannot be answered without going beyond the confines of purely historical
criticism." The only thing which is certain is "that the resurrection of Jesus is a
fact which belongs to the domain of the spiritual and psychic life, and which is
not related to outward corporeal existence in such a way that the body which
was laid in the grave could have shared therein." When the disciples of Jesus
had their first vision of the glorified body of their Lord, they were far from
Jerusalem, far from the grave, and had no thought of bringing that spiritual
corporeity into any kind of relation with the dead body of the Crucified. That the
earliest appearances took place in Galilee is indicated by the genuine
conclusion of Mark, according to which the angel charges the women with the
message that the disciples were to await Jesus in Galilee.

119
Strauss's conception of myth, which failed to give it any point of vital connexion
with the history, had not provided any escape from the dilemma offered by the
rationalistic and supernaturalistic views of the
131
resurrection. Weisse prepared a new historical basis for a solution. He was the
first to handle the problem from a point of view which combined historical with
psychological considerations, and he is fully conscious of the novelty and the
far-reaching consequences of his attempt. Theological science did not overtake
him for sixty years; and though it did not for the most part share his one-
sidedness in recognising only the Galilaean appearances, that does not count
for much, since it was unable to solve the problem of the double tradition
regarding the appearances. His discussion of the question is, both from the
religious and from the historical point of view, the most satisfying treatment of it
with which we are acquainted; the pompous and circumspect utterances of the
very latest theology in regard to the "empty grave" look very poor in
comparison. Weisse's psychology requires only one correction—the insertion
into it of the eschatological premise.
It is not only the admixture of myth, but the whole character of the Marcan
representation, which forbids us to use it without reserve as a source for the life
of Jesus. The inventor of the Marcan hypothesis never wearies of repeating that
even in the Second Gospel it is only the main outline of the Life of Jesus, not
the way in which the various sections are joined together, which is historical. He
does not, therefore, venture to write a Life of Jesus, but begins with a "General
Sketch of the Gospel History" in which he gives the main outlines of the Life of
Jesus according to Mark, and then proceeds to explain the incidents and
discourses in each several Gospel in the order in which they occur.
He avoids the professedly historical forced interpretation of detail, which later
representatives of the Marcan hypothesis, Schenkel in par- ticular, employ in
such distressing fashion that Wrede's book, by mak- ing an end of this
inquisitorial method of extracting the Evangelist's testimony, may be said to
have released the Marcan hypothesis from the torture-chamber. Weisse is free
from these over-refinements. He refuses to divide the Galilaean ministry of
Jesus into a period of success and a period of failure and gradual falling off of
adherents, divided by the controversy about legal purity in Mark vii.; he does not
allow
132
this episode to counterbalance the general evidence that Jesus' public work
was accompanied by a constantly growing success. Nor does it occur to him to
conceive the sojourn of the Lord in Phoenician territory, and His journey to the
neighbourhood of Caesarea Philippi, as a compulsory withdrawal from Galilee,
an abandonment of His cause in that district, and to head the chapter, as was
usual in the second period of the exegesis of Mark, "Flights and Retirements."
He is content simply to state that Jesus once visited those regions, and
explicitly remarks that while the Synoptists speak of the Pharisees and Scribes

120
as working actively against Him, there is nowhere any hint of a hostile
movement on the part of the people, but that, on the contrary, in spite of the
Scribes and Pharisees the people are always ready to approve Him and take
His part; so much so that His enemies can only hope to get Him into their power
by a secret betrayal.
Weisse does not admit any failure in Jesus' work, nor that death came upon
Him from without as an inevitable necessity. He cannot, therefore, regard the
thought of suffering as forced upon Jesus by outward events. Later interpreters
of Mark have often held that the essential thing in the Lord's resolve to die was
that by His voluntary acceptance of a fate which was more and more clearly
revealing itself as inevitable, He raised it into the sphere of ethico-religious
freedom: this was not Weisse's view. Jesus, according to him, was not moved
by any outward circumstances when He set out for Jerusalem in order to die
there. He did it in obedience to a supra-rational higher necessity. We can at
most venture to conjecture that a cessation of His miracle-working power, of
which He had become aware, revealed to Him that the hour appointed by God
had come. He did, in fact, no further miracle in Jerusalem.
How far Isaiah liii. may have contributed to suggest the conception of such a
death being a necessary part of Messiah's work, it is impossible to discover. In
the popular expectation there was no thought of the Messiah as suffering. The
thought was conceived by Jesus independently, through His deep and
penetrating spiritual insight. Without any external suggestion whatever He
announces to His disciples that He is to die at Jerusalem, and that He is going
thither with that end in view. He journeyed, not to the Passover, but to His
death. The fact that it took place at the time of the Feast was, so far as Jesus
was concerned, accidental. The circumstances of His entry were such as to
suggest anything rather than the fulfilment of His predictions; but though the
jubilant multitude surrounded Him day by day, as with a wall of defence, He did
not let that make Him falter in His purpose; rather he forced the authorities to
arrest Him; He preserved silence before Pilate with the deliberate purpose of
rendering His death inevitable. The theory of later defenders of the Marcan
hypothesis that Jesus, giving up
133
His cause in Galilee for lost, went up to Jerusalem to conquer or die, is foreign
to Weisse's conception. In his view, Jesus, breaking off His Galilaean work
while the tide of success was still flowing strongly, journeyed to Jerusalem, in
the scorn of consequence, with the sole pur- pose of dying there.
It is true there are some premonitions of the later course of Marcan exegesis.
The Second Gospel mentions no Passover journeys as falling in the course of
the public ministry of Jesus; consequently the most natural conclusion would be
that no Passover journeys fall within that period; that is, that Jesus' ministry
began after one Passover and closed with the next, thus lasting less than a full
year. Weisse thinks, however, that it is impossible to understand the success of
His teaching unless we assume a ministry of several years, of more than three

121
years, indeed. Mark does not mention the Feasts simply because Jesus did not
go up to Jerusalem. "Intrinsic probability is, in our opinion, so strongly in favour
of a duration of a considerable number of years, that we are at a loss to explain
how it is that at least a few unprejudiced investigators have not found in this a
sufficient reason for departing from the traditional opinion."
The account of the mission of the Twelve is also, on the ground of "intrinsic
probability," explained in a way which is not in accordance with the plain sense
of the words. "We do not think," says Weisse, "that it is necessary to understand
this in the sense that He sent all the twelve out at one time, two and two,
remaining alone in the meantime; it is much more natural to suppose that He
only sent them out two at a time, keeping the others about Him. The object of
this mission was less the immediate spreading abroad of His teaching than the
preparation of the disciples themselves for the independent activity which they
would have to exercise after His death." These are, however, the only serious
liberties which he takes with the statements of Mark.
When did Jesus begin to think of Himself as the Messiah? The baptism seems
to have marked an epoch in regard to His Messianic consciousness, but that
does not mean that He had not previously begun to have such thoughts about
Himself. In any case He did not on that occasion arrive all at once at that point
of His inward journey which He had reached at the time of His first public
appearance. We must assume a period of some duration between the baptism
and the beginning of His ministry—a longer period than we should suppose
from the Synoptists—during which Jesus cast off the Messianic ideas of
Judaism and attained to a spiritual conception of the Messiahship. When He
began to teach, His "development" was already closed. Later interpreters of
Mark have generally differed from Weisse in assuming a development in the
thought of Jesus during His public ministry.
134
His conception of the Messiahship was therefore fully formed when He began to
teach in Capernaum; but He did not allow the people to see that He held
Himself to be the Messiah until His triumphal entry. It was in order to avoid
declaring His Messiahship that He kept away from Jerusalem. "It was only in
Galilee and not in the Jewish capital that an extended period of teaching and
work was possible for Him without being obliged to make an explicit declaration
whether He were the Messiah or no. In Jerusalem itself the High Priests and
Scribes would soon have put this question to Him in such a way that He could
not have avoided answering it, whereas in Galilee He doubtless on more than
one occasion cut short such attempts to question Him too closely by the
incisiveness of His replies." Like Strauss, Weisse recognises that the key to the
explanation of the Messianic consciousness of Jesus lies in the self-designation
"Son of Man." "We are most certainly justified," he says, with almost prophetic
insight, in his "Problem of the Gospels," published in 1856, "in regarding the
question, what sense the Divine Saviour desired to attach to this predicate?—
what, in fact, He intended to make known about Himself by using the title Son of

122
Man?—as an essential question for the right understanding of His teaching, and
not of His teaching only, but also of the very heart and inmost essence of His
personality."
But at this point Weisse lets in the cloven hoof of that fatal method of
interpretation, by the aid of which the defenders of the Marcan hypothesis who
succeeded him were to wage war, with a kind of dull and dogged determination,
against eschatology, in the interests of an original and "spiritual" conception of
the Messiahship supposed to be held by Jesus. Under the obsession of the
fixed idea that it was their mission to defend the "originality" of Jesus by
ascribing to Him a modernising transformation and spiritualisation of the
eschatological system of ideas, the defenders of the Marcan hypothesis have
impeded the historical study of the Life of Jesus to an almost unbelievable
extent.
The explanation of the name Son of Man had, Weisse explains, hitherto
oscillated between two extremes. Some had held the expression to be, even in
the mouth of Jesus, equivalent to "man" in general, an interpretation which
cannot be carried through; others had connected it with the Son of Man in
Daniel, and supposed that in using the term Jesus was employing a Messianic
title understood by and current among the Jews. But how came He to employ
only this unusual periphrastic name for the Messiah? Further, if this name were
really a Messianic title, how could He repeatedly have refused Messianic
salutations, and not until the triumphal entry suffered the people to hail Him as
Messiah?
135
The questions are rightly asked; it is therefore the more pity that they are
wrongly answered. It follows, Weisse says, from the above considerations that
Jesus did not assume an acquaintance on the part of His hearers with the Old
Testament Messianic significance of the expression. "It was therefore
incontestably the intention of Jesus—and any one who considers it unworthy
betrays thereby his own want of insight—that the designation should have
something mysterious about it, something which would compel His hearers to
reflect upon His meaning." The expression Son of Man was calculated to lead
them on to higher conceptions of His nature and origin, and therefore sums up
in itself the whole spiritualisation of the Messiahship.
Weisse, therefore, passionately rejects any suggestion, however modest, that
Jesus' self-designation, Son of Man, implies any measure of acceptance of the
Jewish apocalyptic system of ideas. Ewald had furnished forth his Life of Jesus
[1] with a wealth of Old Testament learning, and had made some half-hearted
attempts to show the connexion of Jesus' system of thought with that of post-
canonical Judaism, but without taking the matter seriously and without having
any suspicion of the real character of the eschatology of Jesus. But even these
parade-ground tactics excite Weisse's indignation; in his book, published in
1856, he reproaches Ewald with failing to understand his task.

123
The real duty of criticism is, according to Weisse, to show that Jesus had no
part in those fantastic errors which are falsely attributed to Him when a literal
Jewish interpretation is given to His great sayings about the future of the Son of
Man, and to remove all the obstacles which seem to have prevented hitherto
the recognition of the novel character and special significance of the
expression. Son of Man, in the mouth of Him who, of His own free choice,
applied this name to Himself. "How long will it be," he cries, "before theology at
last becomes aware of the deep importance of its task? Historical criticism,
exercised with all the thoroughness and impartiality which alone can produce a
genuine conviction, must free the Master's own teaching from the imputation
that lies upon it—the imputation of sharing the errors and false expectations in
which, as we cannot deny, owing to imperfect or mistaken understanding of the
suggestions of the Master, the Apostles, and with them the whole early
Christian Church, became involved."
This fundamental position determines the remainder of Weisse's views. Jesus
cannot have shared the Jewish particularism. He did not hold the Law to be
binding. It was for this reason that He did not go up to the Feasts. He distinctly
and repeatedly expressed the conviction that His doctrine was destined for the
whole world. In speaking of the
[l] Geschichte Christus' und seiner Zeit. (History of Christ and His Times.) By
Heinrich Ewald, Gottingen, 1855, 450 pp.
136
parousia of the Son of Man He was using a figure—a figure which includes in a
mysterious fashion all His predictions of the future. He did not speak to His
disciples of His resurrection, His ascension, and His parousia as three distinct
acts, since the event to which He looked forward is not identical with any of the
three, but is composed of them all. The resurrection is, at the same time, the
ascension and parousia, and in the parousia the resurrection and the ascension
are also included. "The one conclusion to which we believe we can point with
certainty is that Jesus spoke of the future of His work and His teaching in a way
that implied the consciousness of an influence to be continued after His death,
whether unbrokenly or intermittently, and the consciousness that by this
influence His work and teaching would be preserved from destruction and the
final victory assured to it."
The personal presence of Jesus which the disciples experienced after His death
was in their view only a partial fulfilment of that general promise. The parousia
appeared to them as still awaiting fulfilment, Thought of thus, as an isolated
event, they could only conceive it from the Jewish apocalyptic standpoint, and
they finally came to suppose that they had derived these fantastic ideas from
the Master Himself.
In his determined opposition to the recognition of eschatology in Strauss's first
Life of Jesus, Weisse here lays down the lines which were to be followed by the
"liberal" Lives of Jesus of the 'sixties and following years, which only differ from
him, not always to their advantage, in their more elaborate interpretation of the

124
detail of Mark. The only work, therefore, which was a conscious continuation of
Strauss's, takes, in spite of its just appreciation of the character of the sources,
a wrong path, led astray by the mistaken idea of the "originality" of Jesus, which
it exalts into a canon of historical criticism. Only after long and devious
wanderings did the study of the subject find the right road again. The whole
struggle over eschatology is nothing else than a gradual elimination of Wiesse's
ideas. It was only with Johannes Weiss that theology escaped from the
influence of Christian Hermann Weisse.
* XI *
THE FIRST SCEPTICAL LIFE OF JESUS
Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte des Johannes. (Criticism of the Gospel
History of John.) Bremen, 1840. 435 pp.
Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte der Synoptiker. (Criticism of the Gospel
History of the Synoptics.) 3 vols., Leipzig, 1841-1842; vol. i. 416 pp.; vol. ii. 392
pp.; vol. iii. 341 pp.
Kritik der Evangelien. (Criticism of the Gospels.) 2 vols., 1850-1851, Berlin.
Kritik der Apostelgeschichte. (Criticism of Acts.) 1850.
Kritik der Paulinischen Briefe. Berlin, 1850-1852. In three parts.
Philo, Strauss, Renan und das Urchristentum. (P., S., R., and Primitive
Christianity.) Berlin, 1874. 155 pp. Christus und die Casaren. Der Ursprung des
Christentums aus dem romischen Griechentum. (The Origin of Christianity from
Graeco-Roman Civilisation.) Berlin, 1877. 387 pp.
BRUNO BAUER WAS BORN IN 1809 AT EISENBERG, IN THE DUCHY OF
Sachsen-Altenburg. In philosophy, he was at first associated entirely with the
Hegelian "right." Like Strauss, he received a strong impulse from Vatke. At this
stage of his development he reviewed, in 1835 and 1836, Strauss's Life of
Jesus in the Jahrbucher fur wissenschaftliche Kritik, and wrote in 1838 a
"Criticism of the History of Revelation." [1]
In 1834 he had become Privat-Docent in Berlin, but in 1839 he removed to
Bonn. He was then in the midst of that intellectual crisis of which the evidence
appeared in his critical works on John and the Synoptics. In August 1841 the
Minister, Eichhorn, requested the Faculties of the Prussian Universities to report
on the question whether Bauer should be allowed to retain the venia docendi.
Most of them returned an evasive answer, Konigsberg replied in the affirmative,
and Bonn in the negative. In March 1842 Bauer was obliged to cease lecturing,
and retired to Rixdorf near Berlin. In the first heat of his furious indignation over
this treatment he wrote a work with the title "Christianity Ex-
1 Kritik der Geschichte der Offenbarung.
138
posed," [l] which, however, was cancelled before publication at Zurich in 1843.
He then turned his attention to secular history and wrote on the French
Revolution, on Napoleon, on the Illuminism of the Eighteenth Century, and on
the party struggles in Germany during the years 1842-1846. At the beginning of

125
the 'fifties he returned to theological subjects, but failed to exercise any
influence. His work was simply ignored.
Radical though he was in spirit, Bauer found himself fighting, at the end of the
'fifties and beginning of the 'sixties, in the ranks of the Prussian Conservatives—
we are reminded how Strauss in the Wurtemberg Chamber was similarly forced
to side with the reactionaries. He died in 1882. His was a pure, modest, and
lofty character.
At the time of his removal from Berlin to Bonn he was just at the end of the
twenties, that critical age when pupils often surprise their teachers, when men
begin to find themselves and show what they are, not merely what they have
been taught.
In approaching the investigation of the Gospel history, Bauer saw, as he himself
tells us, two ways open to him. He might take as his starting-point the Jewish
Messianic conception, and endeavour to answer the question how the intuitive
prophetic idea of the Messiah became a fixed reflective conception. That was
the historical method; he chose, however, the other, the literary method. This
starts from the opposite side of the question, from the end instead of the
beginning of the Gospel history. Taking first the Gospel of John, in which it is
obvious that reflective thought has fitted the life of the Jewish Messiah into the
frame of the Logos conception, he then, starting as it were from the
embouchure of the stream, works his way upwards to the high ground in which
the Gospel tradition takes its rise. The decision in favour of the latter view
determined the character of Bauer's life-work; it was his task to follow out, to its
ultimate consequences, the literary solution of the problem of the life of Jesus.
How far this path would lead him he did not at first suspect. But he did suspect
how strong was the influence upon the formation of history of a dominant idea
which moulds and shapes it with a definite artistic purpose. His interest was
especially arrested by Philo, who, without knowing or intending it, contributed to
the fulfilment of a higher task than that with which he was immediately engaged.
Bauer's view is that a speculative principle such as Philo's, when it begins to
take possession of men's minds, influences them in the first glow of enthusiasm
which it evokes with such overmastering power that the just claims of that
[1] Das entdeckte Christentum. See also Die gute Sache der Freiheit und meine
eigene Angelegenheit. (The Good Cause of Freedom, in Connexion with my
own Case.) Zurich, 1843.
139
which is actual and historical cannot always secure the attention which is their
due. In Philo's pupil, John, we must look, not for history, but for art.
The Fourth Gospel is in fact a work of art. This was now for the first time
appreciated by one who was himself an artist. Schleiermacher, indeed, had at
an earlier period taken up the aesthetic standpoint in considering this Gospel.
But he had used it as an apologist, proceeding to exalt the artistic truth which he
rightly recognised into historic reality, and his critical sense failed him, precisely
because he was an aesthete and an apologist, when he came to deal with the

126
Fourth Gospel. Now, however, there comes forward a true artist, who shows
that the depth of religious and intellectual insight which Tholuck and Neander, in
opposing Strauss, had urged on behalf of the Fourth Gospel, is—Christian art.
In Bauer, however, the aesthete is at the same time a critic. Although much in
the Fourth Gospel is finely "felt," like the opening scenes referring to the Baptist
and to Jesus, which Bauer groups together under the heading "The Circle of the
Expectant," yet his art is by no means always perfect. The author who
conceived those discourses, of which the movement consists in a kind of
tautological return upon itself, and who makes the parables trail out into
dragging allegories, is no perfect artist. "The parable of the Good Shepherd,"
says Bauer, "is neither simple, nor natural, nor a true parable, but a metaphor,
which is, nevertheless, much too elaborate for a metaphor, is not clearly
conceived, and, finally, in places shows much too clearly the skeleton of
reflection over which it is stretched."
Bauer treats, in his work of 1840, [1] the Fourth Gospel only. The Synoptics he
deals with only in a quite incidental fashion, "as opposing armies make
demonstrations in order to provoke the enemy to a decisive conflict."
He breaks off at the beginning of the story of the passion, because here it would
be necessary to bring in the Synoptic parallels. "From the distant heights on
which the Synoptic forces have taken up a menacing position, we must now
draw them down into the plain; now comes the pitched battle between them and
the Fourth Gospel, and the question regarding the historical character of that
which we have found to be the ultimate basis of the last Gospel, can now at
length be decided."
If, in the Gospel of John, no smallest particle could be found which was
unaffected by the creative reflection of the author, how will it stand with the
Synoptists?
When Bauer broke off his work upon John in this abrupt way—for
[1] Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte des Johannes.
he had not originally intended to conclude it at this point—how far did he still
retain a belief in the historical character of the Synoptics? It looks as if he had
intended to treat them as the solid foundation, in contrast with the fantastic
structure raised upon it by the Fourth Gospel. But when he began to use his
pick upon the rock, it crumbled away. Instead of a difference of kind he found
only a difference of degree. The "Criticism of the Gospel History of the
Synoptists" of 1841 is built on the site which Strauss had levelled. "The abiding
influence of Strauss," says Bauer, "consists in the fact that he has removed
from the path of subsequent criticism the danger and trouble of a collision with
the earlier orthodox system."
Bauer finds his material laid ready to his hand by Weisse and Wilke. Weisse
had divined in Mark the source from which criticism—becoming barren in the
work of Strauss—might draw a new spring of vigorous life; and Wilke, whom
Bauer places above Weisse, had raised this happy conjecture to the level of a
scientifically assured result. The Marcan hypothesis was no longer on its trial.

127
But its bearing upon the history of Jesus had still to be determined. What
position do Weisse and Wilke take up towards the hypothesis of a tradition lying
behind the Gospel of Mark? If it be once admitted that the whole Gospel
tradition, so far as concerns its plan, goes back to a single writer, who has
created the connexion between the different events—for neither Weisse nor
Wilke regards the connexion of the sections as historical—does not the
possibility naturally suggest itself that the narrative of the events themselves,
not merely the connexion in which they appear in Mark, is to be set down to the
account of the author of the Gospel? Weisse and Wilke had not suspected how
great a danger arises when, of the three witnesses who represent the tradition,
only one is allowed to stand, and the tradition is recognised and allowed to exist
in this one written form only. The triple embankment held; will a single one bear
the strain?
The following considerations have to be taken into account. The criticism of the
Fourth Gospel compels us to recognise that a Gospel may have a purely literary
origin. This discovery dawned upon Bauer at a time when he was still
disinclined to accept Wilke's conclusions regarding Mark. But when he had
recognised the truth of the latter he felt compelled by the combination of the two
to accept the idea that Mark also might be of purely literary origin. For Weisse
and Wilke the Marcan hypothesis had not implied this result, because they
continued to combine with it the wider hypothesis of a general tradition, holding
that Matthew and Luke used the collection of "Logia," and also owed part of
their supplementary matter to a free use of floating tradition, so that Mark, it
might almost be said, merely supplied them with the
141
formative principle by means of which they might order their material.
But what if Papias's statement about the collection of "Logia" were worthless,
and could be shown to be so by the literary data? In that case Matthew and
Luke would be purely literary expansions of Mark, and like him, purely literary
inventions.
In this connexion Bauer attaches decisive importance to the phenomena of the
birth-stories. If these had been derived from tradition they could not differ from
each other as they do. If it is suggested that tradition had produced a large
number of independent, though mutually consistent, stories of the childhood,
out of which the Evangelists composed their opening narratives, this also is
found to be untenable, for these narratives are not composite structures. The
separate stories of which each of these two histories of the childhood consists
could not have been formed independently of one another; none of them
existed by itself; each points to the others and is informed by a view which
implies the whole. The histories of the childhood are therefore not literary
versions of a tradition, but literary inventions.
If we go on to examine the discourse and narrative material, additional to that of
Mark, which is found in Matthew and Luke, a similar result appears. The same
standpoint is regulative throughout, showing that the additions do not consist of

128
oral or written traditional material which has been worked into the Marcan plan,
but of a literary development of certain fundamental ideas and suggestions
found in the first author. These developments, as is shown by the accounts of
the Sermon on the Mount and the charge to the Twelve, are not carried as far in
Luke as in Matthew. The additional material in the latter seems indeed to be
worked up from suggestions in the former. Luke thus forms the transition stage
between Mark and Matthew. The Marcan hypothesis, accordingly, now takes on
the following form. Our knowledge of the Gospel history does not rest upon any
basis of tradition, but only upon three literary works. Two of these are not
independent, being merely expansions of the first, and the third, Matthew, is
also dependent upon the second. Consequently there is no tradition of the
Gospel history, but only a single literary source.
But, if so, who is to assure us that this Gospel history, with its assertion of the
Messiahship of Jesus, was already a matter of common knowledge before it
was fixed in writing, and did not first become known in a literary form? In the
latter case, one man would have created out of general ideas the definite
historical tradition in which these ideas are embodied.
The only thing that could be set against this literary possibility, as a historical
counter-possibility, would be a proof that at the period when the Gospel history
is supposed to take place a Messianic expectation
142
really existed among the Jews, so that a man who claimed to be the Messiah
and was recognised as such, as Mark represents Jesus to have been, would be
historically conceivable. This presupposition had hitherto been unanimously
accepted by all writers, no matter how much opposed in other respects. They
were all satisfied "that before the appearance of Jesus the expectation of a
Messiah prevailed among the Jews"; and were even able to explain its precise
character.
But where—apart from the Gospels—did they get their information from? Where
is the documentary evidence of the Jewish Messianic doctrine on which that of
the Gospels is supposed to be based? Daniel was the last of the prophets.
Everything tends to suggest that the mysterious content of his work remained
without influence in the subsequent period. Jewish literature ends with the
Wisdom writings, in which there is no mention of a Messiah. In the LXX there is
no attempt to translate in accordance with a preconceived picture of the
Messiah. In the Apocalypses, which are of small importance, there is reference
to a Messianic Kingdom; the Messiah Himself, however, plays a quite
subordinate part, and is, indeed, scarcely mentioned. For Philo He has no
existence; the Alexandrian does not dream of connecting Him with his Logos
speculation. There remain, therefore, as witnesses for the Jewish Messianic
expectations in the time of Tiberius, only Mark and his imitators. This evidence,
however, is of such a character that in certain points it contradicts itself.
In the first place, if at the time when the Christian community was forming its
view of history and the religious ideas which we find in the Gospels, the Jews

129
had already possessed a doctrine of the Messiah, there would have been
already a fixed type of interpretation of the Messianic passages in the Old
Testament, and it would have been impossible for the same passages to be
interpreted in a totally different way, as referring to Jesus and His work, as we
find them interpreted in the New Testament. Next, consider the representation
of the Baptist's work. We should have expected him to connect his baptism with
the preaching of "Him who was to come"—if this were really the Messiah—by
baptizing in the name of this "Coming One." He, however, keeps them separate,
baptizing in preparation for the Kingdom, though referring in his discourses to
"Him who was to come."
The earliest Evangelist did not venture openly to carry back into the history the
idea that Jesus had claimed to be the Messiah, because he was aware that in
the time of Jesus no general expectation of the Messiah had prevailed among
the people. When the disciples in Mark viii, 28 report the opinions of the people
concerning Jesus they cannot mention any who hold Him to be the Messiah.
Peter is the first to attain to the recognition of His Messiahship. But as soon as
the confession is
143
made the Evangelist makes Jesus forbid His disciples to tell the people who He
is. Why is the attribution of the Messiahship to Jesus made in this surreptitious
and inconsistent way? It is because the writer who gave the history its form well
knew that no one had ever come forward publicly on Palestinian soil to claim
the Messiahship, or had been recognised by the people as Messiah.
The "reflective conception of the Messiah" was not, therefore, taken over ready-
made from Judaism; that dogma first arose along with the Christian community,
or rather the moment in which it arose was the same in which the Christian
community had its birth.
Moreover, how unhistorical, even on a priori grounds, is the mechanical way in
which Jesus at this first appearance at once sets Himself up as the Messiah
and says, "Behold I am He whom ye have expected." In essence, Bauer thinks,
there is not so much difference between Strauss and Hengstenberg. For
Hengstenberg the whole life of Jesus is the living embodiment of the Old
Testament picture of the Messiah; Strauss, a less reverent counterpart of
Hengstenberg, made the image of the Messiah into a mask which Jesus
Himself was obliged to assume, and which legend afterwards substituted for His
real features.
"We save the honour of Jesus," says Bauer, "when we restore His Person to life
from the state of inanition to which the apologists have reduced it, and give it
once more a living relation to history, which it certainly possessed—that can no
longer be denied. If a conception was to become dominant which should unite
heaven and earth, God and man, nothing more and nothing less was necessary
as a preliminary condition, than that a Man should appear, the very essence of
whose consciousness should be the reconciliation of these antitheses, and who
should manifest this consciousness to the world, and lead the religious mind to

130
the sole point from which its difficulties can be solved. Jesus accomplished this
mighty work, but not by prematurely pointing to His own Person. Instead He
gradually made known to the people the thoughts which filled and entered into
the very essence of His mind. It was only in this indirect way that His Person—
which He freely offered up in the cause of His historical vocation and of the idea
for which He lived—continued to live on in so far as this idea was accepted.
When, in the belief of His followers. He rose again and lived on in the Christian
community, it was as the Son of God who had overcome and reconciled the
great antithesis. He was that in which alone the religious consciousness found
rest and peace, apart from which there was nothing firm, trustworthy, and
enduring."
"It was only now that the vague, ill-defined, prophetic representations were
focused into a point; were not only fulfilled, but were also united together by a
common bond which strengthened and gave greater value
144
to each of them. With His appearance and the rise of belief in Him, a clear
conception, a definite mental picture of the Messiah became possible; and thus
it was that a Christology [1] first arose."
While, therefore, at the close of Bauer's first work it might have seemed that it
was only the Gospel of John which he held to be a literary creation, here the
same thing is said of the original Gospel. The only difference is that we find
more primitive reflection in the Synoptics, and later work in the representation
given by the Fourth Evangelist; the former is of a more practical character, the
latter more dogmatic.
Nevertheless it is false to assert that according to Bauer the earliest Evangelist
invented the Gospel history and the personality of Jesus. That is to carry back
the ideas of a later period and a further stage of development into the original
form of his view. At the moment when, having disposed of preliminaries, he
enters on his investigation, he still assumes that a great, a unique Personality,
who so impressed men by His character that it lived on among them in an ideal
form, had awakened into life the Messianic idea; and that what the original
Evangelist really did was to portray the life of this Jesus—the Christ of the
community which He founded—in accordance with the Messianic view of Him,
just as the Fourth Evangelist portrayed it in accordance with the presupposition
that Jesus was the revealer of the Logos. It was only in the course of his
investigations that Bauer's opinion became more radical. As he goes on, his
writing becomes ill-tempered, and takes the form of controversial dialogues with
"the theologians," whom he apostrophises in a biting and injurious fashion, and
whom he continually reproaches with not daring, owing to their apologetic
prejudices, to see things as they really are, and with declining to face the
ultimate results of criticism from fear that the tradition might suffer more loss of
historic value than religion could bear. In spite of this hatred of the theologians,
which is pathological in character, like his meaningless punctuation, his critical
analyses are always exceedingly acute. One has the impression of walking

131
alongside a man who is reasoning quite intelligently, but who talks to himself as
though possessed by a fixed idea. What if the whole thing should turn out to be
nothing but a literary invention—not only the incidents and discourses, but even
the Personality which is assumed as the starting-point of the whole movement?
What if the Gospel history were only a late imaginary embodiment of a set of
exalted ideas, and these were the only historical reality from first to last? This is
the idea which obsesses his mind more and more completely, and moves him
to contemptuous laughter. What,
[1] Here and elsewhere Bauer seems to use "Christologie" in the sense of
Messianic doctrine, rather than in the more general sense which is usual in
theology.—TRANSLATOR.
145
he mocks, will these apologists, who are so sure of everything, do then with the
shreds and tatters which will be all that is left to them?
But at the outset of his investigations Bauer was far from holding such views.
His purpose was really only to continue the work of Strauss. The conception of
myth and legend of which the latter made use is, Bauer thinks, much too vague
to explain this deliberate "transformation" of a personality. In the place of myth
Bauer therefore sets "reflection." The life which pulses in the Gospel history is
too vigorous to be explained as created by legend; it is real "experience," only
not the experience of Jesus, but of the Church. The representation of this
experience of the Church in the Life of a Person is not the work of a number of
persons, but of a single author. It is in this twofold aspect—as the composition
of one man, embodying the experience of many—that the Gospel history is to
be regarded. As religious art it has a profound truth. When it is regarded from
this point of view the difficulties which are encountered in the endeavour to
conceive it as real immediately disappear.
We must take as our point of departure the belief in the sacrificial death and the
resurrection of Jesus. Everything else attaches itself to this as to its centre.
When the need arose to fix definitely the beginning of the manifestation of
Jesus as the Saviour—to determine the point of time at which the Lord issued
forth from obscurity—it was natural to connect this with the work of the Baptist;
and Jesus comes to his baptism. While this is sufficient for the earliest
Evangelist, Matthew and Luke feel it to be necessary, in view of the important
consequences involved in the connexion of Jesus with the Baptist, to bring them
into relation once more by means of the question addressed by the Baptist to
Jesus, although this addition is quite inconsistent with the assumptions of the
earliest Evangelist. If he had conceived the story of the baptism with the idea of
introducing the Baptist again on a later occasion, and this time, moreover, as a
doubter, he would have given it a different form. This is a just observation of
Bauer's; the story of the baptism with the miracle which took place at it, and the
Baptist's question, understood as implying a doubt of the Messiahship of Jesus,
mutually exclude one another.

132
The story of the temptation embodies an experience of the early Church. This
narrative represents her inner conflicts under the form of a conflict of the
Redeemer. On her march through the wilderness of this world she has to fight
with temptations of the devil, and in the story composed by Mark and Luke, and
artistically finished by Matthew, she records a vow to build only on the inner
strength of her constitutive principle. In the sermon on the mount also, Matthew
has carried out with greater completeness that which was more vaguely
conceived by
146
Luke. It is only when we understand the words of Jesus as embodying
experiences of the early Church that their deeper sense becomes clear and
what would otherwise seem offensive disappears. The saying, "Let the dead
bury their dead," would not have been fitting for Jesus to speak, and had He
been a real man, it could never have entered into His mind to create so unreal
and cruel a collision of duties; for no command, Divine or human, could have
sufficed to make it right for a man to contravene the ethical obligations of family
life. So here again, the obvious conclusion is that the saying originated in the
early Church, and was intended to inculcate renunciation of a world which was
felt to belong to the kingdom of the dead, and to illustrate this by an extreme
example.
The mission of the Twelve, too, is, as an historical occurrence, simply
inconceivable. It would have been different if Jesus had given them a definite
teaching, or form of belief, or positive conception of any kind, to take with them
as this message. But how ill the charge to the Twelve fulfils its purpose as a
discourse of instruction! What the disciples needed to learn, namely, what and
how they were to teach, they are not told;
and the discourse which Matthew has composed, working on the basis of Luke,
implies quite a different set of circumstances. It is concerned with the struggles
of the Church with the world and the sufferings which it must endure. This is the
explanation of the references to suffering which constantly recur in the
discourses of Jesus, in spite of the fact that His disciples were not enduring any
sufferings, and that the Evangelist cannot even make it conceivable as a
possibility that those before whose eyes Jesus holds up the way of the Cross
could ever come into such a position. The Twelve, at any rate, had no sufferings
to encounter during their mission, and if they were merely being sent by Jesus
into the surrounding districts they were not very likely to meet with kings and
rulers there.
That it is a case of invented history is also shown by the fact that nothing is said
about the doings of the disciples, and they seem to come back again
immediately, though the earliest Evangelist, it is true, to prevent this from being
too apparent, inserts at this point the story of the execution of the Baptist.
All this is just and acute criticism. The charge to the Twelve ia not a discourse of
instruction. What Jesus there sets before the disciples they could not at that

133
time have understood, and the promises which He makes to them are not
appropriate to their circumstances.
Many of the discourses are mere bundles of heterogeneous sayings, though
this is not so much the case in Mark as in the others. He has not forgotten that
effective polemic consists of short, pointed, incisive arguments. The others, as
advanced theologians, are of opinion that it
147
is fitting to indulge in arguments which have nothing to do with the matter in
hand, or only the most distant connexion with it. They form the transition to the
discourses of the Fourth Gospel, which usually degenerate into an aimless
wrangle. In the same connexion it is rightly observed that the discourses of
Jesus do not advance from point to point by the logical development of an idea,
the thoughts are merely strung together one after another, the only connexion, if
connexion there is, being due to a kind of conventional mould in which the
discourse is cast.
The parables, Bauer continues, present difficulties no less great. It is an
ineptitude on the part of the apologists to suggest that the parables are intended
to make things clear. Jesus Himself contradicts this view by saying bluntly and
unambiguously to His disciples that to them it was given to know the mysteries
of the Kingdom of God, but to the people all His teaching must be spoken as
parables, that "seeing they might see and not perceive, and hearing they might
hear and not un- derstand." The parables were therefore intended only to
exercise the intelligence of the disciples; and so far from being understood by
the people, mystified and repelled them; as if it would not have been much
better to exercise the minds of the disciples in this way when He was alone with
them. The disciples, however, do not even understand the simple parable of the
Sower, but need to have it interpreted to them, so that the Evangelist once more
stultifies his own theory.
Bruno Bauer is right in his observation that the parables offer a serious problem,
seeing that they were intended to conceal and not to make plain, and that Jesus
nevertheless taught only in parables. The character of the difficulty, however, is
such that even literary criticism has no explanation ready. Bruno Bauer admits
that he does not know what was in the mind of the Evangelist when he
composed these parables, and thinks that he had no very definite purpose, or at
least that the suggestions which were floating in his mind were not worked up
into a clearly ordered whole.
Here, therefore, Bauer's method broke down. He did not, however, allow this to
shake his confidence in his reading of the facts, and he continued to maintain it
in the face of a new difficulty which he himself brought clearly to light. Mark,
according to him, is an artistic unity, the offspring of a single mind. How then is
it to be explained that in addition to other less important doublets it contains two
accounts of the feeding of the multitude? Here Bauer has recourse to the aid of
Wilke, who distinguishes our Mark from an Ur-Markus, [1] and ascribes these
doublets to later interpolation. Later on he became more and more

134
[1] We retain the German phrase, which has naturalised itself in Synoptic
criticism as the designation of an assumed primary gospel lying behind the
canonical Mark.
148
doubtful about the artistic unity of Mark, despite the fact that this was the
fundamental assumption of his theory, and in the second edition of his "Criticism
of the Gospels," of 1851, he carried through the distinction between the
canonical Mark and the Ur-Markus.
But even supposing the assumption of a redaction were justified, how could the
redactor have conceived the idea of adding to the first account of the feeding of
the multitude a second which is identical with it almost to the very wording? In
any case, on what principle can Mark be distinguished from Ur-Markus? There
are no fundamental differences to afford a ready criterion. The distinction is
purely one of subjective feeling, that is to say, it is arbitrary. As soon as Bauer
admits that the artistic unity of Mark, on which he lays so much stress, has been
tampered with, he cannot maintain his position except by shutting his eyes to
the fact that it can only be a question of the weaving in of fragments of tradition,
not of the inventions of an imitator. But if he once admits the presence of
traditional materials, his whole theory of the earliest Evangelist's having created
the Gospel falls to the ground.
For the moment he succeeds in laying the spectre again, and continues to think
of Mark as a work of art, in which the interpolation alters nothing.
Bauer discusses with great thoroughness those sayings of Jesus in which He
forbids those whom He had healed to noise abroad their cure. In the form in
which they appear these cannot, he argues, be historical, for Jesus imposes
this prohibition in some cases where it is quite meaningless, since the healing
had taken place in the presence of a multitude. It must therefore be derived
from the Evangelist. Only when it is recognised as a free creation can its
meaning be discerned. It finds its explanation in the inconsistent views
regarding miracle which were held side by side in the early Church. No doubt
was felt that Jesus had performed miracles, and by these miracles had given
evidence of His Divine mission. On the other hand, by the introduction of the
Christian principle, the Jewish demand for a sign had been so far limited, and
the other, the spiritual line of evidence, had become so important, or at least so
indispensable, that it was no longer possible to build on the miracles only, or to
regard Jesus merely as a wonder-worker, so in some way or other the
importance ascribed to miracle must be reduced. In the graphic symbolism of
the Gospel history this antithesis takes the form that Jesus did miracles—there
was no getting away from that—but on the other hand Himself declared that He
did not wish to lay any stress upon such acts. As there are times when miracles
must hide their light under a bushel, Jesus, on occasion, forbids that they
should be made known. The other Synoptists no longer understood this theory
of the first Evangelist, and introduced the prohibition in passages where it was
absurd.

135
149
The way in which Jesus makes known His Messiahship is based on another
theory of the original Evangelist. The order of Mark can give us no information
regarding the chronology of the life of Jesus, since this Gospel is anything
rather than a chronicle. We cannot even assert that there is a deliberate logic in
the way in which the sections are connected. But there is one fundamental
principle of arrangement which comes quite clearly to light, viz. that it was only
at Caesarea Philippi, in the closing period of His life, that Jesus made Himself
known as the Messiah, and that, therefore, He was not previously held to be so
either by His disciples or by the people. This is clearly shown in the answers of
the disciples when Jesus asked them whom men took Him to be. The implied
course of events, however, is determined by art, not history—as history it would
be inconceivable.
Could there indeed be a more absurd impossibility? "Jesus," says Bauer, "must
perform these innumerable, these astounding miracles because, according to
the view which the Gospels represent, He is the Messiah; He must perform
them in order to prove Himself to be the Messiah—and yet no one recognises
Him as the Messiah! That is the greatest miracle of all, that the people had not
long ago recognised the Messiah in this wonder-worker. Jesus could only be
held to be the Messiah in consequence of doing miracles; but He only began to
do miracles when, in the faith of the early Church, He rose from the dead as
Messiah, and the facts that He rose as Messiah and that He did miracles, are
one and the same fact."
Mark, however, represents a Jesus who does miracles and who nevertheless
does not thereby reveal Himself to be the Messiah. He was obliged so to
represent Him, because he was conscious that Jesus was not recognised and
acknowledged as Messiah by the people, nor even by His immediate followers,
in the unhesitating fashion in which those of later times imagined Him to have
been recognised. Mark's conception and representation of the matter carried
back into the past the later developments by which there finally arose a
Christian community for which Jesus had become the Messiah. "Mark is also
influenced by an artistic instinct which leads him to develop the main interest,
the origin of the faith, gradually. It is only after the ministry of Jesus has
extended over a considerable period, and is, indeed, drawing towards its close,
that faith arises in the circle of the disciples; and it is only later still, when, in the
person of the blind man at Jericho, a prototype of the great com- pany of
believers that was to be has hailed the Lord with a Messianic salutation, that, at
the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the faith of the people suddenly ripens and
finds expression."
It is true, this artistic design is completely marred when Jesus does miracles
which must have made Him known to every child as the Messiah. We cannot,
therefore, blame Matthew very much if, while he
150

136
retains this plan in its external outlines in a kind of mechanical way, he
contradicts it somewhat awkwardly by making Jesus at an earlier point clearly
designate Himself as Messiah and many recognise Him as such. And the
Fourth Evangelist cannot be said to be destroying any very wonderful work of
art when he gives the impression that from the very first any one who wished
could recognise Jesus as the Messiah.
Mark himself does not keep strictly to his own plan. He makes Jesus forbid His
disciples to make known His Messiahship; how then does the multitude at
Jerusalem recognise it so suddenly, after a single miracle which they had not
even witnessed, and which was in no way different from others which He had
done before? If that "chance multitude" in Jerusalem was capable of such
sudden enlightenment it must have fallen from heaven!
The following remarks of Bauer, too, are nothing less than classical. The
incident at Caesarea Philippi is the central fact of the Gospel history, it gives us
a fixed point from which to group and criticise the other statements of the
Gospel. At the same time it introduces a complication into the plan of the life of
Jesus, because it necessitates the carrying through of the theory—often in the
face of the text—that previously Jesus had never been regarded as the
Messiah; and lays upon us the necessity of showing not only how Peter had
come to recognise His Messiahship, but also how He subsequently became
Messiah for the multitude—if indeed He ever did become Messiah for them. But
the very fact that it does introduce this complication is in itself a proof that in this
scene at Caesarea Philippi we have the one ray of light which history sheds
upon the life of Jesus. It is impossible to explain how any one could come to
reject the simple and natural idea that Jesus claimed from the first to be the
Messiah, if that had been the fact, and accept this complicated representation in
its place. The latter, therefore, must be the original version. In pointing this out,
Bauer gave for the first time the real proof, from internal evidence, of the priority
of Mark.
The difficulty involved in the conception of miracle as a proof of the Messiahship
of Jesus is another discovery of Bauer's. Only here, instead of probing the
question to the bottom, he stops halfway. How do we know, he should have
gone on to ask, that the Messiah was expected to appear as an earthly wonder-
worker? There is nothing to that effect in Jewish writings. And do not the
Gospels themselves prove that any one might do miracles without suggesting to
a single person tha idea that he might be the Messiah? Accordingly the only
inference to be drawn from the Marcan representation is that miracles were not
among the characteristic marks of the Messiah, and that it was only later, in the
Christian community, which made Jesus the miracle-worker into Jesus the
Messiah, that this connexion between miracles and Mes-
151
siahship was established. In dealing with the question of the triumphal entry,
too, Bauer halts half-way. Where do we read that Jesus was hailed as Messiah
upon that occasion? If He had been taken by the people to be the Messiah, the

137
controversy in Jerusalem must have turned on this personal question; but it did
not even touch upon it, and the Sanhedrin never thinks of setting up witnesses
to Jesus' claim to be the Messiah. When once Bauer had exposed the historical
and literary impossibility of Jesus' being hailed by the people as Messiah, he
ought to have gone on to draw the conclusion that Jesus did not, according to
Mark, make a Messianic entry into Jerusalem.
It was, however, a remarkable achievement on Bauer's part to have thus set
forth clearly the historical difficulties of the life of Jesus. One might suppose that
between the work of Strauss and that of Bauer there lay not five, but fifty
years—the critical work of a whole generation.
The stereotyped character of the thrice-repeated prediction of the passion,
which, according to Bauer, betrays a certain poverty and feebleness of
imagination on the part of the earliest Evangelist, shows clearly, he thinks, the
unhistorical character of the utterance recorded. The fact that the prediction
occurs three times, its definiteness increasing upon each occasion, proves its
literary origin.
It is the same with the transfiguration. The group in which the heroic
representatives of the Law and the Prophets stand as supporters of the Saviour,
was modelled by the earliest Evangelist. In order to place it in the proper light
and to give becoming splendour to its great subject, he has introduced a
number of traits taken from the story of Moses.
Bauer pitilessly exposes the difficulties of the journey of Jesus from Galilee to
Jerusalem, and exults over the perplexities of the "apologists." "The theologian,"
he says, "must not boggle at this journey, he must just believe it. He must in
faith follow the footsteps of his Lord! Through the midst of Galilee and
Samaria—and at the same time, for Matthew also claims a hearing, through
Judaea on the farther side of Jordan! I wish him Bon voyage!"
The eschatological discourses are not history, but are merely an expansion of
those explanations of the sufferings of the Church of which we have had a
previous example in the charge to the Twelve. An Evangelist who wrote before
the destruction of Jerusalem would have referred to the Temple, to Jerusalem,
and to the Jewish people, in a very different way.
The story of Lazarus deserves special attention. Did not Spinoza say that he
would break his system in pieces if he could be convinced of the reality of this
event? This is the decisive point for the question of the relation between the
Synoptists and John. Vain are all the efforts of the apologists to explain why the
Synoptists do not mention this
152
miracle. The reason they ignore it is that it originated after their time in the mind
of the Fourth Evangelist, and they were unacquainted with his Gospel. And yet
it is the most valuable of all, because it shows clearly the concentric circles of
progressive intensification by which the development of the Gospel history
proceeds. "The Fourth Gospel," remarks Bauer, "represents a dead man as
having been restored to life after having been four days under the power of

138
death, and having consequently become a prey to corruption; Luke represents
the young man at Nain as being restored to life when his body was being
carried to the grave; Mark, the earliest Evangelist, can only tell us of the
restoration of a dead person who had the moment before succumbed to an
illness. The theologians have a great deal to say about the contrast between the
canonical and the apocryphal writings, but they might have found a similar
contrast even within the four Gospels, if the light had not been so directly in
their eyes."
The treachery of Judas, as described in the Gospels, is inexplicable.
The Lord's Supper, considered as an historic scene, is revolting and
inconceivable. Jesus can no more have instituted it than He can have uttered
the saying, "Let the dead bury their dead." In both cases the objectionableness
arises from the fact that a tenet of the early Church has been cast into the form
of an historical saying of Jesus. A man who was present in person, corporeally
present, could not entertain the idea of offering others his flesh and blood to eat.
To demand from others that they should, while he was actually present, imagine
the bread and wine which they were eating to be his body and blood, would be
for an actual man wholly impossible. It was only when Jesus' actual bodily
presence had been removed, and only when the Christian community had
existed for some time, that such a conception as is expressed in that formula
could have arisen. A point which clearly betrays the later composition of the
narrative is that the Lord does not turn to the disciples sitting with Him at table
and say, "This is my blood which is shed for you," but, since the words were
invented by the early Church, speaks of the "many" for whom He gives Himself.
The only historical fact is that the Jewish Passover was gradually transformed
by the Christian community into a feast which had reference to Jesus.
As regards the scene in Gethsemane, Mark, according to Bauer, held it
necessary that in the moment when the last conflict and final catastrophe were
coming upon Jesus, He should show clearly by His actions that He met this fate
of His own free will. The reality of His choice could only be made clear by
showing Him first engaged in an inner struggle against the acceptance of His
vocation, before showing how He freely submitted to His fate.
The last words ascribed to Jesus by Mark, "My God, my God, why
153
hast Thou forsaken me?" were written without thinking of the inferences that
might be drawn from them, merely with the purpose of showing that even to the
last moment of His passion Jesus fulfilled the role of the Messiah, the picture of
whose sufferings had been revealed to the Psalmist so long beforehand by the
Holy Spirit.
It is scarcely necessary now, Bauer thinks, to go into the contradictions in the
story of the resurrection, for "the doughty Reimarus, with his thorough-going
honesty, has already, fully exposed them, and no one has refuted him."
The results of Bauer's analysis may be summed up as follows:—

139
The Fourth Evangelist has betrayed the secret of the original Gospel, namely,
that it too can be explained on purely literary grounds. Mark has "loosed us from
the theological lie." "Thanks to the kindly fate," cries Bauer, "which has
preserved to us this writing of Mark by which we have been delivered from the
web of deceit of this hellish pseudo-science!"
In order to tear this web of falsehood the critic and historian must, despite his
repugnance, once more take up the pretended arguments of the theologians in
favour of the historicity of the Gospel narratives and set them on their feet, only
to knock them down again. In the end Bauer's only feeling towards the
theologians was one of contempt. "The expression of his contempt," he
declares, "is the last weapon which the critic, after refuting the arguments of the
theologians, has at his disposal for their discomfiture; it is his right to use it; that
puts the finishing touch upon his task and points forward to the happy time
when the arguments of the theologians shall no more be heard of."
These outbreaks of bitterness are to be explained by the feeling of repulsion
which German apologetic theology inspired in every genuinely honest and
thoughtful man by the methods which it adopted in opposing Strauss. Hence the
fiendish joy with which he snatches away the crutches of this pseudo-science,
hurls them to a distance, and makes merry over its helplessness. A furious
hatred, a fierce desire to strip the theologians absolutely bare, carried Bauer
much farther than his critical acumen would have led him in cold blood.
Bauer hated the theologians for still holding fast to the barbarous conception
that a great man had forced himself into a stereotyped and unspiritual system,
and in that way had set in motion great ideas, whereas he held that that would
have signified the death of both the personality and the ideas; but this hatred is
only the surface symptom of another hatred, which goes deeper than theology,
going down, indeed, to the very depths of the Christian conception of the world.
Bruno Bauer hates not only the theologians, but Christianity, and hates it
because it expresses a truth in a wrong way. It is a religion which has
154
become petrified in a transitional form. A religion which ought to have led on to
the true religion has usurped the place of the true religion, and in this petrified
form it holds prisoner all the real forces of religion.
Religion is the victory over the world of the self-conscious ego. It is only when
the ego grasps itself in its antithesis to the world as a whole, and is no longer
content to play the part of a mere "walking gentleman" in the world-drama, but
faces the world with independence and reserve, that the necessary conditions
of universal religion are present. These conditions came into being with the rise
of the Roman Empire, in which the individual suddenly found himself helpless
and unarmed in face of a world in which he could no longer find free play for his
activities, but must stand prepared at any moment to be ground to powder by it.
The self-conscious ego, recognising this position, found itself faced by the
necessity of breaking loose from the world and standing alone, in order in this
way to overcome the world. Victory over the world by alienation from the

140
world—these were the ideas out of which Christianity was born. But it was not
the true victory over the world; Christianity remained at the stage of violent
opposition to the world.
Miracle, to which the Christian religion has always appealed, and to which it
gives a quite fundamental importance, is the appropriate symbol of this false
victory over the world. There are some wonderfully deep thoughts scattered
through Bauer's critical investigations. "Man's realisation of his personality," he
says, "is the death of Nature, but in the sense that he can only bring about this
death by the knowledge of Nature and its laws, that is to say from within, being
himself essentially the annihilation and negation of Nature. . . . Spirit honours
and recog- nises the worth of the very thing which it negates. . . . Spirit does not
fume and bluster, and rage and rave against Nature, as it is supposed to do in
miracle, for that would be the denial of its inner law, but quietly works its way
through the antithesis. In short the death of Nature implied in the conscious
realisation of personality is the resurrection of Nature in a nobler form, not the
maltreatment, mockery, and insult to which it would be exposed by miracle." Not
only miracle, however, but the portrait of Jesus Christ as drawn in the Gospels,
is a stereotyping of that false idea of victory over the world. The Christ of the
Gospel history, thought of as a really historic figure, would be a figure at which
humanity would shudder, a figure which could only inspire dismay and horror.
The historical Jesus, if He really existed, can only have been One who
reconciled in His own consciousness the antithesis which obsessed the Jewish
mind, namely the separation between God and Man; He cannot in the process
of removing this antithesis have called into
155
existence a new principle of religious division and alienation; nor can He have
shown the way of escape, by the principle of inwardness, from the bondage of
the Law only to impose a new set of legal fetters.
The Christ of the Gospel history, on the other hand, is Man exalted by the
religious consciousness to heaven, who, even if He comes down to earth to do
miracles, to teach, and to suffer, is no longer true man. The Son of Man of
religion, even though His mission be to reconcile, is man as alienated from
himself. This Christ of the Gospel history, the ego exalted to heaven and
become God, overthrew antiquity, and conquered the world in the sense that He
exhausted it of all its vitality. This magnified ego would have fulfilled its historical
vocation if, by means of the terrible disorganisation into which it threw the real
spirit of mankind, it had compelled the latter to come to a knowledge of itself, to
become self-conscious with a thoroughness and decisiveness which had not
been possible io the simple spirit of antiquity. It was disastrous that the figure
which stood for the first emancipation of the ego, remained alive. That
transformation of the human spirit which was brought about by the encounter of
the world-power of Rome with philosophy was represented by the Gospels,
under the influence of the Old Testament, as realised in a single historic
Personality; and the strength of the spirit of mankind was swallowed up by the

141
omnipotence of the pure absolute ego, an ego which was alien from actual
humanity. The self-consciousness of humanity finds itself reflected in the
Gospels, a self, indeed, in alienation from itself, and therefore a grotesque
parody of itself, but, after all, in some sense, itself; hence the magical charm
which attracted mankind and enchained it, and, so long as it had not truly found
itself, urged it to sacrifice everything to grasp the image of itself, to prefer it to all
other and all else, counting all, as the apostle says, but "dung" in comparison
with it.
Even when the Roman world was no more, and a new world had come into
being, the Christ so created did not die. The magic of His enchantment became
only more terrible, and as new strength came flooding into the old world, the
time arrived when it was to accomplish its greatest work of destruction. Spirit, in
its abstraction, became a vampire, the destroyer of the world. Sap and strength,
blood and life, it sucked, to the last drop, out of humanity. Nature and art, family,
nation, state, all were destroyed by it; and in the ruins of the fallen world the
ego, exhausted by its efforts, remained the only surviving power.
Having made a desert all about it, the ego could not immediately create anew,
out of the depths of its inner consciousness, nature and art, nation and state;
the awful process which now went on, the only activity of which it was now
capable, was the absorption into itself of all that had hitherto had life in the
world. The ego was now everything;
156
and yet it was a void. It had become the universal power, and yet as it brooded
over the ruins of the world it was filled with horror at itself and with despair at all
that it had lost. The ego which had devoured all things and was still a void now
shuddered at itself.
Under the oppression of this awful power the education of mankind has been
going on; under this grim task-master it has been preparing for true freedom,
preparing to rouse itself from the depths of its distress, to escape from its
opposition to itself and cast out that alien ego which is wasting its substance.
Odysseus has now returned to his home, not by favour of the gods, not laid on
the shore in sleep, but awake, by his own thought and his own strength.
Perchance, as of yore, he will have need to fight with the suitors who have
devoured his substance and sought to rob him of all he holds most dear.
Odysseus must string the bow once more.
The baleful charm of the self-alienated ego is broken the moment any one
proves to the religious sense of mankind that the Jesus Christ of the Gospels is
its creation and ceases to exist as soon as this is recognised. The formation of
the Church and the arising of the idea that the Jesus of the Gospels is the
Messiah are not two different things, they are one and the same thing, they
coincide and synchronise; but the idea was only the imaginative conception of
the Church, the first movement of its life, the religious expression of its
experience.

142
The question which has so much exercised the minds of men—whether Jesus
was the historic Christ ( = Messiah)—is answered in the sense that everything
that the historical Christ is, everything that is said of Him, everything that is
known of Him, belongs to the world of imagination, that is, of the imagination of
the Christian community, and therefore has nothing to do with any man who
belongs to the real world.
The world is now free, and ripe for a higher religion in which the ego will
overcome nature, not by self-alienation, but by penetrating it and ennobling it.
To the theologian we may fling as a gift the shreds of his former science, when
we have torn it to pieces; that will be something to occupy himself with, that time
may not hang heavy upon his hands in the new world whose advent is steadily
drawing nearer.
Thus the task which Bauer had set himself at the beginning of his criticism of
the Gospel history, turned, before he had finished, into something different.
When he began, he thought to save the honour of Jesus and to restore His
Person from the state of inanition to which the apologists had reduced it, and
hoped by furnishing a proof that the historical Jesus could not have been the
Jesus Christ of the Gospels, to bring Him into a living relation with history. This
task, however, was given up in favour of the larger one of freeing the world from
the
157
domination of the Judaeo-Roman idol, Jesus the Messiah, and in carrying out
this endeavour the thesis that Jesus Christ is a product of the imagination of the
early Church is formulated in such a way that the existence of a historic Jesus
becomes problematical, or, at any rate, quite indifferent.
At the end of his study of the Gospels, Bauer is inclined to make the decision of
the question whether there ever was a historic Jesus depend on the result of a
further investigation which he proposed to make into the Pauline Epistles. It was
not until ten years later (1850—1851) that he accomplished this task, [1] and
applied the result in his new edition of the "Criticism of the Gospel History." [2]
The result is negative: there never was any historical Jesus. While criticising the
four great Pauline Epistles, which the Tubingen school fondly imagined to be
beyond the reach of criticism, Bauer shows, however, his inability to lay a
positive historic foundation for his view of the origin of Christianity. The
transference of the Epistles to the second century is effected in so arbitrary a
fashion that it refutes itself. However, this work professes to be only a
preliminary study for a larger one in which the new theory was to be fully
worked out. This did not appear until 1877; it was entitled "Christ and the
Caesars; How Christianity originated from Graeco-Roman Civilisation." [3] The
historical basis for his theory, which he here offers, is even more unsatisfactory
than that suggested in the preliminary work on the Pauline Epistles. There is no
longer any pretence of following an historical method, the whole thing works out
into an imaginary picture of the life of Seneca. Nero's tutor had, Bauer thinks,
already in his inmost consciousness fully attained to inner opposition to the

143
world. There are expressions in his works which, in their mystical emancipation
from the world, prelude the utterances of Paul. The same thoughts, since they
belong not to Seneca only, but to hia time, are found also in the works of the
three poets of the Neronian period, Persius, Lucan, and Petronius. Though they
had but a feeble breath of the divine afflatus, they are interesting witnesses to
the spiritual condition of the time. They, too, contributed to the making of
Christianity.
But Seneca, in spite of his inner alienation from the world, remained in active
relations with the world. He desired to found a kingdom of virtue upon earth. At
the courts of Claudius and Nero he used the arts
[1] Kritik der Paidinischen Briefe. (Criticism of the Pauline Epistles.) Berlin,
1850-1852.
[2] Kritik der Evangelien und Geschichte ihres Ursprungs. (Criticism of the
Gospels and History of their Origin.) 2 vols., Berlin, 1850-1851.
[3] Christus und die Casaren. Der Ursprung des Christentums aus dem
romischen Griecherttam. Berlin, 1877.
158
of intrigue to further his ends, and even quietly approved deeds of violence
which he thought likely to serve his cause. Finally, he grasped at the supreme
power; and paid the supreme penalty. Stoicism had made an attempt to reform
the world, and had failed. The great thinkers began to despair of exercising any
influence upon history, the Senate was powerless, all public bodies were
deprived of their rights. Then a spirit of resignation came over the world. The
alienation from the world, which in Seneca had still been only half serious, was
come in earnest. The time of Nero and Domitian was a great epoch in that
hidden spiritual history which goes silently forward side by side with the noisy
outward history of the world. When Stoicism, in this development, had been
deepened by the introduction of neo-Platonic ideas, it was on its way to become
the Gospel.
But by itself it would not have given birth to that new thing. It attached itself as a
formative principle to Judaism, which was then just breaking loose from the
limitations of nationality. Bauer points to Josephus as a type of this new Roman
Judaism. This "neo-Roman" lived in the conviction that his God, who had
withdrawn from His Temple, would take possession of the world, and make the
Roman Empire submit to His law. Josephus realised in his life that for which the
way had been spiritually prepared by Philo. The latter did not merely effect a
fusion of Jewish ideas with Greek speculations; he took advantage of the
universal dominion established by the Romans to found upon it his spiritual
world. Bauer had already pictured him in this role in his work "Philo, Strauss,
and Renan, and Primitive Christianity."
Thus was the new religion formed. The spirit of it came from the west, the
outward frame was furnished by Judaism. The new movement had two foci,
Rome and Alexandria. Philo's "Therapeutae" were real people; they were the
forerunners of Christianity. Under Trajan the new religion began to be known.

144
Pliny's letter asking for instructions as to how to deal with the new movement is
its certificate of birth—the original form of the letter, it must be understood, not
the present form, which has undergone editing at the hands of Christians.
The literary process by which the origin of the movement was thrown back to an
earlier date in history lasted about fifty years.
When this latest work of Bauer's appeared he had long been regarded by
theologians as an extinct force; nay, more, had been forgotten. And he had not
even kept his promise. He had not succeeded in showing what that higher form
of victory over the world was, which he declared superior to Christianity; and in
place of the personality of Jesus he had finally set up a hybrid thing, laboriously
compounded out of two personalities of so little substance as those of Seneca
and Josephus. That was the end of his great undertaking.
159
But it was a mistake to bury, along with the Bauer of the second period, also the
Bauer of the first period, the critic—for the latter was not dead. It was, indeed,
nothing less than a misfortune that Strauss and Bauer appeared within so short
a time of one another. Bauer passed practically unnoticed, because every one
was preoccupied with Strauss. Another unfortunate thing was that Bauer
overthrew with his powerful criticism the hypothesis which attributed real
historical value to Mark, so that it lay for a long time disregarded, and there
ensued a barren period of twenty years in the critical study of the Life of Jesus.
The only critic with whom Bauer can be compared is Reimarus. Each exercised
a terrifying and disabling influence upon his time. No one else had been so
keenly conscious as they of the extreme complexity of the problem offered by
the life of Jesus. In view of this complexity they found themselves compelled to
seek a solution outside the confines of verifiable history. Reimarus, by finding
the basis of the story of Jesus in a deliberate imposture on the part of the
disciples; Bauer, by postulating an original Evangelist who invented the history.
On this ground it was just that they should lose their case. But in dismissing the
solutions which they offered, their contemporaries also dismissed the problems
which had necessitated such solutions; they dismissed them because they were
as little able to grasp as to remove these difficulties.
But the time is past for pronouncing judgment upon Lives of Christ on the
ground of the solutions which they offer. For us the great men are not those
who solved the problems, but those who discovered them. Bauer's "Criticism of
the Gospel History" is worth a good dozen Lives of Jesus, because his work, as
we are only now coming to recognise, after half a century, is the ablest and
most complete collection of the difficulties of the Life of Jesus which is
anywhere to be found.
Unfortunately, by the independent, the too loftily independent way in which he
developed his ideas, he destroyed the possibility of their influencing
contemporary theology. The shaft which he had driven into the mountain broke
down behind him, so that it needed the work of a whole generation to lay bare
once more the veins of ore which he had struck. His contemporaries could not

145
suspect that the abnormality of his solutions was due to the intensity with which
he grasped the problems as problems, and that he had become blind to history
by examining it too microscopically. Thus for his contemporaries he was a mere
eccentric.
But his eccentricity concealed a penetrating insight. No one else had as yet
grasped with the same completeness the idea that primitive Chris- tianity and
early Christianity were not merely the direct outcome of the preaching of Jesus,
not merely a teaching put into practice, but more, much more, since to the
experience of which Jesus was the sub- ject there allied itself the experience of
the world-soul at a time when
160
its body—humanity under the Roman Empire—lay in the throes of death. Since
Paul, no one had apprehended so powerfully the mystic idea of the super-
sensible . Bauer transferred it to the historical plane and
found the "body of Christ" in the Roman Empire.
* XII *
FURTHER IMAGINATIVE LIVES OF JESUS
Charles Christian Hennell. Untersuchungen fiber den Ursprung des
Christentums. (An Inquiry concerning the Origin of Christianity.) 1840. With a
preface by David Friedrich Strauss. English edition, 1838.
Vichtige Enthullungen fiber die wirkliche Todesart Jesu. Nach einem alten zu
Alexandria gefundenen Manuskripte von einem Zeitgenossen Jesu aus dem
heiligen Orden der Essaer. (Important Disclosures concerning the Manner of
Jesus' Death. From an ancient MS. found at Alexandria, written by a con-
temporary of Jesus belonging to the sacred Order of the Essenes.) 1849. 5th
ed., Leipzig. (Anonymous.)
Historische Enthullungen liber die wirklichen Ereignisse der Geburt und Jugend
Jesu. Als Fortsetzung der zu Alexandria augefundenen alten Urkunden aus
dem Essaerorden. (Historical Disclosures concerning the real circumstances of
the Birth and Youth of Jesus. A Continuation of the ancient Essene MS.
discovered at Alexandria.) 1849. 2nd ed., Leipzig.
August Friedrich Gfrorer. Kritische Geschichte des Urchristentums. (Critical
History of Primitive Christianity.)
Vol. i. 1st ed., 1831; 2nd, 1835. Part i. 543 pp.; Part ii. 406 pp.
Vol. ii. 1838. Part i. 452 pp.; Part ii. 417 pp.
Richard von der Alm. (Pseudonym of Friedrich Wilhelm Ghillany.) Theologische
Briefe an die Gebildeten der deutschen Nation, 1863. (Theological Letters to the
Cultured Classes of the German People, 1863.) Vol. i. 929 pp.; Vol. ii. 656 pp.;
Vol. iii. 802 pp.
Ludwig Noack. Die Geschichte Jesu auf Grund freier geschichtlicher Untersu-
chungen iiber das Evangelium und die Evangelien. (The History of Jesus on the
Basis of a free Historical Inquiry regarding the Gospel and the Gospels.) 2nd
ed., 1876, Mannheim. Book i. 251 pp.; Book ii. 187 pp.; Book iii. 386 pp.; Book
iv. 285 pp.

146
STRAUSS CAN HARDLY BE SAID TO HAVE DONE HIMSELF HONOUR BY
CONTRIBUTIMG a preface to the translation of Hennell's work, which is nothing
more than Venturini's "Non-miraculous History of the Great Prophet of
Nazareth" tricked out with a fantastic paraphernalia of learning. [1]
[1] Hennell, a London merchant, withdrew himself from his business pursuits for
two years in order to make the preparatory studies for this Life of Jesus. [He is
best known as a friend of George Eliot, who was greatly interested and
influenced by the "Inquiry."—TRANSLATOR.] To the same category as
Hennell's work belongs the Vohlgeprilfte Darstellung des Lebens Jesu. (An
Account of the Life of Jesus based on the closest Examination) of the
Heidelberg mathematician, Karl von Langsdorf. Mannheim, 1831. Supplement,
with preface to a future second edition, 1833.
162
The two series of "Important Disclosures" also are really "conveyed" with no
particular ability from that classic romance of the Life of Jesus, but that did not
prevent their making something of a sensation at the time when they appeared.
[1] Jesus, according to his narrative, was the son of a member of the Essene
Order. The child was watched over by the Order and prepared for His future
mission. He entered on His public ministry as a tool of the Essenes, who after
the crucifixion took Him down from the cross and resuscitated Him.
These "Disclosures" only preserve the more external features of Venturini's
representation. His Life of Jesus had been more than a mere romance, it had
been an imaginative solution of problems which he had intuitively perceived. It
may be regarded as the Forerunner of rationalistic criticism. The problems
which Venturini had intuitively perceived were not solved either by the
rationalists, or by Strauss, or by Weisse. These writers had not succeeded in
providing that of which Venturini had dreamed—a living purposeful connexion
between the events of the life of Jesus—or in explaining His Person and Work
as having a relation, either positive or negative, to the circumstances of Late
Judaism. Venturini's plan, however fantastic, connects the life of Jesus with
Jewish history and contemporary thought much more closely than any other Life
of Jesus, for that connexion is of course vital to the plot of the romance. In
Weisse's "Gospel History" criticism had deliberately renounced the attempt to
explain Jesus directly from Judaism, finding itself unable to establish any
connexion between His teach- ings and contemporary Jewish ideas. The way
was therefore once more open to the imagination. Accordingly several
imaginative Lives preluded a new era in the study of the subject, in so far as
they endeavoured to understand Jesus on the basis of purely Jewish ideas, in
some cases as affirming these, in others as opposing them in favour of a more
spiritual conception. In Gfrorer, Richard von der Aim, and Noack, begins the
skirmishing preparatory to the future battle over escha- tology. [2]
[1] Hase seems not to have recognised that the "Disclosures" were merely a
plagiarism from Venturini. He mentions them in connexion with Bruno Bauer
and appears to make him responsible for inspiring them; at least that is

147
suggested by his formula of transition when he says: "It was primarily to him
that the frivolous apocryphal hypotheses attached themselves." This is quite
inaccurate. The anonymous epitomist of Venturini had nothing to do with Bauer,
and had probably not read a line of his work. Venturini, whom he had read, he
does not name.
[2] One of the most ingenious of the followers of Venturini was the French Jew
Salvator. In his Jesus-Christ et sa doctrine (Paris, 2 vols., 1838), he seeks to
prove that Jesus was the last representative of a mysticism which, drawing its
nutriment from the other Oriental religions, was to be traced among the Jews
from the time of Solomon onwards. In Jesus this mysticism allied itself with
Messianic enthusiasm.
After He had lost consciousness upon the cross He was succoured by Joseph
of Arimathea and Pilate's wife contrary to His own expectation and purpose. He
ended His days among the Essenes.
Salvator looks to a spiritualised mystical Mosaism as destined to be the
successful rival of Christianity.
163
August Friedrich Gfrorer, born in 1803 at Calw, was "Repetent" at the Tubingen
theological seminary at the time when Strauss was studying there. After being
curate at the principal church in Stuttgart for a year he gave up, in 1830, the
clerical profession in order to devote himself wholly to his clerical studies.
By that time he had abandoned Christianity. In the preface to the first edition of
the first volume of his work, he describes Christianity as a system which now
only maintains itself by the force of custom, after having commended itself to
antiquity "by the hope of the mystic Kingdom of the future world and having
ruled the middle ages by the fear of the same future." By enunciating this view
he has made an end, he thinks, of all high-flying Hegelian ideas, and being thus
freed from all speculative prejudices he feels himself in a position to approach
his task from a purely historical standpoint, with a view to showing how much of
Christianity is the creation of one exceptional Personality, and how much
belongs to the time in which it arose. In the first volume he describes how the
transformation of Jewish theology in Alexandria re- acted upon Palestinian
theology, and how it came to its climax in Philo. The great Alexandrian
anticipated, according to Gfrorer, the ideas of Paul. His "Therapeutae" are
identical with the Essenes. At the same period Judaea was kept in a ferment by
a series of risings, to all of which the incentive was found in Messianic
expectations. Then Jesus appeared. The three points to be investigated in His
history are: what end He had in view; why He died; and what modifications His
work underwent at the hands of the Apostles.
The second volume, entitled "The Sacred Legend," does not, however, carry
out this plan. The works of Strauss and Weisse necessitated a new method of
treatment. The fame of Strauss's achievement stirred Gfrorer to emulation, and
Weisse, with his priority of Mark and rejection of John, must be refuted. The
work is therefore almost a polemic against Weisse for his "want of historic

148
sense," and ends in setting up views which had not entered into Gfrorer's mind
at the time when he wrote his first volume.
The statements of Papias regarding the Synoptists, which Weisse followed, are
not deserving of credence. For a whole generation and more the tradition about
Jesus had passed from mouth to mouth, and it had absorbed much that was
legendary. Luke was the first—as his preface shows—who checked that
process, and undertook to separate what was
164
genuine from what was not. He is the most trustworthy of the Evangelists, for he
keeps closely to his sources and adds nothing of his own, in contrast with
Matthew who, writing at a later date, used sources of less value and invented
matter of his own, which Gfrorer finds especially in the story of the passion in
this Gospel. The lateness of Matthew is also evident from his tendency to carry
over the Old Testament into the New. In Luke, on the other hand, the sources
are so conscientiously treated that Gfrorer finds no difficulty in analysing the
narrative into its component parts, especially as he always has a purely
instinctive feeling "whenever a different wind begins to blow."
Both Gospels, however, were written long after the destruction of the holy city,
since they do not draw their material from the Jerusalem tradition, but "from the
Christian legends which had grown up in the neighbourhood of the Sea of
Tiberias," and in consequence "mistakenly transferred the scene of Jesus'
ministry to Galilee." For this reason it is not surprising "that even down into the
second century many Christians had doubts about the truth of the Synoptics
and ventured to express their doubts." Such doubts only ceased when the
Church became firmly established and began to use its authority to suppress
the objections of individuals. Mark is the earliest witness to doubts within the
primitive Christian community regarding the credibility of his predecessors. Luke
and Matthew are for him not yet sacred books; he desires to reconcile their
inconsistencies, and at the same time to produce "a Gospel composed of
materials of which the authenticity could be maintained even against the
doubters." For this reason he omits most of the discourses, ignores the birth-
story, and of the miracles retains only those which were most deeply embedded
in the tradition. His Gospel was probably produced between 110 and 120. The
"non-genuine" conclusion was a later addition, but by the Evangelist himself.
Thus Mark proves that the Synoptists contain legendary matter even though
they are separated from the events which they relate only by a generation and a
half, or at most two generations. To show that there is nothing strange in this,
Gfrorer gives a long catalogue of miracles found in historians who were
contemporaries of the events which they describe, and in some cases were
concerned in them—in this connexion Cortez affords him a rich storehouse of
material. On the other hand, all objections against the genuineness of the
Fourth Gospel collapse miserably. It is true that, like the others, it offers no
historically accurate report of the discourses of Jesus. It pictures Him as the
Logos-Christ and makes Him speak in this character; which Jesus certainly did

149
not do. Inadvertently the author makes John the Baptist speak in the same way.
That does not matter, however, for the historical conditions are rightly
represented; rightly, because Jerusalem was the scene of the greater
165
part of the ministry, and the five Johannine miracles are to be retained. The
healing of the nobleman's son, that of the lame man at the pool of Bethesda,
and that of the man blind from birth happened just as they are told. The story of
the miracle at Cana rests on a misunderstanding, for the wine which Jesus
provided was really the wedding-gift which He had brought with Him. In the
raising of Lazarus a real case of apparent death is combined with a polemical
exaggeration of it, the restoration to life becoming, in the course of controversy
with the Jews, an actual resurrection. Having thus won free, dragging John
along with him, from the toils of the Hegelian denial of miracle—only, it is true,
by the aid of Venturini—and being prepared to explain the feeding of the
multitude on the most commonplace rationalistic lines, he may well boast that
he has "driven the doubt concerning the Fourth Gospel into a very small
corner."
"The miserable era of negation," cries Gfrorer, "is now at an end; affirmation
begins. We are ascending the eastern mountains from which the pure airs of
heaven breathe upon the spirit. Our guide shall be historical mathematics, a
science which is as yet known to few, and has not been applied by any one to
the New Testament." This "mathematic" of Gfrorer's consists in developing his
whole argument out of a single postulate. Let it be granted to him that all other
claimants of the Messiahship—Gfrorer, in defiance of the evidence of Josephus,
makes all the leaders of revolt in Palestine claimants of the Messiahship—were
put to death by the Romans, whereas Jesus was crucified by His own people: it
follows that the Messiahship of Jesus was not political, but spiritual. He had
declared Himself to be in a certain sense the longed-for Messiah, but in another
sense He was not so. His preaching moved in the sphere of Philonian ideas;
although He did not as yet explicitly apply the Logos doctrine, it was implicit in
His thought, so that the discourses of the Fourth Gospel have an essential truth.
All Messianic conceptions, the Kingdom of God, the judgment, the future world,
are sublimated into the spiritual region. The resurrection of the dead becomes a
present eternal life. The saying in John v. 24, "He that heareth my word, and
believeth on Him that sent me, hath eternal life and cometh not into judgment;
but is passed from death into life," is the only authentic part of that discourse.
The reference which follows to the coming judgment and the resurrection of the
dead is a Jewish interpolation. Jesus did not believe that He Himself was to rise
from the dead. Nevertheless, the "resurrection" is historic; Joseph of Arimathea,
a member of the Essene Order, whose tool Jesus unconsciously was, had
bribed the Romans to make the crucifixion of Jesus only a pretence, and to
crucify two others with Him in order to distract attention from Him. After He was
taken down from the cross, Joseph removed
166

150
Him to a tomb of his own which had been hewn out for the purpose in the
neighbourhood of the cross, and succeeded in resuscitating Him. The Christian
Church grew out of the Essene Order by giving a further development to its
ideas, and it is impossible to explain the organisation of the Church without
taking account of the regulations of the Order. The work closes with a rhapsody
on the Church and its development into the Papal system.
Gfrorer thus works into Venturini's plan a quantity of material drawn from Philo.
His first volume would have led one to expect a more original and scientific
result. But the author is one of those "epileptics of criticism" for whom criticism
is not a natural and healthy means of arriving at a result, but who, in
consequence of the fits of criticism to which they are subject, and which they
even endeavour to intensify, fall into a condition of exhaustion, in which the
need for some fixed point becomes so imperative that they create it for
themselves by self-suggestion—as they previously did their criticism—and then
flatter themselves that they have really found it.
This need for a fixed point carried the former rival of Strauss into Catholicism,
for which his "General History of the Church" (1841-1846) already shows a
strong admiration. After the appearance of this work Gfrorer became Professor
of History in the University of Freiburg. In 1848 he was active in the German
Parliament in endeavouring to promote a reunion of the Protestants with the
Catholics. In 1853 he went over to the Roman Church. His family had already
gone over, at Strassburg, during the revolutionary period. In the conflict of the
church with the Baden Government he vehemently supported the claims of the
Pope. He died in 1861.
Incomparably better and more thorough is the attempt to write a Life of Jesus
embodied in the "Theological Letters to the Cultured Classes of the German
Nation." Their writer takes Gfrorer's studies as his starting-point, but instead of
spiritualising unjustifiably he ventures to conceive the Jewish world of thought in
which Jesus lived in its simple realism. He was the first to place the eschatology
recognised by Strauss and Reimarus in an historical setting—that of Venturini's
plan—and to write a Life of Jesus entirely governed by the idea of eschatology.
The author, Friedrich Wilhelm Ghillany, was born in 1807 at Eriangen. His first
studies were in theology. His rationalistic views, however, compelled him to
abandon the clerical profession. He became librarian at Nuremberg in 1841 and
engaged in controversial writing of an anti-orthodox character, but distinguished
himself also by historical work of outstanding merit. A year after the publication
of the "Theological Letters." which he issued under the pseudonym of Richard
167
von der Alm, he published a collection of "The Opinions of Heathen and
Christian Writers of the first Christian Centuries about Jesus Christ" (1864), a
work which gives evidence of a remarkable range of reading. In 1855 he
removed to Munich in the hope of obtaining a post in the diplomatic service, but
in spite of his solid acquirements he did not succeed. No one would venture to
appoint a man of such outspoken anti-ecclesiastical views. He died in 1876.

151
As regards the question of the sources, Ghillany occupies very nearly the
Tubingen standpoint, except that he holds Matthew to be later than Luke, and
Mark to be extracted, not from these Gospels in their present form, but from
their sources. John is not authentic.
The worship offered to Jesus after His death by the Christian community is,
according to Ghillany, not derived from pure Judaism, but from a Judaism
influenced by oriental religions. The influence of the cult of Mithra, for example,
is unmistakable. In it, as in Christianity, we find the virgin-birth, the star, the wise
men, the cross, and the resurrection. Were it not for the human sacrifice of the
Mithra cult, the idea which is operative in the Supper, of eating and drinking the
flesh and blood of the Son of Man, would be inexplicable.
The whole Eastern world was at that time impregnated with Gnostic ideas,
which centred in the revelation of the Divine in the human. In this way there
arose, for example, a Samaritan Gnosis, independent of the Christian.
Christianity itself is a species of Gnosis. In any case the metaphysical
conception of the Divine Sonship of Jesus is of secondary origin. If He was in
any sense the Son of God for the disciples, they can only have thought of this
sonship in a Gnostic fashion, and supposed that the "highest angel," the Son of
God, had taken up His abode in Him.
John the Baptist had probably come forth from among the Essenes, and he
preached a spiritualised Kingdom of Heaven. He held himself to be Elias. Jesus'
aims were originally similar; He came forward "in the cause of sound religious
teaching for the people." He made no claim to Davidic descent; that is to be
credited to dogmatic theology. Similarly Papias is wrong in ascribing to Jesus
the crude eschatological expectations implied in the saying about the
miraculous vine in the Messianic Kingdom.
It is certain, however, that Jesus held Himself to be Messiah and expected the
early coming of the Kingdom. His teaching is Rabbinic; all His ideas have their
source in contemporary Judaism, whose world of thought we can reconstruct
from the Rabbinic writings; for even if these only became fixed at a later period,
the thoughts on which they are based were already current in the time of Jesus.
Another source of great importance is Justin's "Dialogue with the Jew Trypho."
168
The starting-point in interpreting the teaching of Jesus is the idea of repentance.
In the tractate "Sanhedrin" we find: "The set time of the Messiah is already here;
His coming depends now upon repentance and good works. Rabbi Eleazer
says, 'When the Jews repent they shall be redeemed.'" The Targum of
Jonathan observes, on Zech. x. 3, 4,1 "The Messiah is already born, but
remains in concealment because of the sins of the Hebrews." We find the same
thoughts put into the mouth of Trypho in Justin. In the same Targum of
Jonathan, Isa. liii. is interpreted with reference to the sufferings of the Messiah.
Judaism, therefore, was not unacquainted with the idea of a suffering Messiah.
He was not identified, however, with the heavenly Messiah of Daniel. The
Rabbis distinguished two Messiahs, one of Israel and one of Judah. First the

152
Messiah of the Kingdom of Israel, denominated the Son of Joseph, was to come
from Galilee to suffer death at the hands of the Gentiles in order to make
atonement for the sins of the Hebrew nation. Only after that would the Messiah
predicted by Daniel, the son of David, of the tribe of Judah, appear in glory upon
the clouds of heaven. Finally, He also, after two-and-sixty weeks of years,
should be taken away, since the Messianic Kingdom, even as conceived by
Paul, was only a temporary supernatural condition of the world.
The Messianic expectation, being directed to supernatural events, had no
political character, and one who knew Himself to be the Messiah could never
dream of using earthly means for the attainment of His ends; He would expect
all things to be brought about by the Divine intervention. In this respect Ghillany
grasps clearly the character of the eschatology of Jesus—more clearly than any
one had ever done before.
The role of the Messiah, who prior to His supernatural manifestation remains in
concealment upon earth, is therefore passive. He who is conscious of a
Messianic vocation does not seek to found a Kingdom among men. He waits
with confidence. He issues forth from His passivity with the sole purpose of
making atonement, by vicarious suffering, for the sins of the people, in order
that it may be possible for God to bring about the new condition of things. If, in
spite of the repentance of the people and the occurrence of the signs which
pointed to its being at hand, the coming of the Kingdom should be delayed, the
man who is conscious of a Messianic vocation must, by His death, compel the
intervention of God. His vocation in this world is to die.
Brought within the lines of these reflections the Life of Jesus shapes itself as
follows.
Jesus was the tool of a mystical sect allied to the Essenes, the head of which
was doubtless that Joseph of Arimathea who makes so sudden
[1] The reference should be Micah iv. 8.—F. C. B.
169
and striking an appearance in the Gospel narrative. This party de- sired to bring
about the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven by mystical means, whereas the
mass of the people, led astray by the Pharisees, thought to force on its coming
by means of a rising. In the preacher of a spiritual Kingdom of Heaven, who was
resolved to go to death for His cause, the mystical party discovered Messiah the
son of Joseph, and they recognised that His death was necessary to make
possible the coming of the heavenly Messiah predicted by Daniel. That Jesus
Himself was the Messiah of Daniel, that He would immediately rise again in
order to ascend to His heavenly throne, and would come thence with the hosts
of heaven to establish the Kingdom of Heaven, these people did not themselves
believe. But they encouraged Him in this belief, thinking that he would hardly
commit Himself to a sacrificial death from which there was to be no resurrection.
It was left uncertain to His mind whether Jehovah would be content with the
repentance of the people, in so far as it had taken place, as realising the
necessary condition for the bringing in of the Kingdom of Heaven, or whether an

153
atonement by blood, offered by the death of Messiah the son of Joseph, v/ould
be needful. It had been explained to Him that when the calculated year of grace
arrived, He must go up to Jerusalem and endeavour to rouse the Jews to
Messianic enthusiasm in order to compel Jehovah to come to their aid with His
heavenly hosts. From the action of Jehovah it could then be discovered whether
the preaching of repentance and baptism would suffice to make atonement for
the people before God or not. If Jehovah did not appear, a deeper atonement
must be made; Jesus must pay the penalty of death for the sins of the Jews, but
on the third day would rise again from the dead and ascend to the throne of
God and come again thence to found the Kingdom of Heaven. "Any one can
see," concludes Ghillany, "that our view affords a very natural explanation of the
anxiety of the disciples, the suspense of Jesus Himself, and the prayer, 'If it be
possible let this cup pass from me.' "
"It was apparently only towards the close of His life that Jesus revealed to the
disciples the possibility that the Son of Man might have to suffer and die before
He could found the Messianic Kingdom."
With this possibility before Him, He came to Jerusalem and there awaited the
Divine intervention. Meanwhile Joseph of Arimathea lent his aid towards
securing His condemnation in the Sanhedrin. He must die on the day of the
Passover; on the day of the Preparation He must be at hand and ready in
Jerusalem. He held, with His disciples, a love-feast after the Essene custom,
not a Paschal meal, and in doing so associated thoughts of His death with the
breaking of bread and the pouring out of the wine. "He did not lay upon His
disciples any injunction to continue the celebration of a feast of this kind until
the
170
time of His return, because He thought of His resurrection and His heavenly
glory as about to take place after three days. But when His return was delayed
the early Christians attached these sayings of His about the bread and wine to
their Essene love-feast, and explained this common meal of the community as a
commemoration of the Last Supper of Jesus and His disciples, a memorial
Feast in honour of their Saviour, the celebration of which must be continued
until His coming."
When the armed band came to arrest Him, Jesus surrendered to His fate. Pilate
almost set Him free, holding Him to be a mere enthusiast who placed His hopes
only in the Divine intervention. Joseph of Arimathea, however, succeeded in
averting this danger. "Even on the cross lesus seems to have continued to hope
for the Divine intervention, as is evidenced by the cry, 'My God! My God! why
hast thou forsaken me?'" Joseph of Arimathea provided for His burial.
The belief in His resurrection rests upon the visions of the disciples, which are
to be explained by their intense desire for the Parousia, of which He had given
them the promise. After setting their affairs in order in Galilee they returned at
the Feast of Pentecost to Jerusalem, which they had left in alarm, in order there
to await the Parousia in company with other Galilaean believers.

154
The confession of faith of the primitive Christian community was the simplest
conceivable: Jesus the Messiah had come, not as a temporal conqueror, but as
the Son of Man foretold by Daniel, and had died for the sins of the people. In
other respects they were strict Jews, kept the Law, and were constantly in the
Temple. Only the community of goods and the brotherhood-meal are of an
Essene character.
"The Christianity of the original community in Jerusalem was thus a mixture of
Zealotism and Mysticism which did not include any wholly new element, and
even in its conception of the Messiah had nothing peculiar to itself except the
belief that the Son of Man predicted by Daniel had already come in the person
of Jesus of Nazareth . . . that He was now enthroned at the right hand of God,
and would again appear as the expected Son of Man upon the clouds of heaven
according to Daniel's prophecy." Jesus, therefore, had triumphed over the
mystical party who desired to make use of Him in the character of Messiah the
son of Joseph—their Messiah, the heavenly Son of Man, had not come. Jesus,
in virtue of what He had done, had taken His place both in heaven and in earth.
How much of Venturini's plan is here retained? Only the "mystical part" which
serves the purpose of setting the action of the drama in motion. All the rest of it,
the rationalistic part, has been transmuted into an historical conception. Miracle
and trickery, along with the stage-play resurrection, have been purged away in
the fires of Strauss's criticism.
171
There remains only a fundamental conception which has a certain greatness—a
brotherhood which looks for the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven appoints one
of its members to undergo as Messiah an atoning death, that the coming of the
Kingdom, for which the time is at hand, may not be delayed. This brotherhood is
the only fictitious element in the whole construction—much as in the primitive
steam-engine the valves were still worked by hand while the rest of the
machinery was actuated by its own motive-power. So in this Life of Jesus the
motive-power is drawn entirely from historical sources, and the want of an
automatic starting arrangement is a mere anachronism. Strike out the
superfluous role of Joseph of Arimathea, and the distinction of the two
Messiahs, which is not clear even in the Rabbis, and substitute the simple
hypothesis that Jesus, in the course of His Messianic vocation, when He thinks
the time for the coming of the Kingdom has arrived, goes freely to Jerusalem,
and, as it were, compels the secular power to put Him to death, in order by this
act of atonement to win for the world the immediate coming of the Kingdom, and
for Himself the glory of the Son of Man—make these changes, and you have a
life of Jesus in which the motive-power is a purely historical force. It is
impossible to indicate briefly all the parts of which the seemingly complicated,
but in reality impressively simple, mechanism of this Life of Jesus is composed.
The conduct of Jesus, alike in its resolution and in its hesitation, becomes clear,
and not less so that of the disciples. All far-fetched historical ingenuity is
dispensed with. Jesus acts "because His hour is come." This decisive placing of

155
the Life of Jesus in the "last time" (cf. 1 Peter i. 20
)
is an historical achievement without parallel. Not less so is the placing of the
thought of the passion in its proper eschatological setting as an act of
atonement. Where had the character and origin of the primitive community ever
been brought into such clear connexion with the death of Jesus? Who had ever
before so earnestly considered the problem why the Christian community arose
in Jerusalem and not in Galilee? "But the solution is too simple, and, moreover,
is not founded on a severely scientific chain of reasoning, but on historical
intuition and experiment, the simple experiment of introducing the Life of Jesus
into the Jewish eschatological world of thought"—so the theologians replied, or
so, at least, they might have replied if they had taken this curious work
seriously, if, indeed, they had read it at all. But how were they to suspect that in
a book which seemed to aim at founding a new Deistic Church, and which went
out with the Wolfenuttel Fragmentist into the desert of the most barren natural
religion, a valuable historical conception might be found? It is true that no one
suspected at that time that in the forgotten work of Reimarus there lay a
dangerous historical
172
discovery, a kind of explosive material such as can only be collected by those
who stand free from every responsibility towards historical Christianity, who
have abandoned every prejudice, in the good sense as well as in the bad—and
whose one desire in regard to the Gospel history is to be "spirits that constantly
deny." [1] Such thinkers, if they have historical gifts, destroy artifical history in
the cause of true history and, willing evil, do good—if it be admitted that the
discovery of truth is good. If this negative work is a good thing, the author of the
"Letters to the German People" performed a distinguished service, for his
negation is radical. The new Church which was to be founded on this historic
overcoming of historic Christianity was to combine "only what was according to
reason in Judaism and Christianity." From Judaism it was to take the belief in
one sole, spiritual, perfect God; from Christianity the requirement of brotherly
love to all men. On the other hand, it was to eliminate what was contrary to
reason in each: from Judaism the ritual system and the sacrifices; from
Christianity the deification of Jesus and the teaching of redemption through His
blood. How comes so completely unhistorical a temperament to be combined
with so historical an intellect? His Jesus, after all, has no individuality; He is a
mere eschatological machine.
In accordance with the confession of faith of the new Church of which Ghillany
dreamed, the calendar of the Feasts is to be transformed as follows:—
1. Feast of the Deity, the first and second of January.
2. Feast of the Dignity of Man and Brotherly Love, first and second of April.
3. Feast of the Divine Blessing in Nature, first and second of July.
4. Feast of Immortality, first and second of October.

156
Apart from these eight Feast days, and the Sundays, all the other days of the
year are working days.
From the order of divine service we may note the following: "The sermon, which
should begin with instruction and exhortation and close with consolation and
encouragement, must not last longer than half an hour."
The series of Lives of Jesus which combine criticism with fiction is closed by
Noack's Story of Jesus. A freethinker like Ghillany, but lacking the financial
independence which a kindly fate had conferred upon the latter, Noack led a life
which may properly be described as a constant martyrdom, lightened only by
his intense love of theological studies, which nevertheless were responsible for
all his troubles. Born in 1819, of a clerical family in Hesse, he became in 1842
Pastor's as-
[1] "Ich bin der Geist, der stets verneint."—Mephistopheles in Faust.
173
sistant and teacher of religion at Worms in the Hessian Palatinate. The
Darmstadt reactionaries drove him out of this position in 1844 without his having
given any ground of offence. In 1849 he became "Repetent" in Philosophy at
the University of Giessen at a salary of four hundred gulden. In 1855 he was
promoted to be Professor Extraordinary without having his salary raised. In
1870, at the age of 51, he was appointed assistant at the University Library and
received at the same time the title of Ordinary Professor. He died in 1885. He
was an extremely prolific writer, always ingenious, and possessed of wide
knowledge, but he never did anything of real permanent value either in
philosophy or theology. He was not without critical acumen, but there was too
much of the poet in him; a critical discovery was an incitement to an imaginative
reconstruction of the history. In 1870-1871 he published, after many preliminary
studies, his chief work, "From the Jordan Uplands to Golgotha; four books on
the Gospel and the Gospels." [1] It passed unnoticed. Attributing its failure to
the excitement aroused by the war, which ousted all other interests, he issued a
revised edition in 1876 under the title "The History of Jesus, on the Basis of
Free Historical Inquiry concerning the Gospel and the Gospels," [2] but with
hardly greater success.
And yet the fundamental critical ideas which can be detected beneath this
narrative, in spite of its having the form of fiction, give this work a significance
such as the contemporary Lives of Jesus which won the applause of
theologians did not possess. It is the only Life of Jesus hitherto produced which
is written consistently from the Johannine point of view from beginning to end.
Strauss had not, after all, in Noack's opinion, conclusively shown the absolute
incompatibility of the Synoptics with the Fourth Gospel; neither he nor any other
critic had felt the full difficulty of the question why the Fourth Evangelist should
be at pains to invent the numerous journeys to the Feasts, seeing that the
development of the Logos Christology did not necessarily involve any alteration
of the scene of the ministry; on the contrary, it would, one might think, have
been the first care of the Evangelist to inweave his novel theory with the familiar

157
tradition in order to avoid discrediting his narrative in advance by his
innovations. Noack's conclusion is that the inconsistency is not due to a single
author; it is the result of a long process of redaction in which various divergent
tendencies have been at work. But as the Fourth Gospel is not the logical
terminus of the process of alteration, the only alternative is to place it
[1] Aus der Jordanwiege nach Golgotha; vier Bucher fiber das Evangelium und
die Evangelien.
[2] Die Geschichte Jesu auf Grand freiw geschichtlicher Untersuchungen uber
das evangelium und die Evangelien.
174
at the beginning. What we have to seek in it is the original Gospel from which
the process of transforming the tradition started.
There is also another line of argument based on the contradictions in the
Gospel tradition which leads to the hypothesis that we have to do with
redactions of the Gospels. Either Jesus was the Jewish Messiah of the
Synoptics, or a Son of God in the Greek, spiritual sense, whose self-
consciousness must be interpreted by means of the Logos doctrine: He cannot
have been both at the same time. But it is inconceivable that a Jewish claimant
of the Messiahship would have been left unmolested up to the last, and have
had virtually to force the authorities to put him to death. On the other hand, if He
were a simple enthusiast claiming to be a Son of God, a man who lived only for
his own "self-consciousness," He might from the beginning have taken up this
attitude without being in any way molested, except by the scorn of men. In this
respect also, therefore, the primitive Gospel which we can recover from John
has the advantage. It was only later that this "Son of God" became the Jewish
Messiah.
We arrive at the primitive Johannine writing when we cancel in the Fourth
Gospel all Jewish doctrine and all miracles. [1] Its date is the year 60 and it was
composed by—Judas, the beloved disciple. This primitive Gospel received little
modification and still shows clearly "the wonderful reality of its history." It aims
only at giving a section of Jesus' history, a representation of His attitude of mind
and spirit. With "simple ingenuousness" it gives, "along with the kernel of the
historical material of the Gospel, Jesus' thoughts about His own Person in the
mysterious oracular sayings and deeply thoughtful and moving discourses by
which the Nazarene stirred rather than enlightened the world." Events of a
striking character were, however, absent from it. The feeding of the multitude
was represented in it as effected by natural means. It was a philanthropic
feeding of a multitude which certainly did not number thousands, the numbers
are a later insertion; Jesus fed them with bread and fish which He purchased
from a "sutler-lad." The healing of the lame man at the pool of Bethesda was
the unmasking of a malingerer, whom the Lord exposed and ordered to depart.
As He had bidden him carry his bed, and it was on the Sabbath, this brought
Him into conflict with the authorities. His only "acts" were acts of self-
revelation—mystical sayings which He threw out to the people. "The problem

158
which meets us in His history is in truth a psychological problem, how, namely.
His exalted view of Himself came to be accepted as the purest and highest
truth—in His lifetime, it is true, only by a limited circle of disciples, but after His
departure by a constantly grow-
[1] For Noack's reconstruction of it see Book iii. pp. 196-225.
175
ing multitude of believing followers." The gospel of the beloved disciple Judas
made its way quietly into the world, understood by few, even as Jesus Himself
had been understood by a few only.
About ten years later, according to Noack, appeared the original form of Luke,
which we can reconstruct from what is known of Marcion's Luke. [1] This
Evangelist is under Pauline influence, and writes with an apologetic purpose.
He desires to refute the calumny that Jesus was "possessed of a devil," and he
does this by making Him cast out devils. It was in this way that miracle forced
itself into the Gospel hbtory.
But this primitive Luke, as Noack reconstructs it by combining the statements of
the Fathers regarding Marcion's Gospel, knows nothing of Jesus' journey to
Jerusalem to die. This circumstance is of capital importance to Noack, because
in the course of his attempt to bring the topography of the Fourth Gospel into
harmony with that of the Synoptics he had arrived at the remarkable result that
the Johannine Christ worked in Galilee, not in Judaea. On the basis of the
Onomasticon of Eusebius—which Noack, with the aid of topographical traditions
derived from the Crusaders and statements of Mohammedan writers, interprets
with a recklessness which is nothing short of criminal—Cana and Bethany
(Bethabara) were not in the latitude of Jerusalem, but "near the head-waters of
the Jordan in the upper part of the Jordan valley before it flows into the lake of
Huleh. There, in Coele-Syria, on the southern slope of Hermon, was the scene
of John the Baptist's labours; there Jesus began His ministry; thither He
returned to die." "It is in the Galilaean district which forms the scene of the Song
of Solomon that the reader of this book must be prepared to find the Golgotha
of the cross." That is the sentence with which Noack's account of the Life of
Jesus opens. This alludes to an idea which had already been worked out in his
"Studies on the Song of Solomon," [2] namely, that the mountain country
eurrounding the upper Jordan was the pre-exilic Judaea, and that the "city of
David" was situated there. The Jews on their return from exile had at first
endeavoured to rebuild that Coele-Syrian city of David with the ruins of
Solomon's Temple, but had been driven away from it and had then taken the
desperate resolution to build the temple of Zerubbabel upon the high plateau
lying far to the south of ancient Israel. Ezra the Scribe interpolated the forgery
on the ground of which this site began to be accepted as the former city of
David. Under the Syrian oppression all remembrance of the ancient city of
David entirely disappeared.
This fantastic edifice, in the construction of which the wildest etymolo-
[1] For the reconstruction see Book iii. pp. 326-386.

159
[2] Tharraqah und Sunamith. The Song of Solomon in its historical and
topographical setting. 1869.
176
gies play a part, is founded on the just recognition that a reconciliation of John
with the Synoptists can only be effected by transferring some of the Johannine
localities to the North; but this involves not only finding Bethany, Arimathea and
the other places, but even the scene of Jesus' death in this district. The brook
Kedron conveniently becomes the "brook of Cedars."
For fifty years the two earliest Evangelists, in spite of their poverty of incident,
sufficed for the needs of the Christians. The "fire of Jesus" was fed chiefly by
the Pauline Gospel. The original form of the Gospel of Luke accordingly
became the starting-point of the next stage of development. Thus arose the
Gospel of Mark. Mark was not a native of Palestine, but a man of Roman
extraction living in Decapolis, who had not the slightest knowledge of the
localities in which the life of Jesus was really passed. He undertook, about the
year 130, "in the interest of the new Christian settlement at Jerusalem in
Hadrian's time, deliberately and consciously to transform the original plan of the
Gospel history and to represent the Lord as crucified at Jerusalem." The man
who from the year 132 onward, as Mark the Bishop, preached the word of the
Crucified to a Gentile Christian community amid the ruins of the holy city, had
previously, as Mark the Evangelist, taken care that a prophet should not perish
out of Jerusalem. In composing his Gospel he made use, in addition to Luke, of
a traditional source which he found in Decapolis. He deliberately omitted the
frequent journeys to Jerusalem which were still found in the original Luke, and
inserted instead Jesus' journey to His death. He it was, also, who made the
Nazarite into the Nazarene, laying the scene of Jesus' youth in Nazareth. To the
cures of demoniacs he added magical acts such as the feeding of the multitude
and the resurrection.
In Matthew, who appeared about 135, legend and fiction riot unchecked. In
addition, Jewish parables and sayings are put into the mouth of Jesus, whereas
He really had nothing to do with the Jewish world of ideas. For if anything is
certain, it is that the moral maxims of the latest Gospel are of a distinctively
Jewish origin. About the middle of the second century the originals of John and
Luke underwent redaction. The redaction of the Logos Gospel was completed
by the addition of the twenty-first chapter, the last redaction of Luke was
perhaps carried out by Justin Martyr, fresh from completing his "Dialogue with
Trypho"! Thus John and Luke are, in this final form, which is full of
contradictions, the latest Gospels, and the saying is fulfilled about the first being
last, and the last first.
Arbitrary as these suggestions are, there is nevertheless something impressive
in the attempt to explain the remarkable inconsistencies which are found within
the Gospel tradition by considerations relating
177

160
to its origin and development. Despite all his far-fetched ideas, Noack really
stands higher than some of his contemporaries who showed more prudence in
their theological enterprises, and about that time were earning the applause of
the faculty, and quieting the minds of the laity, by performing once more the old
conjuring trick—assisted by some new feats of leger-demain—of harmonising
John with the Synoptists in such a way as to produce a Life of Jesus which
could be turned to the service of ecclesiastical theology.
The outline of the public Life of Jesus, as reconstructed by Noack, is as follows.
It lasted from early in the year 35 to the 14th Nisan of the year 37, and began in
the moment when Jesus revealed His consciousness of what He was. We do
not know how long previously He had cherished it in secret. It is certain that the
Baptist helped to bring about this revelation. This is the only part which he plays
in the Gospel of John. He was neither a preacher of repentance, nor an Elias,
nor the forerunner of Jesus, nor a mere signpost pointing to the Messiah, such
as the secondary tradition makes him out to be.
Similarly everything that is Messianic in the consciousness of Jesus is
secondary. The lines of His thought were guided by the Greek ideaa about sons
of God, for the soil of northern Galilee was saturated with these ideas. Other
sources which contributed something were the personification of the Divine
Wisdom in the "Wisdom Literature" and some of Philo's doctrines. Jesus
became the son of God in an ecstatic trance! Had not Philo recognised ecstasy
as the last and highest means of rising to union with the Divine?
Jesus' temperament, according to Noack, was pre-disposed to ecstasy, since
He was born out of wedlock. One who had this burden upon His spirit may well
have early taken refuge in His own thoughts, above the clouds, in the presence
of the God of His fathers. Assailed in a thousand ways by the cruelty of the
world, it would seem to Him as though His Heavenly Father, though unseen,
was stretching out to Him the arms of consolation. Imagination, which ever
mercifully lightens for men the yoke of misery, charmed the fatherless child out
of His earthly sufferings and put into His hand a coloured glass through which
He saw the world and life in a false light. Ecstatic enthusiasm had carried Him
up to the dizzy height of spiritual union with the Father in Heaven. A hundred
times He was cast down out of His dreams into the hard world of reality, to
experience once more His earthly distresses, but ever anew he won His way by
fasting, vigil, and prayer to the starry heaven of ecstasy.
"Jesus," Noack explains, "had in thought projected Himself beyond His earthly
nativity and risen to the conception that His ego had been in existence before
this earthly body in which He stood visibly upon
178
the stage of the world. He felt that His ego had had being and life before He
became incarnate upon earth. . . . This new conception of Himself, born of His
solitary musings, was incorporated into the very substance of His natural
personal ego. A new ego had superseded the old natural, corporeally
conditioned ego."

161
Ambition, too, came into play—the high ambition to do God a service by the
offering up of Himself. The passion of self-sacrifice is characteristic of a
consciousness such as this. According to the document which underlies the
Johannine Gospel it was not in consequence of outward events that Jesus took
His resolve to die. "It was the later Gospel tradition which exhibited His fate as
an inevitable consequence of His conflict with a world impervious to spiritual
impression." In the original Gospel that fate was freely embraced from the
outset as belonging to the vocation of the Son of God. Only by the constant
presence of the thought of death could a life which for two years walked the
razor edge of such dizzy dreams have been preserved from falling. The
conviction, or perhaps rather the instinctive feeling, that the role of a Son of God
upon earth was not one to be maintained for decades was the necessary
counterpoise to the enthusiasm of Jesus' spirit. From the first He was as much
at home with the thought of death as with His Heavenly Father.
This Son of Man—according to Noack's interpretation the title is equivalent to
Son of Hope—requires of the multitude that they shall take His lofty dream for
solid reality. "He revealed His message from heaven to the world at the Paschal
Feast of the year 35, by throwing out a challenge to the Sadducaean hierarchy
in Jerusalem." In the time between John's removal from the scene and John's
death, there falls the visit of Jesus to Samaria and a sojourn in the
neighbourhood of His Galilaean home. At the Feast of Tabernacles in
Jerusalem in the autumn of that year, the healing of the lame man at the pool of
Bethesda led to a breach with the Sabbatic regulations of the Pharisees. Later
on, in consequence of His generous feeding of the multitude in the Gaulonite
table-land, there is an attempt to make Him into a Messianic King; which He,
however, repudiates. At the time of the Passover in Galilee in the year 36, in the
synagogue at Capernaum, He tests the spiritual insight of those who may, He
hopes, be ripe for the higher teaching concerning the Son of God made flesh,
by the touchstone of His mystical words about the bread of life. At the next
Feast of Tabernacles, in the city of Zion, He makes a last desperate attempt to
move men's hearts by the parable of the Good Shepherd who is ready to lay
down His life for His sheep, the people of Israel.
But His adversaries are remorseless; they wound Him to the very depths of His
spirit by bringing to Him the woman taken in adultery,
179
and asking Him what they are to do with her. When this question was sprung
upon Him, He saw in a moment the public humiliation designed by His
adversaries. All eyes were turned upon Him, and for a few moments the
embarrassment of One who was usually so self-possessed was patent to all. He
stooped as though He desired to write with His finger upon the ground. Was it
shame at His dishonourable birth that compelled Him thus to lower His gaze?
But the painful silence of expectation among the spectators did not last long.
His adversaries repeated their question. He raised His head and spoke the

162
undying words: "Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone at
her."
Incensed by His constant references to His heavenly Sonship, they endeavour
at last to stone Him. He flees from the Temple and takes refuge in the Jordan
uplands. His purpose is, at the next Passover, that of the year 37, here in the
mountains which were blessed as Joseph's portion, to offer His atoning death
as that of the true paschal lamb, and with this act to quit the stage of the world's
history. He remained in hiding in order to avoid the risk of assassination by the
emissaries of the Pharisees. In Bethany He receives the mysterious visit of the
Greeks, who doubtless desired to tempt Him to raise the standard of revolt as a
claimant of the Messiahship, but He refuses to be shaken in His determination
to die. The washing of the disciples' feet signifies their baptism with water, that
they might thereafter receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Judas, the disciple whom Jesus loved, who was a man of much resource,
helped Him to avoid being arrested as a disturber of the peace by arranging that
the "betrayal" should take place on the evening before the Passover, in order
that Jesus might die, as He desired, on the day of the Passover. For this service
of love he was, in the secondary tradition, torn from the bosom of the Lord and
branded as a traitor.
* XIII *
RENAN
Ernest Renan. La Vie de Jesus. 1863. Paris, Michel Levy Freres. 462 pp.
E. de Pressense. Jesus-Christ, son temps, sa vie, son ceuvre. Paris, 1865. 684
pp.
ERNEST RENAN WAS BORN IN 1823 AT TREGUIER IN BRITTANY.
INTENDED for the priesthood, he entered the seminary of St. Sulpice in Paris,
but there, in consequence of reading the German critical theology, he began to
doubt the truth of Christianity and of its history. In October 1845, shortly before
the time arrived for him to be ordained a sub-deacon, he left the seminary and
began to work for his living as a private teacher. In 1849 he received a
government grant to enable him to make a journey to Italy for the prosecution of
his studies, the fruits of which appeared in his Averroes et I'Averroisme (Paris,
1852) ; in 1856 he was made a member of the Academic des Inscriptions; in
1860 he received from Napoleon III. the means to make a journey to Phoenicia
and Syria. After his return in 1862 he obtained the professorship of Semitic
Languages at the College de France. But the widespread indignation aroused
by his Life of Jesus, which appeared in the following year, forced the
Government to remove him from his office. He refused a post as Librarian of the
Imperial Library, and lived in retirement until the Republic of 1871 restored him
to his professorship. In politics, as in religion, his position was somewhat
indefinite. In religion he was no longer a Catholic; avowed free-thought was too
plebeian for his taste, and in Protestantism the multiplicity of sects repelled him.
Similarly in politics, in the period immediately following the fall of the Empire, he
was in turn Royalist, Republican, and Bonapartist. At bottom he was a sceptic.

163
He died in 1892, already half-forgotten by the public; until his imposing funeral
and interment in the Pantheon recalled him to its memory.
Like Strauss, Renan designed his Life of Jesus to form part of a complete
account of the history and dogma of the early Church. His purpose, however,
was purely historical; it was no part of his project to set up, on the basis of the
history, a new system of dogma, as Strauss had desired to do. This plan was
not only conceived, but carried out.
181
Les Apotres appeared in 1866; St. Paul in 1869; L'Ante-Christ in 1873; Les
Evangiles in 1877; L'Eglise chretienne in 1879; Marc-Aurele et la fin du monde
antique in 1881. Several of these works were more valuable than the one which
opened the series, but for the world Renan continued to be the author of the Vie
de Jesus, and of that alone.
He planned the work at Gaza, and he dedicated it to his sister Henriette, who
died soon after, in Syria, and lies buried at Byblus.
This was the first Life of Jesus for the Catholic world, which had scarcely been
touched—the Latin peoples least of all—by the two and a half generations of
critical study which had been devoted to the subject. It is true, Strauss's work
had been translated into French, [1] but it had made only a passing stir, and that
only among a little circle of intellectuals. Now came a writer with the
characteristic French mental accent, who gave to the Latin world in a single
book the result of the whole process of German criticism.
But Renan's work marked an epoch, not for the Catholic world only, but for
general literature. He laid the problem which had hitherto occupied only
theologians before the whole cultured world. And not as a problem, but as a
question of which he, by means of his historical science and aesthetic power of
reviving the past, could provide a solution. He offered his readers a Jesus who
was alive, whom he, with his artistic imagination, had met under the blue
heaven of Galilee, and whose lineaments his inspired pencil had seized. Men's
attention was arrested, and they thought to see Jesus, because Renan had the
skill to make them see blue skies, seas of waving corn, distant mountains,
gleaming lilies, in a landscape with the Lake of Gennesareth for its centre, and
to hear with him in the whispering of the reeds the eternal melody of the
Sermon on the Mount.
Yet the aesthetic feeling for nature which gave birth to this Life of Jesus was, it
must be confessed, neither pure nor profound. It is a standing enigma why
French art, which in painting grasps nature with a directness and vigour, with an
objectivity in the best sense of the word, such as is scarcely to be found in the
art of any other nation, has in poetry treated it in a fashion which scarcely ever
goes beyond the lyrical and sentimental, the artificial, the subjective, in the
worst sense of the word. Renan is no exception to this rule, any more than
Lamartine or Pierre Loti. He looks at the landscape with the eye of a decorative
painter seeking a motif for a lyrical composition upon which he is engaged. But
that was not noticed by the many, because they, after all, were accustomed to

164
have nature dressed up for them, and had had their taste so corrupted by a
certain kind of lyricism that they had lost the
[1] La Vie de Jesus de D. Fr. Strauss. Traduite par M. Littre, 1840.
182
power of distinguishing between truth and artificiality. Even those who might
have noticed it were so astonished and delighted at being shown Jesus in the
Galilaean landscape that they were content to yield to the enchantment.
Along with this artificial feeling for nature a good many other things were
accepted without question. There is scarcely any other work on the subject
which so abounds in lapses of taste—and those of the most distressing kind—
as Renan's Vie de Jesus. It is Christian art in the worst sense of the term—the
art of the wax image. The gentle Jesus, the beautiful Mary, the fair Galilaeans
who formed the retinue of the "amiable carpenter," might have been taken over
in a body from the shop-window of an ecclesiastical art emporium in the Place
St. Sulpice. Nevertheless, there is something magical about the work. It offends
and yet it attracts. It will never be quite forgotten, nor is it ever likely to be
surpassed in its own line, for nature is not prodigal of masters of style, and
rarely is a book so directly born of enthusiasm as that which Renan planned
among the Galilaean hills.
The essay on the sources of the Life of Jesus with which it opens is itself a
literary masterpiece. With a kind of effortless ease he makes his readers
acquainted with the criticism of Strauss, of Baur, of Reuss, of Colani. He does
not argue, but simply sets the result vividly before the reader, who finds himself
at once at home in the new world of ideas. He avoids any hard or glaring
effects; by means of that skilful transition from point to point which Wagner in
one of his letters praises as the highest art, everything is surrounded with
atmosphere. But how much trickery and illusion there is in this art! In a few
strokes he indicates the relation of John to the Synoptists; the dilemma is made
clear, it seems as if one horn or the other must be chosen. Then he begins by
artful touches to soften down the contrast. The discourses of John are not
authentic; the historical Jesus cannot have spoken thus. But what about the
statements of fact? Here Renan declares himself convinced by the graphic
presentment of the passion story. Touches like "it was night," "they had lighted
a fire of coals," "the coat was without seam," cannot have been invented.
Therefore the Gospel must in some way go back to the disciple whom Jesus
loved. It is possible, nay certain, that when as an old man he read the other
Gospels, he was displeased by certain inaccuracies, and perhaps vexed that he
was given so small a place in the history. He began to dictate a number of
things which he had better means of knowing than the others; partly, too, with
the purpose of showing that in many cases where Peter only had been
mentioned he also had played a part, and indeed the principal part. Sometimes
his recollection was quite fresh, sometimes it had been modified by time. When
he wrote down the discourses, he had forgotten the Lake
183

165
of Gennesareth and the winsome words which he had listened to upon its
shores. He was now living in quite a different world. The events of the year 70
destroyed his hopes of the return of his Master. His Jewish prejudices fell away,
and as he was still young, he adapted himself to the syncretistic, philosophic,
gnostic environment amid which he found himself in Ephesus. Thus even Jesus'
world of thought took on a new shape for him; although the discourses are
perhaps rather to be referred to his school than to himself. But, when all is said,
John remains the best biographer. Or, to put it more accurately, while all the
Gospels are biographies, they are legendary biographies, even though they
come down from the first century. Their texts need interpretation, and the cine
to the interpretation can be supplied by aesthetic feeling. They must be
subjected to a gentle pressure to bring them together, and make them coalesce
into a unity in which all the data are happily combined.
How this is to be done Renan shows later in his description of the death of
Jesus. "Suddenly," he says, "Jesus gave a terrible cry in which gome thought
they heard 'Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,' but which others,
whose thoughts were running on the fulfilment of prophecy, reported as 'It is
finished.'"
The authentic sayings of Jesus are more or less self-evidencing. Coming in
contact with one of them amid the welter of heterogeneous traditions, you feel a
thrill of recognition. They leap forth and take their proper place, where their vivid
power becomes apparent. For one who writes the life of Jesus on His native
soil, the Gospels are not so much sources of information as incentives to
revelation. "I had," Renan avows, "a fifth Gospel before my eyes, mutilated in
parts, but still legible, and taking it for my guide I saw behind the narratives of
Matthew and Mark, instead of an ideal Being of whom it might be maintained
that He had never existed, a glorious human countenance full of life and
movement." It is this Jesus of the fifth Gospel that he desires to portray.
In looking at the picture, the reader must not allow the vexed question of miracle
to distract him and disturb the proper frame of mind. The author refuses to
assert either the possibility or the impossibility of miracle, but speaks only as an
historian. "We do not say miracle is impossible, we say only that there has
never been a satisfactorily authenticated miracle."
In view of the method of treatment adopted by Renan there can, of course, be
no question of an historical plan. He brings in each saying at the point where it
seems most appropriate. None of them is passed over, but none of them
appears in its historical setting. He shifts individual incidents hither and thither in
the most arbitrary fashion. For example, the coming of Jesus' mother to seek
Him (in the belief that
184
He is beside Himself) must belong to the later part of Jesus' life, since it is out of
tone with the happy innocence of the earlier period. Certain scenes are
transposed from the later period to the earlier, because they are not gloomy
enough for the later time. Others again are made the basis of an unwarranted

166
generalisation. It is not enough that Jesus once rode upon an ass while the
disciples in the intoxication of joy cast their garments in the way: according to
Renan, He constantly rode about even in Galilee, upon a mule, "that favourite
riding-animal of the East which is so docile and sure-footed and whose great
dark eyes, shaded by long lashes, are full of gentleness." Sometimes the
disciples surrounded Him with rustic pomp, using their garments by way of
carpeting. They laid them upon the mule which carried Him, or spread them
before Him on the way.
Scenes of little significance are sometimes elaborately described by Renan
while more important ones are barely touched on. "One day, indeed," he
remarks in describing the first visit to Jerusalem, "anger seems to have, as the
saying goes, overmastered Him; He struck some of the miserable chatterers
with the scourge, and overthrew their tables." Such is the incidental fashion in
which the cleansing of the temple was brought in. In this way it is possible to
smuggle in a miracle without giving any further explanation of it. The miracle at
Cana is brought, by means of the following unobtrusive turn of phrase, into the
account of the period of success in Galilee. "One of His miracles was done by
Jesus for the sole purpose of increasing the happiness of a wedding-party in a
little country town."
This Life of Jesus is introduced by a kind of prelude. Jesus had been living in
Galilee before He came to the Baptist; when He heard of the latter's success He
went to him with His little company of followers. They were both young, and
Jesus became the imitator of the Baptist. Fortunately the latter soon
disappeared from the scene, for his influence on Jesus was in some respects
injurious. The Galilaean teacher was on the verge of losing the sunny religion
which He had learned from His only teacher, the glorious natural scenery which
surrounded His home, and of becoming a gloomy Jewish fanatic. But this
influence fell away from Him again; when He returned to Galilee He became
Himself once more. The only thing which He had gained from John was some
knowledge of the art of preaching. He had learned from him how to influence
masses of men. From that time forward He preached with much more power
and gained greater ascendancy over the people.
With the return to Galilee begins the first act of the piece. The story of the rise of
Christianity is a pastoral play. Bauer, in his "Philo, Strauss, and Renan," writes
with biting sarcasm: "Renan, who is at once author of the play, the stage-
manager, and the director of the theatre,
185
gives the signal to begin, and at a sign from him the electric lights are put on full
power, the Bengal fires flare up, the footlights are turned higher, and while the
flutes and shawms of the orchestra strike up the overture, the people enter and
take their places among the bushes and by the shore of the Lake." And how
confiding they were, this gentle and peaceful company of Galilaean fisher folk!
And He, the young carpenter, conjured the Kingdom of Heaven down to earth
for a year, bv the spell of the infinite tenderness which radiated from Him. A

167
company of men and women, all of the same youthful integrity and simple
innocence, became His followers and constantly repeated "Thou art the
Messiah." By the women He was more beloved than He Himself liked, but from
His passion for the glory of His Father He was content to attract these "fair
creatures" (belles creatures) and suffered them to serve Him, and God through
Him. Three or four devoted Galilaean women constantly accompanied Him and
strove with one another for the pleasure (le plaisir) of listening to His teaching
and attending to His comfort. Some of them were wealthy and used their means
to enable the "amiable" (charmant) prophet to live without needing to practise
His handicraft. The most devoted of all was Mary Magdalene, whose disordered
mind had been healed by the influence of the pure and gracious beauty (par la
beaute pure et douce) of the young Rabbi.
Thus He rode, on His long-eyelashed gentle mule, from village to village, from
town to town. The sweet theology of love (la delicieuse theologie de l'amour)
won Him all hearts. His preaching was gentle and mild (suave et douce}, full of
nature and the fragrance of the country. Wherever He went the people kept
festival. At marriages He was a welcome guest; to the feasts which He gave He
invited women who were sinners, and publicans like the good Zacchaeus.
"The Frenchman," remarks Noack, "takes the mummied figure of the Galilaean
Rabbi, which criticism has exhumed, endows it with life and energy, and brings
Him upon the stage, first amid the lustre of the earthly happiness which it was
His pleasure to bestow, and then in the moving aspect of one doomed to
suffer."
When Jesus goes up to the Passover at the end of this first year, He comes into
conflict with the Rabbis of the capital. The "winsome teacher, Who offered
forgiveness to all on the sole condition of loving Him," found in the capital
people upon whom His charm had no effect. When He returned to Galilee He
had entirely abandoned His Jewish beliefs, and a revolutionary ardour glowed in
His heart. The second act begins. "The action becomes more serious and
gloomy, and the pupil of Strauss turns down the footlights of his stage." [1] The
erstwhile "winsome moral-
[1] Bruno Bauer in Philo, Strauss, und Renan.
186
ist" has become a transcendental revolutionary. Up to this point He had thought
to bring about the triumph of the Kingdom of God by natural means, by teaching
and influencing men. The Jewish eschatology stood vaguely in the background.
Now it becomes prominent. The tension set up between His purely ethical ideas
and these eschatological expectations gives His words from this time forward a
special force. The period of joyous simplicity is past.
Even the character of the hero loses its simplicity. In the furtherance of His
cause He becomes a wonder-worker. It is true that even before He had
sometimes practised innocent arts such as Joan of Arc made use of later. [1]
He had, for instance, pretended to know the unspoken thoughts of one whom
He desired to win, had reminded him, perhaps of some experience of which he

168
cherished the memory. He allowed the people to believe that He received
knowledge of certain matters through a kind of revelation. Finally, it came to be
whispered that He had spoken with Moses and Elias upon the mountains. But
He now finds Himself compelled to adopt in earnest the role which He had
formerly taken, as it were, in play. Against His will He is compelled to found His
work upon miracle. He must face the alternative of either renouncing His
mission or becoming a thaumaturge. He consented, therefore, to play an active
part in many miracles. In this astute friends gave Him their aid. At Bethany
something happened which could be regarded as a raising of the dead.
Perhaps this miracle was arranged by Lazarus himself. When very ill he had
allowed himself to be wrapped in the cerements of the dead and laid in the
grave. His sisters sent for Jesus and brought Him to the tomb. He desired to
look once more upon His friend, and when, overcome with grief, He cried his
name aloud, Lazarus came forth from the grave. Why should the brother and
sisters have hesitated to provide a miracle for the Master, in whose miracle-
working power they, indeed, believed? Where, then, was Renan's allegiance to
his "honoured master" Strauss, when he thus enrolled himself among the
rationalists?
On these lines Jesus played His part for eighteen months, from the Easter of 31
to the Feast of Tabernacles of 32. How great is the change from the gentle
teacher of the Sermon on the Mount! His discourse takes on a certain hardness
of tone. In the synagogue at Capernaum He drives many from Him, offended by
the saying about eating and drinking His flesh and blood. The "extreme
materialism of the expression," which in Him had always been the natural
counterpoise to the "extreme idealism of the thought," becomes more and more
pronounced. His "Kingdom of God" was indeed still essentially the kingdom of
the poor, the kingdom of the soul, the great spiritual kingdom; but He now
[1] Renan does not hesitate to apply this tasteless parallel.
187
preached it as the kingdom of the apocalyptic writings. And yet in the very
moment when He seems to be staking everything upon a supernatural fulfilment
of His hopes, He provides with remarkable prescience the basis of a permanent
Church. He appoints the Twelve Apostles and institutes the fellowship-meal. It
is certain, Renan thinks, that the "Supper" was not first instituted on that last
evening; even in the second Galilaean period He must have practised with His
followers the mystic rite of the Breaking of Bread, which in some way
symbolised His death.
By the end of this period He had cast off all earthly ambitions. Nothing of earth
existed for Him any more. A strange longing for persecution and martyrdom had
taken possession of Him. It was not, however, the resolve to offer an atonement
for the sins of His people which familiarised Him with the thought of death; it
was forced upon Him by the knowledge that He had entered upon a path in
which it was impossible for Him to sustain His role for more than a few months,
or perhaps even weeks. So He sets out for Jerusalem, outwardly a hero,

169
inwardly half in despair because He has turned aside from His true path. The
gentle, faithful, long-eyelashed mule bears Him, amid the acclamations of the
multitude, through the gate of the capital.
The third act begins: the stage is dark and becomes constantly darker, until at
last, through the darkness of the scene, there is faintly visible only the figure of
a woman-of her who in her deep grief beside the grave was by her vision to call
to life again Him whom she loved. There was darkness, too, in the souls of the
disciples, and in that of the Master. The bitter jealousy between Judas and John
made one of them a traitor. As for Jesus, He had His hour of gloom to fight
through in Gethsemane. For a moment His human nature awakened in Him; all
that He thought He had slain and put behind Him for ever rose up and
confronted Him as He knelt there upon the ground. "Did He remember the clear
brooks of Galilee at which He might have slaked His thirst-the vine and the fig-
tree beneath which He might have rested-the maidens who would perhaps have
been willing to love Him? Did He regret His too exalted nature? Did He, a martyr
to His own greatness, weep that He had not remained the simple carpenter of
Nazareth? We do not know!"
He is dead. Renan, as though he stood in Pere Lachaise, commissioned to
pronounce the final allocution over a member of the Academy, apostrophises
Him thus: "Rest now, amid Thy glory, noble pioneer. Thou conqueror of death,
take the sceptre of Thy Kingdom, into which so many centuries of Thy
worshippers shall follow Thee, by the highway which thou hast opened up."
The bell rings; the curtain begins to fall; the swing-seats tilt. The epilogue is
scarcely heard: "Jesus will never have a rival. His religion will again and again
renew itself; His story will call forth endless tears;
188
His sufferings will soften the hearts of the best; every successive century will
proclaim that among the sons of men there hath not arisen a greater than
Jesus."
The book passed through eight editions in three months. The writings of those
who opposed it had an equal vogue. That of Freppel had reached its twelfth
edition in 1864. [1] Their name was legion. Whatever wore a soutane and could
wield a pen charged against Renan, the bishops leading the van. The tone of
these attacks was not always very elevated, nor their logic very profound. In
most cases the writers were only concerned to defend the Deity of Christ, [2]
and the miracles, and are satisfied that they have done so when they have
pointed out some of the glaring inconsistencies in Renan's work. Here and
there, however among these refutations we catch the tone of a loftier ethical
spirit which has recognised the fundamental weakness of the work, the lack of
any definite ethical principles in the writer's outlook upon life. [3] There were
some indeed who were not content with a refutation; they would gladly have
seen active measures taken against Renan. One of his most embittered
adversaries, Amadee Nicolas, [4] reckons up in an appendix to his work the
maximum penalties authorised by the existing enactments against free-thought,

170
and would welcome the application of the law of the 25th of March 1822,
according to which five years' imprisonment could be imposed for the crime of
"insulting or making ridiculous a religion recognised by the state."
Renan was defended by the Siecle, the Debats, at that time the leading French
newspaper, and the Temps, in which Scherer published five articles upon the
book. Even the Revue des deux mondes, which had formerly raised a warning
voice against Strauss, allowed itself to go with the stream, and published in its
August number of 1863 a critical analysis by Havet [5] who hailed Renan's work
as a great achievement,
[1] Charles Emile Freppel (Abbe), Professeur d'eloquence sacree a la
Sorbonne. Examen critique de la vie de Jesus de M. Renan. Paris, 1864. 148
pp.
Henri Lasserre's pamphlet, L'Evangile selon Renan (The Gospel according to
Renan), reached its four-and-twentieth edition in the course of the same year.
[2] Lettre pastorale de Monseigneur I'Archeveque de Paris (Georges Darboy)
sur w divinite de Jesus-Christ, et mandement pour le careme de 1864.
[3] See, for example, Felix Antoine Philibert Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans,
Avertissement a la jeunesse et aux peres de famille sur les attaques dirigees
centre religion par quelques ecrivains de nos jours. (Warning to the Young, and
to Fathers of Families, concerning some Attacks directed against Religion by
some Writers of our Time.) Paris, 1864. 141 pp.
[4] Amadee Nicolas, Renan et sa vie de Jesus sous les rapports moral, legal, et
litteraire. Appel a la raison et la conscience du monde civilise. Paris-Marseille,
1864.
[5] Ernest Havet, Professeur au College de France, Jesus dans l'historie.
Examen de la vie de Jesus par M. Renan. Extrait de la Revue des deux
mondes. Pans, 1863. 71 pp.
189
and criticised only the inconsistencies by which he had endeavoured to soften
down the radical character of his undertaking. Later on the Revue changed its
attitude and sided with Renan's opponents. In the Protestant camp there was
an even keener sense of distaste than in the Catholic for the sentimental gloss
which Renan had spread over his work to make it attractive to the multitude by
its iridescent colours. In four remarkable letters Athanase Coquerel the younger
took the author to task for this. [1] From the standpoint of orthodox scholarship
E. de Pressense condemned him; [2] and proceeded without loss of time to
refute him in a large-scale Life of Jesus. [3] He was answered by Albert Reville,
[4] who claims recognition for Renan's services to criticism.
In general, however, the rising French school of critical theology was
disappointed in Renan. Their spokesman was Colani. "This is not the Christ of
history, the Christ of the Synoptics," he writes in 1864 in the Revue de
theologie, "but the Christ of the Fourth Gospel, though without His metaphysical
halo, and painted over with a brush which has been dipped in the melancholy
blue of modern poetry, in the rose of the eighteenth-century idyll, and in the

171
grey of a moral philosophy which seems to be derived from La Rochefoucauld."
"In expressing this opinion," he adds, "I believe I am speaking in the name of
those who belong to what is known as the new Protestant theology, or the
Strassburg school. We opened M. Renan's book with sympathetic interest; we
closed it with deep disappointment." [5]
The Strassburg school had good cause to complain of Renan, for he had
trampled their growing crops. They had just begun to arouse some interest, and
slowly and surely to exercise an influence upon the whole spiritual life of
France. Sainte-Beuve had called attention to the work of Reuss, Colani, Reville,
and Scherer. Others of the school were Michel Nicolas of Montauban and
Gustave d'EichthaI. Nefftzer, the editor of the Temps, who was at the same time
a prophet of coming
[1] Zwei framosische Stimmen liber Renans Leben-Jesu, von Edmond Scherer
und Athanase Coquerel, d.J. Ein Beitrag zur Kenntnis des franzosischen
Protestantismus. Regensburg, 1864. (Two French utterances in regard to
Renan's Life of Jesus, by Edmond Scherer and Athanase Coquerel the
younger. A contribution to the understanding of French Protestantism.)
[2] E. de Pressense, L'Ecole critique et Jesus-Christ, a propos de la vie de
Jesus de M Renan.
[3] E. de Pressense, Jesus-Christ, son temps, sa vie, son aeuvre. Paris, 1865.
684 pp. In general the plan of this work follows Renan's. He divides the Life of
Jesus into three periods: i. The Time of Public Favour; ii. The Period of Conflict;
iii. The Great Week. Death and Victory. By way of introduction there is a long
essay on the supernatural which sets forth the supernaturalistic views of the
author.
[4] La Vie de Jesus de Renan devant les orthodoxes et devant la critique. 1864.
[5] T. Colani, Pasteur, "Examen de la vie de Jesus de M. Renan," Revue de
theologie. Issued separately, Strasbourg-Paris, 1864. 74 pp.
190
political events, defended their cause in the Parisian literary world. The Revue
germanique of that period, the influence of which upon French literature can
hardly be over-estimated, was their sworn ally. Then came Renan and threw
public opinion into a ferment of excitement. Everything in the nature of criticism,
and of progress in religious thought, was associated with his name, and was
thereby discredited. By his untimely and over-easy popularisation of the ideas of
the critical school he ruined their quiet work. The excitement roused by his book
swept away all that had been done by those noble and lofty spirits, who now
found themselves involved in a struggle with the outraged orthodoxy of Paris,
and were hard put to it to defend themselves. Even down to the present day
Renan's work forms the greatest hindrance to any serious advance in French
religious thought.
The excitement aroused upon the other side of the Rhine was scarcely less
than in Paris. Within a year there appeared five different German translations,
and many of the French criticisms of Renan were also translated. [1] The

172
German Catholic press was wildly excited; [2] the Protestant press was more
restrained, more inclined to give the author a fair hearing, and even ventured to
express admiration of the historical merits of his performance. Beyschlag [3]
saw in Renan an advance upon Strauss, inasmuch as for him the life of Jesus
as narrated in the Gospels, while not, indeed, in any sense supernatural, is
nevertheless historical. For a certain school of theology, therefore, Renan was a
deliverer from Strauss; they were especially grateful to him for his defence,
sophistical though it was, of the Fourth Gospel. Weizsacker expressed his
admiration. Strauss, far from directing his "Life of Jesus for the German
People," with which he was then occupied, against the superficial and
[1] Lasserre, Das Evangelium nach Renan. Munich, 1864.
Freppel, Kritische Beleuchtung der E. Renan'schen Schrift. Translated by
Kallmus. Vienna, 1864.
See also Lamy, Professor of the Theological Faculty of the Catholic University
of Louvain, Renans Leben-Jesu vor dem Richterstuhle der Kritik. (Renan's Life
of Jesus before the Judgment Seat of Criticism.) Translated by August Rohling,
Priest. Miinster, 1864.
[2] Dr. Michelis, Renans Roman vom Leben-Jesu. Erne deatsche Antwort auf
eine franzosische Blasphemie. (Renan's Romance on the Life of Jesus. A
German answer to a French blasphemy.) Miinster, 1864.
Dr. Sebastian Brunner, Der Atheist Renan und sein Evangelium. (The Atheist
Renan and his Gospel.) Regensburg, 1864.
Albert Wiesinger, Aphorismen gegen Renans Leben-Jesu. Vienna, 1864.
Dr. Martin Deutlinger, Renan und das Wunder. (Renan and Miracle. A
contribution to Christian Apologetic.) Munich, 1864. 159 pp.
Dr. Daniel Bonifacius Haneberg, Ernest Renans Leben-Jesu. Regensburg,
1864.
[3] Willibald Beyschlag, Doctor and Professor of Theology, Uber das Leben-
Jesu von Renan. A Lecture delivered at Halle, January 13, 1864. Berlin.
191
frivolous French treatment of the subject-as has sometimes been alleged -
hailed Renan in his preface as a kindred spirit and ally, and "shook hands with
him across the Rhine." Luthardt, [1] however, remained inexorable. "What is
there lacking in Renan's work?" he asks. And he replies, "It lacks conscience."
That is a just judgment. From this lack of conscience, Renan has not been
scrupulous where he ought to have been so. There is a kind of insincerity in the
book from beginning to end. Renan professes to depict the Christ of the Fourth
Gospel, though he does not believe in the authenticity or the miracles of that
Gospel. He professes to write a scientific work, and is always thinking of the
great public and how to interest it. He has thus fused together two works of
disparate character. The historian finds it hard to forgive him for not going more
deeply into the problem of the development in the thought of Jesus, with which
he was brought face to face by the emphasis which he laid on eschatology, and
for offering in place of a solution the highly-coloured phrases of the novelist.

173
Nevertheless, this work will always retain a certain interest, both for Frenchmen
and for Germans. The German is often so completely fascinated by it as to lose
his power of criticism, because he finds in it German thought in a novel and
piquant form. Conversely the Frenchman discovers in it, behind the familiar
form, which is here handled in such a masterly fashion, ideas belonging to a
world which is foreign to him, ideas which he can never completely assimilate,
but which yet
[1] Chr. Ernst Luthardt, Doctor and Professor of Theology, Die modernen
Darstellungen des Lebens Jesu. (Modern Presentations of the Life of Jesus.) A
discussion of the writings of Strauss, Renan, and Schenkel, and of the essays
of Coquerel the younger, Scherer, Colani, and Keim. A Lecture. Leipzig, 1864.
Of the remaining Protestant polemics we may name:-
Dr. Hermann Gerlach, Gegen Renans Leben-Jesu 1864. Berlin.
Br. Lehmann, Renan wider Renan. (Renan versus Renan.) A Lecture
addressed to cultured Germans. Zwickau, 1864.
Friedrich Baumer, Schwarz, Strauss, Renan. A Lecture. Leipzig, 1864.
John Cairns, D.D. (of Berwick). Falsche Christi und der wahre Christus, oder
rerteidigung der evangelischen Geschichte gegen Strauss und Renan. (False
Christs and the True, a Defence of the Gospel History against Strauss and
Renan.) A Lecture delivered before the Bible Society. Translated from the
English. Hamburg, 1864.
Bernhard ter Haar, Doctor of Theology and Professor at Utrecht, Zehn
Vorlesungen uber Renans Leben-Jesu. (Ten Lectures on Renan's Life of
Jesus.) Translated by H. Doermer. Gotha, 1864.
Paulus Cassel, Professor and Licentiate in Theology, Bericht uber Renans
Leben-Jesu. (A Report upon Renan's Life of Jesus.)
J. J. van Oosterzee, Doctor and Professor of Theology at Utrecht, Geschichte
oder Roman? Das Leben-Jesu von Renan vorlaufig beleuchtet. (History or
Fiction? A Preliminary Examination of Renan's Life of Jesus.) Hamburg, 1864.
192
continually attract him. In this double character of the work lies its imperishable
charm.
And its weakness? That it is written by one to whom the New Testament was to
the last something foreign, who had not read it from his youth up in the mother-
tongue, who was not accustomed to breathe freely in its simple and pure world,
but must perfume it with sentimentality in order to feel himself at home in it.
* XIV *
THE "LIBERAL" LIVES OF JESUS
David Friedrich Strauss. Das Leben Jesu fur das deutsche Volk bearbeitet. (A
Life of Jesus for the German People.) Leipzig, 1864. 631 pp.
Der Christus des Galubens und der Jesus der Geschichte. Eine Kritik des
Schleiermacher'schen Lebens Jesu. (The Christ of Faith and the Jesus of
History, a Criticism of Schleiermacher's Life of Jesus.) Berlin, 1865. 223 pp.
Appendix, pp. 224-240.

174
Der Schenkel'sche Handel in Baden. (The Schenkel Affair in Baden.) A
corrected reprint from No. 441 of the National-Zeitung, of the 21st September
1864.
Die Halben und die Ganzen. (The Half-way-ers and the Whole-way-ers.) 186S.
Daniel Schenkel. Das Charakterbild Jesu. (The Portrait of Jesus.) Wiesbaden,
1864 (ed. 1 and 2). 405 pp. Fourth edition, with a preface opposing Strauss's
"Der alte und der neue Glaube" (The Old Faith and the New), 1873.
Karl Heinrich Weizsacker. Untersuchungen fiber die evangelische Geschichte,
ihre Quellen und den Gang ihrer Entwicklung. (Studies in the Gospel History, its
Sources and the Progress of its Development.) Gotha, 1864. 580 pp.
Heinrich Julius Holtzmann. Die synoptischen Evangelien. Ihr Ursprung und
geschichtlicher Charakter. (The Synoptic Gospels. Their Origin and Historical
Character.) Leipzig, 1863. 514 pp.
Theodor Keim. Die Geschichte Jesu von Nazara. (The History of Jesus of
Nazara.) 3 vols., Zurich; vol. i., 1867, 446 pp.; vol. ii., 1871, 616 pp.; vol. iii.,
1872, 667 pp.
Die Geschichte Jesu. Zurich, 1872. 398 pp.
Karl Hase. Geschichte Jesu. Nach akademischen Vorlesungen. (The History of
Jesus. Academic Lectures, revised.) Leipzig, 1876. 612 pp.
Willibald Beyschlag. Das Leben Jesu. First Part: Prelimn:ary Investigations,
1885, 450 pp. Second Part: Narrative, 1886, 495 pp.; 2nd ed. 1887-1888.
Bernhard Weiss. Das Leben Jesu. 1st ed., 2 vols., 1882; 2nd ed., 1884. First
vol., down to the Baptist's question, 556 pp. Second vol., 617 pp.
"MY HOPE IS," WRITES STRAUSS IN CONCLUDING THE PREFACE OF HIS
NEW Life of Jesus, "that I have written a book as thoroughly well adapted for
Germans as Renan's is for Frenchmen." He was mistaken; in spite
194
of its title the book was not a book for the people. It had nothing new to offer,
and what it did offer was not in a form calculated to become popular. It is true
Strauss, like Renan, was an artist, but he did not write, like an imaginative
novelist, with a constant eye to effect. His art was unpretentious, even austere,
appealing to the few, not to the many. The people demand a complete and vivid
picture. Renan had given them a figure which was theatrical no doubt, but full of
life and movement, and they had been grateful to him for it. Strauss could not
do that.
Even the arrangement of the work is thoroughly unfortunate. In the first part,
which bears the title "The Life of Jesus," he attempts to combine into a
harmonious portrait such of the historical data as have some claim to be
considered historical; in the second part he traces the "Origin and Growth of the
Mythical History of Jesus." First, therefore, he tears down from the tree the ivy
and the rich growth of creepers laying bare the worn and corroded bark; then he
fastens the faded growths to the stem again, and describes the nature, origin,
and characteristics of each distinct species.

175
How vastly different, how much more full of life, had been the work of 1835!
There Strauss had not divided the creepers from the stem. The straining
strength which upheld this wealth of creepers was but vaguely suspected.
Behind the billowy mists of legend we caught from time to time a momentary
glimpse of the gigantic figure of Jesus, as though lit up by a lightning-flash. It
was no complete and harmonious picture, but it was full of suggestions, rich in
thoughts thrown out carelessly, rich in contradictions even, out of which the
imagination could create a portrait of Jesus. It is just this wealth of suggestion
that is lacking in the second picture. Strauss is trying now to give a definite
portrait. In the inevitable process of harmonising and modelling to scale he is
obliged to reject the finest thoughts of the previous work because they will not fit
in exactly; some of them are altered out of recognition, some are filed away.
There is wanting, too, that perfect freshness as of the spring which is only found
when thoughts have but newly come into flower. The writing is no longer
spontaneous; one feels that Strauss is setting forth thoughts which have
ripened with his mind and grown old with it, and now along with their
definiteness of form have taken on a certain stiffness. There are now no hinted
possibilities, full of promise, to dance gaily through the movement of his
dialectic; all is sober reason--a thought too sober. Renan had one advantage
over Strauss in that he wrote when the material was fresh to him-one might
almost say strange to him-and was capable of calling up in him the response of
vivid feeling.
195
For a popular book, too, it lacks that living interplay of reflection with narration
without which the ordinary reader fails to get a grip of the history. The first Life
of Jesus had been rich in this respect, since it had been steeped in the Hegelian
theory regarding the realisation of the Idea. In the meantime Strauss had seen
the Hegelian philosophy fall from its high estate, and himself had found no way
of reconciling history and idea, so that his present Life of Jesus was a mere
objective presentment of the history. It was, therefore, not adapted to make any
impression upon the popular mind.
In reality it is merely an exposition, in more or less popular form, of the writer's
estimate of what had been done in the study of the subject during the past thirty
years, and shows what he had learnt and what he had failed to learn.
As regards the Synoptic question he had learnt nothing. In his opinion the
criticism of the Gospels has "run to seed." He treats with a pitying contempt
both the earlier and the more recent defenders of the Marcan hypothesis.
Weisse is a dilettante; Wilke had failed to make any impression on him;
Holtzmann's work was as yet unknown to him. But in the following year he
discharged the vials of his wrath upon the man who had both strengthened the
foundations and put on the coping-stone of the new hypothesis. "Our lions of St.
Mark, older and younger," he says in the appendix to his criticism of
Schleiermacher's Life of Jesus, "may roar as loud as they like, so long as there
are six solid reasons against the priority of Mark to set against every one of their

176
flimsy arguments in its favour-and they themselves supply us with a store of
counter-arguments in the shape of admissions of later editing and so forth. The
whole theory appears to me a temporary aberration, like the 'music of the future'
or the anti-vaccination movement; and I seriously believe that it is the same
order of mind which, in different circumstances, falls a victim to the one delusion
or the other." But he must not be supposed, he says, to take the critical mole-
hills thrown up by Holtzmann for veritable mountains.
Against such opponents he does not scruple to seek aid from Schleiermacher,
whose unbiased but decided opinion had ascribed a tertiary character to Mark.
Even Gfrorer's view that Mark adapted his Gospel he needs of the Church by
leaving out everything which was open to objection in Matthew and Luke, is
good enough to be brought to bear against the bat-eyed partisans of Mark. F. C.
Baur is reproached for having given too much weight to the "tendency" theory in
his criticism of the Gospels; and also for having taken suggestions of Strauss's
and worked them out, supposing that he was offering something new when he
was really only amplifying. In the end he had only given a criticism of the
Gospels, not of the Gospel history.
196
But this irritation against his old teacher is immediately allayed when he comes
to speak of the Fourth Gospel. Here the teacher has carried to a successful
issue the campaign which the pupil had begun. Strauss feels compelled to
"express his gratitude for the work done by the Tubingen school on the
Johannine question." He himself had only been able to deal with the negative
side of the question-to show that the Fourth Gospel was not an historical
source, but a theological invention; they had dealt with it positively, and had
assigned the document to its proper place in the evolution of Christian thought.
There is only one point with which he quarrels. Baur had made the Fourth
Gospel too completely spiritual, "whereas the fact is," says Strauss, "that it is
the most material of all." It is true, Strauss explains, that the Evangelist starts
out to interpret miracle and eschatology symbolically; but he halts half-way and
falls back upon the miraculous, enhancing the professed fact in proportion as he
makes it spiritually more significant. Beside the spiritual return of Jesus in the
Paraclete he places His return in a material body, bearing the marks of the
wounds; beside the inward present judgment, a future outward judgment; and
the fact that he sees the one in the other, finds the one present and visible in
the other, is just what constitutes the mystical character of his Gospel. This
mysticism attracts the modern world. "The Johannine Christ, who in His
descriptions of Himself seems to be always out-doing Himself, is the
counterpart of the modern believer, who in order to remain a believer must
continually out-do himself; the Johannine miracles which are always being
interpreted spiritually, and at the same time raised to a higher pitch of the
miraculous, which are counted and documented in every possible way, and yet
must not be considered the true ground of faith, are at once miracles and no
miracles. We must believe them, and yet can believe without them; in short they

177
exactly meet the taste of the present day, which delights to involve itself in
contradictions and is too lethargic and wanting in courage for any clear insight
or decided opinion on religious matters.
Strictly speaking, however, the Strauss of the second Life of Jesus has no right
to criticise the Fourth Gospel for sublimating the history, for he himself gives
what is nothing else than a spiritualisation of the Jesus of the Synoptics. And he
does it in such an arbitrary fashion that one is compelled to ask how far he does
it with a good conscience. A typical case is the exposition of Jesus' answer to
the Baptist's message-"Is it possible," Jesus means, "that you fail to find in Me
the miracles which you expect from the Messiah? And yet I daily open the eyes
of the spiritually blind and the ears of the spiritually deaf, make the lame walk
erect and vigorous, and even give new life to those who are morally dead. Any
one who understands how much greater these spiritual
197
miracles are, will not be offended at the absence of bodily miracles; only such
an one can receive, and is worthy of, the salvation which I am bringing to
mankind."
Here the fundamental weakness of his method is clearly shown. The vaunted
apparatus for the evaporation of the mythical does not work quite satisfactorily.
The ultimate product of this process was expected to be a Jesus who should be
essential man; the actual product, however, is Jesus the historical man, a being
whose looks and sayings are strange and unfamiliar. Strauss is too purely a
critic, too little of the creative historian, to recognise this strange being. That
Jesus really lived in a world of Jewish ideas and held Himself to be Messiah in
the Jewish sense is for the writer of the Life of Jesus an impossibility. The
deposit which resists the chemical process for the elimination of myth, he must
therefore break up with the hammer.
How different from the Strauss of 1835! He had then recognised eschatology as
the most important element in Jesus' world of thought, and in some incidental
remarks had made striking applications of it. He had, for example, proposed to
regard the Last Supper not as the institution of a feast for coming generation,
but as a Paschal meal, at which Jesus declared that He would next partake of
the Paschal bread and Paschal wine along with His disciples in the heavenly
kingdom. In the second Life of Jesus this view is given up; Jesus did found a
feast. "In order to give a living centre of unity to the society which it was His
purpose to found, Jesus desired to institute this distribution of bread and wine
as a feast to be constantly repeated." One might be reading Renan. This
change of attitude is typical of much else.
Strauss is not in the least disquieted by finding himself at one with
Schleiermacher in these attempts to spiritualise. On the contrary, he appeals to
him. He shares, he says, Schleiermacher's conviction "that the unique self-
consciousness of Jesus did not develop as a consequence of His conviction
that He was the Messiah; on the contrary, it was a consequence of His self-
consciousness that He arrived at the view that the Messianic prophecies could

178
point to no one but Himself." The moment eschatology entered into the
consciousness of Jesus it came in contact with a higher principle which over-
mastered it and gradually dissolved it. "Had Jesus applied the Messianic idea to
Himself before He had had a profound religious consciousness to which to
relate it, doubtless it would have taken possession of Him so powerfully that He
could never have escaped its influence." We must suppose the ideality, the
concentration upon that which was inward, the determination to separate
religion, on the one hand, from politics, and on the other, from ritual, the serene
consciousness of being able toa ttain to peace with God and with Himself by
purely spiritual means - all this we must
198
suppose to have reached a certain ripeness, a certain security in th mind of
Jesus, before He permitted Himself to entertain the thought of His Messiahship,
and this we may believe is the reason why He grasped it in so independent and
individual a fashion. In this, therefore Strauss has become the pupil of Weisse.
Even in the Old Testament prophecies, he explains, we find two conceptions, a
more ideal and a more practical. Jesus holds consistently to the first, He
describes Himself as the Son of Man because this designation "contains the
suggestion of humility and lowliness, of the human and natural." At Jerusalem,
Jesus, in giving His interpretation of Psalm cx., "made merry over the Davidic
descent of the Messiah." He desired "to be Messiah in the sense of a patient
teacher exercising a quiet influence." As the opposition of the people grew more
intense He took up some of the features of Isaiah liii. into His conception of the
Messiah.
Of His resurrection, Jesus can only have spoken in a metaphorical sense. It is
hardly credible that one who was pure man could have arrogated to himself the
position of judge of the world. Strauss would like best to ascribe all the
eschatology to the distorting medium of early Christianity, but he does not
venture to carry this through with logical consistency. He takes it as certain,
however, that Jesus, even though it sometimes seems as if He did not expect
the Kingdom to be realised in the present, but in a future, world-era, and to be
brought about by God in a supernatural fashion, nevertheless sets about the
establishment of the Kingdom by purely spiritual influence.
With this end in view He leaves Galilee, when He judges the time to be ripe, in
order to work on a larger scale. "In case of an unfavourable issue, He reckons
on the influence which a martyr-death has never failed to exercise in giving
momentum to a lofty idea." How far He had advanced, when He entered on the
fateful journey to Jerusalem, in shaping His plan, and especially in organising
the company of adherents who had gathered about Him, it is impossible to
determine with anv exactness. He permitted the triumphal entry because He did
not desire to decline the role of the Messiah in every aspect of it.
Owing to this arbitrary spiritualisation of the Synoptic Jesus, Strauss's picture is
in essence much more unhistorical than Renan's. The latter had not needed to
deny that Jesus had done miracles, and he had been able to suggest an

179
explanation of how Jesus came in the end to fall back upon the eschatological
system of ideas. But at what a price! By portraying Jesus as at variance with
Himself, a hero broken in spirit. This price is too high for Strauss. Arbitrary as
his treatment of history is, he never loses the intuitive feeling that in Jesus' self-
consciousness there is a unique absence of struggle; that He does not bear the
scars which
199
are found in those natures which win their way to freedom and purity through
strife and conflict, that in Him there is no trace of the hardness, harshness, and
gloom which cleave to such natures throughout life, but that He "is manifestly a
beautiful nature from the first." Thus, for all Strauss's awkward, arbitrary
handling of the history he is greater than the rival [1] who could manufacture
history with such skill.
Nevertheless, from the point of view of theological science, this work marks a
standstill. That was the net result of the thirty years of critical study of the life of
Jesus for the man who had inaugurated it so impressively. This was the only
fruit which followed those blossoms so full of promise of the first Life of Jesus.
It is significant that in the same year there appeared Schleiermacher's lectures
on the Life of Jesus, which had not seen the light for forty years, because, as
Strauss himself remarked in his criticism of the resurrected work, it had neither
anodyne nor dressing for the wounds which his first Life of Jesus had made. [2]
The wounds, however, had cicatrised in the meantime. It is true Strauss is a just
judge, and makes ample acknowledgment of the greatness of Schleiermacher's
achievement. [3] He blames Schleiermacher for setting up his "presuppositions
in regard to Christ" as an historical canon, and considering it a proof that a
statement is unhistorical if it does not square with those presuppositions. But
does not the purely human, but to a certain extent unhistorical, man, who is to
be the ultimate product of the process of eliminating myth, serve Strauss as his
"theoretic Christ" who determines the presentment of his historical Jesus? Does
he not share with Schleiermacher the erroneous, artificial, "double" construction
of the consciousness of
[1] Strauss's second Life of Jesus appeared in French in 1864.
[2] "I can now say without incurring the reproach of self-glorification, and almost
without needing to fear contradiction, that if my Life of Jesus had not appeared
in the year after Schleiermacher's death, his would not have been withheld for
so long. Up to that time it would have been hailed by the theological world as a
deliverer; but for the wounds which my work inflicted on the theology of the day,
it had neither anodyne nor dressing; nay, it displayed the author as in a
measure responsible for the disaster, for the waters which he had admitted drop
by drop were now in defiance of his prudent reservations, pouring in like a
flood."-From the introduction to The Christ of Faith and the Jesus of History,
1865.
[3] "Now that Schleiermacher's Life of Jesus at last lies before us in print, all
parties can gather about it in heartfelt rejoicing. The appearance of a work by

180
Schleiermacher is always an enrichment to literature. Any product of a mind like
his cannot fail to shed light and life on the minds of others. And of works of this
kind our theological literature has certainly in these days no superfluity. Where
the living are for the most part as it were dead, it is meet that the dead should
arise and bear witness. These lectures of Schleiermacher's, when compared
with the work of his pupils, show clearly that the great theologian has let fall
upon them only his mantle and not his spirit."-Ibid.
200
Jesus? And what about their views of Mark? What fundamental difference is
there, when all is said, between Schleiermacher's de-rationalised Life of Jesus
and Strauss's? Certainly this second Life of Jesus would not have frightened
Schleiermacher's away into hiding for thirty years.
So Schleiermacher's Life of Jesus might now safely venture forth into the light.
There was no reason why it should feel itself a stranger at this period, and it had
no need to be ashamed of itself. Its rationalistic birth-marks were concealed by
its brilliant dialectic. [1] And the only real advance in the meantime was the
general recognition that the Life of Jesus was not to be interpreted on
rationalistic, but on historical lines. All other, more definite, historical results had
proved more or less illusory; there is no vitality in them. The works of Renan,
Strauss Schenkel, Weizsacker, and Keim are in essence only different ways of
carrying out a single ground-plan. To read them one after another is to be
simply appalled at the stereotyped uniformity of the world of thought in which
they move. You feel that you have read exactly the same thing in the others,
almost in identical phrases. To obtain the works of Schenkel and Weizsacker
you only need to weaken down in Strauss the sharp discrimination between
John and the Synoptists so far as to allow of the Fourth Gospel being used to
some extent as an historical source "in the higher sense," and to put the
hypothesis of the priority of Mark in place of the Tubingen view adopted by
Strauss. The latter is an external operation and does not essentially modify the
view of the Life of Jesus, since by admitting the Johannine scheme the Marcan
plan is again disturbed, and Strauss's arbitrary spiritualisation of the Synoptics
comes to something not very different from the acceptance of that "in a higher
sense historical Gospel" alongside of them. The whole discussion regarding the
sources is only loosely connected with the process of arriving at the portrait of
Jesus, since this portrait is fixed from the first, being determined by the mental
atmosphere and religious horizon of the 'sixties. They all portray the Jesus of
liberal theology; the only difference is that one is a little more conscientious in
his colouring than another, and one perhaps has a little more taste than
another, or is less concerned about the consequences.
The desire to escape in some way from the alternative between the
[1] The lines of Schleiermacher's work were followed by Bunsen. His Life of
Jesus forms vol. ix. of his Bibelwerk. (Edited by Holtzmann, 1865.) He accepts
the Fourth Gospel as an historical source and treats the question of miracle as
not yet settled. Christian Karl Josias von Bunsen, born in 1791 at Korbach in

181
Waldeck, was Prussian ambassador at Rome, Berne, and London, and settled
later in Heidelberg. He was well read in theology and philology, and gradually
came, in spite of his friendly relations with Friedrich Wilhelm IV., to entertain
more liberal views on religion. The issue of his Bibelwerk fur die Gemeinde was
begun in 1858. He died in 1860. (Best known in England as the Chevalier
Bunsen.)
201
Synoptists and John was native to the Marcan hypothesis. Weisse had
endeavored to effect this by distinguishing between the sources in the Fourth
Gospel. [1] Schenkel and Weizsacker are more modest. They do not feel the
need of any clear literary view of the Fourth Gospel, of any critical discrimination
between original and secondary elements in it; they are content to use as
historical whatever their instinct leads them accept. "Apart from the fourth
Gospel," says Schenkel, "we should miss in the portrait of the Redeemer the
unfathomable depths and the inaccessible heights." "Jesus," to quote his
aphorism, "was not always thus in reality, but He was so in truth." Since when
have historians had the right to distinguish between reality and truth? That was
one of the bad habits which the author of this characterisation of Jesus brought
with him from his earlier dogmatic training.
Weizsacker [2] expresses himself with more circumspection. "We possess," he
says, "in the Fourth Gospel genuine apostolic reminiscences as much as in any
part of the first three Gospels; but between the facts on which the
reminiscences are based and their reproduction in literary form there lies the
development of their possessor into a great mystic, and the influence of a
philosophy which here for the first time united itself in this way with the Gospel;
they need, therefore, to be critically examined; and the historical truth of this
gospel, great as it is, must not be measured with a painful literality."
One wonders why both these writers appeal to Holtzmann, seeing that they
practically abandon the Marcan plan which he had worked out at the end of his
very thorough examination of this Gospel. They do not accept as sufficient the
controversy regarding the ceremonial regulations in Mark vii. which, with the
rejection at Nazareth, constitute, in Holtzmann's view, the turning-point of the
Galilaean ministry, but find the cause of the change of attitude on the part of the
people rather in the Johannine discourse about eating and drinking the flesh
and blood of the Son of Man. The section Mark x.-xv., which has a
[1] Ch. H. Weisse, Die evangelische Geschichte, Leipzig, 1838. Die
Evangelienfrage in ihrem gegenwartigen Stadium. (The Present Position of the
Problem of the Gospels.) Leipzig, 1856. He regarded the discourses as
historical the narrative portions as of secondary origin. Alexander Schweizer,
again, wished to distinguish a Jerusalem source and a Galilaean source, the
latter being unreliable. Das Evangelium Johannis nach seinem inneren Werte
und seiner Bedeutung fur das Leben Jesu, 1841. (The Gospel of John
considered in Relation to its Intrinsic Value the its Importance as a Source for

182
the Life of Jesus.) See p. 127 f. Renan takes narrative portions as authentic and
the discourses as secondary.
[2] Kar1 Heinrich Weizsacker was born in 1822 at Ohringen in Wurtemberg. He
qualified as Privat-Docent in 1847 and, after acting in the meantime as Court-
Chaplain and Oberkonsistorialrat at Stuttgart, became in 1861 the successor of
Baur at Tubingen. He died in 1899.
202
certain unity, they interpret in the light of the Johannine tradition, finding in it
traces of a previous ministry of Jesus in Jerusalem and interweaving with it the
Johannine story of the Passion. According to Schenkel the last visit to
Jerusalem must have been of considerable duration. When confronted with
John, the admission may be wrung from the Synoptists that Jesus did not travel
straight through Jericho to the capital, but worked first for a considerable time in
Judaea. Strauss tartly observes that he cannot see what the author of the
"characterisation" stood to gain by underwriting Holtzmann's Marcan
hypothesis. [1]
Weizsacker is still bolder in making interpolations from the Johannine tradition.
He places the cleansing of the Temple, in contradiction to Mark, in the early
period of Jesus' ministry, on the ground that "it bears the character of a first
appearance, a bold deed with which to open His career." He fails to observe,
however, that if this act really took place at this point of time, the whole
development of the life of Jesus which Holtzmann had so ingeniously traced in
Mark, is at once thrown into confusion. In describing the last visit to Jerusalem,
Weizsacker is not content to insert the Marcan stones into the Johannine
cement; he goes farther and expressly states that the great farewell discourses
of Jesus to His disciples agree with the Synoptic discourses to the disciples
spoken during the last days, however completely they of all others bear the
peculiar stamp of the Johannine diction.
Thus in the second period of the Marcan hypothesis the same spectacle meets
us as in the earlier. The hypothesis has a literary existence, indeed it is carried
by Holtzmann to such a degree of demonstration that it can no longer be called
a mere hypothesis, but it does not succeed in winning an assured position in the
critical study of the Life of Jesus. It is common-land not yet taken into
cultivation.
That is due in no small measure to the fact that Holtzmann did not work out the
hypothesis from the historical side, but rather on literary lines, recalling Wilke-as
a kind of problem in Synoptic arithmetic-and in his preface expresses dissent
from the Tubingen school, who desired to leave no alternative between John on
the one side and the Synoptics on the other, whereas he approves the attempt
to evade the dilemma in some way or other, and thinks he can find in the
didactic narrative of the Fourth Gospel the traces of a development of Jesus
similar to that portrayed in the Synoptics, and has therefore no fundamental
objection to the use of John alongside of the Synoptics. In taking up this

183
position, however, he does not desire to be understood a meaning that "it would
be to the interests of science to throw Synoptic
[1] The works of a Dutch writer named Stricker, Jesus von Nazareth (1868), and
of the Englishman Sir Richard Hanson, The Jesus of History (1869), were
based on Mark without any reference to John.
203
and Johannine passages together indiscriminately and thus construct a life of
Jesus out of them." "It would be much better first to reconstruct separately the
Synoptic and Johannine pictures of Christ, composing each of its own
distinctive material. It is only when this has been done that it is possible to make
a fruitful comparison of the two." Exactly the same position had been taken up
sixty-seven years before by Herder. In Holtzmann's case, however, the principle
was stated with so many qualifications that the adherents of his view read into it
the permission to combine, in a picture treated "in the grand style," Synoptic
with Johannine passages.
In addition to this, the plan which Holtzmann finally evolved out of Mark was
much too fine-drawn to bear the weight of the remainder of the Synoptic
material. He distinguishes seven stages in the Galilaean ministry, [1] of which
the really decisive one is the sixth, in which Jesus leaves Galilee and goes
northward, so that Schenkel and Weizsacker are justified in distinguishing
practically only two great Galilaean periods, the first of which-down to the
controversy about ceremonial purity-they distinguish as the period of success,
the second-down to the departure from Judaea-as the period of decline. What
attracted these writers to the Marcan hypothesis was not so much the
authentification which it gave to the detail of Mark, though they were willing
enough to accept that, but the way in which this Gospel lent itself to the a priori
view of the course of the life of Jesus which they unconsciously brought with
them. They appealed to Holtzmann because he showed such wonderful skill in
extracting from the Marcan narrative the view which commended itself to the
spirit of the age as manifested in the 'sixties.
Holtzmann read into this Gospel that Jesus had endeavoured in Galilee to
found the Kingdom of God in an ideal sense; that He concealed His
consciousness of being the Messiah, which was constantly growing more
assured, until His followers should have attained by inner enlightenment to a
higher view of the Kingdom of God and of the Messiah; that almost at the end of
His Galilaean ministry He declared Himself to them as the Messiah at Caesarea
Philippi; that on the same occasion He at once began to picture to them a
suffering Messiah, whose lineaments gradually became more and more distinct
in His mind amid the growing opposition which He encountered, until finally. He
communicated to his disciples His decision to put the Messianic cause to the
test in the capital, and that they followed Him thither and saw how His fate
fulfilled itself. It was this fundamental view which made the success of the
hypothesis. Holtzmann, not less than his followers, believed that he had

184
[1] 1, Mark i.; 2, Mark ii.1-iii.6; 3, Mark iii.7-19; 4, Mark iii. 19-iv. 34; 5, Mark iv.
35-vi.6; 6, Mark vi. 7-vii. 37; 7, Mark viii. i-ix. 50.
204
discovered it in the Gospel itself, although Strauss, the passionate opponent of
the Marcan hypothesis, took essentially the same view of the development of
Jesus' thought. But the way in which Holtzmann exhibited this characteristic
view of the 'sixties as arising naturally out of the detail of Mark, was so perfect,
so artistically charming, that this view appeared henceforward to be inseparably
bound up with the Marcan tradition. Scarcely ever has a description of the life of
Jesus exercised so irresistible an influence as that short outline-it embraces
scarcely twenty pages-with which Holtzmann closes his examination of the
Synoptic Gospels. This chapter became the creed and catechism of all who
handled the subject during the following decades. The treatment of the life of
Jesus had to follow the lines here laid down until the Marcan hypothesis was
delivered from its bondage to that a priori view of the development of Jesus.
Until then any one might appeal to the Marcan hypothesis, meaning thereby
only that general view of the inward and outward course of development in the
life of Jesus, and might treat the remainder of the Synoptic material how he
chose, combining with it, at his pleasure, material drawn from John. The victory,
therefore, belonged, not to the Marcan hypothesis pure and simple, but to the
Marcan hypothesis as psychologically interpreted by a liberal theology.
The points of distinction between the Weissian and the new interpretation are
as follows:-Weisse is sceptical as regards the detail; the new Marcan
hypothesis ventures to base conclusions even upon incidental remarks in the
text. According to Weisse there were not distinct periods of success and failure
in the ministry of Jesus; the new Marcan hypothesis confidently affirms this
distinction, and goes so far as to place the sojourn of Jesus in the parts beyond
Galilee under the heading "Flights and Retirements." [1] The earlier Marcan
hypothesis ex- pressly denies that outward circumstances influenced the
resolve of Jesus to die; according to the later, it was the opposition of the
people, and the impossibility of carrying out His mission on other lines which
forced Him to enter on the path of suffering. [2] The Jesus of Weisse's view
[1] Holtzmann, Kommentar zu den Synoptikern, 1889, p. 184. The form of the
expression (Fluchtwege und Reisen) is derived from Keim.
[2] "Thus the course of Jesus' life hastened forward to its tragic close, a close
which was foreseen and predicted by Jesus Himself with ever-growing
clearness as the sole possible close, but also that which alone was worthy of
Himself, and which was necessary as being foreseen and predetermined in the
counsel of God. The hatred of the Pharisees and the indifference of the people
left from the first no other prospect open. That hatred could not but be called
forth in the fullest measure by the ruthless severity with which Jesus exposed all
that it was and implied - a heart in which there was no room for love, a morality
inwardly riddled with decay, an outward show of virtue, a hypocritical arrogance.
Between two such unyielding opponents-a man who, to all appearance, aimed

185
at using the Messianic expectations of the people for his own ends, and a
hierarchy as tenacious of its claims and as sensitive to their infringement as any
that has ever existed-it was certain that the breach must soon become
irreparable. It was easy to foresee, too, that even in Galilee only a minority of
the people would dare to face with Him the danger of such a breach. There was
only one thing that could have averted the death sentence which had been early
determined upon-a series of vigorous, unambiguous demonstrations on the part
of the people. In order to provoke such demonstrations Jesus would have
needed, if only for the moment, to take into His service the popular, powerful,
inflammatory Messianic ideas, or rather, would have needed to place Himself at
their service. His refusal to enter, by so much as a single step, upon this course,
which from any ordinary point of view of human policy would have been
legitimate, because the only practicable one, was the sole sufficient and all-
explaining cause of His destruction."-Holtzmann, Die synoptischen Evangelien,
1863, pp. 485, 486.
205
has completed His development at the time of His appearance; the Jesus of the
new interpretation of Mark continues to develop in the course of His public
ministry.
There is complete agreement, however, in the rejection of eschatology. Fpr
Holtzmann, Schenkel, and Weizsacker, as for Weisse, Jesus desires "to found
an inward kingdom of repentance." [1] It was Israel's duty, according to
Schenkel, to believe in the presence of the Kingdom which Jesus proclaimed.
John the Baptist was unable to believe in it, and it was for this reason that Jesus
censured him-for it is in this sense that Schenkel understands the saying about
the greatest among those born of women who is nevertheless the least in the
Kingdom of Heaven. "So near the light and yet shutting his eyes to its beams-is
there not some blame here, an undeniable lack of spiritual and moral
receptivity?"
Jesus makes Messianic claims only in a spiritual sense. He does not grasp at
super-human glory; it is His purpose to bear the sin of the whole people, and He
undergoes baptism "as a humble member of the national community."
His whole teaching consists, when once He Himself has attained to clear
consciousness of His vocation, in a constant struggle to root out from the hearts
of His disciples their theocratic hopes and to effect a transformation of their
traditional Messianic ideas. When, on Simon's hailing Him as the Messiah, He
declares that flesh and blood has not revealed it to him, He means, according to
Schenkel, "that Simon has at this moment overcome the false Messianic ideas,
and has recognised in Him the ethical and spiritual deliverer of Israel."
[1] "Ein innerliches Reich der Sinnesanderung." "Sinnesanderung" corresponds
more exactly than "repentance" to the Greek (change of mind,
change of attitude), but the phrase is no less elliptical in German than in
English. The meaning is doubtless "kingdom based upon repentance, consisting
of those who have fulfilled this condition."

186
206
"That Jesus predicted a personal, bodily, Second Coming in the brightness of
His heavenly splendour and surrounded by the heavenly hosts, to establish an
earthly kingdom, is not only not proved, it is absolutely impossible." His purpose
is to establish a community of which His disciples are to be the foundation, and
by means of this community to bring about the coming of the Kingdom of God.
He can, therefore only have spoken of His return as an impersonal return in the
Spirit. The later exponents of the Marcan view were no doubt generally inclined
to regard the return as personal and corporeal. For Schenkel however, it is
historically certain that the real meaning of the eschatological discourses is
more faithfully preserved in the Fourth Gospel than in the Synoptics.
In his anxiety to eliminate any enthusiastic elements from the representation of
Jesus, he ends by drawing a bourgeois Messiah whom he might have extracted
from the old-fashioned rationalistic work of the worthy Reinhard. He feels bound
to save the credit of Jesus by showing that the entry into Jerusalem was not
intended as a provocation to the government. "It is only by making this
supposition," he explains, "that we avoid casting a slur upon the character of
Jesus. It was certainly a constant trait in His character that He never
unnecessarily exposed Himself to danger, and never, except for the most
pressing reasons, did He give any support to the suspicions which were arising
against Him; He avoided provoking His opponents to drastic measures by any
overt act directed against them." Even the cleansing of the Temple was not an
act of violence but merely an attempt at reform.
Schenkel is able to give these explanations because he knows the most secret
thoughts of Jesus and is therefore no longer bound to the text. He knows, for
example, that immediately after His baptism He attained to the knowledge "that
the way of the Law was no longer the way of salvation for His people." Jesus
cannot therefore have uttered the saying about the permanence of the Law in
Mark v. 18. In the controversies about the Sabbath "He proclaims freedom of
worship."
As time went on, He began to take the heathen world into the scope of His
purpose. "The hard saying addressed to the Canaanite woman represents
rather the proud and exclusive spirit of Pharisaism than the spirit of Jesus." It
was a test of faith, the success of which had a decisive influence upon Jesus'
attitude towards the heathen. Henceforth it is obvious that He is favourably
disposed towards them. He travels through Samaria and establishes a
community there. In Jerusalem He openly calls the heathen to Him. At certain
feasts which they had arranged for that purpose, some of the leaders of the
people set a trap for Him, and betrayed Him into liberal sayings in regard to the
Gentiles which sealed His fate.
207
This was the course of development of the Master, who, according to Schenkel
"saw with a clear eye into the future history of the world," and knew that the fall
of Jerusalem must take place in order to close the theocratic era and give the

187
Gentiles free access to the universal community of Christians which He was to
found. "This period He described as the period of His coming, as in a sense His
Second Advent upon earth.
The same general procedure is followed by Weizsacker in his "Gospel History,"
though his work is of a much higher quality than Schenkel's. His account of the
sources is one of the clearest that has ever been written. In the description of
the life of Jesus, however, the unhesitating combination of material from the
Fourth Gospel with that of the Synoptics rather confuses the picture. And
whereas Renan only offers the results of the completed process, Weizsacker
works out his, it might almost be said, under the eyes of the reader, which
makes the arbitrary character of the proceeding only the more obvious. But in
his attitude towards the sources Weizsacker is wholly free from the
irresponsible caprice in which Schenkel indulges. From time to time, too, he
gives a hint of unsolved problems in the background. For example, in treating of
the declaration of Jesus to His judges that He would come as the Son of Man
upon the clouds of heaven, he remarks how surprising it is that Jesus could so
often have used the designation Son of Man on earlier occasions without being
accused of claiming the Messiahship. It is true that this is a mere scraping of the
keel upon a sandbank, by which the steersman does not allow himself to be
turned from his course, for Weizsacker concludes that the name Son of Man, in
spite of its use in Daniel, "had not become a generally current or really popular
designation of the Messiah." But even this faint suspicion of the difficulty is a
welcome sign. Much emphasis, in fact, in practice rather too much emphasis, is
laid on the principle that in the great discourses of Jesus the structure is not
historical; they are only collections of sayings formed to meet the needs of the
Christian community in later times. In this Weizsacker is sometimes not less
arbitrary than Schenkel, who represents the Lord's Prayer as given by Jesus to
the disciples only in the last days at Jerusalem. It was an axiom of the school
that Jesus could not have delivered discourses such as the Evangelists record.
If Schenkel's picture of Jesus' character attracted much more attention than
Weizsacker's work, that is mainly due to the art of lively popular presentation by
which it is distinguished. The writer knows well how to keep the reader's interest
awake by the use of exciting headlines. Catchwords abound, and arrest the ear,
for they are the words about which the religious controversies of the time
revolved. There is never far to look for the moral of the history, and the Jesus
208
here portrayed can be imagined plunging into the midst of the debates in any
ministerial conference. The moralising, it must be admitted, sometimes
becomes the occasion of the feeblest ineptitudes. Jesus sent out His disciples
two and two; this is for Schenkel a marvellous exhibition of wisdom. The Lord
designed, thereby, to show that in His opinion "nothing is more inimical to the
interests of the Kingdom of God than individualism, self-will, self-pleasing."
Schenkel entirely fails to recognise the superb irony of the saying that in this life
all that a man gives up for the sake of the Kingdom of God is repaid a

188
hundredfold in persecutions, in order that in the Coming Age he may receive
eternal life as his reward. He interpreted it as meaning that the sufferer shall be
compensated by love; his fellow-Christians will endeavour to make it up to him,
and will offer him their own possessions so freely that, in consequence of this
brotherly love, he will soon have, for the house which he has lost, a hundred
houses, for the lost sisters, brothers, and so forth, a hundred sisters, a hundred
brothers, a hundred fathers, a hundred mothers, a hundred farms. Schenkel
forgets to add that, if this is to be the interpretation of the saying, the persecuted
man must also receive through this compensating love, a hundred wives. [1]
This want of insight into the largeness, the startling originality, the self-
contradictoriness, and the terrible irony in the thought of Jesus, is not a
peculiarity of Schenkel's; it is characteristic of all the liberal Lives of Jesus from
Strauss's down to Oskar Holtzmann's. [2] How could it be otherwise? They had
to transpose a way of envisaging the world which belonged to a hero and a
dreamer to the plane of thought of a rational bourgeois religion. But in
Schenkel's representation, with its popular appeal, this banality is particularly
obtrusive.
In the end, however, what made the success of the book was not its popular
characteristics, whether good or bad, but the enmity which it drew down upon
the author. The Basle Privat-Docent who, in his work of 1839, had
congratulated the Zurichers on having rejected Strauss, now, as Professor and
Director of the Seminary at Heidelberg, came very near being adjudged worthy
of the Martyr's crown himself. He had been at Heidelberg since 1851, after
holding for a short time De Wette's chair at Basle. At his first coming a mildly
reactionary theology might have claimed him as its own. He gave it a right to do
so by the way in which he worked against the philosopher, Kuno Fischer, in tne
Higher Consistory. But in the struggles over the constitution of the Church he
changed his position. As a defender of the rights of the laity he ranged himself
on the more liberal side. After his great victory in the General Synod of 1861, in
which the new constitution of the Church was established, he called a German
Protestant assembly at Franktort,
[1] Omitted in some of the best texts.-F. C. B.
[2] Oskar Holtzmann, Das Leben Jesu, 1901.
209
in order to set on foot a general movement for Church reform. This assembly
met in 1863, and led to the formation of the Protestant Association.
When the Charakterbild Jesu appeared, friend and foe were alike surprised at
the thoroughness with which Schenkel advocated the more liberal views.
"Schenkel's book," complained Luthardt, in a lecture at Leipzig, [1] "has aroused
a painful interest. We had learnt to know him in many aspects; we were not
prepared for such an apostasy from his own past. How long is it since he
brought about the dismissal of Kuno Fischer from Heidelberg because he saw
in the pantheism of this philosopher a danger to Church and State? It is still
fresh in our memory that it was he who in the year 1852 drew up the report of

189
the Theological Faculty of Heidelberg upon the ecclesiastical controversy raised
by Pastor Dulon at Bremen, in which he denied Dulon's Christianity on the
ground that he had assailed the doctrines of original sin, of justification by faith,
of a living and personal God, of the eternal Divine Sonship of Christ, of the
Kingdom of God, and of the credibility of the holy Scriptures." And now this
same Schenkel was misusing the Life of Jesus as a weapon in "party polemics"!
The agitation against him was engineered from Berlin, where his successful
attack upon the illiberal constitution of the Church had not been forgiven. One
hundred and seventeen Baden clerics signed a protest declaring the author
unfitted to hold office as a theological teacher in the Baden Church. Throughout
the whole of Germany the pastors agitated against him. It was especially
demanded that he should be immediately removed from his post as Director of
the Seminary. A counter-protest was issued by the Durlach Conference in the
July of 1864, in which Bluntschli and Holtzmann vigorously defended him. The
Ecclesiastical Council supported him, and the storm gradually died away,
especially when Schenkel in two "Defences" skilfully softened down the
impression made by his work, and endeavoured to quiet the public mind by
pointing out that he had only attempted to set forth one side of the truth. [2]
[1] Die modernen Darstellungen des Lebens Jesu. (Modern Presentments of
the Life of Jesus.) A discussion of the works of Strauss, Renan, and Schenkel,
and of the Essays of Coquerel the Younger, Scherer, Colani, and Keim. A
lecture by Chr. Ernest Luthardt, Leipzig. lst and 2nd editions, 1864. Luthardt
was born in 1823 at Maroldsweisach in Lower Franconia became Docent at
Erlangen in 1851, was called to Marburg as Professor Extraordinary in 1854,
and to Leipzig as Ordinary Professor in 1856. He died in 1902.
[2] Zur Orientierung uber meine Schrift "Das Charakterbild Jesu." (Explanations
intended to place my work "A picture of the Character of Jesus" in the proper
light.) 1864. Die protestantische Freiheit in ihrem gegenwartigen Kampfe mit der
kirchlichen Reaktion. (Protestant Freedom in its present Struggle with
Ecclesiastical Reaction.) 1865.
210
The position of the prospective martyr was not rendered any more easy by
Strauss. In an appendix to his criticism of Schleiermacher's Life of Jesus he
settled accounts with his old antagonist. [1] He recognises no scientific value
whatever in the work. None of the ideas developed in it are new. One might
fairly say, he thinks, "that the conclusions which have given offence had been
carried down the Neckar from Tubingen to Heidelberg, and had there been
salvaged by Herr Schenkel-in a somewhat sodden and deteriorated condition, it
must be admitted-and incorporated into the edifice which he was constructing."
Further Strauss censures the book for its want of frankness, its half-and-half
character, which manifests itself especially in the way in which the author clings
to orthodox phraseology. "Over and over again he gives criticism with one hand
all that it can possibly ask, and then takes back with the other whatever the
interests of faith seem to demand; with the constant result that what is taken

190
back is far too much for criticism and not nearly enough for faith." "In the future,"
he concludes, "it will be said of the seven hundred Durlachers that they fought
like paladins to prevent the enemy from capturing a standard which was really
nothing but a patched dish-clout."
Schenkel died in 1885 after severe sufferings. As a critic he lacked
independence, and was, therefore, always inclined to compromises; in
controversy he was vehement. Though he did nothing remarkable in theology,
German Protestantism owes him a vast debt for acting as its tribune in the
'sixties.
That was the last time that any popular excitement was aroused in connexion
with the critical study of the life of Jesus; and it was a mere storm in a tea-cup.
Moreover, it was the man and not his work that aroused the excitement.
Henceforth public opinion was almost entirely indifferent to anything which
appeared in this department. The great fundamental question whether historical
criticism was to be applied to the life of Jesus had been decided in connexion
with Strauss's first work on the subject. If here and there indignation aroused by
a Life of Jesus brought inconveniences to the author and profit to the publisher,
that was connected in every case with purely external and incidental
circumstances. Public opinion was not disquieted for a moment by Volkmar and
Wrede, although they are much more extreme than Schenkel.
Most of the Lives of Jesus which followed had, it is true, nothing very exciting
about them. They were mere variants of the type estab-
[1] Der Schenkel'sche Handel in Baden. (The Schenkel Controversy in Baden.)
(A corrected reprint from number 441 of the National-Zeitung of September 21,
1864.) An appendix to Der Christus des Galubens und der Jesus der
Geschichte. 1865.
211
lished during the 'sixties, variants of which the minute differences were only
discernible by theologians, and which were otherwise exactly alike in
arrangement and result. As a contribution to criticism, Keim's [1] "History of
Jesus of Nazara" was the most important Life of Jesus which appeared in a
long period.
It is not of much consequence that he believes in the priority of Matthew, since
his presentment of the history follows the general lines of the Marcan plan,
which is preserved also in Matthew. He gives it as his opinion that the life of
Jesus is to be reconstructed from the Synoptics, whether Matthew has the first
place or Mark. He sketches the development of Jesus in bold lines. As early as
his inaugural address at Zurich, delivered on the 17th of December 1860,
which, short as it was, made a powerful impression upon Holtzmann as well as
upon others, he had set up the thesis that the Synoptics "artlessly, almost
against their will, show us unconsciously in incidental, unobtrusive traits the
progressive development of Jesus as youth and man." [2] His later works are
the development of this sketch.

191
His grandiose style gave the keynote for the artistic treatment of the portrait of
Jesus in the 'sixties. His phrases and expressions became classical. Every one
follows him in speaking of the "Galilaean springtide" in the ministry of Jesus.
On the Johannine question he takes up a clearly defined position, denying the
possibility of using the Fourth Gospel side by side with the Synoptics as an
historical source. He goes very far in finding special significance in the details of
the Synoptists, especially when he is anxious to discover traces of want of
success in the second period of Jesus' ministry, since the plan of his Life of
Jesus depends on the sharp antithesis between the periods of success and
failure. The whole of the second half of the Galilaean period consists for him in
"flights
[1] Theodor Keim, Die Geschichte Jesu van Nazara, in ihrer Verhaltuna, mit
dem Gesamtleben seines Volkes frei untersucht und ausfuhrlich erzahlt. (The
History of Jesus of Nazara in Relation to the General Life of His People, freely
examined and fully narrated.) 3 vols. Zurich, 1867-1872. Vol. i. The Day of
Preparation; vol. ii. The Year of Teaching in Galilee; vol. iii. The Death-Passover
(Todesostern) in Jerusalem. A short account in a more popular form appeared
in 1872, Geschichte Jesu nach den Ergebnissen heutiger Wissenschaft fur
weitere Kreise ubersichtlich erzahlt. (The History of Jesus according to the
Results of Present-day Criticism, briefly narrated for the General Reader.) 2nd
ed., 1875.
Karl Theodor Keim was born in 1825 at Stuttgart, was Repetent at Tiibingen
from 1851 to 1855, and after he had been five years in the ministry, became
Professor at Zurich in 1860. In 1873 he accepted a call to Giessen, where he
died in 1878.
[2] Die menschliche Entwicklung Jesu Christi. See Holtzmann, Die synoptischen
Evangelien, 1863 pp. 7-9. This dissertation was followed by Der geschichtliche
Christus. 3rd ed., 1866.
212
and retirements." "Beset by constantly renewed alarms and hindrances Jesus
left the scene of His earlier work, left his dwelling-place at Capernaum, and
accompanied only by a few faithful followers, in the end only by the Twelve,
sought in all directions for places of refuse for longer or shorter periods, in order
to avoid and elude His enemies." Keim frankly admits, indeed, that there is not a
syllable in the Gospels to suggest that these journeys are the journeys of a
fugitive. But instead of allowing that to shake his conviction, he abuses the
narrators and suggests that they desired to conceal the truth. "These flights," he
says "were no doubt inconvenient to the Evangelists. Matthew is here the
frankest, but in order to restore the impression of Jesus' greatness he transfers
to this period the greatest miracles. The later Evangelists are almost completely
silent about these retirements, and leave us to suppose that Jesus made His
journeys to Caesarea Philippi and the neighbourhood of Tyre and Sidon in the
middle of winter from mere pleasure in travel, or for the extension of the Gospel,
and that He made His last journey to Jerusalem without any external necessity,

192
entirely in consequence of His free decision, even though the expectation of
death which they ascribe to Him goes far to counteract the impression of
complete freedom." Why do they thus correct the history? "The motive was the
same difficulty which draws from us also the question, 'Is it possible that Jesus
should flee?'" Keim answers "Yes." Here the liberal psychology comes clearly to
light. "Jesus fled," he explains, "because He desired to preserve Himself for
God and man, to secure the continuance of His ministry to Israel, to defeat as
long as possible the dark designs of His enemies, to carry His cause to
Jerusalem, and there, while acting, as it was His duty to do, with prudence and
foresight in his relations with men, to recognise clearly, by the Divine silence or
the Divine action, what the Divine purpose really was, which could not be
recognised in a moment. He acts like a man who knows the duty both of
examination and action, who knows His own worth and what is due to Him and
His obligations towards God and man." [1]
In regard to the question of eschatology, however, Keim does justice to the
texts. [2] He admits that eschatology, "a Kingdom of God clothed with material
splendours," forms an integral part of the preaching of Jesus from the first; "that
He never rejected it, and therefore never by a so-called advance transformed
the sensuous Messianic idea into a
[1] Geschichte Jesu. 2nd ed., 1875, pp. 228 and 229. ,
[2] The ultimate reason why Keim deliberately gives such prominence to the
eschatology is that he holds to Matthew, and is therefore more under the direct
impression of the masses of discourse in this Gospel, charged, as they are, with
eschatological ideas, than those writers who find their primary authority in Mark,
where these discourses are lacking.
213
purely spiritual one." "Jesus does not uproot from the minds of the the sons of
Zebedee their belief in the thrones on His right hand and His left; He does not
hesitate to make His entry into Jerusalem in the character of the Messiah; He
acknowledges His Messiahship before the Council without making any careful
reservations; upon the cross His title is The King of the Jews; He consoles
Himself and His followers with the thought of His return as an earthly ruler, and
leaves with His disciples, without making any attempt to check it, the belief,
which long survived, in a future establishment or restoration of the Kingdom in
an Israel delivered from bondage." Keim remarks with much justice "that
Strauss had been wrong in rejecting his own earlier and more correct formula,"
which combined the eschatological and spiritual elements as operating side by
side in the plan of Jesus.
Keim however, himself in the end allows the spiritual elements practically to
cancel the eschatological. He admits, it is true, that the expression Son of Man
which Jesus uses designated the Messiah in the sense of Daniel's prophecy,
but he thinks that these pictorial representations in Daniel did not repel Jesus
because He interpreted them spiritually, and "intended to describe Himself as
belonging to mankind even in His Messianic office." To solve the difficulty Keim

193
assumes a development. Jesus' consciousness of His vocation had been
strengthened both by success and by disappointment. As time went on He
preached the Kingdom not as a future Kingdom, as at first, but as one which
was present in Him and with Him, and He declares His Messiahship more and
more openly before the world. He thinks of the Kingdom as undergoing
development, but not with an unlimited, infinite horizon as the moderns
suppose; the horizon is bounded by the eschatology. "For however easy it may
be to read modern ideas into the parables of the draught of fishes, the mustard
seed and the leaven, which, taken by themselves, seem to suggest the duration
contemplated by the modern view, it is nevertheless indubitable that Jesus, like
Paul, by no means looks forward to so protracted an earthly development; on
the contrary, nothing appears more clearly from the sources than that He
thought of its term as rapidly approaching, and of His victory as nigh at hand;
and looked to the last decisive events, even to the day of judgment, as about to
occur during the lifetime of the existing generation, including Himself and His
apostles." "It was the overmastering pressure of circumstances which held Him
prisoner within the limitations of this obsolete belief." When His confidence in
the development Kingdom came into collision with barriers which He could not
pass, when His belief in the presence of the Kingdom of God grew dim, the
purely eschatological ideas won the upper hand, "and if we may suppose that it
was precisely this thought of the imminent decisive action
214
of God, taking possession of His mind with renewed force at this point which
steeled His human courage, and roused Him to a passion of self-sacrifice with
the hope of saving from the judgment whatever might still be saved, we may
welcome His adoption of these narrower ideas as in accordance with the
goodwill of God, which could only by this means maintain the failing strength of
its human instrument and secure the spoils of the Divine warfare-the souls of
men subdued and conquered by Him."
The thought which had hovered before the mind of Renan, but which in his
hands had become only the motive of a romance-une ficelle de roman as the
French express it-was realised by Keim. Nothing deeper or more beautiful has
since been written about the development of Jesus.
Less critical in character is Hase's "History of Jesus," [1] which superseded in
1876 the various editions of the Handbook on the Life of Jesus which had first
appeared in 1829.
The question of the use of John's Gospel side by side with the Synoptics he
leaves in suspense, and speaks his last word on the subject in the form of a
parable. "If I may be allowed to use an avowedly parabolic form of speech, the
relation of Jesus to the two streams of Gospel tradition may be illustrated as
follows. Once there appeared upon earth a heavenly Being. According to His
first three biographers He goes about more or less incognito, in the long
garment of a Rabbi, a forceful popular figure, somewhat Judaic in speech, only
occasionally, almost unmarked by His biographers, pointing with a smile beyond

194
this brief interlude to His home. In the description left by His favourite disciple,
He has thrown off the talar of the Rabbi, and stands before us in His native
character, but in bitter and angry strife with those who took offence at His
magnificent simplicity, and then later-it must be confessed, more attractively-in
deep emotion at parting with those whom, during His pilgrimage on earth, He
had made His friends, though they did not rightly understand His strange,
unearthly speech."
This is Hase's way, always to avoid a final decision. The fifty years of critical
study of the subject which he had witnessed and taken part in had made him
circumspect, sometimes almost sceptical. But his notes of interrogation do not
represent a covert supernaturahsni like those in the Life of Jesus of 1829. Hase
had been penetrated by the
[1] Geschichte Jesu. Nach akademischen Vorlesungen von Dr. Karl Hase.
1876. Special mention ought also to be made of the fine sketch of the Life of
Jesus in A. Hausrath's Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte (History of New
Testament Times), 1st ed., Munich, 1868 ff.; 3rd ed., 1 vol., 1879, pp. 325-515;
Die zeitgeschichtlichen. Beziehungen des Lebens Jesu (The Relations of the
Life of Jesus to the History of His time.)
Adolf Hausrath was bom at Karlsruhe. He was appointed Professor of Theology
at Heidelberg in 1867, and died in 1909.
215
influence of Strauss and had adopted from him the belief that the true life of
Jesus lies beyond the reach of criticism. "It is not my business," he says to his
students in an introductory lecture, "to recoil in horror from this or that thought,
or to express it with embarrassment as being dangerous; I would not forbid
even the enthusiasm of doubt and detruction which makes Strauss so strong
and Renan so seductive."
It is left uncertain whether Jesus' consciousness of His Messiahship reaches
back to the days of His childhood, or whether it arose in the ethical development
of His ripening manhood. The concealment of His Messianic claims is ascribed,
as by Schenkel and others, to paedagogic motives; it was necessary that Jesus
should first educate the people and the disciples up to a higher ethical view of
His office. In the stress which he lays upon the eschatology Hase has points of
affinity with Keim, for whom he had prepared the way in his Life of Jesus of
1829, in which he had been the first to assert a development in Jesus in the
course of which He at first fully shared the Jewish eschatological views, but
later advanced to a more spiritual conception. In his Life of Jesus of 1876 he is
prepared to make the eschatology the dominant feature in the last period also,
and does not hesitate to represent Jesus as dying in the enthusiastic
expectation of returning upon the clouds of heaven. He feels himself driven to
this by the eschatological ideas in the last discourses. "Jesus' clear and definite
sayings," he declares, "with the whole context of the circumstances in which
they were spoken and understood, have been forcing me to this conclusion for
years past."

195
"That lofty Messianic dream must therefore continue to hold its place, since
Jesus, influenced as much by the idea of the Messianic glories taken over from
the beliefs of His people as by His own religious exaltation, could not think of
the victory of His Kingdom except as closely connected with His own personal
action. But that was only a misunderstanding due to the unconscious poesy of a
high-ranging religious imagination, the ethical meaning of which could only be
realised by a long historical development. Christ certainly came again as the
greatest power on earth, and His power, along with His word, is constantly
judging the world. He faced the sufferings which lay immediately before Him
with His eyes fixed upon this great future."
The chief excellence of Beyschlag's Life of Jesus consists in its arrangement.
[1] He first, in the volume of preliminary investigations, dis-
[1] Das Leben Jesu, von willibald Beyschlag: Pt. i. Preliminary Investigations,
1885, 450 pp.; Pt. ii. Narrative, 1886, 495 pp. Joh. Heinr. Christoph Willibald
Beyschlag was born in 1823 at Frankfort-on-Main, and went to Halle as
Professor in 1860. His splendid eloquence made him one of the chief
spokesmen of German Protestantism. As a teacher he exercised a remarkable
and salutary influence, although his scientific works are too much under the
dominance of an apologetic of the heart. He died in 1900.
216
cusses the problems, so that the narrative is disencumbered of all explanations,
and by virtue of the author's admirable style becomes a pure work of art, which
rivets the interest of the reader and almost causes the want of a consistent
historical conception to be overlooked. The fact is, however, that in regard to
the two decisive questions Beyschlag is deliberately inconsistent. Although he
recognises that the Gospel of John has not the character of an essentially
historical source "being, rather, a brilliant subjective portrait," "a didactic, quite
as much as an historical work," he produces his Life of Jesus by "combining
and mortising together Synoptic and Johannine elements." The same
uncertainty prevails in regard to the recognition of the definitely eschatological
character of Jesus' system of ideas. Beyschlag gives a very large place to
eschatology, so that in order to combine the spiritual with the eschatological
view his Jesus has to pass through three stages of development. In the first He
preaches the Kingdom as something future, a supernatural event which was to
be looked forward to, much as the Baptist preached it. Then the response which
was called forth on all hands by His preaching led Him to believe that the
Kingdom was in some sense already present, "that the Father, while He delays
the outward manifestation of the Kingdom, is causing it to come even now in
quiet and unnoticed ways by a humble gradual growth, and the great thought of
His parables, which dominates the whole middle period of His public life, the
resemblance of the Kingdom to mustard seed or leaven, comes to birth in His
mind." As His failure becomes more and more certain, "the centre of gravity of
His thought is shifted to the World beyond the grave, and the picture of a
glorious return to conquer and to judge the world rises before Him."

196
The peculiar interweaving of Synoptic and Johannine ideas leads to the result
that, between the two, Beyschlag in the end forms no clear conception of the
eschatology, and makes Jesus think in a half-Johannine, half-Synoptic fashion.
"It is a consequence of Jesus' profound conception of the Kingdom of God as
something essentially growing that He regards its final perfection not as a state
of rest, but rather as a living movement, as a process of becoming, and since
He regards this process as a cosmic and supernatural process in which history
finds its consummation, and yet as arising entirely out of the ethical and
historical process, He combines elements from each into the same prophetic
conception." An eschatology of this kind is not matter for history.
In the acceptance of the "miracles" Beyschlag goes to the utmost limits allowed
by criticism; in considering the possibility of one or another of the recorded
raisings from the dead he even finds himself within the borders of rationalist
territory.
217
Whether Bernhard Weiss's [1] is to be numbered with the liberal Lives of Jesus
is a question to which we may answer "Yes; but along with the faults of these it
has some others in addition." Weiss shares with the authors of the liberal
"Lives" the assumption that Mark designed to set forth a definite "view of the
course of development of the public ministry of Jesus," and on the strength of
that believes himself justified in giving a very far-reaching significance to the
details offered by this Evangelist. The arbitrariness with which he carries out
this theory is quite as unbounded as Schenkel's, and in his fondness for the
"argument from silence" he even surpasses him. Although Mark never allows a
single word to escape him about the motives of the northern journeys, Weiss is
so clever at reading between the lines that the motives are "quite sufficiently"
clear to him. The object of these journeys was, according to his explanation,
"that the people might have an oppor-
[1] Bernhard Weiss, Das Leben Jesu. 2 vols. Berlin, 1882. See also Das
Markusevangelium, 1872; Das Matthausevangelium, 1876; and the Lehrbach
der neutestamentlichen Theologie, 5th ed., 1888. Bernhard Weiss was born in
1827 at Konigsberg, where he qualified as Privat-Docent in 1852. In 1863 he
went as Ordinary Professor to Kiel, and was called to Berlin in the same
capacity in 1877.
Among the distinctly liberal Lives of Jesus of an earlier date, that of W. Kruger-
Velthusen (Elberfeld, 1872, 271 pp.) might be mentioned if it were not so
entirely uncritical. Although the author does not hold the Fourth Gospel to be
apostolic he has no hesitation in making use of it as an historical source.
There is more sentiment than science, too, in the work of M. G. Weitbrecht, Das
Leben Jesu. nach den vier Evangelien, 1881.
A weakness in the treatment of the Johannine question and a want of clearness
on some other points disfigures the three-volume Life of Jesus of the Paris
professor, E. Stapfer, which is otherwise marked by much acumen and real
depth of feeling. Vol. i, Jesus-Christ avant son ministere (Fischbacher, Paris,

197
1896); vol. ii. Jesus-Christ pendant son ministere (1897) ; vol. iii. La Mart et la
resurrection de Jesus-Christ (1898).
F. Godet writes of "The Life of Jesus before His Public Appearance" (German
translation by M. Reineck, Leben Jesu vor seinem dffentlichen Auftreten.
Hanover, 1897).
G. Langin founds his Der Christus der Ceschichte und sein Christentum (The
Christ of History and His Christianity) on a purely Synoptic basis. 2 vols., 1897-
1898.
The English Life of Jesus Christ, by James Stalker, D.D. (now Professor of . rc"
History in the United Free Church College, Aberdeen), passed through
numberless editions (German, 1898; Tubingen, 4th ed., 1901).
Very pithy and interesting is Dr. Percy Gardner's Exploratio Evangelica. A Brief
Examination of the Basis and Origin of Christian Belief. 1899; 2nd ed, 1907.
A work which is free from all compromise is H. Ziegler's Der geschichtliche
Christus (The Historical Christ). 1891. For this reason the five lectures,
delivered in Liegnitz, out of which it is composed, attracted such unfavourable
attention that the Ecclesiastical Council took proceedings against the author.
(See the Christliche Welt, 1891, pp. 563-568, 874-877.)
218
tunity, undistracted by the immediate impression of His words and actions, to
make up their minds in regard to the questions which they had put to Him so
pressingly and inescapably in the last days of His public ministry; they must
themselves draw their own conclusions alike from the declarations and from the
conduct of Jesus. Only by Jesus' removing Himself for a time from their midst
could they come to a clear decision as to their attitude to Jesus." This modern
psychologising however, is closely combined with a dialectic which seeks to
show that there is no irreconcilable opposition between the belief in the Son of
God and Son of Man which the Church of Christ has always confessed and a
critical investigation of the question how far the details of His life have been
accurately preserved by tradition, and how they are to be historically
interpreted. That means that Weiss is going to cover up the difficulties and
stumbling-blocks with the mantle of Christian charity which he has woven out of
the most plausible of the traditional sophistries. As a dialectical performance on
these lines his Life of Jesus rivals in importance any except Schleierroacher's.
On points of detail there are many interesting historical observations. When all
is said, one can only regret that so much knowledge and so much ability have
been expended in the service of so hopeless a cause.
What was the net result of these liberal Lives of Jesus? In the first place the
clearing up of the relation between John and the Synoptics. That seems
surprising, since the chief representatives of this school, Holtzmann, Schenkel,
Weizsacker, and Hase, took up a mediating position on this question, not to
speak of Beyschlag and Weiss, for whom the possibility of reconciliation
between the two lines of tradition is an accepted datum for ecclesiastical and
apologetic reasons. But the very attempt to hold the position made clear its

198
inherent untenability. The defence of the combination of the two traditions
exhausted itself in the efforts of these its critical champions, just as the
acceptance of the supernatural in history exhausted itself in the-to judge from
the approval of the many-victorious struggle against Strauss. In the course of
time Weizsacker, like Holtzmann, [1] advanced to the rejection of any
[1] Holtzmann, Neutestamentliche Einleitung, 2nd ed., 1886. Weizsacker
declares himself in the Theologische Literaturzeitung for 1882, No. 23, and Das
apostolische Zeitalter, 2nd ed., 1890. ,
Hase and Schenkel accepted this position in principle, but were careful to keep
open a line of retreat.
Towards the end of the 'seventies the rejection of the Fourth Gospel as an
historical source was almost universally recognised in the critical camp. It is
taken for granted in the Life of Jesus by Karl Wittichen (Jena, 1876, 397 pp.),
which might be reckoned one of the most clearly conceived works of this kind
based on the Marcan hypothesis if its arrangement were not so bad. It is partly
in the form of a commentary, inasmuch as the presentment of the life takes the
form of a discussion of sixty-seven sections. The detail is very interesting. It
makes an impression of naivete when we find a series of sections grouped
under the title, "The establishment of Christianity in Galilee." No stress is laid on
the significance of Jesus' journey to the north. Wittichen, also, misled by Luke,
asserts, just as Weisse had done, that Jesus had worked in Judaea for some
time prior to the triumphal entry.
219
possibility of reconciliation, and gave up the Fourth Gospel as an historical
source. The second demand of Strauss's first Life of Jesus was now-at last-
conceded by scientific criticism.
That does not mean, of course, that no further attempts at reconciliation
appeared thenceforward. Was ever a street so closed by a cordon that one or
two isolated individuals did not get through? And to dodge through needs, after
all, no special intelligence, or special courage. Must we never speak of a victory
so long as a single enemy remains alive? Individual attempts to combine John
with the Synoptics which appeared after this decisive point are in some cases
deserving of special attention, as for example, Wendt's [1] acute study of the
"Teaching of Jesus," which has all the importance of a full treatment of the
"Life." But the very way in which Wendt grapples with his task shows that the
main issue is already decided. All he can do is to fight a skilful and determined
rearguard action. It is not the Fourth Gospel as it stands, but only a "ground-
document" on which it is based, which he, in common with Weiss, Alexander
Schweizer, and Renan, would have to be recognised "alongside of the Gospel
of Mark and the Logia of Matthew as an historically trustworthy tradition
regarding the teaching of Jesus," and which may be used along with those two
writings in forming a picture of the Life of Jesus. For Wendt there is no longer
any question of an interweaving and working up together of the individual
sections of John and the Synoptists. He takes up much the same standpoint as

199
Holtzmann occupied in 1863, but he provides a much more comprehensive and
well-tested basis for it.
In the end there is no such very great difference between Wendt and the writers
who had advanced to the conviction of the irreconcilability ot the two traditions.
Wendt refuses to give up the Fourth Gospel altogether; they, on their part, won
only a half victory because they did not as a matter of fact escape from the
Johannine interpretation of the
[1] H. H. Wendt, Die Lehre Jesu, vol. i. Die evangelischen Quellenberichte uber
die Lehre Jesu. (The Record of the Teaching of Jesus in the Gospel Sources.)
354 pp. Gottingen, 1886; vol. ii, 1890; Eng. trans., 1892. Second German
edition in one vol., 626 pp., 1901. See also the same writer's Das
Johannesevangelium. Untersechung seiner Entstehung und seines
geschichtlichen Wertes, 1900. (The Gospel of John: An Investigation of its
Origin and Historical Value.) Hans Heinrich Wendt was born in 1853 at
Hamburg, qualified as Privat-Docent in 1877 at Gottingen, was subsequently
Extraordinary Professor at Kiel and Heidelberg, and now works at Jena.
220
Synoptics. By means of their psychological interpretation of the first three
Gospels they make for themselves an ideal Fourth Gospel, in the interests of
which they reject the existing Fourth Gospel. They will hear nothing of the
spiritualised Johannine Christ, and refuse to acknowledge even to themselves
that they have only deposed Him in order to put in His place a spiritualised
Synoptic Jesus Christ, that is, a man who claimed to be the Messiah, but in a
spiritual sense. All the development which they discover in Jesus is in the last
analysis only an evidence of the tension between the Synoptics, in their natural
literal sense and the "Fourth Gospel" which is extracted from them by an
artificial interpretation.
The fact is, the separation between the Synoptics and the Fourth Gospel is only
the first step to a larger result which necessarily follows from it-the complete
recognition of the fundamentally eschatological character of the teaching and
influence of the Marcan and Matthaean Jesus. Inasmuch as they suppressed
this consequence, Holtzmann, Schenkel, Hase, and Weizsacker, even after
their critical conversion, still lay under the spell of the Fourth Gospel, of a
modern, ideal Fourth Gospel. It is only when the eschatological question is
decided that the problem of the relation of John to the Synoptics is finally laid to
rest. The liberal Lives of Jesus grasped their incompatibility only from a literary
point of view, not in its full historical significance.
There is another result in the acceptance of which the critical school had
stopped half-way. If the Marcan plan be accepted, it follows that, setting aside
the references to the Son of Man in Mark ii. 10 and 28, Jesus had never,
previous to the incident at Caesarea Philippi, given Himself out to be the
Messiah or been recognised as such. The perception of this fact marks one of
the greatest advances in the study of the subject. This result, once accepted,
ought necessarily to have suggested two questions: in the first place, why Jesus

200
down to that moment had made a secret of His Messiahship even to His
disciples; in the second place, whether at any time, and, if so, when and how,
the people were made acquainted with His Messianic claims. As a fact,
however, by the application of that ill-starred psychologising both questions
were smothered; that is to say, a sham answer was given to them. It was
regarded as self-evident that Jesus had concealed His Messiahship from His
disciples for so long in order in the meantime to bring them, without their being
aware of it, to a higher spiritual conception of the Messiah; it was regarded as
equally self-evident that in the last weeks the Messianic claims of Jesus could
no longer be hidden from the people, but that He did not openly avow them, but
merely allowed them to be divined, in order to lead up the multitude to the
recognition of the higher spiritual character of the office which He claimed for
Himself.
221
These ingenious psychologists never seemed to perceive that there is not a
word of all this in Mark; but that they had read it all into some of the most
contradictory and inexplicable facts in the Gospels, and had thus created a
Messiah who both wished to be Messiah and did not wish it and who in the end,
so far as the people were concerned, both was and was not the Messiah. Thus
these writers had only recognised the importance of the scene at Caesarea
Philippi, they had not ventured to attack the general problem of Jesus' attitude
in regard to the Messiahship, and had not reflected further on the mutually
contradictory facts that Jesus purposed to be the Messiah and yet did not come
forward publicly in that character.
Thus they had side-tracked the study of the subject, and based all their hopes
of progress on an intensive exegesis of the detail of Mark. They thought they
had nothing to do but to occupy a conquered territory, and never suspected that
along the whole line they had only won a half victory, never having thought out
to the end either the eschatological question or the fundamental historical
question of the attitude of Jesus to the Messiahship.
They were not disquieted by the obstinate persistence of the discussion on the
eschatological question. They thought it was merely a skirmish with a few
unorganised guerillas; in reality it was the advance-guard of the army with which
Reimarus was threatening their flank, and which under the leadership of
Johannes Weiss was to bring them to so dangerous a pass. And while they
were endeavouring to avoid this turning movement they fell into the ambush
which Bruno Bauer had laid in their rear: Wrede held up the Marcan hypothesis
and demanded the pass-word for the theory of the Messianic consciousness
and claims of Jesus to which it was acting as convoy.
The eschatological and the literary school, finding themselves thus opposed to
a common enemy, naturally formed an alliance. The object of their combined
attack was not the Marcan outline of the life of Jesus, which, in fact, they both
accept, but the modern "psychological" method of reading between the lines of
the Marcan narrative. Under the cross fire of these allies that idea of

201
development which had been the strongest entrenchment of the liberal critical
Lives of Jesus, and which they had been desperately endeavouring to
strengthen down to the very last, was finally blown to atoms.
But the striking thing about these liberal critical Lives of Jesus was that they
unconsciously prepared the way for a deeper historical view which could not
have been reached apart from them. A deeper understanding of a subject is
only brought to pass when a theory is carried to its utmost limit and finally
proves its own inadequacy.
There is this in common between rationalism and the liberal critical
222
method, that each had followed out a theory to its ultimate consequences. The
liberal critical school had carried to its limit the explanation of the connexion of
the actions of Jesus, and of the events of His life, by a "natural" psychology;
and the conclusions to which they had been driven had prepared the way for
the recognition that the natural psychology is not here the historical psychology,
but that the latter must be deduced from certain historical data. Thus through
the meritorious and magnificently sincere work of the liberal critical school the a
priori "natural" psychology gave way to the eschatological. That is the net result,
from the historical point of view, of the study of the life of Jesus in the post-
Straussian period.
* XV *
THE ESCHATOLOGICAL QUESTION
Timothee Colani. Jesus-Christ et les croyances messianiques de son temps.
Strata. burg, 1864. 255 pp.
Gustav Volkmar. Jesus Nazarenus und die erste christliche Zeit, mit den beiden
ersten Erzahlern. (Jesus the Nazarene and the Beginnings of Christianity, with
the two earliest narrators of His life.) Zurich, 1882. 403 pp.
Wilhelm Weiffenbach. Der Wiederkunftsgedanke Jesu. (Jesus' Conception of
His Second Coming.) 1873. 424 pp.
W. Baldensperger. Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu im Lichte der messianischen
Hoff- nungen seiner Zeit. (The Self-consciousness of Jesus in the Light of the
Mes- sianic Hopes of His time.) Strassburg, 1888. 2nd ed., 1892, 282 pp.; 3rd
ed, pt. i., 240 pp.
Johannes Weiss. Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes. tThe Preaching of Jesus
concerning the Kingdom of God.) 1892. Gottingen. 67 pp. Second revised and
enlarged edition, 1900, 210 pp.
SO LONG AS IT WAS MERELY A QUESTION OF ESTABLISHING THE
DISTINCTIVE character of the thought of Jesus as compared with the ancient
prophetic and Danielic conceptions, and so long as the only available
storehouse of Rabbinic and Late-Jewish ideas was Lightfoot's Horae Hebraicae
et Talmudicae in quatuor Evangelistas, [1] it was still possible to cherish the
belief that the preaching of Jesus could be conceived as something which was,
in the last analysis, independent of all contemporary ideas. But after the studies
of Hilgenfeld and Dillmann [2] had made known the Jewish apocalyptic in its

202
fundamental characteristics, and the Jewish pseudepigrapha were no longer
looked on as "forgeries," but as representative documents of the last stage of
Jewish thought, the necessity of taking account of them in interpreting the
thought of Jesus became more
[1] Johannis Lightfooti, Doctoris Angli et Collegii S. Catharinae in Cantabrigiensi
Academics Praefecti, Horae Hebraicae et Talmudicae in Quatuor Evangelistas .
. . nunc secundum in Germania junctim cum Indicibus locorum Scriptiirae
rerumque ac verborum necessariis editae e Museo lo. Benedicti Carpzovii.
Lipsiae. Anno MDCLXXX1V.
[2] The pioneer works in the study of apocalyptic were Dillmann's Henoch,
1851; and Hilgenfeld's Judische Apokalyptik, 1857.
224
and more emphatic. Almost two decades were to pass, however, before the full
significance of this material was realised.
It might almost have seemed as if it was to meet this attack by anticipation that
Colani wrote in 1864 his work, Jesus-Christ et les croyances messianiques de
son temps.
Timothee Colani was born in 1824 at Leme (Aisne), studied in Strassburg and
became pastor there in 1851. In the year 1864 he was appointed Professor of
Pastoral Theology in Strassburg in spite of some attempted opposition to the
appointment on the part of the orthodox party in Paris, which was then growing
in strength. The events of the year 1870 left him without a post. As he had no
prospect of being called to a pastorate in France, he became a merchant. In
consequence of some unfortunate business operations he lost all his property.
In 1875 he obtained a post as librarian at the Sorbonne. He died in 1888.
How far was Jesus a Jew? That was the starting-point of Colani's study.
According to him there was a complete lack of homogeneity in the Messianic
hopes cherished by the Jewish people in the time of Jesus, since the prophetic
conception, according to which the Kingdom of the Messiah belonged to the
present world-order, and the apocalyptic, which transferred it to the future age,
had not yet been brought into any kind of unity. The general expectation was
focused rather upon the Forerunner than upon the Messiah. Jesus Himself in
the first period of His public ministry, up to Mark viii., had never designated
Himself as the Messiah, for the expression Son of Man carried no Messianic
associations for the multitude. His fundamental thought was that of perfect
communion with God; only little by little, as the success of the preaching of the
Kingdom more and more impressed His mind, did His consciousness take on a
Messianic colouring. In face of the undisciplined expectations of the people He
constantly repeats in His parables of the growth of the Kingdom, the word
"patience." By revealing Himself as the Lord of this spiritual kingdom He makes
an end of the oscillation between the sensuous and the spiritual in the current
expectations of the future blessedness. He points to mankind as a whole, not
merely to the chosen people, as the people of the Kingdom, and substitutes for
the apocalyptic catastrophe an organic development. By His interpretation of

203
Psalm ex., in Mark xii. 35-37, He makes known that the Messiah has nothing
whatever to do with the Davidic kingship. It was only with difficulty that He came
to resolve to accept the title of Messiah; He knew what a weight of national
prejudices and national hopes hung upon it.
But He is "Messiah the Son of Man"; He created this expression in order
thereby to make known His lowliness. In the moment in which He accepted the
office He registered the resolve to suffer. His purpose is, to be the suffering, not
the triumphant, Messiah. It is to the influence
225
which His Passion exercises upon the souls of men that He looks for the firm
establishment of His Kingdom.
This spiritual conception of the Kingdom cannot possibly be combined with the
thought of a glorious Second Coming, for if Jesus had held this latter view He
must necessarily have thought of the present life as only a kind of prologue to
that second existence. Neither the Jewish, nor the Jewish-Christian eschatology
as represented in the eschatological discourses in the Gospels, can, therefore,
in Colani's opinion, belong to the preaching of Jesus. That He should
sometimes have made use of the imagery associated with the Jewish
expectations of the future is, of course, only natural. But the eschatology
occupies far too important a place in the tradition of the preaching of Jesus to
be explained as a mere symbolical mode of expression. It forms a substantial
element of that preaching. A spiritualisation of it will not meet the case.
Therefore, if the conviction has been arrived at on other grounds that Jesus'
preaching did not follow the lines of Jewish eschatology, there is only one
possible way of dealing with it, and that is by excising it from the text on critical
grounds.
The only element in the preaching of Jesus which can, in Colani's opinion, be
called in any sense "eschatological" was the conviction that there would be a
wide extension of the Gospel even within the existing generation, that Gentiles
should be admitted to the Kingdom, and that in consequence of the general
want of receptivity towards the message of salvation, judgment should come
upon the nations.
These views of Colani furnish him with a basis upon which to decide on the
genuineness or otherwise of the eschatological discourses. Among the sayings
put into the mouth of Jesus which must be rejected as impossible are: the
promise, in the discourse at the sending forth of the Twelve, of the imminent
coming of the Son of Man, Matt. x. 23; the promise to the disciples that they
should sit upon twelve thrones judging the tribes of Israel, Matt. xix. 28; the
saying about His return in Matt. xxiii. 39; the final eschatological saying at the
Last Supper, Matt. xxvi. 29, "the Papias-like Chiliasm of which is unworthy of
Jesus"; and the prediction of His coming on the clouds of heaven with which He
closes His Messianic confession before the Council. The apocalyptic discourses
in Mark xiii., Matt. xxiv., and Luke xxi. are interpolated. A Jewish-Christian
apocalypse of the first century, probably composed before the destruction of

204
Jerusalem, has been interwoven with a short exhortation which Jesus gave on
the occasion when He predicted the destruction of the temple.
According to Colani, therefore, Jesus did not expect to come again from
Heaven to complete His work. It was completed by His death, and the purpose
of the coming of the Spirit was to make manifest its com-
226
pletion. Strauss and Renan had entered upon the path of explaining Jesus'
preaching from the history of the time by the assumption of an intermixture in it
of Jewish ideas, but it was now recognized "that this path is a cul-de-sac, and
that criticism must turn round and get out of it as quickly as possible."
The new feature of Colani's view was not so much the uncompromising
rejection of eschatology as the clear recognition that its rejection was not a
matter to be disposed of in a phrase or two, but necessitated a critical analysis
of the text.
The systematic investigation of the Synoptic apocalypse was a contribution to
criticism of the utmost importance.
In the year 1882 Volkmar took up this attempt afresh, at least in its main
features. [1] His construction rests upon two main points of support; upon his
view of the sources and his conception of the eschatology of the time of Jesus.
In his view the sole source for the Life of Jesus is the Gospel of Mark, which
was "probably written exactly in the year 73," five years after the Johannine
apocalypse.
The other two of the first three Gospels belong to the second century, and can
only be used by way of supplement. Luke dates from the beginning of the first
decade of the century; while Matthew is regarded by Volkmar, as by Wilke, as
being a combination of Mark and Luke, and is relegated to the end of this first
decade. The work is in his opinion a revision of the Gospel tradition "in the spirit
of that primitive Christianity which, while constantly opposing the tendency of
the apostle of the Gentiles to make light of the Law, was nevertheless so far
universalistic that, starting from the old legal ground, it made the first steps
towards a catholic unity." Once Matthew has been set aside in this way, the
literary elimination of the eschatology follows as a matter of course; the much
smaller element of discourse in Mark can offer no serious resistance.
As regards the Messianic expectations of the time, they were, in Volkmar's
opinion, such that Jesus could not possibly have come forward with Messianic
claims. The Messianic Son of Man, whose aim was to
[1] Jesus Nazarenus und die erste christliche Zeit, mit den beiden ersten
Erzahlern, von Gustav Volkmar, Zurich, 1882. To which must be added Markus
und die Synapse der Evangelien, nach dem urkundlichen Text; und das
Geschichtliche vom Leben Jesu. (Mark and Synoptic Material in the Gospels,
according to the original text; and the historical elements in the Life of Jesus.)
Zurich, 1869; 2nd edition, 1876, 738 pp. Volkmar was born in 1809, and was
living at Fulda as a Gymnasium (High School) teacher, when in 1852 he was
arrested by the Hessian Government on account of his political views, and

205
subsequently deprived of his post. In 1853 he went to Zurich, where a new
prospect opened to him as a Docent in theology. He died in 1893.
227
found a super-earthly Kingdom, only arose in Judaism under the influence of
Christian dogma. The contemporaries of Jesus knew only the political ideal of
the Messianic King. And woe to any one who conjured up these hopes! The
Baptist had done so by his too fervent preachine about repentance and the
Kingdom, and had been promptly put out of the way by the Tetrarch. The
version found even in Mark, which represents that it was on Herodias' account,
and at her daughter's petition, that John was beheaded, is a later interpretation
which, according to Volkmar, is evidently false on chronological grounds, since
the Baptist was dead before Herod took Herodias as his wife. Had Jesus
desired the Messiahship, He could only have claimed it in this political sense.
The alternative is to suppose that He did not desire it.
Volkmar's contribution to the subject consists in the formulating of this clean-cut
alternative. Colani had indeed recognised the alternative, but had not taken up
a consistent attitude in regard to it. Here, that way of escape from the difficulty
is barred, which suggests that Jesus set Himself up as Messiah, but in another
than the popular sense. What may be called Jesus' Messianic consciousness
consisted solely "in knowing Himself to be first-born among many brethren, the
Son of God after the Spirit, and consequently feeling Himself enabled and
impelled to bring about that regeneration of His people which alone could make
it worthy of deliverance." It is in any case clearly evident from Paul, from the
Apocalypse, and from Mark, "the three documentary witnesses emanating from
the circle of the followers of Jesus during the first century, that it was only after
His crucifixion that Jesus was hailed as the Christ; never during His earthly life."
The elimination of the eschatology thus leads also to the elimination of the
Messiahship of Jesus.
If we are told in Mark viii. 29 that Simon Peter was the first among men to hail
Jesus as the Messiah, it is to be noticed, Volkmar points out, that the Evangelist
places this confession at a time when Jesus' work was over and the thought of
His Passion first appears; and if we desire fully to understand the author's
purpose we must fix our attention on the Lord's command not to make known
His Messiahship until after His resurrection (Mark viii. 30, ix. 9 and 10), which is
a hint that we are to date Jesus' Messiahship from His death. For Mark is no
mere naive chronicler, but a conscious artist interpreting the history; sometimes,
indeed, a powerful epic writer in whose work the historical and the poetic are
intermingled.
Thus the conclusion is that Mark, in agreement with Paul, represents Jesus as
becoming the Messiah only as a consequence of His resurrection. He really
appeared, and His first appearance was to Peter. When Peter on that night of
terror fled from Jerusalem to take refuge in Galilee, Jesus, according to the
mystic prediction of Mark xiv. 28 and
228

206
xvi. 7, went before him. "He was constantly present to his spirit, until on the third
day He manifested Himself before his eyes, in the heavenly appearance which
was also vouchsafed to the last of the apostles 'as he was in the way'-and
Peter, enraptured, gave expression to the clear conviction with which the whole
life of Jesus had inspired him in the cry 'Thou art the Christ.'"
The historical Jesus therefore founded a community of followers without
advancing any claims to the Messiahship. He desired only to be a reformer; the
spiritual deliverer of the people of God, to realise upon earth the Kingdom of
God which they were all seeking in the beyond, and to extend the reign of God
over all nations. "The Kingdom of God is doubtless to win its final and decisive
victory by the almighty aid of God; our duty is to see to its beginnings"-that is,
according to Volkmar, the lesson which Jesus teaches us in the parable of the
Sower. The ethic of this Kingdom was not yet confused by any eschatological
ideas. It was only when, as the years went on, the expectation of the Parousia
rose to a high pitch of intensity that "marriage and the bringing up of children
came to be regarded as superfluous, and were consequently thought of as
signs of an absorption in earthly interests which was out of harmony with the
near approach to the goal of these hopes." Jesus had renewed the foundations
on which "the family" was based and had made it, in turn, a corner stone of the
Kingdom of God, even as He had consecrated the common meal by making it a
love feast.
In most things Jesus was conservative. The ritual worship of the God of Israel
remained for Him always a sacred thing. But in spite of that He withdrew more
and more from the synagogue, the scene of His earliest preaching, and taught
in the houses of His disciples. "He had learned to fulfil the law as implicit in one
highest commandment and supreme principle, therefore 'in spirit and in truth';
but He never, as appears from all the evidence, declared it to be abolished."
"We may be equally certain, however, that Jesus, while He asserted the abiding
validity of the Ten Commandments, never explicitly declared that of the Mosaic
Law as a whole. The absence of any such saying from the tradition regarding
Jesus made it possible for Paul to take his decisive step forward."
As regards the Gospel discourses about the Parousia, it is easy to recognise
that, even in Mark, these "are one and all the work of the narrator, whose
purpose is edification. He connects his work as closely as possible with the
Apocalypse, which had appeared some five years earlier, in order to
emphasize, in contrast to it, the higher truth." Jesus' own hope, in all its
clearness and complete originality, is recorded in the parables of the seed
growing secretly and the grain of mustard seed, and in the saying about the
immortality of His words. Nothing beyond
229
this is in any way certain, however remarkable the saying in Mark ix. 1 may be,
that the looked-for consummation is to take place during the lifetime of the
existing generation.

207
"It is only the fact that Mark is preceded by 'the book of the Birth (and History) of
Christ according to Matthew'-not only in the Scriptures, but also in men's minds,
which were dominated by it as the 'first Gospel'-which has caused it to be taken
as self-evident that Jesus, knowing Himself from the first to be the Messiah,
expected His Parousia solely from heaven, and therefore with, or in, the clouds
of heaven. . . . But since He who was thought of as by birth the Son of God, is
now thought of as the Son of Man, born an Israelite, and becoming the Son of
God after the spirit only at His baptism, the hope that looks to the clouds of
heaven cannot be, or at least ought not to be, any longer explained otherwise
than as an enthusiastic dream."
If, even at the beginning of the 'eighties, a so extreme theory on the other side
could, without opposition, occupy all the points of vantage, it is evident that the
theory which gave eschatology its due place was making but slow progress. It
was not that any one had been disputing the ground with it, but that all its
operations were characterised by a nervous timidity. And these hesitations are
not to be laid to the account of those who did not perceive the approach of the
decisive conflict, or refused to accept battle, like the followers of Reuss, for
instance, who were satisfied with the hypothesis that thoughts about the Last
Judgment had forced their way into the authentic discourses of Jesus about the
destruction of the city; [1] even those who like Weiffenbach are fully convinced
that "the eschatological question, and in particular the question of the Second
Coming, which in many quarters has up to the present been treated as a noli
me tangere, must sooner or later become the battle-ground of the greatest and
most decisive of theological controversies"-even those who shared this
conviction stopped half-way on the road on which they had entered.
Weiffenbach's [2] work, "Jesus' Conception of His Second Coming," published
in 1873, sums up the results of the previous discussions of the saliect. He
names as among those who ascribe the expectation of the Parousia, in the
sensuous form in which it meets us in the documents, to a misunderstanding of
the teaching of Jesus on the part of the disciples
[1] Kiemen. "Die eschatologische Rede Jesu Matt. xxiv. cum Parall." (Tha
Eschatological Discourse of Jesus in Matt. xxiv. with the parallel passages),
fahrbuch fur die Theologie, 1869, pp. 706-709. Analysis of other attempts
directed to the same end in Weiffenbach, Der Wiederkunftsgedanke, p. 31 ff.
[2] Wilhelm Weiffenbach, Director of the Seminary for Theological Students at
Freidherg, was born in 1842 at Bornheim in Rhenish Hesse.
230
and the writers who were dependent upon them-Schleiermaeher, Bleek,
Holtzmann, Schenkel, Colani, Baur, Hase, and Meyer. Among those who
maintained that the Parousia formed an integral part of Jesus' teaching, he cites
Keim, Weizsacker, Strauss, and Renan. He considers that the readiest way to
advance the discussion will be by undertaking a critical review of the attempt to
analyse the great Synoptic discourse about the future in which Colani had led
the way.

208
The question of the Parousia is like, Weiffenbach suggests, a vessel which has
become firmly wedged between rocks. Any attempt to get it afloat again will be
useless until a new channel is found for it. His detailed discussions are devoted
to endeavouring to discover the relation between the declarations regarding the
Second Coming and the predictions of the Passion. In the course of his analysis
of the great prophetic discourse he rejects the suggestion made by Weisse in
his Evangelienfrage of 1856, that the eschatological character of the discourse
results from the way in which it is put together; that while the sayings in their
present mosaic-like combination certainly have a reference to the last things,
each of them individually in its original context might well bear a natural sense.
In Colani's hypothesis of conflation the suggestion was to be rejected that it was
not "Ur-Markus," but the author of the Synoptic apocalypse who was
responsible for the working in of the "Little Apocalypse." [1] It was an
unsatisfactory feature of Weizsacker's position [2] that he insisted on regarding
the "Littel Apocalypse" as Jewish, not Jewish-Christian; Pfleiderer had
distinguished sharply what belongs to the Evangelist from the "Little
Apocalypse," and had sought to prove that the purpose of the Evangelist in thus
breaking up the latter and working it into a discourse of Jesus was to tone down
the eschatological hopes expressed in the discourse, because they had
remained unfulfilled even at the fall of Jerusalem, and to retard the rapid
development of the apocalyptic process by inserting between its successive
phases passages from a different discourse. [3] Weiffenbach carries this series
of tentative suggestions to its logical conclusion, advancing the view that the
link of connexion between the Jewish-Christian Apocalypse and the Gospel
material in which it is imbedded is the thought of the Second Coming.
[1] The English reader will find a constructive analysis of what is known as the
"Little Apocalypse" in Encyclopaedia Biblica, art. "Gospels," col. 1857. It con-
sists of the verses Matt. xxiv. 6-8, 15-22, 29-31, 34, corresponding to Mark xiii.
7-9ff, 14-20, 24-27, 30. According to the theory first sketched by Colani these
verses formed an independent Apocalypse which was embedded ia the Gospel
by the Evangelist-F. C. B.
[2] Untersuchungen iiber die evangelische Geschichte, 1864, pp. 121-126.
[3] "Uber die Komposition der eschatologischen Rede Matt. xxiv. 4 ff." (The
Composition of the Eschatological Discourse in Matt. xxiv. 4 ff.), Jahrbuch f- "•
Theol. vol. xiii., 186E5, pp. 134-149.
231
This was the thought which gave the impulse from without towards the
transmutation of Jewish into Jewish-Christian eschatology. Jesus must have
given expression to the thought of His near return; and Jewish- Christianity
subsequently painted it over with the colours of Jewish eschatology.
In developing this theory, Weiffenbach thought that he had succeeded in solving
the problem which had been first critically formulated by Keim, who is constantly
emphasising the idea that the eschatological hopes of the disciples could not be
explained merely from their Judaic pre-suppositions, but that some incentive to

209
the formation of these hopes must be sought in the preaching of Jesus;
otherwise primitive Christianity and the life of Jesus would stand side by side
unconnected and unexplained, and in that case we must give up all hope "of
distinguishing the sure word of the Lord from Israel's restless speculations
about the future."
When the Jewish-Christian Apocalypse has been eliminated, we arrive at a
discourse, spoken on the Mount of Olives, in which Jesus exhorted His disciples
to watchfulness, in view of the near, but nevertheless undefined, hour of the
return of "the Master of the House."
In this discourse, therefore, we have a standard by which criticism may test all
the eschatological sayings and discourses. Weiffenbach has the merit of having
gathered together all the eschatological material of the Synoptics and examined
it in the light of a definite principle. In Colani the material was incomplete, and
instead of a critical principle he offered only an arbitrary exegesis which
permitted him, for example, to conceive the watchfulness on which the
eschatological parables constantly insist as only a vivid expression for the
sense of responsibility "which weighs upon the life of man."
And yet the outcome of this attempt of Weiffenbach's, which begins with so
much real promise, is in the end wholly unsatisfactory. The "authentic thought of
the return" which he takes as his standard has for its sole content the
expectation of a visible personal return in the "ear future "free from all more or
less fantastic apocalyptic and JewishChristian speculations about the future."
That is to say, the whole of the eschatological discourses of Jesus are to be
judged by the standard of a colourless, unreal figment of theology. Whatever
cannot be squared "ith that is to be declared spurious and cut away!
Accordingly the eschatological closing saying at the Last Supper is stigmatised
as a Chiliastic-Capernaitic" [1] distortion of a "normal" promise of the Second
Coming; the idea of the , Matt. xix. 28, is said to be wholly
foreign to Jesus' world of thought; it is impossible, too, that
[1] By "Capernaitic" 'Weiffenbach apparently means literalistic; cf. John vi. 52 f.
232
Jesus can have thought of Himself as the Judge of the world, for the Jewish and
Jewish-Christian eschatology does not ascribe the conduct of the Last
Judgment to the Messiah; that is first done by Gentile Christians, and especially
by Paul. It was, therefore, the later eschatology which set the Son of Man on the
throne of His glory and prepared "the twelve thrones of judgment for the
disciples." The historian ought only to admit such of the sayings about bearing
rule in the Messianic Kingdom as can be interpreted in a spiritual, non-
sensuous fashion.
In the end Weiffenbach's critical principle proves to be merely a bludgeon with
which he goes seal-hunting and clubs the defenceless Synoptic sayings right
and left. When his work is done you see before you a desert island strewn with
quivering corpses. Nevertheless the slaughter was not aimless, or at least it
was not without result.

210
In the first place, it did really appear, as a by-product of the critical processes,
that Jesus' discourses about the future had nothing to do with an historical
prevision of the destruction of Jerusalem, whereas the supposition that they
had, had hitherto been taken as self-evident, the prediction of the destruction of
Jerusalem being regarded as the historic nucleus of Jesus' discourses
regarding the future, to which the idea of the Last Judgment had subsequently
attached itself.
Here, then, we have the introduction of the converse opinion, which was
subsequently established as correct; namely, that Jesus foresaw, indeed, the
Last Judgment, but not the historical destruction of Jerusalem.
In the next place, in the course of his critical examination of the eschatological
material, Weiffenbach stumbles upon the discourse at the sending forth of the
Twelve in Matt. x., and finds himself face to face with the fact that the discourse
which he was expected to regard as a discourse of instruction was really
nothing of the kind, but a collection of eschatological sayings. As he had taken
over along with the Marcan hypothesis the closely connected view of the
composite character of the Synoptic discourses, he does not allow himself to be
misled, but regards this inappropriate charge to the Twelve as nothing else than
an impossible anticipation and a bold anachronism. He knows that he is at one
in this with Holtzmann, Colani, Bleek, Scholten, Meyer, and Keim, who also
made the discourse of instruction end at the point beyond which they find it
impossible to explain it, and regard the predictions of persecution as only
possible in the later period of the hf6 of Jesus. "For these predictions," to
express Weiffenbach's view in the words of Keim, "are too much at variance
with the essentially gracious and happy mood which suggested the sending
forth of the disciples' and reflect instead the lurid gloom of the fierce conflicts of
the later period and the sadness of the farewell discourses."
233
It was a good thing that Bruno Bauer did not hear this chorus. If he had, he
would have asked Weiffenbach and his allies whether the poor fragment that
remained after the critical dissection of the "charge to the Twelve" was "a
discourse of instruction," and if in view of these difficulties they could not realise
why he had refused, thirty years before, to believe in the "discourse of
instruction." But Bruno Bauer heard nothing; and so their blissful
unconsciousness lasted for nearly a generation longer.
The expectation of His Second Coming, repeatedly expressed by Jesus
towards the close of His life, is on this hypothesis authentic; it was painted over
by the primitive Christian community with the colours of its own eschatology, in
consequence of the delay of the Parousia; and in view of the mission to the
Gentiles a more cautious conception of the nearness of the time commended
itself; nay, when Jerusalem had fallen and the "signs of the end" which had
been supposed to be discovered in the horrors of the years 68 and 69 had
passed without result, the return of Jesus was relegated to a distant future by
the aid of the doctrine that the Gospel must first be preached to all the heathen.

211
Thus the Parousia, which according to the Jewish-Christian eschatology
belonged to the present age, was transferred to the future. "With this
combination and making coincident-they were not so at the first-of the Second
Coming, the end of the world, and the final Judgment, the idea of the Second
Coming reached the last and highest stage of its development."
Weiffenbach's view, as we have seen, empties Jesus' expectation of His return
of almost all its content, and to that is due the fact that his investigation did not
prove so useful as it might have done. His purpose is, following suggestions
thrown out by Schleiermacher and Wiesse, to prove the identity of the
predictions of the Second Coming and of the Resurrection, and he takes as his
starting-point the observation that the conduct of the disciples after the death of
Jesus forbids us to suppose that the Resurrection had been predicted in clear
and unambiguous sayings, and that, on the other hand, the announcement of
the Second Coming coincides in point of time with the predictions of the
Resurrection, and the predictions buih of the Second Coming and of the
Resurrection stand in organic connexion with the announcement of His
approaching death. The two are therefore identical.
It was only after the death of their Master that the disciples differentiated the
thought of the Resurrection from that of the Second Coming. The Resurrection
did not bring them that which the Second Coming had promised; but it produced
the result that the eschatological hopes, ^hich Jesus had with difficulty
succeeded in damping, flamed up again in the hearts of His disciples. The
spiritual presence of the Deliverer ^ho had manifested Himself to them did not
seem to them to be the
234
fulfilment of the promise of the Second Coming; but the expectation of the latter,
being brought into contact with the flame of eschatological hope with which their
hearts were a-fire, was fused, and cast into a form quite different from that in
which it had been derived from the words of Jesus.
That is all finely observed. For the first time it had dawned upon historical
criticism that the great question is that concerning the identity or difference of
the Parousia and the Resurrection. But the man who had been the first to grasp
that thought, and who had undertaken his whole study with the special purpose
of working it out, was too much under the influence of the spiritualised
eschatology of Schleiermacher and Weisse to be able to assign the right values
in the solution of his equation. And, withal, he is too much inclined to play the
apologist as a subsidiary role. He is not content merely to render the history
intelligible; he is, by his own confession, urged on by the hope that perhaps a
way may be found of causing that "error" of Jesus to disappear and proving it to
be an illusion due to the want of a sufficiently close study of His discourses. But
the historian simply must not be an apologist; he must leave that to those who
come after him and he may do so with a quiet mind, for the apologists, as we
learn from the history of the Lives of Jesus, can get the better of any historical

212
result whatever. It is, therefore, quite unnecessary that the historian should
allow himself to be led astray by following an apologetic will-o'-the-wisp.
Technically regarded, the mistake on which Weiffenbach's investigation made
shipwreck was the failure to bring the Jewish apocalyptic material into relation
with the Synoptic data. If he had done this, it would have been impossible for
him to extract an absolutely unreal and unhistorical conception of the Second
Coming out of the discourses of Jesus.
The task which Weiffenbach had neglected remained undone-to the detriment
of theology-until Baldensperger 1 repaired the omission. His book, "The Self-
consciousness of Jesus in the Light of the Messianic Hopes of His Time," 2
published in 1888, made its impression by reason of the fullness of its material.
Whereas Colani and Volkmar had still
[1] Wilhelm Baldensperger, at present Professor at Giessen, was born in 1856
at Miilhausen in Alsace.
[2] A new edition appeared in 1891. There is no fundamental alteration, but in
consequence of the polemic against opponents who had arisen in the meantime
lt is fuller. The first pan of a third edition appeared in 1903 under the title Die
messianisch-apokalyptischen Hoffnungen des Judentums.
See also the interesting use made of Late-Jewish and Rabbinic ideas in Altrett
Edersheim's The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, 2nd ed., London, 1884,
2 vols.
235
been able to deny the existence of a fully formed Messianic expectation in the
time of Jesus, the genesis of the expectation was now fully traced out, and it
was shown that the world of thought which meets us in Daniel had won the
victory, that the "Son of Man" Messiah of the Similitudes of Enoch was the last
product of the Messianic hope prior to the time of Jesus; and that therefore the
fully developed Danielic scheme with its unbridgeable chasm between the
present and the future world furnished the outline within which all further and
more detailed traits were inserted. The honour of having effectively pioneered
the way for this discovery belongs to Schurer. [1] Baldensperger adopts his
ideas, but sets them forth in a much more direct way, because he, in contrast
with Schurer, gives no system of Messianic expectation-and there never in
reality was a system-but is content to picture its many-sided growth.
He does not, it is true, escape some minor inconsistencies. For example, the
idea of a "political Messiahship," which is really set aside by his historical
treatment, crops up here and there, as though the author had not entirely got rid
of it himself. But the impression made by the book as a whole was
overpowering.
Nevertheless this book does not exactly fulfil the promise of its title, any more
than Weiffenbach's. The reader expects that now at last Jesus' sayings about
Himself will be consistently explained in the light of the Jewish Messianic ideas,
but that is not done. For Baldensperger, instead of tracing down and working
out the conception of the Kingdom of God held by Jesus as a product of the

213
Jewish eschatology, at least by way of trying whether that method would suffice,
takes it over direct from modern historical theology. He assumes as self-evident
that Jesus' conception of the Kingdom of God had a double character, that the
eschatological and spiritual elements were equally represented in it and
mutually conditioned one another, and that Jesus therefore began, in pursuance
of this conception, to found a spiritual invisible Kingdom, al-
[1] Emil Schiirer, Geschichte des judischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi.
(History of the Jewish People in the Time of Christ.) 2nd ed., part second, 1886,
pp. 417 S. Here is to be found also a bibliography of the older literature of the
subject. 3rd ed., 1889, vol. ii. pp. 498 ff.
Emil Schurer was born at Augsburg in 1844, and from 1873 onwards was
successively Professor at Leipzig, Giessen, and Kiel, and is now (1909) at
Gottingen.
The latest presentment of Jewish apocalyptic is Die judische Eschatologie van
Daniel bis Akiba, by Paul Volz, Pastor in Leonberg. Tubingen, 1903. 412 pp.
The material is very completely given. Unfortunately the author has chosen the
systematic method of treating his subject, instead of tracing the history of its
development, the only right way. As a consequence Jesus and Paul occupy far
too little space ln this survey of Jewish apocalyptic. For a treatment of the origin
of Jewish eschatology from the point of view of the history of religion see Hugo
Gressmann, now Professor at Berlin, Der Ursprung der israelitisch-judischen
Eschatologie (The Origin of the Israelitish and Jewish Eschatology), Gottingen,
1905. 377 pp.
236
though He expected its fulfilment to be effected by supernatural means.
Consequently there must also have been a duality in His religious
consciousness, in which these two conceptions had to be combined. Jesus'
Messianic consciousness sprang, according to Baldensperger, "from a religious
root"; that is to say, the Messianic consciousness was a special modification of
a self-consciousness in which a pure, spiritual, unique relation to God was the
fundamental element; and from this arises the possibility of a spiritual
transformation of the Jewish-Messianic self-consciousness. In making these
assumptions, Baldensperger does not ask himself whether it is not possible that
for Jesus the purely Jewish consciousness of a transcendental Messiahship
may itself have been religious, nay even spiritual, just as well as the
Messiahship resting on a vague, indefinite, colourless sense of union with God
which modern theologians arbitrarily attribute to Him.
Again, instead of arriving at the two conceptions, Kingdom of God and
Messianic consciousness, purely empirically, by an unbiased comparison of the
Synoptic passages with the Late-Jewish conceptions, Baldensperger, in this
following Holtzmann, brings them into his theory in the dual form in which
contemporary theology, now becoming faintly tinged with eschatology, offered
them to him. Consequently, everything has to be adapted to this duality. Jesus,
for example, in applying to Himself the title Son of Man, thinks not only of the

214
transcendental significance which it has in the Jewish apocalyptic, but gives it at
the same time an ethico-religious colouring.
Finally, the duality is explained by an application of the genetic method, in which
the "course of the development of the self-consciousness of Jesus" is traced
out. The historical psychology of the Marcan hypothesis here shows its power of
adapting itself to eschatology. From the first, to follow the course of
Baldensperger's exposition, the eschatological view influenced Jesus'
expectation of the Kingdom and His Messianic consciousness. In the
wilderness, after the dawn of His Messianic consciousness at His baptism, He
had rejected the ideal of the Messianic king of David's line and put away all
warlike thoughts. Then He began to found the Kingdom of God by preaching.
For a time the spiritualised idea of the Kingdom was dominant in His mind, the
Messianic eschatological idea falling rather into the background.
But His silence regarding His Messianic office was partly due to paedagogic
reasons, "since He desired to lead His hearers to a more spiritual conception of
the Kingdom and so to obviate a possible political movement on their part and
the consequent intervention of the Roman government." In addition to this He
had also personal reasons for not revealing Himself which only disappeared in
the moment when His death and Second Coming became part of His plan;
previous to
237
that He did not know how and when the Kingdom was to come. Prior to the
confession at Caesarea Philippi, the disciples "had only a faint and vague
suspicion of the Messianic dignity of their Master."
This was "rather the preparatory stage of His Messianic work." Objectively, it
may be described "as the period of growing emphasis upon the spiritual
characteristics of the Kingdom, and of resigned waiting and watching for its
outward manifestation in glory; subjectively, from the point of view of the self-
consciousness of Jesus, it may be characterised as the period of the struggle
between His religious conviction of His Messiahship and the traditional
rationalistic Messianic belief."
This first period opens out into a second in which He had attained to perfect
clearness of vision and complete inner harmony. By the acceptance of the idea
of suffering, Jesus' inner peace is enhanced to the highest degree conceivable.
"By throwing Himself upon the thought of death He escaped the lingering
uncertainty as to when and how God would fulfil His promise. . . ." "The coming
of the Kingdom was fixed down to the Second Coming of the Messiah. Now He
ventured to regard Himself as the Son of Man who was to be the future Judge
of the world, for the suffering and dying Son of Man was closely associated with
the Son of Man surrounded by the host of heaven. Would the people accept
Him as Messiah? He now, in Jerusalem, put the question to them in all its
sharpness and burning actuality; and the people were moved to enthusiasm.
But so soon as they saw that He whom they had hailed with such acclamation
was neither able nor willing to fulfil their ambitious dreams, a reaction set in."

215
Thus, according to Baldensperger, there was an interaction between the
historical and the psychological events. And that is right!-if only the machinery
were not so complicated, and a "development" had not to be ground out of it at
whatever cost. But this, and the whole manner of treatment in the second part,
encumbered as it is with parenthetic qualifications, was rendered inevitable by
the adoption of the two aforesaid not purely historical conceptions. Sometimes,
too, one gets the impression that the author felt that he owed it to the school to
which he belonged to advance no assertion without adding the limitations which
scientifically secure it against attack. Thus on every page he digs himself into
an entrenched position, with palisades of footnotes-in fact the book actually
ends with a footnote. But the conception which underlay the whole was so full of
vigour that in spite of the thoughts not being always completely worked out, it
produced a powerful impression. Baldensperger had persuaded theology at
least to admit the hypothesis-whether it took up a positive or negative position in
regard to it-that Jesus possessed a fully-developed eschatology. He thus
provided a new basis for discussion and gave an impulse to the study of the
subject
238
such as it had not received since the 'sixties, at least not in the same degree of
energy. Perhaps the very limitations of the work, due as they were to its
introduction of modern ideas, rendered it better adapted to the spirit of the age,
and consequently more influential, than if it had been characterised by that
rigorous maintenance of a single point of view which was abstractly requisite for
the proper treatment of the subject. It was precisely the rejection of this rigorous
consistency which enabled it to gain ground for the cause of eschatology.
But the consistent treatment from a single point of view was bound to come;
and it came four years later. In passing from Weiffenbach and Baldensperger to
Johannes Weiss [1] the reader feels like an explorer who after wsary
wanderings through billowy seas of reed-grass at length reaches a wooded
tract, and instead of swamp feels firm ground beneath his feet, instead of
yielding rushes sees around him the steadfast trees. At last there is an end of
"qualifying clause" theology, of the "and yet," the "on the other hand," the
"notwithstanding"! The reader had to follow the others step by step, making his
way over every footbridge and gang-plank which they laid down, following all
the meanderings in which they indulged, and must never let go their hands if he
wished to come safely through the labyrinth of spiritual and eschatological ideas
which they supposed to be found in the thought of Jesus.
In Weiss there are none of these devious paths: "behold the land lies before
thee."
His "Preaching of Jesus concerning the Kingdom of God," [2] published in 1892,
has, on its own lines, an importance equal to that of Strauss's first Life of Jesus.
He lays down the third great alternative which the study of the life of Jesus had
to meet. The first was laid down by Strauss: either purely historical or purely
supernatural. The second had been worked out by the Tubingen school and

216
Holtzmann: either Synoptic or Johannine. Now came the third: either
eschatological or non-eschatological!
Progress always consists in taking one or other of two alternatives, in
abandoning the attempt to combine them. The pioneers of progress have
therefore always to reckon with the law of mental inertia which manifests itself in
the majority-who always go on believing that it is possible to combine that which
can no longer be combined, and in fact claim it as a special merit that they, in
contrast with the "one-sided"
[1] Johannes Weiss, now Professor at Marburg, was born at Kiel in 1863.
[2] It may be mentioned that this work had been preceded (in 1891) by two
Leiden prize dissertations, Uber die Lehre vom Reich Gottes im Neuen
Testament (Concerning the Kingdom of God in the New Testament), one of
them by Issel, the other, which lays especially strong emphasis upon the
eschatology, by Schmoller.
239
writers, can do justice to the other side of the question. One must just let them
be, till their time is over, and resign oneself not to see the end of it, since it is
found by experience that the complete victory of one of two historical
alternatives is a matter of two full theological generations.
This remark is made in order to explain why the work of Johannes Weiss did not
immediately make an end of the mediating views. Another reason perhaps was
that, according to the usual canons of theological authorship, the book was
much too short-only sixty-seven pages-and too simple to allow its full
significance to be realised. And yet it is precisely this simplicity which makes it
one of the most important works in historical theology. It seems to break a spell.
It closes one epoch and begins another.
Weiffenbach had failed to solve the problem of the Second Coming,
Baldensperger that of the Messianic consciousness of Jesus, because both of
them allowed a false conception of the Kingdom of God to keep its place among
the data. The general conception of the Kingdom was first rightly grasped by
Johannes Weiss. All modern ideas, he insists, even in their subtlest forms, must
be eliminated from it; when this is done, we arrive at a Kingdom of God which is
wholly future; as is indeed implied by the petition in the Lord's prayer, "Thy
Kingdom come." Being still to come, it is at present purely supra-mundane. It is
present only as a cloud may be said to be present which throws its shadow
upon the earth; its nearness, that is to say, is recognised by the paralysis of the
Kingdom of Satan. In the fact that Jesus casts out the demons, the Pharisees
are bidden to recognise, according to Matt. xii. 25-28, that the Kingdom of God
is already come upon them.
This is the only sense in which Jesus thinks of the Kingdom as present. He
does not "establish it," He only proclaims its coming. He exercises no
"Messianic functions," but waits, like others, for God to bring about the coming
of the Kingdom by supernatural means. He does not even know the day and
hour when this shall come to pass. The missionary journey of the disciples was

217
not designed for the extension of the Kingdom of God, but only as a means of
rapidly and widely making known its nearness. But it was not so near as Jesus
thought. The impenitence and hardness of heart of a great part of the people,
and the implacable enmity of His opponents, at length convinced Him that the
establishment of the Kingdom of God could not yet take place, that such
penitence as had been shown hitherto was not sufficient, and "lat a mighty
obstacle, the guilt of the people, must first be put away. It becomes clear to Him
that His own death must be the ransom-price. He dies, not for the community of
His followers only, but for the nation; that is why He always speaks of His
atoning death as "for many,"
240
not "for you." After His death He would come again in all the splendour and
glory with which, since the days of Daniel, men's imaginations had surrounded
the Messiah, and He was to come, moreover, within the lifetime of the
generation to which He had proclaimed the nearness of the Kingdom of God.
The setting up of the Kingdom was to be preceded by the Day of Judgment. In
describing the Messianic glory Jesus makes use of the traditional picture, but
He does so with modesty, restraint, and sobriety. Therein consists His
greatness.
With political expectations this Kingdom has nothing whatever to do. "To hope
for the Kingdom of God in the transcendental sense which Jesus attaches to it,
and to raise a revolution, are two things as different as fire and water." The
transcendental character of the expectation consists precisely in this, that the
State and all earthly institutions, conditions, and benefits, as belonging to the
present age, shall either not exist at all in the coming Kingdom, or shall exist
only in a sublimated form. Hence Jesus cannot preach to men a special ethic of
the Kingdom of God, but only an ethic which in this world makes men free from
the world and prepared to enter unimpeded into the Kingdom. That is why His
ethic is of so completely negative a character; it is, in fact, not so much an ethic
as a penitential discipline.
The ministry of Jesus is therefore not in principle different from that of John the
Baptist: there can be no question of a founding and development of the
Kingdom within the hearts of men. What distinguishes the work of Jesus from
that of the Baptist is only His consciousness of being the Messiah. He awoke to
this consciousness at His baptism. But the Messiahship which He claims is not
a present office; its exercise belongs to the future. On earth He is only a man, a
prophet, as in the view implied in the speeches in the Acts of the Apostles. "Son
of Man" is therefore, in the passages where it is authentic, a purely
eschatological designation of the Messiah, though we cannot tell whether His
hearers understood Him as speaking of Himself in His future rank and dignity,
or whether they thought of the Son of Man as a being quite distinct from
Himself, whose coming He was only proclaiming in advance.
"The sole object of this argument is to prove that the Messianic self-
consciousness of Jesus, as expressed in the title 'Son of Man,' shares in the

218
transcendental apocalyptic character of Jesus' idea of the Kingdom of God, and
cannot be separated from that idea." The only partially correct evaluation of the
factors in the problem of the Life of Jesus which Baldensperger had taken over
from contemporary theology, and which had hitherto prevented historical
science from obtaining a solution of that problem, had now been corrected from
the history itself, and it was now only necessary to insert the corrected data into
the calculation.
241
Here is the point at which it is fitting to recall Reimarus. He was the first, and
indeed, before Johannes Weiss, the only writer who recognised and pointed out
that the preaching of Jesus was purely eschatological. It is true that his
conception of the eschatology was primitive and that he applied it not as a
constructive, but as a destructive principle of criticism. But read his statement of
the problem "with the signs changed," and with the necessary deduction for the
primitive character of the eschatology, and you have the view of Weiss.
Ghillany, too, has a claim to be remembered. When Weiss asserts that the part
played by Jesus was not the active role of establishing the Kingdom, but the
passive role of waiting for the coming of the Kingdom; and that it was, in a
sense, only by the acceptance of His sufferings that He emerged from that
passivity; he is only asserting what Ghillany had maintained thirty years before
with the same arguments and with the same decisiveness. But Weiss places
the assertion on a scientifically unassailable basis.
* XVI *
THE STRUGGLE AGAINST ESCHATOLOGY
Wilhelm Bousset. Jesu Predigt in ihrem Gegensatz zum Judentum. Ein
religions-geschichtlicher Vergleich. (The Antithesis between Jesus' Preaching
and Judaism. A Religious-Historical Comparison.) Gottingen, 1892. 130 pp.
Erich Haupt. Die eschatologischen Aussagen Jesu in den synoptischen
Evangelien. (The Eschatological Sayings of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels.)
1895. 167 pp.
Paul Wernle. Die Anfange unserer Religion. Tubingen-Leipzig, 1901; 2nd ed.,
1904. 410 pp.
Emil Schurer. Das messianische Selbstbewusstsein Jesu-Christi. 1903.
Akademische Festrede. (The Messianic Self-consciousness of Jesus Christ.) 24
pp.
Wilhelm Brandt. Die evangelische Geschichte und der Ursprung des
Christentums auf Grund einer Kritik der Berichte iiber das Leiden und die
Auferstehung Jesu. (The Gospel History and the Origin of Christianity. Based
upon a Critical Study of the Narratives of the Sufferings and Resurrection of
Jesus.) Leipzig, 1893. 591 pp.
Adolf Julicher. Die Gleichnisreden Jesu. (The Parables of Jesus.) Vol. i., 1888,
291 pp.; vol. ii., 1899, 643 pp.
IN THIS PERIOD THE IMPORTANT BOOKS ARE SHORT. THE SIXTY-
SEVEN pages of Johannes Weiss are answered by Bousset [1] in a bare

219
hundred and thirty. People began to see that the elaborate Lives of Jesus which
had hitherto held the field, and enjoyed an immortality of revised editions, only
masked the fact that the study of the subject was at a standstill; and that the
tedious rehandling of problems which had been solved so far as they were
capable of solution only served as an excuse for not grappling with those which
still remained unsolved.
This conviction is expressed by Bousset at the beginning of his work. The
criticism of the sources, he says, is finished, and its results may be regarded, so
far as the Life of Jesus is concerned, as provisionally complete. The separation
between John and the Synoptists has been secured. For the Synoptists, the
two-document hypothesis has been established, according to which the sources
are a primitive form of Mark, and a collection of "logia." A certain interest might
still attach to the attempt
[1] Wilhelm Bousset, now Professor in Gottingen, born 1865 at Liibeck.
243
to arrive at the primitive kernel of Mark; but the attempt has a priori so little
prospect of success that it was almost a waste of time to continue to work at it.
It would be a much more important thing to get rid of the feeling of uncertainty
and artificiality in the Lives of Jesus. What is now chiefly wanted, Bousset
thinks, is "a firmly-drawn and life-like portrait which, with a few bold strokes,
should bring out clearly the originality, the force, the personality of Jesus."
It is evident that the centre of the problem has now been reached. That is why
the writing becomes so terse. The masses of thought can only be manoeuvred
here in a close formation such as Weiss gives them. The loose order of
discursive exegetical discussions of separate passages is now no longer in
place. The first step towards further progress was the simple one of marshalling
the passages in such a way as to gain a single consistent impression from
them.
In the first instance Bousset is as ready as Johannes Weiss to admit the
importance for the mind of Jesus of the eschatological "then" and "now." The
realistic school, he thinks, are perfectly right in endeavouring to relate Jesus,
without apologetic or theological inconsistencies, to the background of
contemporary ideas. Later, in 1901, he was to make it a reproach against
Harnack's "What is Christianity?" (Das Wesen des Christentums) that it did not
give sufficient importance to the background of contemporary thought in its
account of the preaching of Jesus. [1]
He goes on to ask, however, whether the first enthusiasm over the discovery of
this genuinely historical way of looking at things should not be followed by some
"second thoughts" of a deeper character. Accepting the position laid down by
Johannes Weiss, we must ask, he thinks, whether this purely historical criticism,
by the exclusive emphasis which it has laid upon eschatology, has not allowed
the "essential originality and power of the personality of Jesus to slip through its
fingers," and closed its grasp instead upon contemporary conceptions and
imaginations which are often of a quite special character.

220
The Late-Jewish eschatology was, according to Bousset, by no means a
homogeneous system of thought. Realistic and transcendental elements stana
side by side in it, unreconciled. The genuine popular belief of Late Judaism still
clung quite naively to the earthly realistic hopes of former times, and had never
been able to rise to the purely transcendental regions which are the
characteristic habitat of apocalyptic. The rejection of the world is never carried
out consistently; something of we Jewish national ideal always remains. And for
this reason Late Judaism made no progress towards the overcoming of
particularism.
[1] Theol. Rundschau (1901), 4, pp. 89-103.
244
Probably, Bousset holds, this Apocalyptic thought is not even genuinely Jewish;
as he ably argued in another work, there was a considerable strain of Persian
influence in it.1 The dualism, the transference to the transcendental region of
the future hope, the conception of the world which appears in Jewish
apocalyptic, are of Iranian rather than Jewish origin.
Two thoughts are especially characteristic of Bousset's position; first, that this
transcendentalising of the future implied a spiritualisation of it; secondly, that in
post-exilic Judaism there was always an undercurrent of a purer and more
spontaneous piety, the presence of which is especially to be traced in the
Psalms.
Into a dead world, where a kind of incubus seems to stifle all naturalness and
spontaneity, there comes a living Man. According to the formulae of His
preaching and the designations which He applies to Himself, He seems at first
sight to identify Himself with this world rather than to oppose it. But these
conceptions and titles, especially the Kingdom of God and the Son of Man,
must be provisionally left in the background, since they, as being conceptions
taken over from the past, conceal rather than reveal what is most essential in
His personality. The primary need is to discover, behind the phenomenal, the
real character of the personality and preaching of Jesus. The starting-point must
therefore be the simple fact that Jesus came as a living Man into a dead world.
He is living, because in contrast with His contemporaries He has a living idea of
God. His faith in the Fatherhood of God is Jesus' most essential act. It signifies
a breach with the transcendental Jewish idea of God, and an unconscious inner
negation of the Jewish eschatology. Jesus, therefore, walks through a world
which denies His own eschatology like a man who has firm ground under his
feet.
That which on a superficial view appears to be eschatological preaching turns
out to be essentially a renewal of the old prophetic preaching with its positive
ethical emphasis. Jesus is a manifestation of that ancient spontaneous piety of
which Bousset had shown the existence in Late Judaism.
The most characteristic thing in the character of Jesus, according to Bousset, is
His joy in life. It is true that if, in endeavouring to understand Him, we take
primitive Christianity as our starting-point, we

221
[1] W. Bousset, Die judische Apokalyptik in ihrer religionsgeschichtlichen
Herkunft und ihrer Bedeutung fur das Neue Testament. (The Origin of
Apocalyptic as indicated by Comparative Religion, and its significance for the
understanding of the New Testament.) Berlin, 1903. 67 pp. See also W.
Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums im neutestamentlichen Zeitalter, 512 pp.,
1902. For the assertion of Parsic influences see also Stave, Der Einfiuss des
Parsismus auf das Judentum. Haarlem, 1898.
245
might conceive of his joy in life as the complement of the eschatological mood,
as the extreme expression of indifference to the world, which can as well enjoy
the world as flee it. But the purely eschatological attitude, though it reappears in
early Christianity, does not give the ricrht clue for the interpretation of the
character of Jesus as a whole. His joy in the world was real; a genuine outcome
of His new type of piety. It prevented the eudaemonistic eschatological idea of
reward, which some think they find in Jesus' preaching, from ever really
becoming an element in it.
Jesus is best understood by contrasting Him with the Baptist. John was a
preacher of repentance whose eyes were fixed upon the future. Jesus did not
allow the thought of the nearness of the end to rob Him of His simplicity and
spontaneity, and was not crippled by the reflection that everything was
transitory, preparatory, a mere means to an end. His preaching of repentance
was not gloomy and forbidding; it was the proclamation of a new righteousness,
of which the watchword was, "Ye shall be perfect as your Father in Heaven is
perfect." He desires to communicate this personal piety by personal influence.
In contrast with the Baptist He never aims at influencing masses of men, but
rather avoids it. His work was accomplished mainly among little groups and
individuals. He left the task of carrying the Gospel far and wide as a legacy to
the community of His followers. The mission of the Twelve, conceived as a
mission for the rapid and widespread extension of the Gospel, is not to be used
to explain Jesus' methods of teaching; the narrative of it rests on an "obscure
and unintelligible tradition."
This genuine joy in life was not unnoticed by the contemporaries of Jesus who
contrasted Him as "a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber," with the Baptist. They
were vaguely conscious that the whole life of Jesus was "sustained by the
feeling of an absolute antithesis between Himself and His times." He lived not in
anxious expectation, but in cheerful gladness, because by the native strength of
His piety He had brought present and future into one. Free from all extravagant
Jewish delusions about the future, He was not paralysed by the conditions
which must be fulfilled to make this future present. He has a peculiar conviction
of its coming which gives Him courage to "marry" the present ^ith the future.
The present as contrasted with the beyond is for Him "o mere shadow, but truth
and reality; life is not for Him a mere illusion, but is charged with a real and
valuable meaning. His own time ^ the Messianic time, as His answer to the
Baptist's question shows. And it is among the most certain things in the Gospel

222
that Jesus in His earthly life acknowledged Himself as Messiah both to His
disciples tod to the High-Priest, and made His entry into Jerusalem as such."
246
He can, therefore, fully recognise the worth of the present. It is not true that He
taught that this world's goods were in themselves bad-what He said was only
that they must not be put first. Indeed He gives a new value to life by teaching
that man cannot be righteous in isolation, but only in the fellowship of love. And
as, moreover, the righteousness which He preaches is one of the goods of the
Kingdom of God, He cannot have thought of the Kingdom as wholly
transcendental. The Reign of God begins for Him in the present era. His
consciousness of being able to cast out demons in the spirit of God because
Satan's kingdom on earth is at an end is only the supernaturalistic expression
for something of which He also possesses an ethical consciousness, namely,
that in the new social righteousness the Kingdom of God is already present.
This presence of the Kingdom was not, however, clearly explained by Jesus,
but was set forth in paradoxes and parables, especially in the parables of Mark
iv. When we find the Evangelist, in immediate connexion with these parables,
asserting that the aim of the parables was to mystify and conceal, we may
conclude that the basis of this theory is the fact that these parables concerning
the presence of the Kingdom of God were not understood.
In effecting this tacit transformation Jesus is acting in accordance with a
tendency of the time. Apocalyptic is itself a spiritualisation of the ancient
Israelitish hopes of the future, and Jesus only carries this process to its
completion. He raises Late Judaism above the limitations in which it was
involved, separates out the remnant of national, political, and sensuous ideas
which still clung to the expectation of the future in spite of its having been
spiritualised by apocalyptic, and breaks with the Jewish particularism, though
without providing a theoretical basis for this step.
Thus, in spite of, nay even because of, His opposition to it, Jesus was the
fulfiller of Judaism. In Him were united the ancient and vigorous prophetic
religion and the impulse which Judaism itself had begun to feel towards the
spiritualisation of the future hope. The transcendental and the actual meet in a
unity which is full of life and strength, creative not reflective, and therefore not
needing to set iside the ancient traditional ideas by didactic explanations, but
overcoming them almost unconsciously by the truth which lies in this
paradoxical union. The historical formula embodied in Bousset's closing
sentence runs thus: "The Gospel develops some of the deeper-lying motifs of
the Old Testament, but it protests against the prevailing tendency of Judaism."
Such of the underlying assumptions of this construction as invite challenge lie
open to inspection, and do not need to be painfully disentangled from a web of
exegesis; that is one of the merits of the book. The chief points to be queried
are as follows:-
247

223
Is it the case that the apocalypses mark the introduction of a process of
spiritualisation applied to the ancient Israelitish hopes? A picture of the future is
not spiritualised simply by being projected upon the clouds. This elevation to the
transcendental region signifies, on the contrary, the transference to a place of
safety of the eudaemonistic aspirations which have not been fulfilled in the
present, and which are expected, by way of compensation, from the other
world. The apocalyptic conception is so far from being a spiritualisation of the
future expectations, that it represents on the contrary the last desperate eifort of
a strongly eudaemonistic popular religion to raise to heaven the earthly goods
from which it cannot make up its mind to part.
Next we must ask: Is it really necessary to assume the existence of so wide
reaching a Persian influence in Jewish eschatology? The Jewish dualism and
the sublimation of its hope have become historical just because, owing to the
fate of the nation, the religious life of the present and the fair future which was
logically bound up with it became more and more widely separated, temporally
and locally, until at last only its dualism and the sublimation of its hope enabled
the nation to survive its disappointment.
Again, is it historically permissible to treat the leading ideas of the preaching of
Jesus, which bear so clearly the marks of the contemporary mould of thought,
as of secondary importance for the investigation, and to endeavour to trace
Jesus' thoughts from within outwards and not from without inwards?
Furthsr, is there really in Judaism no tendency towards the overcoming of
particularism? Has not its eschatology, as shaped by the deutero-prophetic
literature, a universalistic outlook? Did Jesus overcome particularism in principle
otherwise than it is overcome in Jewish escha- rology, that is to say, with
reference to the future?
What is there to prove that Jesus' distinctive faith in the Fatherhood of God ever
existed independently, and not as an alternative form of the historically-
conditioned Messianic consciousness? In other words, what is there to show
that the "religious attitude" of Jesus and His Messianic consciousness are
anything else than identical, temporally and conceptually, so that the first must
always be understood as con- ditioned by the second?
Again, is the saying about the gluttonous man and wine-bibber a sufficient basis
for the contrast between Jesus and the Baptist? Is not Jesus' preaching of
repentance gloomy as well as the Baptist's? Where do we read that He, in
contrast with the Baptist, avoided dealing with masses of men? Where did He
give "the community of His disciples" marching orders to go far and wide in the
sense required by Bousset's argument? Where is there a word to tell us that He
thought of His Work among individuals and little groups of men as the most
important
248
feature of His ministry? Are we not told the exact contrary, that He "taught" His
disciples as little as He did the people? Is there any justification for

224
characterising the missionary journey of the Twelve, just because it directly
contradicts this view, as "an obscure and unintelligible tradition?"
Is it so certain that Jesus made a Messianic entry into Jerusalem, and that,
accordingly, He declared Himself to the disciples and to the High Priest as
Messiah in the present, and not in a purely future sense?
What are the sayings which justify us in making the attitude of opposition which
He took up towards the Rabbinic legalism into a "sense of the absolute
opposition between Himself and His people"? The very "absolute," with its ring
of Schleiermacher, is suspicious.
All these, however, are subsidiary positions. The decisive point is: Can Bousset
make good the assertion that Jesus' joy in life was a more or less unconscious
inner protest against the purely eschatological world-renouncing religious
attitude, the primal expression of that "absolute" antithesis to Judaism? Is it not
the case that His attitude towards earthly goods was wholly conditioned by
eschatology? That is to say, were not earthly goods emptied of any essential
value in such a way that joy in the world and indifference to the world were
simply the final expression of an ironic attitude which had been sublimated into
pure serenity. That is the question upon the answer to which depends the
decision whether Bousset's position is tenable or not.
It is not in fact tenable, for the opposite view has at its disposal in- exhaustible
reserves of world-renouncing, world-contemning sayings, and the few
utterances which might possibly be interpreted as expressing a purely positive
joy in the world, desert and go over to the enemy, because they textually and
logically belong to the other set of sayings. Finally, the promise of earthly
happiness as a reward, to which Bousset had denied a position in the teaching
of Jesus, also falls upon his rear, and that in the very moment when he is
seeking to prove from the saying, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His
righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you," that for Jesus this
world's goods are not in themselves evil, but are only to be given a secondary
place. Here the eudaemonism is written on the forehead of the saying, since the
receiving of these things-we must remember, too, the "hundred-fold" in another
passage-is future, not present, and will only "come" at the same time as the
Kingdom of God. All present goods, on the other hand, serve only to support life
and render possible an undistracted attitude of waiting in pious hope for that
future, and therefore are not thought of as gains, but purely as a gift of God, to
be cheerfully and freely enjoyed as a foretaste of those blessings which the
elect are to enjoy in the future Divine dispensation.
249
The loss of this position decides the further point that if there is any suggestion
in the teaching of Jesus that the future Kingdom of God is in some sense
present, it is not to be understood as implying an anti-eschatological
acceptance of the world, but merely as a phenomenon indicative of the extreme
tension of the eschatological consciousness, just in the same way as His joy in
the world. Bousset has a kind of indirect recognition of this in his remark that the

225
presence of the Kingdom of God is only asserted by Jesus as a kind of paradox.
If the assertion of its presence indicated that acceptance of the world formed
part of Jesus' system of thought, it would be at variance with His eschatology.
But the paradoxical character of the assertion is due precisely to the fact that
His acceptance of the world is but the last expression of the completeness with
which He rejects it.
But what do critical cavils matter in the case of a book of which the force, the
influence, the greatness, depends upon its spirit? It is great because it
recognises-what is so rarely recognised in theological works-the point where the
main issue really lies; in the question, namely, whether Jesus preached and
worked as Messiah, or whether, as follows if a prominent place is given to
eschatology, as Colani had long ago recognised. His career, historically
regarded, was only the career of a prophet with an undercurrent of Messianic
consciousness.
As a consequence of grasping the question in its full significance, Bousset
rejects all the little devices by which previous writers had endeavoured to relate
Jesus' ministry to His times, each one prescribing at what point He was to
connect Himself with it, and of course proceeding in his book to represent Him
as connecting Himself with it in precisely that way. Bousset recognises that the
supreme importance of eschatology in the teaching of Jesus is not to be got rid
of by whittling away a little point here and there, and rubbing it smooth with
critical sandpaper until it is capable of reflecting a different thought, but only hy
fully admitting it, while at the same time counteracting it by asserting a
mysterious element of world-acceptance in the thought of Jesua, and
conceiving His whole teaching as a kind of alternating current between positive
and negative poles.
This is the last possible sincere attempt to limit the exclusive importance of
eschatology in the preaching of Jesus, an attempt so gallant, so brilliant, that its
failure is almost tragic; one could have wished success to the book, to which
Carlyle might have stood sponsor. That it is inspired by the spirit of Carlyle, that
it vindicates the original force of a great Personality against the attempt to
dissolve it into a congeries of contemporary conceptions, therein lies at once its
greatness and its weakness. Bousset vindicates Jesus, not for history, but for
Protestantism, by making Him the heroic representative of a deeply
250
religious acceptance of the goods of life amid an apocalyptic world. His study is
not unhistorical, but supra-historical. The spirit of Jesus was in fact world-
accepting in the sense that through the experience of centuries it advanced
historically to the acceptance of the world, since nothing can appear
phenomenally which is not in some sense ideally present from the first. But the
teaching of the historical Jesus was purely and exclusively world-renouncing. If,
therefore, the problem which Bousset has put on the blackboard for the
eschatological school to solve is to be successfully solved, the solution is to be
sought on other, more objectively historical, lines.

226
That the decision of the question whether Jesus' preaching of the Kingdom of
God is wholly eschatological or only partly eschatological, is primarily to be
sought in His ethical teaching, is recognised by all the critics of Baldensperger
and Weiss. They differ only in the importance which they assign to eschatology.
But no other writer has grasped the problem as clearly as Bousset.
The Parisian Ehrhardt emphasises eschatology very strongly in his work "The
Fundamental Character of the Preaching of Jesus in Relation to the Messianic
Hopes of His People and His own Messianic Consciousness." [1] Nevertheless
he asserts the presence of a twofold ethic in Jesus' teaching: eschatology did
not attempt to evacuate everything else of all value, but allowed the natural and
ethical goods of this world to hold their place, as belonging to a world of thought
which resisted its encroachments.
A much more negative attitude is taken up by Albert Reville in his Jesus de
Nazareth [2] According to him both Apocalyptic and Messianism are foreign
bodies in the teaching of Jesus which have been forced into it by the pressure
of contemporary thought. Jesus would never of His own motion have taken up
the role of Messiah.
Wendt, too, in the second edition of his Lehre Jesu, which appeared in 1903,
held in the main to the fundamental idea of the first, the 1890, edition; namely,
that Jesus in view of His purely religious relation to God could not do otherwise
than transform, from within outwards, the traditional conceptions, even though
they seem to be traceable in their
[1] Der Grundcharakter der Ethik Jesu im Verhaltnis zu den messianischen
Hoffnungen seines Volkes und zu, seinem eigenen Messiasbewusstsein.
Freiburg, 1895, 119 pp. See also his inaugural dissertation of 1896, Le Principe
de la morale d Jesu. Paris, 1896.
A. K. Rogers, The Life and Teachings of Jesus; a Critical Analysis, etc. (London
and New York, 1894), regards Jesus' teaching as purely ethical, refusing to
adnut any eschatology at all.
[2] Paris. 2 vols., 500 and 512 pp.
251
actual contemporary form on the surface of His teaching. He had already, in
1893, in the Christliche Welt clearly expounded, and defended against Weiss,
his view of the Kingdom of God as already present for the thought of Jesus.
The effect which Baldensperger and Weiss had upon Weiffenbach [1] was to
cause him to bring out in full strength the apologetic aspect which had been
somewhat held in check in his work of 1873 by the thoroughness of his
exegesis. The apocalyptic of this younger school, which was no longer willing to
believe that in the mouth of Jesus the Parousia meant nothing more than an
issuing from death clothed with power, is on all grounds to be rejected. It
assumes, since this expectation was not fulfilled, an error on the part of Jesus.
It is better to rest content with not being able to see quite clearly.
Protected by a similar armour, the successive editions of Bernhard Weiss's Life
of Jesus went their way unmolested down to 1902.

227
Not with an apologetic purpose, but on the basis of an original religious view,
Titius, in his work on the New Testament doctrine of blessedness, develops the
teaching of Jesus concerning the Kingdom of God as a present good. [2]
In the same year, 1895, appeared E. Haupt's work on "The Eschatological
Sayings of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels." [3] In contradistinction to Bousset he
takes as his starting-point the eschatological passages, examining each
separately and modulating them back to the Johannine key. It is so delicately
and ingeniously done that the reading of the book is an aesthetic pleasure
which makes one in the end quits forget the apologetic motif in order to
surrender oneself completely to the author's mystical system of religious
thought.
It is, indeed, not the least service of the eschatological school that it compels
modern theology, which is so much preoccupied with history, to reveal what is
its own as its own. Eschatology makes it impossible to attribute modern ideas to
Jesus and then by way of "New Testament Theology" take them back from Him
as a loan, as even Ritschl not so long ago did with such naivete. Johannes
Weiss, in cutting himself loose, as an historian, from Ritschi, and recognising
that "the real roots of Ritschl's ideas are to be found in Kant and the illuminist
the-
[1] W. Weiffenbach, Die Frage der Wiederkunft Jesu. (The Question concerning
the Second Coming of Jesus.) Friedberg, 1901.
[2] A. Titius, Die neutestamentliche Lehre von der Seligkeit und ihre Bedeumng
fur die Gegenwart. I. Teil: Jesu Lehre vom Reich Gottes. (The New T«siament
Doctrine of Blessedness and its Significance for the Present. Pt. I., Jesus'
doctrine of the Kingdom of God.) Arthur Titius, now Professor at Kiel, was born
in 1864 at Sensburg.
[3] Die eschatologischen Aussagen lesu in den synoptischen Evangelien, 167
pp Erich Haupt, now Professor in Halle, was born in 1841 at Stralsund.
252
ology," [1] introduced the last decisive phase of the process of separation
between historical and "modern" theology. Before the advent of eschatology,
critical theology was, in the last resort, without a principle of discrimination,
since it possessed no reagent capable of infallibly separating out modern ideas
on the one hand and genuinely ancient New Testament ideas on the other. The
application of the criterion has now begun. What will be the issue, the future
alone can show.
But even now we can recognise that the separation was not only of advantage
to historical theology; for modern theology, the manifestation of the modern
spirit as it really is, was still more important. Only when it became conscious of
its own inmost essence and of its right to exist, only when it freed itself from its
illegitimate historical justification, which, leaping over the centuries, appealed
directly to an historical exposition of the New Testament, only then could it
unfold its full wealth of ideas, which had been hitherto root-bound by a false
historicity. It was not by chance that in Bousset's reply a certain affirmation of

228
life, something expressive of the genius of Protestantism, cries aloud as never
before in any theological work of this generation, or that in Haupt's work
German mysticism interweaves its mysterious harmonies with the Johannine
motif. The contribution of Protestantism to the interpretation of the world had
never been made so manifest in any work prior to Weiss's. The modern spirit is
here breaking in wreaths of foam upon the sharp cliffs of the rock-bound
eschatological world-view of Jesus. To put it more prosaically, modern theology
is at last about to become sincere. But this is so far only a prophecy of the
future.
If we are to speak of the present it must be fully admitted that even historical
science, when it desires to continue the history of Christianity beyond the life of
Jesus, cannot help protesting against the one-sidedness of the eschatological
world of thought of the "Founder." It finds itself obliged to distinguish in the
thought of Jesus "permanent elements and transitory elements" which, being
interpreted, means eschatological and not essentially eschatological materials;
otherwise it can get no farther. For if Jesus' world of thought was wholly and
exclusively eschatological, there can only have arisen out of it, as Reimarus
long ago maintained, an exclusively eschatological primitive Christianity. But
how a community of that kind could give birth to the Greek non-eschatological
theology no Church history and no history of dogma has so far shown. Instead
of that they all-Harnack, with the most consummate historical ability-lay down
from the very first, alongside of the main line intended for "contemporary views"
traffic, a relief line
[1] Cf. the preface to the 2nd ed. of Job. Weiss's Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche
Gottes. Gottingen, 1900.
253
for the accommodation of through trains of "non-temporally limited ideas"; and
at the point where primitive Christian eschatology becomes of less importance
they switch off the train to the relief line, after slipping the carriages which are
not intended to go beyond that station. This procedure has now been rendered
impossible for them by Weiss, who leaves no place in the teaching of Jesus for
anything but the single-line traffic of eschatology. If, during the last fifteen years,
any one had attempted to carry out in a work on a large scale the plan of
Strauss and Renan, linking up the history of the life of Jesus with the history of
early Christianity, and New Testament theology with the early history of dogma,
the immense difficulties which Weiss had raised without suspecting it, in the
course of his sixty-seven pages, would have become clearly apparent. The
problem of the Hellenisation of Christianity took on quite a new aspect when the
trestle bridge of modern ideas connecting the eschatological early Christianity
with Greek theology broke down under the weight of the newly-discovered
material, and it became necessary to seek within the history itself an
explanation of the way in which an exclusively eschatological system of ideas
came to admit Greek influences, and-what is much more difficult to explain-how
Hellenism, on its part, found any point of contact with an eschatological sect.

229
The new problem is as yet hardly recognised, much less grappled with. The few
who since Weiss's time have sought to pass over from the life of Jesus to early
Christianity, have acted like men who find themselves on an ice-floe which is
slowly dividing into two pieces, and who leap from one to the other before the
cleft grows too wide. Harnack, in his "What is Christianity?" almost entirely
ignores the contemporary limitations of Jesus' teaching, and starts out with a
Gospel which carries him down without difficulty to the year 1899. The anti-
historical violence of this procedure is, if possible, still more pronounced in
Wernle. The Beginnings of our Religion" [1] begins by putting the Jewish
eschatology in a convenient posture for the coming operation by urging that the
idea of the Messiah, since there was no appropriate place for it in connexion
with the Kingdom of God or the new Earth, had become obsolete for the Jews
themselves.
The inadequateness of the Messianic idea for the purposes of Jesus is
therefore self-evident. "His whole life long"-as if we knew any more of it than the
few months of His public ministry!-"He laboured to give a new and higher
content to the Messianic title which He had adopted." In the course of this
endeavour He discarded "the Messiah
[1] Tubingen-Leipzig, 1901, 410 pp.; 2nd ed., 1904. Paul Wernle, now Professor
of Church History at Basle, was born in Zurich, 1872.
254
of the Zealots"-by that is meant the political non-transcendent Messianic ideal.
As if we had any knowledge of the existence of such an ideal in the time of
Jesus! The statements of Josephus suggest, and the conduct of Pilate at the
trial of Jesus confirms the conclusion, that in none of the risings did a claimant
of the Messiahship come forward and this should be proof enough that there did
not exist at that time a political eschatology alongside of the transcendental, and
indeed it could not on inner grounds subsist alongside of it. That was, after all
the thing which Weiss had shown most clearly!
Jesus, therefore, had dismissed the Messiah of the Zealots; He had now to turn
Himself into the "waiting" Messiah of the Rabbis. Yet He does not altogether
accept this role, for He works actively as Messiah. His struggle with the
Messianic conception could not but end in transforming it. This transformed
conception is introduced by Jesus to the people at His entry into Jerusalem,
since His choice of the ass to bear Him inscribed as a motto, so to speak, over
the demonstration the prophecy of the Messiah who should be a bringer of
peace. A few days later He gives the Scribes to understand by His enigmatic
words with reference to Mark xii. 37, that His Messiahship has nothing to do
with Davidic descent and all that that implied.
The Kingdom of God was not, of course, for Him, according to Wernle, a purely
eschatological entity; He saw in many events evidence that it had already
dawned. Wernle's only real concession to the eschatological school is the
admission that the Kingdom always remained for Jesus a supernatural entity.

230
The belief in the presence of the Kingdom was, it seems, only a phase in the
development of Jesus. When confronted with growing opposition He abandoned
this belief again, and the super-earthly future character of the Kingdom was all
that remained. At the end of His career Jesus establishes a connexion between
the Messianic conception, in its final transformation, and the Kingdom, which
had retained its eschatological character; He goes to His death for the
Messiahship in its new significance, but He goes on believing in His speedy
return as the Son of Man. This expectation of His Parousia as Son of Man,
which only emerges immediately before His exit from the world-when it can no
longer embarrass the author in his account of the preaching of Jesus-is the only
point in which Jesus does not overcome the inadequacy of the Messianic idea
with which He had to deal. "At this point the fantastic conception of Late
Judaism, the magically transformed world of the ancient popular belief, thrusts
itself incongruously into Jesus' great and simple consciousness of His
vocation."
Thus Wernle takes with him only so much of Apocalyptic as he can safely carry
over into early Christianity. Once he has got safely across,
255
he drags the rest over after him. He shows that in and with the titles and
expressions borrowed from apocalyptic thought, Messiah, Son of God, Son of
Man, which were all at bottom so inappropriate to Jesus, early Christianity
slipped in again "either the old ideas or new ones misunderstood." In pointing
this out he cannot refrain from the customary sigh of regret-these apocalyptic
titles and expressions "were from the first a misfortune for the new religion."
One may well ask how Wernle has discovered in the preaching of Jesus
anything that can be called, historically, a new religion, and what would have
become of this new religion apart from its apocalyptic hopes and its apocalyptic
dogma? We answer: without its intense eschatological hope the Gospel would
have perished from the earth, crushed by the weight of historic catastrophes.
But, as it was, by the mighty power of evoking faith which lay in it, eschatology
made good in the darkest times Jesus' sayings about the imperishability of His
words, and died as soon as these sayings had brought forth new life upon a
new soil. Why then make such a complaint against it?
The tragedy does not consist in the modification of primitive Christianity by
eschatology, but in the fate of eschatology itself, which has preserved for us all
that is most precious in Jesus, but must itself wither, because He died upon the
cross with a loud cry, despairing of bringing in the new heaven and the new
earth-that is the real tragedy. And not a tragedy to be dismissed with a
theologian's sigh, but a liberating and life-giving influence, like every great
tragedy. For in its death-pangs eschatology bore to the Greek genius a wonder-
child, the mystic, sensuous, Early-Christian doctrine of immortality, and
consecrated Christianity as the religion of immortality to take the place of the
slowly dying civilisation of the ancient world.

231
But it if not only those who want to find a way from the preaching of Jesus to
early Christianity who are conscious of the peculiar difficulties raised by the
recognition of its purely Jewish eschatological character, but also those who
wish to reconstruct the connexion backwards from Jesus to Judaism. For
example, Wellhausen and Schurer repudiate the results arrived at by the
eschatological school, which, on its part, bases itself upon their researches into
Late Judaism. Wellhausen, in his "Israelitish and Jewish History," [1] gives a
picture of Jesus which lifts Him out of the Jewish frame altogether. The
Kingdom
[1] Israelitische und judische Geschichte, 1st ed., 1894, pp. 163-168; 2nd ed.,
1895, pp. 198-204; 3rd ed., 1897; 4th ed., 1901, pp. 380-394. See also his
Skizzen (Sketches), pp. 6, 187 ff.
See also J. Wellhausen, Das Evangelium Marci, 1903, 2nd ed., 1909; Das
Evangelium Matthai, 1904; Das Evangelium Lucae, 1904.
Julius Wellhausen, now Professor at Gottingen, was born in 1844 at Hameln.
256
which He desires to found becomes a present spiritual entity. To the Jewish
eschatology His preaching stands in a quite external relation for what was in His
mind was rather a fellowship of spiritual men engaged in seeking a higher
righteousness. He did not really desire to be the Messiah, and in His inmost
heart had renounced the hopes of His people. If He called Himself Messiah, it
was in view of a higher Messianic ideal. For the people His acceptance of the
Messiahship denoted the supersession of their own very differently coloured
expectation. The transcendental events become immanent. In regard to the
apocalyptic Judgment of the World, he retains only the sermon preserved by
John about the inward and constant process of separation.
Although not to the same extent, Schurer also, in his view of the teaching of
Jesus, is strongly influenced by the Fourth Gospel. In an inaugural discourse of
1903 [1] he declares that in his opinion there is a certain opposition between
Judaism and the preaching of Jesus, since the latter contains something
absolutely new. His Messiahship is only the temporally limited expression of a
unique, generally ethical, consciousness of being a child of God, which has a
certain analogy with the relation of all God's children to their Heavenly Father.
The reason for His reserve in regard to His Messiahship was, according to
Schurer, Jesus' fear of kindling "political enthusiasm"; from the same motive He
repudiates in Mark xii. 37 all claim to be the Messiah of David's line. The ideas
of the Messiah and the Kingdom of God at least underwent a transformation in
His use of them. If in His earlier preaching He only announces the Kingdom as
something future, in His later preaching He emphasises the thought that in its
beginnings it is already present.
That it is precisely the representatives of the study of Late Judaism who lift
Jesus out of the Late-Jewish world of thought, is not in itself a surprising
phenomenon. It is only an expression of the fact that here something new and
creative enters into an uncreative age, and of the clear consciousness that this

232
Personality cannot be resolved into a complex of contemporary ideas. The
problem of which they are conscious is the same as Bousset's. But the question
cannot be avoided whether the violent separation of Jesus from Late Judaism is
a real solution, or whether the very essence of Jesus' creative power does not
consist, not in taking out one or other of the parts of the eschatological
machinery, but in doing what no one had previously done, namely, in setting
whole machinery in motion by the application of an ethico-religious motive
power. To perceive the unsatisfactoriness of the transformation
[1] Emil Schurer, Das messianische Selbstbewusstsein Jesu Christi. (The
Messianic Self-consciousness of Jesus Christ.) 1903, 24 pp.
According to J. Meinhold, too, in Jesus und das alte Testament (Jesus a Old
Testament), 1896, Jesus did not purpose to be the Messiah of Israel.
257
hypothesis it is only necessary to think of all the conditions which would have to
be realised in order to make it possible to trace, even in general outline, the
evidence of such a transformation in the Gospel narrative.
All these solutions of the eschatological question start from the teaching of
Jesus, and it was, indeed, from this point of view that Johannes Weiss had
stated the problem. The final decision of the question is not, however, to be
found here, but in the examination of the whole course of Jesus' life. On which
of the two presuppositions, the assumption that His life was completely
dominated by eschatology, or the assumption that He repudiated it, do we find it
easiest to understand the connexion of events in the life of Jesus, His fate, and
the emergence of the expectation of the Parousia in the community of His
disciples?
The works which in the examination of the connexion of events follow a critical
procedure are few and far between. The average "Life of Jesus" shows in this
respect an inconceivable stupidity. The first, after Bruno Bauer, to apply critical
methods to this point was Volkmar; between Volkmar and Wrede the only writer
who here showed himself critical, that is sceptical, was W. Brandt. His work on
the "Gospel History" [1] appeared in 1893, a year after Johannes Weiss's work
and in the same year as Bousset's reply. In this book the question of the
absolute, or only partial, dominance of eschatology is answered on the ground
of the general course of Jesus' life.
Brandt goes to work with a truly Cartesian scepticism. He first examines all the
possibilities that the reported event did not happen in the way in which it is
reported before he is satisfied that it really did happen in that way. Before he
can accept the statement that Jesus died with a loud outcry, he has to satisfy
his critical conscience by the following consideration: "The statement regarding
this cry, is, so far as I can see, to be best explained by supposing that it was
really uttered." The burial of Jesus owes its acceptance as history to the
following reflection. "We hold Joseph of Arimathea to be an historical person;
but the only reason which the narrative has for preserving his name is that he
buried Jesus. Therefore the name guarantees the fact."

233
But the moment the slightest possibility presents itself that the event
[1] Die evangelische Geschichte und der Ur sprung des Christentums auf Grund
einer Kritic der Berichte uber das Leiden und die Auferstehung Jesu. (The
Gospel Hisotry and the Origin of Christianity considered in the light of a critical
investigation of the Reports of the Suffering and Resurrection of Jesus.) By Dr.
W. Brandt, Leipzig, 1893, 588 pp.
Wilhelm Brandt was born in 1855 of German Parents in Amsterdam and
became a pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1891 he resigned this office
and studied in Straussburg and Berlin. In 1893 he was appointed to lecture in
General History of Religion as a member of the theological faculty of
Amsterdam.
258
happened in a different way, Brandt declines to be held by any seductions of
the text, and makes his own "probably" into an historical fact. For instance, he
thinks it unlikely that Peter was the only one to smite with the sword; so the
history is immediately rectified by the phrase "that sword-stroke was doubtless
not the only one, other disciples also must have pressed to the front." That
Jesus was first condemned by the Sanhedrin at a night-sitting, and that Pilate in
the morning confirmed the sentence, seems to him on various grounds
impossible. It is therefore decided that we have here to do only with a
combination devised by "a Christian from among the Gentiles." In this way the
"must have been's" and "may have been's" exercise a veritable reign of terror
throughout the book.
Yet that does not prevent the general contribution of the book to criticism from
being a very remarkable one. Especially in regard to the trial of Jesus, it brings
to light a whole series of previously unsuspected problems. Brandt is the first
writer since Bauer who dares to assert that it is an historical absurdity to
suppose that Pilate, when the people demanded from him the condemnation of
Jesus, answered: "No, but I will release you another instead of Him."
As his starting-point he takes the complete contrast between the Johannine and
Synoptic traditions, and the inherent impossibility of the former is proved in
detail. The Synoptic tradition goes back to Mark alone. His Gospel is, as was
also held by Bruno Bauer, and afterwards by Wrede, a sufficient basis for the
whole tradition. But this Gospel is not a purely historical source, it is also, and in
a very much larger degree, poetic invention. Of the real history of Jesus but little
is preserved in the Gospels. Many of the so-called sayings of the Lord are
certainly to be pronounced spurious, a few are probably to be recognised as
genuine. But the theory of the "poetic invention" of the earliest Evangelist is not
consistently carried out, because Brandt does not take as his criterion, as
Wrede did later, a definite principle on which Mark is supposed to have
constructed his Gospel, but decides each case separately. Consequently the
most important feature of the work lies in the examination of detail.
Jesus died and was believed to have risen again: this is the only absolutely
certain information that we have regarding His "Life." And accordingly this is the

234
crucial instance for testing the worth of the Gospel tradition. It is only on the
basis of an elaborate criticism of the account of the suffering and resurrection of
Jesus that Brandt undertakes to give a sketch of the life of Jesus as it really
was.
What was, then, so far as appears from His life, Jesus' attitude towards
eschatology? It was, according to Brandt, a self-contradictory attitude. "He
believed in the near approach of the Kingdom of God, and
259
yet as though its time were still far distant, He undertakes the training of
disciples. He was a teacher and yet is said to have held Himself to be the
Messiah." The duality lies not so much in the teaching itself; it is rather a
cleavage between His conviction and consciousness on the one hand, and His
public attitude on the other.
To this observation we have to add a second, namely, that Jesus cannot
possibly during the last few days at Jerusalem have come forward as Messiah.
Critics, with the exception, of course, of Bruno Bauer, had only cursorily
touched on this question. The course of events in the last few days in
Jerusalem does not at all suggest a Messianic claim on the part of Jesus,
indeed it directly contradicts it. Only imagine what would have happened if
Jesus had come before the people with such claims, or even if such thoughts
had been so much as attributed to Him! On the other side, of course, we have
the report of the Messianic entry, in which Jesus not only accepted the homage
offered to Him as Messiah, but went out of His way to invite it; and the people
must therefore from that point onwards have regarded him as Messiah. In
consequence of this contradiction in the narrative, all Lives of Jesus slur over
the passage, and seem to represent that the people sometimes suspected
Jesus' Messiahship, sometimes did not suspect it, or they adopt some other
similar expedient. Brandt, however, rigorously drew the logical inference. Since
Jesus did not stand and preach in the temple as Messiah, He cannot have
entered Jerusalem as Messiah. Therefore "the well-known Messianic entry is
not historical." That is also implied by the manner of His arrest. If Jesus had
come forward as a Messianic claimant, He would not simply have been arrested
by the civil police; Pilate would have had to suppress a revolt by military force.
This admission implies the surrender of one of the most cherished prejudices of
the anti-eschatological school, namely, that Jesus raised the thoughts of the
people to a higher conception of His Messiahship, and consequently to a
spiritual view of the Kingdom of God, or at least tried so to raise them. But we
cannot assume this to have been His intention, since He does not allow the
multitude to suspect His Messiahship. Thus the conception of a "transformation"
becomes untenable as a means of reconciling eschatological and non-
eschatological elements. And as a matter of fact-that is the stroke of critical
genius in the book-Brandt lets the two go forward side by side without any
attempt at reconciliation; for the reconciliation which would be possible when
one had only to deal with the teaching of Jesus becomes impossible when one

235
has to take in His life as well. For Brandt the life of Jesus is the life of a
Galilaean teacher who, in consequence of the eschatology with which the
period was so fully charged, was for a time and certain extent set at variance
with Himself and who met His fate
260
for that reason. This conception is at bottom identical with Renan's. But the
stroke of genius in leaving the gap between eschatological and non-
eschatological elements unbridged sets this work, as regards its critical
foundation and historical presentment, high above the smooth romance of the
latter.
The course of Jesus' life, according to Brandt, was therefore as follows: Jesus
was a teacher; not only so, but He took disciples in order to train them to be
teachers. "This is in itself sufficient to show there was a period in His life in
which His work was not determined by the thought of the immediate nearness
of the decisive moment. He sought men, therefore, who might become His
fellow-workers. He began to train disciples who, if He did not Himself live to see
the Day of the Lord, would be able after His death to carry on the work of
educating the people along the lines which He had laid down." "Then there
occurred in Judaea an event of which the rumour spread like wildfire throughout
Palestine. A prophet arose-a thing which had not happened for centuries-a man
who came forward as an envoy of God; and this prophet proclaimed the
immediate coming of the reign of God: 'Repent that ye may escape the wrath of
God.'" The Baptist's great sermon on repentance falls, according to Brandt, in
the last period of the life of Jesus. We must assume, he thinks, that before John
came forward in this dramatic fashion he had been a teacher, and at that period
of his life had numbered Jesus among his pupils. Nevertheless his life previous
to his public appearance must have been a rather obscure one. When he
suddenly launched out into this eschatological preaching of repentance "he
seemed like an Elijah who had long ago been rapt away from the earth and now
appeared once more."
From this point onwards Jesus had to concentrate His activity, for the time was
short. If He desired to effect anything and so far as possible to make the people,
before the coming of the end, obedient to the •will of God, He must make
Jerusalem the starting-point of His work. "Only from this central position, and
only with the help of an authority which had at its disposal the whole synagogal
system, could He effect within a short time much, perhaps all, of what was
needful. So He determined on journeying to Jerusalem with this end in view,
and with the fixed resolve there to carry into effect the will of God."
The journey to Jerusalem was not therefore a pilgrimage of death. "So long as
we are obliged to take the Gospels as a true reflection of the history of Jesus
we must recognise with Weizsacker that Jesus did not go to Jerusalem in order
to be put to death there, nor did He go to keep the Feast. Both suppositions are
excluded by the vigour of his action in Jerusalem, and the bright colours of hope

236
with which the picture of that period was painted in the recollection of those who
had
261
witnessed it." We cannot therefore regard the predictions of the Passion as
historical, or "at most we might perhaps suppose that Jesus in the
consciousness of His innocence may have said to His disciples: 'If I should die,
may God for the sake of My blood be merciful to you and to the people.'"
He went to Jerusalem, then, to fulfill the will of God. "It was God's will that the
preaching by which alone the people could be inwardly renewed and made into
a real people of God should be recognised and organised by the national and
religious authorities. To effect this through the existing authorities, or to realise it
in some other way, such was the task which Jesus felt Himself called on to
perform." With his eyes upon this goal, behind which lay the near approach of
the Kingdom of God, He set His face towards Jerusalem.
"But nothing could be more natural than that out of the belief that He was
engaged in a work which God had willed, there should arise an ever stronger
belief in His personal vocation." It was thus that the Messianic consciousness
entered into Jesus' thoughts. His conviction of His vocation had nothing to do
with a political Messiahship, it was only gradually from the development of
events that He was able to draw the inference that He was destined to the
Messianic sovereignty, "it may have become more and more clear to Him, but it
did not become a matter of absolute certainty." It was only amid opposition, in
deep dejection, in consequence of a powerful inner reaction against
circumstances, that He came to recognise Himself with full conviction as the
anointed of God.
When it began to be bruited about that He was the Messiah, the rulers had Him
arrested and handed Him over to the Procurator. Judas the traitor "had only
been a short time among His followers, and only in those unquiet days at
Jerusalem when the Master had scarcely any opportunity for private intercourse
with him and for learning really to know him. He had not been with Jesus during
the Galilaean days, and Jesus was consequently nothing more to him than the
future ruler of the Kingdom of God."
After His death the disciples "could not, unless something occurred to restore
their faith, continue to believe in His Messiahship." Jesus had taken away with
Him in His death the hopes which they had set upon Him, especially as He had
not foretold His death, much less His resurrection. "At first, therefore, it would
be all in favour of His memory if the disciples remembered that He Himself had
never openly and definitely declared Himself to be the Messiah." They returned
to Galilee. "Simon Peter, and perhaps the son of Zebedee, who afterwards
ranked along with him as a pillar of the Church, resolved to continue that
preparation for their work which had been interrupted by their journey
262
to Jerusalem. It seemed to them that if they were once more on Galilaean soil
the days which they had spent in the inhospitable Jerusalem would cease to

237
oppress their spirits with the leaden weight of sorrowful recollection. . . . One
might almost say that they had to make up their minds to give up Jesus the
author of the attempt to take Jerusalem by storm; but for Jesus the gracious
gentle Galilaean teacher they kept a warm place in their hearts." So love
watched over the dead until hope was rekindled by the Old Testament promises
and came to reawaken Him. "The first who, in an enthusiastic vision, saw this
wish fulfilled was Simon Peter." This "resurrection" has nothing to do with the
empty grave, which, like the whole narrative of the Jerusalem appearances only
came into the tradition later. The first appearances took place in Galilee. It was
there that the Church was founded.
This attempt to grasp the connexion of events in the life of Jesus from a purely
historical point of view is one of the most important that have ever been made in
this department of study. If it had been put in a purely constructive form, this
criticism would have made an impression unequalled by any other Life of Jesus
since Renan's. But in that case it would have lost that free play of ideas which
the critical recognition of the unbridged gap admits. The eschatological question
is not, it is true, decided by this investigation. It shows the impossibility of the
previous attempts to establish a present Messiahship of Jesus, but it shows,
too, that the questions, which are really historical questions, concerning the
public attitude of Jesus, are far from being solved by asserting the exclusively
eschatological character of His preaching, but that new difficulties are always
presenting themselves.
It was perhaps not so much through these general ethico-religious historical
discussions as in consequence of certain exegetical problems which
unexpectedly came to light that theologians became conscious that the old
conception of the teaching of Jesus was not tenable, or was only tenable by
violent means. On the assumption of the modified eschatological character of
His teaching, Jesus is still a teacher; that is to say. He speaks in order to be
understood, in order to explain, and has no secrets. But if His teaching is
throughout eschatological, then He is a prophet, who points in mysterious
speech to a coming age, whose words conceal secrets and offer enigmas, and
are not intended to be understood always and by everybody. Attention was now
turned to a number of passages in which the question arises whether Jesus had
any secrets to keep or not.
This question presents itself in connexion with the very earliest of the parables.
In Mark iv. 11, 12 it is distinctly stated that the parables spoken in the immediate
context embody the mystery of the Kingdom of God in an obscure and
unintelligible form, in order that those for
263
whom it is not intended may hear without understanding. But this is borne out
by the character of the parables themselves, since we at least find in them the
thought of the constant and victorious develop,emt of the Kingdom from small
beginnings to its perfect development. After the passage had had to suffer
many things from constantly remewed attempts to weaken down or explain

238
away the statement, Julicher, in his work upon the Parables, [1] released it from
these tortures, left Jesus the parables in their natural meaning, and put down
this unintelligible saying about the purpose of the parabolic form of discourse to
the account of the Evangelist. He would rather, to use his own expression,
remove a little stone from the masonry of tradition than a diamond from the
imperishable crown of honour which belongs to Jesus. Yes, but, for all that, it is
an arbitrary assumption which damages the Marcan hypothesis more than will
be readily admitted. What was the reason, or what was the mistake which led
the earliest Evangelist to form so repellent a theory regarding the purpose of the
parables? Is the progressive exaggeration of the contrast between veiled and
open speech, to which Julicher often appeals, sufficient to account for it? How
can the Evangelist have invented such a theory, when he immediately proceeds
to invalidate it by the rationalising, rather commonplace explanation of the
parable of the Sower?
Bernhard Weiss, not being so much under the influence of modern theology as
to feel bound to recognise the paedagogic purpose in Jesus, gives the text its
due, and admits that Jesus intended to use the parabolic form of discourse as a
means of separating receptive from unreceptive hearers. He does not say,
however, what kind of secret, intelligible only to the predestined, was concealed
in these parables which seem clear as daylight.
That was before Johannes Weiss had stated the eschatological question.
Bousset, in his criticism of the eschatological theory, [2] is obliged to fall back
upon Julicher's method in order to justify the rationalising modern way of
explaining these parables as pointing to a Kingdom of God actually present. It is
true Julicher's explanation of the way in which the theory arose does not satisfy
him; he prefers to assume that the basis of this false theory of Mark's is to be
found in the fact that the parables concerning the presence of the Kingdom
remained unintelligible to the contemporaries of Jesus. But we may fairly ask
that he would point out the connecting link between that failure to understand
the invention of a saying like this, which implies so very much more!
[1] Ad. Julicher, Die Gleichnisreden Jesu. Vol. i., 1888. The substance of it had
already been published in a different form. Freiburg, 1886.
Adolf Julicher, at present Professor in Marburg, was bom in 1857 at Falkenberg.
[2] W. Bousset, Jesu Predigt in ihrem Gegensatz zum Judentum. Gottingen,
1892.
264
If there are no better grounds than that for calling in question Mark's theory of
the parables, then the parables of Mark iv., the only ones from which it is
possible to extract the admission of a present Kingdom of God, remain what
they were before, namely, mysteries.
The second volume of Julicher's "Parables" [1] found the eschatoloeical
question already in possession of the field. And, as a matter of fact Julicher
does abandon "the heretofore current method of modernising the parables,"
which finds in one after another of them only its own favourite conception of the

239
slow and gradual development of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of Heaven
is for Julicher a completely supernatural idea; it is to be realised without human
help and independently of the attitude of men, by the sole power of God. The
parables of the mustard seed and the leaven are not intended to teach the
disciples the necessity and wisdom of a development occupying a considerable
time, but are designed to make clear and vivid to them the idea that the period
of perfecting and fulfilment will follow with super-earthly necessity upon that of
imperfection.
But in general the new problem plays no very special part in Julicher's
exposition. He takes up, it might almost be said, in relation to the parables, too
independent a position as a religious thinker to care to understand them against
the background of a wholly different world-view, and does not hesitate to
exclude from the authentic discourses of Jesus whatever does not suit him. This
is the fate, for instance, of the parable of the wicked husbandmen in Mark xii.
He finds in it traits which read like vaticinia ex eventu, and sees therefore in the
whole thing only a prophetically expressed "view of the history as it presented
itself to an average man who had been present at the crucifixion of Jesus and
nevertheless believed in Him as the Son of God."
But this absolute method of explanation, independent of any traditional order of
time or events, makes it impossible for the author to draw from the parables any
general system of teaching. He makes no distinction between the Galilaean
mystical parables and the polemical, menacing Jerusalem parables. For
instance, he supposes the parable of the Sower, which according to Mark was
the very first of Jesus' parabolic discourses, to have been spoken as the result
of a melancholy review of a preceding period of work, and as expressing the
conviction, stamped upon His mind by the facts, "that it was in accordance with
[1] Ad. Julicher, Die Gleichnisreden Jesu, 2nd pt. (Exposition of the Parables in
the first three Gospels.) Freiburg, 1899, 641 pp.
Chr. A. Bugge, Die Hauptparabeln Jesu (The most important Parables of
Jesus), German, from the Norwegian, Giessen, 1903, rightly remarks on the
obscure inexplicable character of some of the parables, but makes no attempt
to deal with it from the historical point of view.
265
higher laws that the word of God should have to reckon with defeats as well as
victories." Accordingly he adopts in the main the explanation which the
Evangelist gives in Mark iv. 13-20. The parable of the seed growing secretly is
turned to account in favour of the "present" Kingdom of God.
Julicher has an incomparable power of striking fire out of every one of the
parables, but the flame is of a different colour from that which it showed when
Jesus pronounced the parables before the enchanted multitude. The problem
posed by Johannes Weiss in connexion with the teaching of Jesus is treated by
Julicher only so far as it has direct interest for the creative independence of his
own religious thought.

240
Alongside of the parabolic discourses of Mark iv. we have now to place, as a
newly discovered problem, the discourse at the sending out of the Twelve in
Matt. x. Up to the time of Johannes Weiss it had been possible to rest content
with transplanting the gloomy sayings regarding persecutions to the last period
of Jesus' life; but now there was the further difficulty to be met that while so
hasty a proclamation of the Kingdom of God is quite reconcilable with an
exclusively eschatological character of the preaching of the Kingdom, the
moment this is at all minimised it becomes unintelligible, not to mention the fact
that in this case nothing can be made of the saying about the immediate coming
of the Son of Man in Matt. x. 23. As though he felt the stern eye of old Reimarus
upon him, Bousset hastens in a footnote to throw overboard the whole report of
the mission of the Twelve as an "obscure and unintelligible tradition." Not
content with that, he adds: "Perhaps the whole narrative is merely an expansion
of some direction about missionising given by Jesus to the disciples in view of a
later time." Before, it was only the discourse which was unhistorical; now it is
the whole account of the mission-at least if we may assume that here, as is
usual with theologians of all times, the author's real opinion is expressed in the
footnote, and his most cherished opinion of all introduced with "perhaps." But
how much historical material will remain to modern theologians in the Gospels if
they are forced to abandon it wholesale from their objection to pure
eschatology? If all the pronouncements of this kind to which the representatives
of the Marcan hypothesis have committed themselves were collected together,
they would make a book which would be much more damaging even than that
of Wrede's which dropped a bomb into their midst.
A third problem is offered by the saying in Matt. xi. 12, about "the violent" who,
since the time of John the Baptist, "take the Kingdom of Heaven hy force,"
which raises fresh difficulties for the exegetical art. It is true that if art sufficed,
we should not have long to wait for the
266
solution in this case. We should be asked to content ourselves with one or other
of the artificial solutions with which exegetes have been accustomed from of old
to find a way round this difficulty. Usually the saying is claimed as supporting
the "presence" of the Kingdom. This is the line taken by Wendt, Wernie, and
Arnold Meyer. [1] According to the last named it means: "From the days of John
the Baptist it has been possible to get possession of the Kingdom of God; yea,
the righteous are every day earning it for their own." But no explanation has
heretofore succeeded in making it in any degree intelligible how Jesus could
date the presence of the Kingdom from the Baptist, whom in the same breath
He places outside of the Kingdom, or why, in order to express so simple an
idea, He uses such entirely unnatural and inappropriate expressions as "rape"
and "wrest to themselves."
The full difficulties of the passage are first exhibited by Johannes Weiss. [2] He
restores it to its natural sense, according to which it means that since that time
the Kingdom suffers, or is subjected to, violence, and in order to be able to

241
understand it literally he has to take it in a condemnatory sense. Following
Alexander Schweizer, [3] he sums up his interpretation in the following
sentence: Jesus describes, and in the form of the description shows His
condemnation of, a violent Zealotistic Messianic movement which has been in
progress since the days of the Baptist. [4] But this explanation again makes
Jesus express a very simple meaning in a very obscure phrase. And what
indication is there that the sense is condemnatory? Where do we hear anything
more about a Zealotic Messianic movement, of which the Baptist formed the
starting-point? His preaching certainly offered no incentive to such a movement,
and Jesus' attitude towards the Baptist is elsewhere, even in Jerusalem, entirely
one of approval. Moreover, a condemnatory saying of this kind would not have
been closed with the distinctive formula: "He that hath ears to hear let him hear"
(Matt. xi. 15), which elsewhere, cf. Mark iv. 9, indicates a mystery.
We must, therefore, accept the conclusion that we really do not understand the
saying, that we "have not ears to hear it," that we do not know sufficiently well
the essential character of the Kingdom of God, to
[1] Arnold Meyer, Jesu Muttersprache, 1896. P. W. Schmidt, too, in his
Geschichte Jesu (Freiburg, 1899), defends the same interpretation, and seeks
to explain this obscure saying by the other about the "strait gate."
[2] Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes, 2nd ed., 1900, p. 192 ff.
[3] Stud. Krit., 1836, pp. 90-122.
[4] See also Die Vorstellungen vom Messias und vom Gottesreich bei den
Synoptikern. (The Conceptions of the Messiah and the Kingdom of God in the
Synoptic Gospels.) By Ludwig Paul. Bonn, 1895. 130 pp. This comprehensive
study discusses all the problems which are referred to below. Matt. xi. 12-14 is
discussed un the heading "The Hinderers of the Kingdom of God."
267
understand why Jesus describes the coming of the Kingdom as a doing-
violence-to-it, which has been in progress since the days of the Baptist,
especially as the hearers themselves do not seem to have cared, or been able,
to understand what was the connexion of the coming with the violence; nor do
we know why He expects them to understand how the Baptist is identical with
Elias.
But the problem which became most prominent of all the new problems raised
by eschatology, was the question concerning the Son of Man. It had become a
dogma of theology that Jesus used the term Son of Man to veil His
Messiahship; that is to say, every theologian found in this term whatever
meaning he attached to the Messiahship of Jesus, the human, humble, ethical,
unpolitical, unapocalyptic, or whatever other character was held to be
appropriate to the orthodox "transformed" Messiahship. The Danielic Son of
Man entered into the conception only so far as it could do so without
endangering the other characteristics. Confronted with the Similitudes of Enoch,
theologians fell back upon the expedient of assuming them to be spurious, or at
least worked-over in a Christian sense in the Son of Man passages, just as the

242
older history of dogma got rid of the Ignatian letters, of which it could make
nothing, by denying their genuineness. But once the Jewish eschatology was
seriously applied to the explanation of the Son of Man conception, all was
changed. A new dilemma presented itself; either Jesus used the expression,
and used it in a purely Jewish apocalyptic sense, or He did not use it at all.
Although Baldensperger did not state the dilemma in its full trenchancy,
Hilgenfeld thought it necessary to defend Jesus against the suspicion of having
borrowed His system of thought and His self-designa- tion from Jewish
Apocalypses. [1] Orello Cone, too, will not admit that the expression Son of Man
has only apocalyptic suggestion in the mouth of Jesus, but will have it
interpreted according to Mark ii. 10 and 28, where His pure humanity is the idea
which is emphasised. [2] Oort holds, more logically, that Jesus did not use it,
but that the disciples took the expression from "the Gospel" and put it into the
mouth of Jesus. [3]
Johannes Weiss formulated the problem clearly, and proposed that, with the
exception of the two passages where Son of Man means man in general, only
those should be recognised in which the significance attached to the term in
Daniel and the Apocalypses is demanded by the context. By so doing he set
theology a problem calculated to keep it oc-
[1] A. Hilgenfeld, Zeitschr. f. wiss. Theol., 1888, pp. 488-498; 1892, pp. 445-
464.
[2] Orello Cone, "Jesus' Self-designation in the Synoptic Gospels," The New
World, 1893, pp. 492-518.
[3] H. L. Oort, Die uitdrukking in het Nieuwe
Testament, (The Expression Son of Man in the New Testament.) Leyden, 1893.
268
cupied for many years. Not many indeed at first recognised the problem
Charles, however, meets it in a bold fashion, proposing to regard the Son of
Man, in Jesus' usage of the title, as a conception in which the Messiah of the
Book of Enoch and the Servant of the Lord in Isaiah are united into one. [1]
Most writers, however, did not free themselves from inconsistencies. They
wanted at one and the same time to make the apocalyptic element dominant in
the expression, and to hold that Jesus could not have taken the conception over
unaltered, but must have transformed it in some way. These inconsistencies
necessarily result from the assumption of Weiss's opponents that Jesus
intended to designate Himself as Messiah in the actual present. For since the
expression Son of Man has in itself only an apocalyptic sense referring to the
future they had to invent another sense applicable to the present, which Jesus
might have inserted into it. In all these learned discussions of the title Son of
Man this operation is assumed to have been performed.
According to Bousset, Jesus created, and embodied in this term, a new form of
the Messianic ideal which united the super-earthly with the human and lowly. In
any case, he thinks, the term has a meaning applicable in this present world.
Jesus uses it at once to conceal and to suggest His Messianic dignity. How

243
conscious Bousset, nevertheless, is of the difficulty is evident from the fact that
in discussing the meaning of the title he remarks that the Messianic significance
must have been of subordinate importance in the estimation of Jesus, and
cannot have formed the basis of His actions, otherwise He would have laid
more stress upon it in His preaching. As if the term Son of Man had not meant
for His contemporaries all He needed to say!
Bousset's essay on Jewish Apocalyptic, [2] published in 1903, seeks the
solution in a rather different direction, by postponing, namely, to the very last
possible moment the adoption of this self-designation. "In all probability Jesus in
a few isolated sayings towards the close of His life hit upon this title Son of Man
as a means of expressing, in the face of the thought of defeat and death, which
forced itself upon Him, His confidence in the abiding victory of His person and
His cause." If this is
[1] R. H. Charles, "The Son of Man," Expos. Times, 1893.
[2] Die judische Apokalyptik in ihrer religionsgeschichtlichen Herkunft und ihrer
Bedeutung fur das Neue Testament. (Jewish Apocalyptic in its religious-
historical origin and in its significance for the New Testament.) 1903.
On the eschatology of Jesus see also Schwartzkoppf, Die Weissagungen Jesu
Christi von seinem Tode, seiner Auferstehung und Wiederkunft und ihre
Erfullung. (The Predictions of Jesus Christ concerning His Death, His
Resurrection, and Second Coming, and their Fulfilment.) 1895.
P. Wernle, Die Reichgotteshoffnung in den altesten christlichen Dokumenten
und bei Jesu. (The Hope of the Kingdom of God in the most ancient Christian
Documents and as held by Jesus.)
269
so, the emphasis must be principally on the triumphant apocalyptic aspects of
the title.
Even this belated adoption of the title Son of Man is more than Brandt is willing
to admit, and he holds it to be improbable that Jesus used the expression at all.
It would be more natural, he thinks, to suppose that the Evangelist Mark
introduced this self-designation, as he introduced so much else, into the Gospel
on the ground of the figurative apocalyptic discourses in the Gospel.
Just when ingenuity appeared to have exhausted itself in attempts to solve the
most difficult of the problems raised by the eschatological school, the historical
discussion suddenly seemed about to be rendered objectless. Philology entered
a caveat. In 1896 appeared Lietzmann's essay upon "The Son of Man," which
consisted of an investigation of the linguistic basis of the enigmatic self-
designation.
* XVII *
QUESTIONS REGARDING THE ARAMAIC LANGUAGE, RABBINIC
PARALLELS, AND BUDDHISTIC INFLUENCE
Arnold Meyer. Jesu Muttersprache. (The Mother Tongue of Jesus.) Leipzig,
1896 166 pp.

244
Hans Lietzmann. Der Menschensohn. Ein Beitrag zur neutestamentlichen
Theologie. (The Son of Man. A Contribution to New Testament Theology.)
Freiburg 1896. 95 pp.
J. Wellhausen. Israelitische und judische Geschichte. (History of Israel and the
Jews.) 3rd ed., 1897; 4th ed., 1901. 394 pp.
Gustaf Dalman. Grammatik des judisch-palastinensischen Aramaisch.
(Grammar of Jewish-Palestinian Aramaic.) Leipzig, 1894. Die Worte Jesu. Mit
Beriicksichtigung des nachkanonischen jiidischen Schrifttums und der
aramaischen Sprache. (The Sayings of Jesus considered in connexion with the
post-canonical Jewish writings and the Aramaic Language.) I. Introduction and
certain leading conceptions: with an appendix on Messianic texts. Leipzig,
1898. 309 pp.
A. Wunsche. Neue Beitrage zur Eriauterung der Evangelien aus Talmud und
Midrasch. (New Contributions to the Explanation of the Gospels, from Talmud
and Midrash.) Gottingen, 1878. 566 pp.
Ferdinand Weber. System der altsynagogalen palastinensischen Theologie.
(System of Theology of the Ancient Palestinian Synagogue.) Leipzig, 1880. 399
pp. 2nd ed., 1897.
Rudolf Seydel. Das Evangelium Jesu in seinen Verhaltnissen zur Buddha-Sage
und Buddha-Lehre. (The Gospel of Jesus in its relations to the Buddha-Legend
and the Teaching of Buddha.) Leipzig, 1882, 337 pp. Die Buddha-Legende und
das Leben Jesu nach den Evangelien. Erneute Priifung ibres gegenseitigen
Verhaltnisses. (The Buddha-Legend and the Life of Jesus in the Gospels. A
New Examination of their Mutual Relations.) 2nd ed., 1897. 129 pp.
ONLY SINCE THE APPEARANCE OF DALMAN'S GRAMMAR OF JEWISH
PALESTINIAN Aramaic in 1894 have we really known what was the dialect in
which the Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount were spoken. This work
closes a discussion which had been proceeding for centuries on a line parallel
to that of theology proper, and which, according to the
271
clear description of Arnold Meyer, ran its course somewhat as follows. [1]
The question regarding the language spoken by Jesus had been rigorously
discussed in the sixteenth century. Up till that time no one had known what to
make of the tradition recorded by Eusebius that the speech of the apostles had
been "Syrian" since the distinction between Syrian Hebrew, and "Chaldee" was
not understood and all three designations were used indiscriminately. Light was
first thrown upon ths question by Joseph Justus Scaliger (l609). In the year
1555, Job. Alb. Widmanstadt, Chancellor of Ferdinand I., had published the
Syriac translation of the Bible in fulfilment of the wishes of an old scholar of
Bologna, Theseus Ambrosius, who had left him the manuscript as a sacred
legacy. He himself and his contemporaries believed that in this they had the
Gospel in the mother-tongue of Jesus, until Scaliger, in one of his letters, gave
a clear sketch of the Syrian dialects, distinguished Syriac from Chaldee, and
further drew a distinction between the Babylonian Chaldee and Jewish Chaldee

245
of the Targums, and in the language of the Targums itself distinguished an
earlier from a later stratum. The apostles spoke, according to Scaliger, a
Galilaean dialect of Chaldaic, or according to the more correct nomenclature
introduced later, following a suggestion of Scaliger's, a dialect of Aramaic, and,
in addition to that, the Syriac of Antioch. Next, Hugo Grotius put in a strong plea
for a distinction between Jewish and Antiochian Syriac. Into the confusion
caused at that time by the use of the term "Hebrew" some order was introduced
by the Leyden Calvinistic professor Claude Saumaise, who, writing in French,
emphasised the point that the New Testament, and the Early Fathers, when
they speak of Hebrew, mean Syriac, since Hebrew had become completely
unknown to the Jews of that period. Brian Walton, the editor of the London
polyglot, which was completed in 1657, supposed that the dialect of Onkelos
and Jonathan was the language of Jesus, being under the impression that both
these Targums were written in the time of Jesus.
The growing knowledge of the distinction between Hebrew and Aramaic did not
prevent the Vienna Jesuit Inchofer (l648) from maintaining that Jesus spoke-
Latin! The Lord cannot have used any other language upon earth, since this is
the language of the saints in heaven. On the Protestant side, Vossius, opposing
Richard Simon, endeavoured to establish the thesis that Greek was the
language of Jesus, being partly inspired by the apologetic purpose of preventing
the authenticity of the discourses and sayings of Jesus from being weakened by
supposing them to have been translated from Aramaic into Greek, but also
rightly recognising the importance which the Greek language must have
assumed
[1] Arnold Meyer, now Professor of New Testament Theology and Pastoral
Theology at Zurich, and formerly at Bonn, was born at Wesel in 1861.
272
at that time in northern Palestine, through which there passed such important
trade routes.
This view was brought up again by the Neapolitan legal scholar Dominicus
Diodati, in his book De Christo Craece loquente, 1767, who added some
interesting material concerning the importance of the Greek language at the
period and in the native district of Jesus. But five years later, in 1772, this view
was thoroughly refuted by Giambernardo de Rossi, [1] who argued convincingly
that among a people so separate and so conservative as the Jews the native
language cannot possibly have been wholly driven out. The apostles wrote
Greek for the sake of foreign readers. In the year 1792, Johann Adrian Bolten,
"first collegiate pastor at the principal church in Altona" (l807), made the first
attempt to re-translate the sayings of Jesus into the original tongue. [2]
The certainly original Greek of the Epistles and the Johannine literature was a
strong argument against the attempt to recognise no language save Aramaic as
known to Jesus and His disciples. Paulus the rationalist, therefore, sought a
middle path, and explained that while the Aramaic dialect was indeed the native
language of Jesus, Greek had become so generally current among the

246
population of Galilee, and still more of Jerusalem, that the founders of
Christianity could use this language when they found it needful to do so. His
Catholic contemporary. Hug, came to a similar conclusion.
In the course of the nineteenth century Aramaic-known down to the time of
Michaelis as "Chaldee" [3]-was more thoroughly studied. The various branches
of this language and the history of its progress became more or less clearly
recognisable. Kautzsch's grammar of Biblical Aramaic [4] (1884) and Dalman's
[5] work embody the result of these
[1] Giambern. de Rossi, Dissertazione delta lingua propria di Christo e degli
Ebrei nazionali della Palestina da' Tempi de' Massabei in disamina del
sentimento di w recente scrittore Italiano. Parma, 1772.
[2] Der Bericht des Matthaus van Jesu dem Messias. (Matthew's account of
Jesus the Messiah.) Altona, 1792. According to Meyer, p. 105 ff., this was a
very striking performance. ,
[3] The name Chaldee was due to the mistaken belief that the language in
which parts of Daniel and Ezra were written was really the vernacular of
Babylonia. [1] That vernacular, now known to us from cuneiform tablets and
inscriptions, is a Semitic language, but quite different from Aramaic.-F. C. B.
[4] Emil Friedrich Kautzsch was born in 1841 at Plauen in Saxony, and studied
in Leipzig, where he became Privat-Docent in 1869. In 1872 he was called as
as Professor to Basle, in 1880 to Tubingen, in 1888 to Halle.
[5] Gustaf Dalman, Professor at Leipzig, was born in 1865 at Niesky. In addition
to the works of his named above, see also Der leidende und der sterbende
Messias (The Suffering and Dying Messiah), 1888; and Was sagt der Talmud
uber Jesum? (What does the Talmud say about Jesus?), 1891.
273
studies. "The Aramaic language," explains Meyer, "is a branch of the North
Semitic, the linguistic stock to which also belong the Assyrio-Babylonian
language in the East, and the Canaanitish languages, including Hebrew, in the
West, while the South Semitic languages-the Arabic and Aethiopic-form a group
by themselves. The users of these languages, the Aramaeans, were seated in
historic times between the Babylonians and Canaanites, the area of their
distribution extending from the foot of Lebanon and Hermon in a north-easterly
direction as far as Mesopotamia, where "Aram of the two rivers" forms their
eastern-most province. Their immigration into these regions forms the third
epoch of the Semitic migrations, which probably lasted from 1600 B.C. down to
600.
The Aramaic states had no great stability. The most important of them was the
kingdom of Damascus, which at a certain period was so dangerous an enemy
to northern Israel. In the end, however, the Aramaean dynasties were crushed,
like the two Israelitish kingdoms, between the upper and nether millstones of
Babylon and Egypt. In the time of the successors of Alexander, there arose in
these regions the Syrian kingdom; which in turn gave place to the Roman
power.

247
But linguistically the Aramaeans conquered the whole of Western Asia. In the
course of the first millennium B.C. Aramaic became the language of commerce
and diplomacy, as Babylonian had been during the second. It was only the rise
of Greek as a universal language which put a term to these conquests of the
Aramaic.
In the year 701 B.C. Aramaic had not yet penetrated to Judaea. When the
rabshakeh (officer) sent by Sennacherib addressed the envoys of Hezekiah in
Hebrew, they begged him to speak Aramaic in order that the men upon the wall
might not understand. [1] For the post-exilic period the Aramaic edicts in the
Book of Ezra and inscriptions on Persian coins show that throughout wide
districts of the new empire Aramaic had made good its position as the language
of common intercourse. Its domain extended from the Euxine southwards as far
as Egypt, and even into Egypt itself. Samaria and the Hauran adopted it. Only
the Greek towns and Phoenicia resisted.
The influence of Aramaic upon Jewish literature begins to be noticeable about
the year 600. Jeremiah and Ezekiel, writing in a foreign land in an Aramaic
environment, are the first witnesses to its supremacy. In the northern part of the
country, owing to the immigration of foreign colonists after the destruction of the
northern kingdom, it had already gained a hold upon the common people. In the
Book of Daniel, written
[1] 2 Kings xviii. 26 ff.
274
in the year 167 B.C., the Hebrew and Aramaic languages alternate. Perhaps,
indeed, we ought to assume an Aramaic ground-document as the basis of this
work.
At what time Aramaic became the common popular speech in the post-exilic
community we cannot exactly discover. Under Nehemiah "Judaean," that is to
say, Hebrew, was still spoken in Jerusalem; in the time of the Maccabees
Aramaic seems to have wholly driven out the ancient national language.
Evidence for this is to be found in the occurrence of Aramaic passages in the
Talmud, from which it is evident that the Rabbis used this language in the
religious instruction of the people. The provision that the text, after being read in
Hebrew, should be interpreted to the people, may quite well reach back into the
time of Jesus. The first evidence for the practice is in the Mishna, about A.D.
150.
In the time of Jesus three languages met in Galilee-Hebrew, Aramaic, and
Greek. In what relation they stood to each other we do not know, since
Josephus, the only writer who could have told us, fails us in this point, as he so
often does elsewhere. He informs us that when acting as an envoy of Titus he
spoke to the people of Jerusalem in the ancestral language, and the word he
uses is . But the very thing we should like to know-whether,
namely, this language was Aramaic or Hebrew, he does not tell us. We are left
in the same uncertainty by the passage in Acts (xxii. 2) which says that Paul
spoke to the people , thereby gaining their

248
attention, for there is no indication whether the language was Aramaic or
Hebrew. For the writers of that period "Hebrew" simply means Jewish.
We cannot, therefore, be sure in what relation the ancient Hebrew sacred
language and the Aramaic of ordinary intercourse stood to one another as
regards religious writings and religious instruction. Did the ordinary man merely
learn by heart a few verses, prayers, and psalms? Or was Hebrew, as the
language of the cultus, also current in wider circles?
Dalman gives a number of examples of works written in Hebrew in the century
which witnessed the birth of Christ: "A Hebrew original, he says, "must be
assumed in the case of the main part of the Aethiopic book of Enoch, the
Assumption of Moses, the Apocalypse of Baruch, Fourth Ezra, the Book of
Jubilees, and for the Jewish ground-document of the Testament of the Twelve
Patriarchs, of which M. Gaster has discovered a Hebrew manuscript." The first
Rook of Maccabees, too, seems to him to go back to a Hebrew original.
Nevertheless, he holds it to impossible that synagogue discourses intended for
the people can have been delivered in Hebrew, or that Jesus taught otherwise
than in Aramaic.
275
Franz Delitzsch's view, on the other hand, is that Jesus and the disciples taught
in Hebrew; and that is the opinion of Resch also. Adolf Neubauer, [1] Reader in
Rabbinical Hebrew at Oxford, attempted a compromise. It was certainly the
case, he thought, that in the time of Jesus Aramaic was spoken throughout
Palestine; but whereas in Galilee this language had an exclusive dominance,
and the knowledge of Hebrew was confined to texts learned by heart, in
Jerusalem Hebrew had renewed itself by the adoption of Aramaic elements,
and a kind of Neo-Hebraic language had arisen. This solution at least testifies to
the difficulty of the question. The fact is that from the language of the New
Testament it is often difficult to make out whether the underlying words are
Hebrew or Aramaic. Thus, for instance, Dalman remarks-with reference to the
question whether the statement of Papias refers to a Hebrew or an Aramaic
"primitive Matthew"-that it is difficult "to produce proof of an Aramaic as distinct
from a Hebrew source, because it is often the case in Biblical Hebrew, and still
more often in the idiom of the Mishna, that the same expressions and forms of
phrase are possible as in Aramaic." Delitzsch's [2] "retranslation" of the New
Testament into Hebrew is therefore historically justified.
But the question about the language of Jesus must not be confused with the
problem of the original language of the primitive form of Matthew's Gospel. In
reference to the latter, Dalman thinks that the tradition of the Early Church
regarding an earlier Aramaic form of the Gospel must be considered as lacking
confirmation. "It is only in the case of Jesus' own words that an Aramaic original
form is undeniable, and it is only for these that Early Church tradition asserted
the existence of a Semitic documentary source. It is, therefore, the right and
duty of Biblical scholarship to investigate the form which the sayings of Jesus

249
must have taken in the original and the sense which in this form they must have
conveyed to Jewish hearers."
That Jesus spoke Aramaic, Meyer has shown by collecting all the Aramaic
expressions which occur in His preaching. [3] He considers the
[1] Franz Delitzsch, Die Bucher des Neuen Testaments aus dem Griechischen
ins Hebraische ubersetzt. 1877. (The Books of the N.T. translated from Greek
into Hebrew.) This work has been circulated by thousands among Jews
throughout the whole world.
Delitzsch was born in 1813 at Leipzig and became Privat-Docent there in 1842,
went to Rostock as Professor in 1846, to Erlangen in 1850, and returned in
1867 to Leipzig. By conviction he was a strict Lutheran in theology. He was one
of the leading experts in Late-Jewish and Talmudic literature. He died in 1890.
[2] Studia Biblica I. Essays in Biblical Archceology and Criticism and Kindred
Subjects by Members of the University of Oxford. Clarendon Press, 1885, pp.
39-74. See Meyer, p. 29 ff.
[3] See Meyer, p. 47 ff.
276
"Abba" in Gethsemane decisive, for this means that Jesus prayed in Aramaic in
His hour of bitterest need. Again the cry from the cross was, according to Mark
xv. 34, also Aramaic: . The Old
Testament was therefore most familiar to Him in an Aramaic translation,
otherwise this form of the Psalm passage would not have come to His lips at the
moment of death.
It is a quite independent question whether Jesus could speak, or at least
understand, Greek. According to Josephus the knowledge of Greek in Palestine
at that time, even among educated Jews, can only have been of a quite
elementary character. He himself had to learn it laboriously in order to be able
to write in it. His "Jewish War" was first written in Aramaic for his fellow-
countrymen; the Greek edition was, by his own avowal, not intended for them.
In another passage, it is true, he seems to imply a knowledge of, and interest in,
foreign languages even among people in humble life. [1]
An analogy, which is in many respects very close, to the linguistic conditions in
Palestine was offered by Alsace under French rule in the 'sixties of the
nineteenth century. Here, too, three languages met in the same district. The
High-German of Luther's translation of the Bible was the language of the
Church, the Alemannic dialect was the usual speech of the people, while
French was the language of culture and of government administration. This
remarkable analogy would be rather in favour-if analogy can be admitted to
have any weight in the question-of Delitzsch and Resch, since the Biblical High-
German, although never spoken in social intercourse, strongly influenced the
Alemannic dialect-although this was, on the other hand, quite uninfluenced by
Modern High-German-but did not allow it to penetrate into Church or school,
there maintaining for itself an undivided sway. French made some progress, but
only in certain circles, and remained entirely excluded from the religious sphere.

250
The Alsatians of the poorer classes who could at that time have repeated the
Lord's Prayer or the Beatitudes in French would not have been difficult to count.
The Lutheran translation still holds its own to some extent against the French
translation with the older generation of the Alsatian community in Paris, which
has in other respects become completely French-so strong is the influence of a
former ecclesiastical language even among those who have left their native
home. There is one factor, however, which is not represented in the analogy;
the influence of the Greek-speaking Jews of the Diaspora, who gathered to the
Feasts at Jerusalem, upon the extension of the Greek language in the mother-
country.
Jesus, then, spoke Galilaean Aramaic, which is known to us as
[1] See Meyer, p. 61 ff.
277
a separate dialect from writings of the fourth to the seventh century. For the
Judaean dialect we have more and earlier evidence. We have literary
monuments in it from the first to the third century. "It is very probable," Dalman
thinks, "that the popular dialect of Northern Palestine, after the final fall of the
Judaean centre of the Aramaic-Jewish culture which followed on the Bar-
Cochba rising, spread over almost the whole of Palestine."
The retranslations into Aramaic are therefore justified. After J. A. Bolten's
attempt had remained for nearly a hundred years the only one of its kind, the
experiment has been renewed in our own time by J. T. Marshall, E. Nestle, J.
Wellhausen, Arnold Meyer, and Gustaf Dalman; in the case of Marshall and
Nestle with the subsidiary purpose of endeavouring to prove the existence of an
Aramaic documentary source. These retranslations first attracted their due
meed of attention from theologians in connexion with the Son-of-Man question.
Rarely, if ever, have theologians experienced such a surprise as was sprung
upon them by Hans Lietzmann's essay in 1896. [1] Jesus had never, so ran the
thesis of the Bonn candidate in theology, applied to Himself the title Son of Man,
because in the Aramaic the title did not exist, and on linguistic grounds could
not have existed. In the language which He used, [Son of Man in Aramaic] was
merely a periphrasis for "a man." That Jesus meant Himself when He spoke of
the Son of Man, none of His hearers could have suspected.
Lietzmann had not been without predecessors. [2] Gilbert Genebrard, who died
Archbishop of Aix as long ago as 1597, had emphasised the point that the term
Son of Man should not be interpreted with reference solely to Christ, but to the
race of mankind. Hugo Grotius maintained the same position even more
emphatically. With a quite modern one-sidedness, Paulus the rationalist
maintained in his commentaries and in his Life of Jesus that according to Ezek.
ii. 1 "Barnash" meant man in general. Jesus, he thought, whenever He used the
expression the Son of Man, pointed to Himself and thus gave it the sense of
"this man." In taking this line he gives up the general reference to mankind as a
whole for which Mark ii. 28 is generally cited as the classical passage. The
suggestion that the term Son of Man in its apocalyptic signification was first

251
attributed to Jesus at a later time and that the passages where it occurs in this
sense are therefore suspicious, was first put forward by Fr. Aug. Fritzsche. He
hoped in this way to get rid of Matt. x. 23. De Lagarde, like Paulus, emphatically
asserted that Son of Man only meant
[1] Hans Lietzmann, now Professor in Jena, was born in 1875 at Dusseldorf.
Until his call to Jena he worked as a Privat-Docent at Bonn. He has done some
very meritorious work in the publication of Early Christian writings.
[2] See Meyer, p. 14l ff.
278
man. But instead of the clumsy explanation of the rationalist he save another
and a more pleasing one, namely, that Jesus by choosing this title designed to
ennoble mankind. Wellhausen, in his "History of Israel and of the Jews" (1894),
remarked on it as strange that Jesus should have called Himself "the Man." B.
D. Eerdmans, taking the apocalyptic significance of the term as his starting-
point, attempted to carry out consistently the theory of the later interpolation of
this title into the savings of Jesus. [1]
Thus Lietzmann had predecessors; but they were not so in any real sense.
They had either started out from the Marcan passage where the Son of Man is
described as the Lord of the Sabbath, and endeavoured arbitrarily to interpret
all the Son-of-Man passages in the same sense-or they assumed without
sufficient grounds that the title Son of Man was a later interpolation. The new
idea consisted in combining the two attempts, and declaring the passages
about the Son of Man to be linguistically and historically impossible, seeing that,
on linguistic grounds, "son of man" means "man."
Arnold Meyer and Wellhausen expressed themselves in the same sense as
Lietzmann. The passages where Jesus uses the expression in an unmistakably
Messianic sense are, according to them, to be put down to the account of Early
Christian theology. The only passages which in their opinion are historically
tenable are the two or three in which the expression denotes man in general, or
is equivalent to the simple "I." These latter were felt to be a difficulty by the
Church when it came to think in Greek, since this way of speaking of oneself
was strange to them; consequently the expression appeared to them
deliberately enigmatic and only capable of being interpreted in the sense which
it bears in Daniel. The Son-of-Man conception, argued Lietzmann, when he
again approached the question two years later, had arisen in a Hellenistic
environment, [2] on the basis of Dan. vii. 13; N. Schmidt, [3] too, saw in the
apocalyptic Bar-Nasha passages which follow the revelation of the Messiahship
at Caesarea Philippi an interpolation from the later apocalyptic theology. On the
other hand, P. Schmiedel still wished to make it a Messianic designation, and to
take it as being historical in this sense even in passages in which the term man
"gave a possible sense." [4] H.
[1] "De Oorsprong van de uitdrukking 'Zoon des Menschen' als evangelische
Messiastitel," Theol. Tijdschr., 1894. (The Origin of the Expression "Son of Man"
as a Title of the Messiah in the Gospels.)

252
[2] H. Lietzmann, "Zur Menschensohnfrage" (The Son-of-Man Problem), Theol.
Arb. des Rhein. wissenschaftl. Predigervereins, 1898.
3 N. Schmidt, "Was [Son of Man] a Messianic title?" Journal of the Society for
Biblical Literature, xv., 1896.
[4] P. Schmiedel, "Der Name Menschensohn und das Messiasbewugstsein
Jesu" (The Designation Son of Man and the Messianic Consciousness of
Jesus), 1898, Prot. Monatsh. 2, pp. 252-267.
279
Gunkel thought that it was possible to translate Bar-Nasha simply by "man," and
nevertheless hold to the historicity of the expression as a self-designation of
Jesus. Jesus, he suggests, had borrowed this enigmatic term, which goes back
to Dan. vii. 13, from the mystical apocalyptic literature, meaning thereby to
indicate that He was the Man of God in contrast to the Man of Sin. [1]
Holtzmann felt a kind of relief in handing over to the philologists the obstinate
problem which since the time of Baldensperger and Weiss had caused so much
trouble to theologians, and wanted to postpone the historical discussion until the
Aramaic experts had settled the linguistic question. That happened sooner than
was expected. In 1898 Dalman declared in his epoch-making work (Die Worte
Jesu) that he could not admit the linguistic objections to the use of the
expression Son of Man by Jesus. "Biblical Aramaic," he says, "does not differ in
this respect from Hebrew. The simple [Man] and not [Son of Man] is the term for
man." . . . It was only later that the Jewish-GaIilaean dialect, like the Palestinian-
Christian dialect, used [Son of Man] for man, though in both idioms the simple
[Man] occurs in the sense of "some one." "In view of the whole facts of the
case," he continues, "what has to be said is that Jewish-Palestinian Aramaic of
the earlier period used [Man] for 'man,' and occasionally to designate a plurality
of men makes use of the expression [Sons of Man]. The singular [Son of Man]
was not current, and was only used in imitation of the Hebrew text of the Bible,
where [Son of MAn] belongs to the poetic diction, and is, moreover, not of very
frequent occurrence." "It is," he says else- where, "by no means a sign of a
sound historical method, instead of working patiently at the solution of the
problem, to hasten like Oort and Lietzmann to the conclusion that the absence
of the expression in the New Testament Epistles is a proof that Jesus did not
use it either, but that there was somewhere or other a Hellenistic community in
the Early Church which had a predilection for this name, and often made Jesus
speak of Himself in the Gospel narrative in the third person, in order to find an
opportunity of bringing it in."
So the oxen turned back with the ark into the land of the Philistines. It was a
case of returning to the starting-point and deciding on historical grounds in what
sense Jesus had used the expression. [2] But the possi-
[1] H. Gunkel, Z. w. Th., 1899, 42, pp. 581-611.
[2] For the last phase of the discussion we may name:

253
Wellhausen, Skizzen und Vorarbeiten (Sketches and Studies), 1899, pp. 187-
215, where he throws further light on Dalman's philological objections; and goes
on to deny Jesus' use of the expression.
W. Baldensperger, "Die neueste Forschung uber den Menschensohn," Theol.
Rundschau, 1900, 3, pp. 201-210, 243-255.
P. Fiebig, Der Menschensohn. Tubingen, 1901.
P. W. Schmiedel, "Die neueste Auffassung des Namens Menschensohn," Prot.
Monatsh. 5, pp. 333-351, 1901. (The Latest View of the Designation Son of
Man.)
P. W. Schmidt, Die Geschichte Jesu, ii. (Erlauterungen-Explanations).
Tubingen, 1904, p. 157 ff.
280
bilities were reduced by the way in which Lietzmann had posed the problem,
since the interpretations according to which Jesus had used it in a veiled ethical
Messianic sense, to indicate the ethical and spiritual transformation of all the
eschatological conceptions, were now manifestly incapable of offering any
convincing argument against the radical denial of the use of the expression.
Baldensperger rightly remarked in a review of the whole discussion that the
question which was ultimately at stake in the combat over the title Son of Man
was the question whether Jesus was the Messiah or no, and that Dalman, by
his proof of its linguistic possibility, had saved the Messiahship of Jesus. [1]
But what kind of Messiahship? Is it any other kind than the future Messiahship
of the apocalyptic Son of Man which Johannes Weiss had asserted? Did Jesus
mean anything different by the Son of Man from that which was meant by the
apocalyptic writers? To put it otherwise: behind the Son-of-Man problem there
lies the general question whether Jesus can have described Himself as a
present Messiah; for the fundamental difficulty is that He, a man upon earth,
should give Himself out to be the Son of Man, and at the same time apparently
give to that title a quite different sense from that which it previously possessed.
The champion of the linguistic possibility of this self-designation made the last
serious attempt to render the transformation of the conception historically
conceivable. He argues that Jesus cannot have used it as a mere meaningless
expression, a periphrasis for the simple I. [2] On the other hand, the term
cannot have been understood by the disciples as an exalted title, or at least
only in the sense that the title indicative of exaltation is paradoxically connected
with the title indicative of humility. "We shall be justified in saying, that, for the
Synoptic Evangelists,
[1] Dalman's reputation as an authority upon Jewish Aramaic is so deservedly
high that it is necessary to point out that his solution did not, as Dr. Schweitzer
seems to say, entirely dispose of the linguistic difficulties raised by Lietzmann
as to the meaning and use of barnash and barnasha in Aramaic. The English
reader will find the linguistic facts well put in sections 4 and 32 of N. Schmidt's
article "Son of Man" in Encyclopedia Biblica (cols. 4708, 4723), or he may
consult Prof. Bevan's review of Dalman's Worte Jesu in the Critical Review for

254
1899, p. 148 ff. The main point is that and
are equally legitimate translations of barnasha.
Thus the contrast in the Greek between and
in Mark ii. 27 and 28, or again in Mark viii. 36
and 38, disappears on retranslation into the dialect spoken by Jesus. Whether
this linguistic fact makes the sayings in which
occurs unhistorical is a further question upon which scholars can take, and have
taken, opposite opinions.-F. C. B.
[2] See Worte Jesu, 1898, p. 191 ff. ( = E. T. p. 234 ff.).
281
'Man's Son' was no title of honour for the Messiah, but-as it must necessarily
appear to a Hellenist-a veiling of His Messiahship under a name which
emphasises the humanity of its bearer." For them it was not the references to
the sufferings of "Man's Son" that were paradoxical, but the references to His
exaltation: that "Man's Son" should be put to death is not wonderful; what is
wonderful is His "coming again upon the clouds of heaven."
If Jesus called Himself the Son of Man, the only conclusion which could be
drawn by those that heard Him was, "that for some reason or other He desired
to describe Himself as a Man par excellence." There is no reason to think of the
Heavenly Son of Man of the Similitudes of Enoch and Fourth Ezra; that
conception could hardly be present to the minds of His auditors. "How was one
who was now walking upon earth, to come from heaven? He would have
needed first to be translated thither. One who had died or been rapt away from
earth might be brought back to earth again in this way, or a being who had
never before been upon earth, might be conceived as descending thither."
But if, on the one hand, the title Son of Man was not to be understood apart
from the reference to the passage in Daniel, while on the other Jesus so
designated Himself as a man actually present upon earth, "what was really
implied was that He was the man in whom Daniel's vision of 'one like unto a
Son of Man' was being fulfilled." He could not certainly expect from His hearers
a complete understanding of the self-designation. "We are doubtless justified in
saying that in using it, He intentionally offered them an enigma which
challenged further reflection upon His Person."
According to Peter's confession the name was intelligible to the disciples as
coming from Dan. vii. 13, and obviously indicating Him who was destined to the
sovereignity of the world. Jesus calls Himself the Son of Man, "not as meaning
the lowly one, but as a scion of the human race with its human weakness,
whom nevertheless God will make Lord of the world; and it is very probable that
Jesus found the Son of Man of Dan. vii. in Ps. viii. 5 ff. also." Sayings regarding
humiliation and suffering could be attached to the title just as well as references
to exaltation. For since the "Child of Man" has placed Himself upon the throne
of God, He is in reality no longer a mere man, but ruler over heaven and earth,
"the Lord."

255
This attempt of Dalman's has the same significance in regard to the question of
the Messiahship as Bousset's had for the ethical question. Just as ln Bousset's
view the Kingdom of God was, in a paradoxical way, after all proclaimed as
present, so here the self-designation "Son of Man" is retained by a paradox as
conveying the sense of a present Messiahship. But the documents do not give
any support to this assumption;
282
on the contrary they contradict it at every point. According to Dalman it was not
the predictions of the passion of the Son of Man which sounded paradoxical to
the disciples, but the predictions of His exaltation. But we are distinctly told that
when He spoke of His passion they did not understand the saying. The
predictions of His exaltation, however, they understood so well that without
troubling themselves further about the predictions of the sufferings, they began
to dispute who should be greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven, and who should
have his throne closest to the Son of Man. And if it is once admitted that Jesus
took the designation from Daniel, what ground is there for asserting that the
purely eschatological transcendental significance which the term had taken on
in the Similitudes of Enoch and retains in Fourth Ezra had no existence for
Jesus? Thus, by a long round-about, criticism has come back to Johannes
Weiss. [1] His eschatological solution of the Son-of-Man question-the elements
of which are to be found in Strauss's first Life of Jesus-is the only possible one.
Dalman expresses the same idea in the form of a question. "How could one
who was actually walking the earth come down from heaven? He would have
needed first to be translated thither. One who had died or been rapt away from
earth might possibly be brought back to earth in this way." Having reached this
point we have only to observe further that Jesus, from the "confession of Peter"
onwards, always speaks of the Son of Man in connexion with death and
resurrection. That is to say, that once the disciples know in what relation He
stands to the Son of Man, He uses this title to suggest the manner of His return:
as the sequel to His death and resurrection He will return to the world again as
a superhuman Personality. Thus the purely transcendental use of the term
suggested by Dalman as a possibility turns out to be the historical reality.
[1] See the classical discussion in J. Weiss, Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche
Gottes, 1892, 1st ed., p. 52 ff.
In the second edition, of 1900, p. 160 ff., he allows himself to be led astray by
the "chiefest apostles" of modern theology to indulge in the subtleties of fine
spun psychology, and explain Jesus' way of speaking of Himself in the third
person as the Son of Man as due to the "extreme modesty of Jesus," a modesty
which did not forsake Him in the presence of His judges. This recent access of
psychologist exegesis has not conduced to clearness of presentation, and the
preference for Lucan narrative does not so much contribute to throw light on the
facts as to discover in the thoughts of Jesus subtleties of which the historical
Jesus never dreamt. If the Lord always used the term Son of Man when
speaking of His Messiahship, the reason was that this was the only way in

256
which He could speak at all, since the Messiahship was not yet realised, but
was only to be so at the appearing of the Son of Man. For a consistent, purely
historical, non-psychological exposition of the Son-of-Man passages see Albert
Schweitzer, Das Messianitats- und Leidensgeheimnis. (The Secret of the
Messiahship and the Passion.) A sketch of the Life of Jesus. Tubingen, 1901.
283
Broadly speaking, therefore, the Son-of-Man problem is both historically
solvable and has been solved. The authentic passages are those in which the
expression is used in that apocalyptic sense which goes back to Daniel. But we
have to distinguish two different uses of the term according to the degree of
knowledge assumed in the hearers. If the secret of Jesus is unknown to them,
then in that case they understand simply that Jesus is speaking of the "Son of
Man" and His coming without having any suspicion that He and the Son of Man
have any connexion. It would be thus, for instance, when in sending out the
disciples in Matt. x. 23 He announced the imminence of the appearing of the
Son of Man; or when He pictured the judgment which the Son of Man would
hold (Matt. xxv. 31-46), if we may imagine it to have been spoken to the people
at Jerusalem. Or, on the other hand, the secret is known to the hearers. In that
case they understand that the term Son of Man points to the position to which
He Himself is to be exalted when the present era passes into the age to come.
It was thus, no doubt, in the case of the disciples at Caesarea Philippi, and of
the High Priest to whom Jesus, after answering his demand with the simple
"Yea" (Mark xiv. 62), goes on immediately to speak of the exaltation of the Son
of Man to the right hand of God, and of His coming upon the clouds of heaven.
Jesus did not, therefore, veil His Messiahship by using the expression Son of
Man, much less did He transform it, but He used the expression to refer, in the
only possible way, to His Messianic office as destined to be realised at His
"coming," and did so in such a manner that only the initiated understood that He
was speaking of His own coming, while others understood Him as referring to
the coming of a Son of Man who was other than Himself.
The passages where the title has not this apocalyptic reference, or where,
previous to the incident at Caesarea Philippi, Jesus in speaking to the disciples
equates the Son of Man with His own "ego," are to be explained as of literary
origin. This set of secondary occurrences of the title has nothing to do with
"Early Church theology"; it is merely a question of phenomena of translation and
tradition. In the saying about the Sabbath in Mark ii. 28, and perhaps also in the
saying about the right to forgive sins in Mark ii. 10, Son of Man doubtless stood
in the original in the general sense of "man," but was later, certainly by our
Evangelists, understood as referring to Jesus as the Son of Man. In other
passages tradition, following the analogy of those passages in which the title is
authentic, put in place of the simple I-expressed in Aramaic by "the man"-the
self-designation "Son of Man," as we can clearly show by comparing Matt. xvi.
13, "Who do men say that the the Son of Man is?" with Mark viii. 27, "Who do
men say that I am?"

257
Three passages call for special discussion. In the statement that a
284
man may be forgiven for blasphemy against the Son of Man but not for
blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, in Matt. xii. 32, the "Son of Man" may be
authentic. But of course it would not, even in that case, give any hint that "Son
of Man designates the Messiah in His humiliation" as Dalman wished to infer
from the passage, but would mean that Jesus was speaking of the Son of Man,
here as elsewhere, in the third person without reference to Himself, and was
thinking of a contemptuous denial of the Parousia such as might have been
uttered by a Sadducee. But if we take into account the parallel in Mark iii. 28
and 29 where blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is spoken of without any
mention of blasphemy against the Son of Man, it seems more natural to take
the mention of the Son of Man as a secondary interpolation, derived from the
same line of tradition, perhaps from the same hand, as the "Son of Man" in the
question to the disciples at Caesarea Philippi.
The two other sayings, the one about the Son of Man "who hath not where to
lay His head," Matt. viii. 20, and that about the Son of Man who must submit to
the reproach of being a glutton and a wine-bibber Matt. xi. 19, belong together.
If we assume it to be possible, in conformity with the saying about the purpose
of the parables in Mark iv. 11 and 12, that Jesus sometimes spoke words which
He did not intend to be understood, we may-if we are unwilling to accept the
supposition of a later periphrasis for the ego, which would certainly be the most
natural explanation-recognise in these sayings two obscure declarations
regarding the Son of Man. They would then be supposed to have meant in the
original form, which is no longer clearly recognisable, that the Son of Man would
in some way justify the conduct of Jesus of Nazareth. But the way in which this
idea is expressed was not such as to make it easy for His hearers to identify
Him with the Son of Man. Moreover, it was for them a conception impossible to
realise, since Jesus was a natural, and the Son of Man a supernatural, being;
and the eschatological scheme of things had not provided for a man who at the
end of the existing era should hint to others that at the great transformation of
all things He would be manifested as the Son of Man. This case presented itself
only in the course of history, and it created a preparatory stage of eschatology
which does not answer to any traditional scheme.
That act of the self-consciousness of Jesus by which He recognised Himself in
His earthly existence as the future Messiah is the act in which eschatology
supremely affirms itself. At the same time, since it brings, spiritually, that which
is to come, into the unaltered present, into the existing era, it is the end of
eschatology. For it is its "spiritualisation," a spiritualisation of which the ultimate
consequence was to be that all its "supersensuous" elements were to be
realised only spiritually in the present earthly conditions, and all that is affirmed
as supersensuous in
285

258
the transcendental sense was to be regarded as only the ruined remains of an
eschatological world-view. The Messianic secret of Jesus is the basis of
Christianity, since it involves the de-nationalising and the spiritualisation of
Jewish eschatology.
Yet more. It is the primal fact, the starting-point of a process which manifests
itself, indeed, in Christianity, but cannot fully work itself out even here, of a
movement in the direction of inwardness which brings all religious magnitudes
into the one indivisible spiritual present, and which Christian dogmatic has not
ventured to carry to its completion. The Messianic consciousness of the
uniquely great Man of Nazareth sets up a struggle between the present and the
beyond, and introduces that resolute absorption of the beyond by the present,
which in looking back we recognise as the history of Christianity, and of which
we are conscious in ourselves as the essence of religious progress and
experience -a process of which the end is not yet in sight.
In this sense Jesus did "accept the world" and did stand in conflict with
Judaism. Protestantism was a step-a step on which hung weighty
consequences-in the progress of that "acceptance of the world" which was
constantly developing itself from within. By a mighty revolution which was in
harmony with the spirit of that great primal act of the consciousness of Jesus,
though in opposition to some of the most certain of His sayings, ethics became
world-accepting. But it will be a mightier revolution still when the last remaining
ruins of the supersensuous other-worldly system of thought are swept away in
order to clear the site for a new spiritual, purely real and present world. All the
inconsistent compromises and constructions of modern theology are merely an
attempt to stave off the final expulsion of eschatology from religion, an
inevitable but a hopeless attempt. That proleptic Messianic consciousness of
Jesus, which was in reality the only possible actualisation of the Messianic idea,
carries these consequences with it inexorably and unfailingly. At that last cry
upon the cross the whole eschatological supersensuous world fell in upon itself
in ruins, and there remained as a spiritual reality only that present spiritual
world, bound as it is to sense, which Jesus by His all-powerful word had called
into being within the world which He contemned. That last cry, with its
despairing abandonment of the eschatological future, is His real acceptance of
the world. The "Son of Man" was buried in the ruins of the falling eschatological
world; there remained alive only Jesus "the Man." Thus these two Aramaic
synonyms include in themselves, as in a symbol of reality, all that was to come.
If theology has found it so hard a task to arrive at an historical comprehension
of the secret of this self-designation, this is due to the fact that the question is
not a purely historical one. In this word there lies
286
the transformation of a whole system of thought, the inexorable consequence of
the elimination of eschatology from religion. It was only in this future form, not
as actual, that Jesus spoke of His Messiahship. Modern theology keeps on
endeavouring to discover in the title of Son of Man, which is bound up with the

259
future, a humanised present Messiahship. It does so in the conviction that the
recognition of a purely future reference in the Messianic consciousness of
Jesus would lead in the last result to a modification of the historic basis of our
faith which has itself become historical, and therefore true and self-justifying.
The recognition of the claims of eschatology signifies for our dogmatic a burning
of the boats by which it felt itself able to return at any moment from the time of
Jesus direct to the present.
One point that is worthy of notice in this connexion is the trustworthiness of the
tradition. The Evangelists, writing in Greek, and the Greek-speaking Early
Church, can hardly have retained an understanding of the purely eschatological
character of that self-designation of Jesus. It had become for them merely an
indirect method of self-designation. And nevertheless the Evangelists,
especially Mark, record the sayings of Jesus in such a way that the original
significance and application of the designation in His mouth is still clearly
recognisable, and we are able to determine with certainty the isolated cases in
which this self-designation in His discourses is of a secondary origin.
Thus the use of the term Son of Man-which, if we admitted the sweeping
proposal of Lietzmann and Wellhausen to cancel it everywhere as an
interpolation of Greek Early Church theology, would throw doubt on the whole of
the Gospel tradition-becomes a proof of the certainty and trustworthiness of that
tradition. We may, in fact, say that the progressive recognition of the
eschatological character of the teaching and action of Jesus carries with it a
progressive justification of the Gospel tradition. A series of passages and
discourses which had been endangered because from the modern theological
point of view which had been made the criterion of the tradition they appeared
to be without meaning, are now secured. The stone which the critics rejected
has become the corner-stone of the tradition.
If Aramaic scholarship appears in regard to the Son-of-Man question among the
opponents of the thorough-going eschatological view, it takes no other position
in connexion with the retranslations and in the application of illustrative parallels
from the Rabbinic literature.
In looking at the earlier works in this department, one is struck with the
smallness of the result in proportion to the labour expended. The names that
call for mention here are those of John Lightfoot, Christian Schottgen, Joh.
Gerh. Meuschen, J. Jak. Wettstein, F. Nork, Franz
287
Delitzsch, Carl Siegfried, and A. Wunsche. [1] But even a work like F. Weber's
System der altsynagogalen palastinensischen Theologie, [2] which does not
confine itself to single sayings and thoughts, but aims at exhibiting the Rabbinic
system of thought as a whole, throws, in the main, but little light on the thoughts
of Jesus. The Rabbinic parables supply, according to Julicher, but little of value
for the explanation of the parables of Jesus. [3] In this method of discourse,
Jesus is so pre-eminently original, that any other productions of the Jewish
parabolic literature are like stunted undergrowth beside a great tree; though that

260
has not prevented His originality from being challenged in this very department,
both in earlier times and at the present. As early as 1648, Robert Sheringham,
of Cambridge, [4] suggested that the parables in Matt. xx. 1 ff., xxv. 1 ft., and
Luke xvi., were derived from Talmudic sources, an opinion against which J. B.
Carpzov, the younger, raised a protest; in 1839, F. Nork asserted, in his work
on "Rabbinic Sources and Parallels for the New Testament Writings," that the
best thoughts in the discourses of Jesus are to be attributed to His Jewish
teachers; in 1880 the Dutch Rabbi, T. Tal, maintained the thesis that the
parables of the New Testament are all borrowed from the Talmud. [8] Theories
of this kind cannot be refuted, because they lack the foundation necessary to
any theory
[1] See Dalman, p. 60 ff.
John Lightfoot, Horae Hebraicae et Talmudicae in quatuor Evangelistas. Edited
by J. B. Carpzov. Leipzig, 1684.
Christian Schottgen, Horae Hebraicae et Talmudicae in universun Novum
Testamentum. Dresden-Leipzig, 1733.
Joh. Gerh. Meuschen, Novum Testamentum ex Talmude et antiquitatibus
Hebraeorum illustratum. Leipzig, 1736.
J. Jakob. Wettstein, Novum Testamentum Graescum. Amsterdam, 1751 and
1752.
F. Nork, Rabbinische Quellen und Parallelen zu neutestamentlichen
Schriftstellen, Leipzig, 1839.
Franz Delitzsch, "Horae Hebraicae et Talmudicae," in the Luth. Zeitsch., 1876-
1878.
Carl Siegfried, Analecta Rabbinica, 1875; "Rabbin. Analekten," Jahrb. f. prot.
Theol., 1876.
A. Wunsche, Neue Beitrage zur Eriauterung der Evangelien aus Talmud und
Midrasch. (Contributions to the Exposition of the Gospels from Talmud and
Midrash.) Gottingen, 1878.
[2] Leipzig, 1880; 2nd ed., 1897.
[3] Cf. for what follows' Julicher, Die Gleichnisreden Jesu, i., 1888, p. 164 ff.
[4] Robert Sheringham of Cains College, Cambridge, a royalist divine, published
an edition of the Talmudic tractate Yoma. London, 1648.-F. C. B.
[5] T. Tal, Professor Oort und der Talmud, 1880. See upon this Van Manen,
Jahrb. f. prot. Theol., 1884, p. 569. The best collection of Talmudic parables is,
according to Julicher, that of Prof. Guis. Levi, translated by L. Seligman as
Parabeln, Legenden und Gedanken aus Talmud und Midrasch. Leipzig, 2nd
ed., 1877.
288
which is to be capable of being rationally discussed-that of plain common
sense. [1]
We possess, however, really scientific attempts to define more closely the
thoughts of Jesus by the aid of the Rabbinic language and Rabbinic ideas in the
works of Arnold Meyer and Dalman. It cannot indeed be said that the obscure

261
sayings which form the problem of present-day exegesis are in all cases made
clearer by them, much as we may admire the comprehensive knowledge of
these scholars. Sometimes, indeed, they become more obscure than before.
According to Meyer, for instance, the question of Jesus whether His disciples
can drink of His cup, and be baptized with His baptism means, if put back into
Aramaic, "Can you drink as bitter a drink as I; can you eat as sharply salted
meat as I?" [2] Nor does Dalman's Aramaic retranslation help us much with the
saying about the violent who take the Kingdom of Heaven by force. According
to him, it is not spoken of the faithful, but of the rulers of this world, and refers to
the epoch of the Divine rule which has been introduced by the imprisonment of
the Baptist. No one can violently possess himself of the Divine reign, and Jesus
can therefore only mean that violence is done to it in the person of its subjects.
On this it must be remarked, that if the saying really means this, it is about as
appropriate to its setting as a rock in the sky. Jesus is not speaking of the
imprisonment of the Baptist. By the days of John the Baptist He means the time
of his public ministry.
It is equally open to question whether in putting that crucial question regarding
the Messiah in Mark xii. 37 He really intended to show, as Dalman thinks, "that
physical descent from David was not of decisive importance-it did not belong to
the essence of the Messiahship."
But a point in regard to which Dalman's remarks are of great value for the
reconstruction of the life of Jesus is the entry into Jerusalem. Dalman thinks that
the simple "Hosanna, blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord" (Mark
xi. 9) was what the people really shouted in acclamation, and that the additional
words in Mark and Matthew are simply an interpretative expansion. This
acclamation did not itself contain any Messianic reference. This explains "why
the entry into Jeru-
[1] The question may be said to have been provisionally settled by Paul Fiebig's
work, Altjudische Gleichnisse und die Gleichnisse Jesu (Ancient Jewish
Parables and the Parables of Jesus), Tubingen, 1904, in which he gives some
fifty Late-Jewish parables, and compares them with those of Jesus, the final
result being show more clearly than ever the uniqueness and absoluteness of
His creations.
[2] See the explanation by means of the Aramaic of a selection of the saying
Jesus in Meyer, pp. 72-90. A Judaism more under Parsee influence is assumed
as explaining the origin of Christianity by E. Boklen, Die Verviandschaft der
judisch-christlichen mit der parsischen Eschatologie (The Relation of Jewish-
Christian to Persian Eschatology), 1902, 510 ff.
289
salem was not made a count in the charge urged against Him before Pilate."
The events of "Palm Sunday" only received their distinctively Messianic colour
later. It was not the Messiah, but the prophet and wonder-worker of Galilee
whom the people hailed with rejoicing and accompanied with invocations of
blessing. [1]

262
Generally speaking, the value of Dalman's work lies less in the solutions which
it offers than in the problems which it raises. By its very thorough discussions it
challenges historical theology to test its most cherished assumptions regarding
the teaching of Jesus, and make sure whether they are really so certain and
self-evident. Thus, in opposition to Schurer, he denies that the thought of the
pre-existence in heaven of all the good things belonging to the Kingdom of God
was at all generally current in the Late-Jewish world of ideas, and thinks that the
occasional references [2] to a pre-existing Jerusalem, which shall finally be
brought down to the earth, do not suffice to establish the theory. Similarly, he
thinks it doubtful whether Jesus used the terms "this world (age)," "the world
(age) to come" in the eschatological sense which is generally attached to them,
and doubts, on linguistic grounds, whether they can have been used at all. Even
the use of [Hebrew] or [Hebrew] for "world" cannot be proved. In the pre-
Christian period there is much reason to doubt its occurrence, though in later
Jewish literature it is frequent. The expression in
Matt. xix. 28, is specifically Greek and cannot be reproduced in either Hebrew
or Aramaic. It is very strange that the use which Jesus makes of Amen is
unknown in the whole of Jewish literature. According to the proper idiom of the
language "[Hebrew] is never used to emphasise one's own speech, but always
with reference to the speech, prayer, benediction, oath, or curse of another."
Jesus, therefore, if He used the expression in this sense, must have given it a
new meaning as a formula of asseveration, in place of the oath which He
forbade.
All these acute observations are marked by the general tendency which was
observable in the interpretation of the term Son of Man, that is, by the
endeavour so to weaken down the eschatological conceptions of the Kingdom
and the Messiah, that the hypothesis of a making-present and spiritualising of
these conceptions in the teaching of Jesus might appear inherently and
linguistically possible and natural. The polemic against the pre-existent realities
of the Kingdom of God is intended to show that for Jesus the Reign of God is a
present benefit, which can be sought after, given, possessed, and taken. Even
before the
[1] The same view is expressed by Wellhausen, Israelitische und judische
Geschichte, 3rd ed., p. 381, note 2; and by Albert Schweitzer, Das
Messianitats- und Leidensgekeimnis, 1901.
[2] See the Apocalypse of Baruch, and Fourth Ezra.
290
time of Jesus, according to Dalman, a tendency had shown itself to lay less
emphasis, in connexion with the hope of the future, upon the national Jewish
element. Jesus forced this element still farther into the background, and gave a
more decided prominence to the purely religious element. "For Him the reign of
God was the Divine power which from this time onward was steadily to carry
forward the renewal of the world, and also the renewed world, into which men
shall one day enter, which even now offers itself, and therefore can be grasped

263
and received as a present good." The supernatural coming of the Kingdom is
only the final stage of the coming which is now being inwardly spiritually brought
about by the preaching of Jesus. Though He may perhaps have spoken of "this"
world and the "world to come," these expressions had in His use of them no
very special importance. It is for Him less a question of an antithesis between
"then" and "now," than of establishing a connexion between them by which the
transition from one to the other is to be effected.
It is the same in regard to Jesus' consciousness of His Messiahship. "In Jesus'
view," says Dalman, "the period before the commencement of the Reign of God
was organically connected with the actual period of His Reign." He was the
Messiah because He knew Himself to stand in a unique ethico-religious relation
to God. His Messiahship was not something wholly incomprehensible to those
about Him. If redemption was regarded as being close at hand, the Messiah
must be assumed to be in some sense already present. Therefore Jesus is both
directly and indirectly spoken of as Messiah.
Thus the most important work in the department of Aramaic scholarship shows
clearly the anti-eschatological tendency which characterised it from the
beginning. The work of Lietzmann, Meyer, Wellhausen, and Dalman, forms a
distinct episode in the general resistance to eschatology. That Aramaic
scholarship should have taken up a hostile attitude towards the eschatological
system of thought of Jesus lies in the nature of things. The thoughts which it
takes as its standard of comparison were only reduced to writing long after the
period of Jesus, and, moreover, in a lifeless and distorted form, at a time when
the apocalyptic temper no longer existed as the living counterpoise to the legal
righteousness, and this legal righteousness had allowed only so much of
Apocalyptic to survive as could be brought into direct connexion with it. In fact,
the distance between Jesus' world of thought and this form of Judaism is as
great as that which separates it from modern ideas. Thus in Dalman
modernising tendencies and Aramaic scholarship were able to combine in
conducting a criticism of the eschatology in the teaching of Jesus in which the
modern man thought the thoughts and the expert in Aramaic formulated and
supported them, yet without being able in
291
the end to make any impression upon the well-rounded whole formed by Jesus'
eschatological preaching of the Kingdom.
Whether Aramaic scholarship will contribute to the investigation of the life and
teaching of Jesus along other lines and in a direct and positive fashion, only the
future can show. But certainly if theologians will give heed to the question-
marks so acutely placed by Dalman, and recognise it as one of their first duties
to test carefully whether a thought or a connexion of thought is linguistically or
inherently Greek, and only Greek, in character, they will derive a notable
advantage from what has already been done in the department of Aramaic
study.

264
But if the service rendered by Aramaic studies has been hitherto mainly indirect,
no success whatever has attended, or seems likely to attend, the attempt to
apply Buddhist ideas to the explanation of the thoughts of Jesus. It could only
indeed appear to have some prospect of success if we could make up our
minds to follow the example of the author of one of the most recent of fictitious
lives of Christ in putting Jesus to school to the Buddhist priests; in which case
the six years which Monsieur Nicolas Notowitsch allots to this purpose, would
certainly be none too much for the completion of the course. [1] If imagination
boggles at this, there remains no possibility of showing that Buddhist ideas
exercised any direct influence upon Jesus. That Buddhism may have had some
kind of influence upon Late Judaism and thus indirectly upon Jesus is not
inherently impossible, if we are prepared to recognise Buddhistic influence on
the Babylonian and Persian civilisations. But it is unproved, unprovable, and
unthinkable, that Jesus derived the suggestion of the new and creative ideas
which emerge in His teaching from Buddhism. The most that can be done in this
direction is to point to certain analogies. For the parables of Jesus, Buddhist
parallels were suggested by Renan and Havet. [2]
How little these analogies mean in the eyes of a cautious observer is evident
from the attitude which Max Muller took up towards the question. "That there
are startling coincidences between Buddhism and Christianity," he remarks in
one passage, [3] "cannot be denied; and it must likewise be admitted that
Buddhism existed at least four hundred years before Christianity. I go even
further and say that I should be extremely grateful if anybody would point out to
me the historical channels through which Buddhism had influenced early
Christianity. I have been looking for such channels all my life, but hitherto I have
found none. What I have found is that for some of the most startling coin-
[1] La Vie inconnue de Jesus-Christ, par Nicolas Notowitsch. Paris, 1894.
[2] See Julicher, Gleichnisreden Jesu, i., 1888, p. 172 ff.
[3] Max Muller, India, What can it teach us? London, 1883, p. 279.
292
cidences there are historical antecedents on both sides; and if we once know
these antecedents the coincidences become far less startling."
A year before Max Muller formulated his impression in these terms Rudolf
Seydel1 had endeavoured to explain the analogies which had been noticed by
supposing Christianity to have been influenced bv Buddhism. He distinguishes
three distinct classes of analogies:
1. Those of which the points of resemblance can without difficulty be explained
as due to the influence of similar sources and motives in the two cases.
2. Those which show a so special and unexpected agreement that it appears
artificial to explain it from the action of similar causes, and the dependence of
one upon the other commends itself as the most natural explanation.
3. Those in which there exists a reason for the occurrence of the idea only
within the sphere of one of the two religions, or in which at least it can very
much more easily be conceived as originating within the one than within the

265
other, so that the inexplicability of the phenomenon within the one domain gives
ground for seeking its source within the other.
This last class demands a literary explanation of the analogy. Seydel therefore
postulates, alongside of primitive forms of Matthew and Luke, a third source, "a
poetic-apocalyptic Gospel of very early date which fitted its Christian material
into the frame of a Buddhist type of Gospel, transforming, purifying, and
ennobling the material taken from the foreign but related literature by a kind of
rebirth inspired by the Christian Spirit." Matthew and Luke, especially Luke,
follow this poetic Gospel up to the point where historic sources become more
abundant, and the primitive form of Mark begins to dominate their narrative. But
even in later parts the influence of this poetical source, which as an
independent document was subsequently lost, continued to make itself felt.
The strongest point of support for this hypothesis, if a mere con-
[1] Rudolf Seydel, Professor in the University of Leipzig, Das Evangelium von
Jesu in seinen Verhaltnissen zu Buddha-Sage und Buddha-Lehre mit
fortlaufender Rilchsicht auf andere Religionskreise. (The Gospel of Jesus in its
relation to the Buddha Legend and the Teaching of Buddha, with constant
reference to other religious groups.) Leipzig, 1882, p. 337.
Other works by the same author are Buddha und Christus. Deutsche Bucherei
No. 33, Breslau, Schottlander, 1884.
Die Buddha-Legende und das Leben Jesu nach den Evangelien. 2nd ed.
Weimar, 1897. (Edited by the son of the late author.) 129 pp.
See also on this question Van den Bergh van Eysinga, Indische Einflusse auf
evangelische Erzdhlungen. Gottingen, 1904. 104 pp.
According to J. M. Robertson, Christianity and Mythology (London, 1900), the
Christ-Myth is merely a form of the Krishna-Myth. The whole Gospel tradition is
to be symbolically interpreted.
293
jecture can be described as such, is found by Seydel in the introductory
narratives in Luke. Now it is not inherently impossible that Buddhist legends
which in one form or another were widely current in the East, may have
contributed more or less to the formation of the mythical preliminary history.
Who knows the laws of the formation of legend? Who can follow the course of
the wind which carries the seed over land and sea? But in general it may be
said that Seydel actually refutes the hypothesis which he is defending. If the
material which he brings forward is all that there is to suggest a relation
between Buddhism and Christianity, we are justified in waiting until new
discoveries are made in that quarter before asserting the necessity of a
Buddhist primitive Gospel. That will not prevent a succession of theosophic
Lives of Jesus from finding their account in Seydel's classical work. Seydel
indeed delivered himself into their hands, because he did not entirely avoid the
rash assumption of theosophic "historical science" that Jewish eschatology can
be equated with Buddhistic.

266
Eduard von Hartmann, in the second edition of his work, "The Christianity of the
New Testament," [1] roundly asserts that there can be no question of any
relation of Jesus to Buddha, nor of any indebtedness either in His teaching or in
the later moulding of the story of His life, but only of a parallel formation of myth.
[1] Das Christentum des Neuen Testaments, 1905.
* XVIII *
THE POSITION OF THE SUBJECT AT THE CLOSE OF THE NINETEENTH
CENTURY
Oskar Holtzman. Das Leben Jesu. Tubingen, 1901. 417 pp.
Das Messianitatsbewusstsein Jesu und seine neueste Bestreitung. Vortrag.
(The Messianic Consciousness of Jesus and the most recent denial of it. A
Lecture.) 1902. 26 pp. (Against Wrede.)
War Jesus Ekstatiker? (Was Jesus an ecstatic?) Tubingen, 1903. 139 pp.
Paul Wilhelm Schmidt. Die Geschichte Jesu. (The History of Jesus.) Freiburg,
1899. 175 pp. (4th impression.)
Die Geschichte Jesu. Eriautert. Mit drei Karten von Prot. K. Furrer (Zurich). (The
History of Jesus. Preliminary Discussions. With three maps by Prof. K. Furrer of
Zurich.) Tubingen, 1904. 414 pp.
Otto Schmiedel. Die Hauptprobleme der Leben-Jesu-Forschung. (The main
Problems in the Study of the Life of Jesus.) Tubingen, 1902. 71 pp. 2nd ed.,
1906.
Hermann Freiherr von Soden. Die wichtigsten Fragen im Leben Jesu. (The
most important Questions about the Life df Jesus.) Vacation Lectures. Berlin,
1904. 111 pp.
Gustav Frenssen. Hilligenlei. Berlin, 1905. pp. 462-593: "Die Handschrift." ("The
Manuscript"-in which a Life of Jesus, written by one of the characters of the
story, is given in full.)
Otto Pfleiderer. Das Urchristentum, seine Schriften und Lehren in
geschichtlichem Zusammenhang beschrieben. (Primitive Christianity. Its
Documents and Doc- trines in their Historical Context.) 2nd ed. Berlin, 1902.
Vol. i., 696 pp. _ ,
Die Entstehung des Urchristentums. (How Primitive Christianity arose.) Munich,
1905. 255 pp.
Albert Kalthoff. Das Christus-Problem. Grundlinien zu einer Sozialtheologie.
(The Christ-problem. The Ground-plan of a Social Theology.) Leipzig, 1902.
Die Entstehung des Christentums. Neue Beitrage zum Christus-Problem. (How
Christianity arose. New contributions to the Christ-problem.) Leipzig, 155 pp.
Eduard von Hartmann. Das Christentum des Neuen Testaments. (The
Christianity of the New Testament.) 2nd revised edition of "Letters on the
Christian Religion." Sachsa-in-the-Harz, 1905. 311 pp.
295
De Jonge. Jeschua. Der klassische judische Mann. Zerstorung des kirchlichen,
Enthullung des judischen Jesus-Bildes. Berlin, 1904. 112 pp. (Jeshua. The

267
Classical Jewish Man. In which the Jewish picture of Jesus is unveiled, and the
ecclesiastical picture destroyed.)
Wolfgang Kirchbach. Was lehrte Jesus? Zwei Urevangelien. (What was the
teaching of Jesus? Two Primitive Gospels.) Berlin, 1897. 248 pp. 2nd revised
and greatly enlarged edition, 1902, 339 pp.
Albert Dulk. Der Irrgang des Lebens Jesu. In geschichtlicher Auifassung dar-
gestellt. (The Error of the Life of Jesus. An Historical View.) 1st part, 1884, 395
pp.; 2nd part, 1885, 302 pp.
Paul de Regla. Jesus von Nazareth. German by A. Just. Leipzig, 1894. 435 pp.
Ernest Bosc. La Vie esoterique de Jesus de Nazareth et les origines orientales
da christianisme. (The secret Life of Jesus of Nazareth, and the Oriental Origins
of Christianity.) Paris, 1902.
THE IDEAL LIFE OF JESUS AT THE CLOSE OF THE NINETEENTH
CENTURY is the Life which Heinrich Julius Holtzmann did not write-but which
can be pieced together from his commentary on the Synoptic Gospels and his
New Testament Theology. [1] It is ideal because, for one thing, it is unwritten,
and arises only in the idea of the reader by the aid of his own imagination, and,
for another, because it is traced only in the most general outline. What
Holtzmann gives us is a sketch of the public ministry, a critical examination of
details, and a full account of the teaching of Jesus. He provides, therefore, the
plan and the prepared building material, so that any one can carry out the
construction in his own way and on his own responsibility. The cement and the
mortar are not provided by Holtzmann; every one must decide for himself how
he will combine the teaching and the life, and arrange the details within each.
We may recall the fact that Weisse, too, the other founder of the Marcan
hypothesis, avoided writing a Life of Jesus, because the difficulty of of fitting the
details into the ground-plan appeared to him so great, not to say insuperable. It
is just this modesty which constitutes his greatness and Holtzmann's. Thus the
Marcan hypothesis ends, as it had begun, with a certain historical scepticism.
[2]
[1] Heinrich Julius Holtzmann, Handkommentar. Die Synoptiker. 1st ed., 1889;
2nd ed., 1901. Lehrbuch der neutestamentlichen Theologie, 1896, vol. i.
[2] In the Catholic Church the study of the Life of Jesus has remained down to
the present day entirely free from scepticism. The reason of that is, that in
principle it hasremained at a pre-Straussian standpoint, and does not venture
upon an unreserved spplication of historical considerations either to the miracle
question or to the Johannine question, and naturally therefore resigns the
attempt to take count of and explain the great historical problems.
We may name the following Lives of Jesus produced by German Catholic
writers:-
Joh. Nep. Sepp, Das Leben Jesu Christi. Regensburg, 1843-1846. 7 vols., 2nd
ed., 1853-1862.
Peter Schegg, Sechs Bucher des Lebens Jesu. (The Life of Jesus in Six
Books.) Freiburg, 1874-1875. c. 1200 pp.

268
Joseph Grimm, Das Leben Jesu. Wurzburg, 2nd ed., 1890-1903. 6 vols.
Richard von Kralik, Jesu Leben und Werk. Kempten-Nurnberg, 1904. 481 pp.
W. Capitaine, Jesus von Nazareth. Regensburg, 1905. 192 pp.
How narrow are ihe limits within which the Catholic study of the life of Jesus
moves even when it aims at scientific treatment, is illustrated by Hermann
Schell's Christus (Mainz, 1903. 152 pp.). After reading the forty-two questions
with which he introduces his narrative one might suppose that the author was
well aware of the bearing of all the historical problems of the life of Jesus, and
intended to supply an answer to them. Instead of doing so, however, he adopts
as the work proceeds more and more the role of an apologist, not facing
definitely either the miracle question or the Johannine question, but gliding over
the difficulties by the aid of ingenious headings, so that in the end his book
almost takes the form of an explanatory text to the eighty-nine illustrations
which adorn the book and make it difficult to read.
In France, Renan's work gave the incentive to an extensive Catholic "Life-of-
Jesus" literature. We may name the following:-
Louis Veuillot, La Vie de notre Seigneur Jesus-Christ. Paris, 1864. 509 pp.
German by Waldeyer. Koln-Neuss, 1864. 573 pp.
H. Wallon, Vie de notre Seigneur Jesus-Christ. Paris, 1865. 355 pp.
A work which met with a particularly favourable reception was that of Pere
Didon, the Dominican, Jesus-Christ, Paris, 1891, 2 vols., vol. i. 483 pp., vol. ii.
469 pp. The German translation is dated 1895.
In the same year there appeared a new edition of the "Bitter Sufferings of Our
Lord Jesus Christ" (see above, p. 109 f.) by Katharina Emmerich; the cheap
popular edition of the translation of Renan's "Life of Jesus"; and the eighth
edition of Strauss's "Life of Jesus for the German People."
We may quote from the ecclesiastical Approbation printed at the beginning of
Didon's Life of Jesus. "If the author sometimes seems to speak the language of
his opponents, it is at once evident that he has aimed at defeating them on their
own ground, and he is particularly successful in doing so when he confronts
their irreligious a priori theories with the positive arguments of history."
As a matter of fact the work is skilfully written, but without a spark of
understanding of the historical questions.
All honour to Alfred Loisy! (Le Quatrieme Evangile, Paris, 1903, 960 pp.), who
takes a clear view on the Johannine question, and denies the existence ot a
Johannine historical tradition. But what that means for the Catholic camp may
be recognised from the excitement produced by the book and its express
condemnation. See also the same writer's L'Evangile et l' Eglise (German
translation, Munich, 1904 189 pp.), in which Loisy here and there makes good
historical points against Harnack's "What is Christianity?"
296
The subordinates, it is true, do not allow themselves to be disturbed by the
change of attitude at head-quarters. They keep busily at work That is their right,
and therein consists their significance. By keeping on trying to take the

269
positions, and constantly failing, they furnish a practical proof that the plan of
operations worked out by the general
297
staff is not capable of being carried out, and show why it is so, and what kind of
new tactics will have to be evolved.
The credit of having written a life of Christ which is strictly scientific, in its own
way very remarkable, and yet foredoomed to failure, belongs to Oskar
Holtzmann. [1] He has complete confidence in the Marcan plan, and makes it
his task to fit all the sayings of Jesus into this framework, to show "what can
belong to each period of the preaching of Jesus, and what cannot." His method
is to give free play to the magnetic power of the most important passages in the
Marcan text, making other sayings of similar import detach themselves from
their present connexion and come and group themselves round the main
passages.
For example, the controversy with the scribes at Jerusalem regarding the
charge of doing miracles by the help of Satan (Mark iii. 22-30) belongs,
according to Holtzmann, as regards content and chronology, to the same period
as the controversy, in Mark vii., about the ordinances of men which results in
Jesus being "obliged to take to flight"; the woes pronounced upon Chorazin,
Bethsaida, and Capernaum, which now follow on the eulogy upon the Baptist
(Matt. xi. 21-23), and are accordingly represented as having been spoken at the
time of the sending forth of the Twelve, are drawn by the same kind of magnetic
force into the neighbourhood of Mark vii., and "express very clearly the attitude
of Jesus at the time of His withdrawal from the scene of His earlier ministry."
The saying in Matt. vii. 6 about not giving that which is holy to the dogs or
casting pearls before swine, does not belong to the Sermon on the Mount, but
to the time when Jesus, after Caesarea Philippi, for- bids the disciples to reveal
the secret of His Messiahship to the multi- tude; Jesus' action in cursing the fig-
tree so that it should henceforth bring no fruit to its owner, who was perhaps a
poor man, is to be brought into relation with the words spoken on the evening
before, with reference, to the lavish expenditure involved in His anointing, "The
poor ye have always with you," the point being that Jesus now, "in the clear
consciousness of His approaching death, feels His own worth," and dismisses
"the contingency of even the poor having to lose something for His sake" with
the words "it does not matter." [2]
[1] Oskar Holtzmann, Professor of Theology at Giessen, was born in 1859 at
Stuttgart.
[2] This suggestlon reminds us involuntarily of the old rationalistic Lives of
Jesus, which are distressed that Jesus should have injured the good people of
the country of the Gesarenes by sacrificing their swine in healing the demoniac.
A good deal of old rationalistic material crops up in the very latest Lives of
Jesus, as cannot indeed fail to be the case in view of the arbitrary interpretation
of detail which is common to both. According to Oskar Holtzmann the barren fig-

270
tree has also a symbolical meaning. "It is a pledge given by God to Jesus that
His faith shall not be put to shame in the great work of His life."
298
All these transpositions and new connexions mean, it is clear, a great deal of
internal and external violence to the text.
A further service rendered by this very thorough work of Oskar Holtzmann's, is
that of showing how much reading between the lines is necessary in order to
construct a Life of Jesus on the basis of the Marcan hypothesis in its modern
interpretation. It is thus, for instance that the author must have acquired the
knowledge that the controversy about the ordinances of purification in Mark vii.
forced the people "to choose between the old and the new religion"-in which
case it is no wonder that many "turned back from following Jesus."
Where are we told that there was any question of an old and a new "religion"?
The disciples certainly did not think of things in this way as is shown by their
conduct at the time of His death and the discourses of Peter in Acts. Where do
we read that the people turned away from Jesus? In Mark vii. 17 and 24 all that
is said is, that Jesus left the people, and in Mark vii. 33 the same multitude is
still assembled when Jesus returns from the "banishment" into which Holtzmann
relegates Him.
Oskar Holtzmann declares that we cannot tell what was the size of the following
which accompanied Jesus in His journey northwards, and is inclined to assume
that others besides the Twelve shared His exile. The Evangelists, however, say
clearly that it was only the , that is, the Twelve, who were with Him.
The value which this special knowledge, independent of the text, has for the
author, becomes evident a little farther on. After Peter's confession Jesus calls
the "multitude" to Him (Mark viii. 34) and speaks to them of His sufferings and of
taking up the cross and following Him. This "multitude" Holtzmann wants to
make "the whole company of Jesus' followers," "to which belonged, not only the
Twelve whom Jesus had formerly sent out to preach, but many others also."
The knowledge drawn from outside the text is therefore required to solve a
difficulty in the text.
But how did His companions in exile, the remnant of the previous multitude,
themselves become a multitude, the same multitude as before. Would it not be
better to admit that we do not know how, in a Gentile country, a multitude could
suddenly rise out of the ground as it were, continue with Him until Mark ix. 30,
and then disappear into the earth as suddenly as they came, leaving Him to
pursue His journey towards Galilee and Jerusalem alone?
Another thing which Oskar Holtzmann knows is that it required a good deal of
courage for Peter to hail Jesus as Messiah, since the "exile wandering about
with his small following in a Gentile country" answered "so badly to the general
picture which people had formed of the coining of the Messiah." He knows too,
that in the moment of Peter's confession, "Christianity was complete" in the
sense that "a community separate
299

271
from Judaism and centering about a new ideal, then arose." This "community"
frequently appears from this point onwards. There is nothing about it in the
narratives, which know only the Twelve and the people.
Oskar Holtzmann's knowledge even extends to dialogues which are not
reported in the Gospels. After the incident at Caesarea Philippi, the minds of the
disciples were, according to him, pre-occupied by two questions. "How did
Jesus know that He was the Messiah?" and "What will be the future fate of this
Messiah?" The Lord answered both questions. He spoke to them of His
baptism, and "doubtless in close connexion with that" He told them the story of
His temptation, during which He had laid down the lines which He was
determined to follow as Messiah.
Of the transfiguration, Oskar Holtzmann can state with confidence, "that it
merely represents the inner experience of the disciples at the moment of Peter's
confession." How is it then that Mark expressly dates that scene, placing it (ix.
2) six days after the discourse of Jesus about taking up the cross and following
Him? The fact is that the time-indications of the text are treated as non-existent
whenever the Marcan hypothesis requires an order determined by inner
connexion. The statement of Luke that the transfiguration took place eight days
after, is dismissed in the remark "the motive of this indication of time is
doubtless to be found in the use of the Gospel narratives for reading in public
worship; the idea was that the section about the transfiguration should be read
on the Sunday following that on which the confession of Peter formed the
lesson." Where did Oskar Holtzmann suddenly discover this information about
the order of the "Sunday lessons" at the time when Luke's Gospel was written?
It was doubtless from the same private source of information that the author
derived his knowledge regarding the gradual development of the thought of the
Passion in the consciousness of Jesus. "After the confession of Peter at
Caesarea Philippi," he explains, "Jesus' death became for Him only the
necessary point of transition to the glory beyond. In the discourse of Jesus to
which the request of Salome gave occasion, the death of Jesus already
appears as the means of saving many from death, because His death makes
possible the coming of the Kingdom of God. At the institution of the Supper,
Jesus regards His imminent death as the meritorious deed by which the
blessings of the New Covenant, the forgiveness of sins and victory over sin, are
permanently secured to His 'community.' We see Jesus constantly becoming
more and more at home with the idea of His death and constantly giving it a
deeper interpretation."
Any one who is less skilled in reading the thoughts of Jesus, and
300
more simple and natural in his reading of the text of Mark, cannot fail to observe
that Jesus speaks in Mark x. 45 of His death as an expiation, not as a means of
saving others from death, and that at the Lord's Supper there was no reference
to His "community," but only to the inexplicable "many," which is also the word
in Mark x. 45. We ought to admit freely that we do not know what the thoughts

272
of Jesus about His death were at the time of the first prediction of the Passion
after Peter's confession; and to be on our guard against the "original sin" of
theology, that of exalting the argument from silence, when it happens to be
useful, to the rank of positive realities.
Is there not a certain irony in the fact that the application of "natural" psychology
to the explanation of the thoughts of Jesus compels the assumption of supra-
historical private information such as this? Bahrdt and Venturini hardly read
more subjective interpretations into the text than many modern Lives of Jesus;
and the hypothesis of the secret society, which after all did recognise and do
justice to the inexplicability from an external standpoint of the relation of events
and of the conduct of Jesus, was in many respects more historical than the
psychological links of connexion which our modernising historians discover
without having any foundation for them in the text.
In the end this supplementary knowledge destroys the historicity of the simplest
sections. Oskar Holtzmann ventures to conjecture that the healing of the blind
man at Jericho "is to be understood as a symbolical representation of the
conversion of Zacchaeus," which, of course, is found only in Luke. Here then
the defender of the Marcan hypothesis rejects the incident by which the
Evangelist explains the enthusiasm of the entry into Jerusalem, not to mention
that Luke tells us nothing whatever about a conversion of Zacchaeus, but only
that Jesus was invited to his house and graciously accepted the invitation.
It would be something if this almost Alexandrian symbolical exegesis
contributed in some way to the removal of difficulties and to the solution of the
main question, that, namely, of the present or future Messiah, the present or
future Kingdom. Oskar Holtzmann lays great stress upon the eschatological
character of the preaching of Jesus regarding the Kingdom, and assumes that,
at least at the beginning, it would not have been natural for His hearers to
understand that Jesus, the herald of the Messiah, was Himself the Messiah.
Nevertheless, he is of opinion that, in a certain sense, the presence of Jesus
implied the presence of the Kingdom, that Peter and the rest of the disciples,
advancing beyond the ideas of the multitude, recognised Him as Messiah, that
this recognition ought to have been possible for the people also, and, in that
case, would have been "the strongest incentive to abandon evil ways," and "that
Jesus at the time of His entry into Jerusalem seems to have felt that in
301
Isa. lxii. 11 [1] there was a direct command not to withhold the knowledge of His
Messiahship from the inhabitants of Jerusalem."
But if Jesus made a Messianic entry He must thereafter have given Himself out
as Messiah, and the whole controversy would necessarily have turned upon this
claim. This, however, was not the case. According Holtzmann, all that the
hearers could make out of that crucial question for the Messiahship in Mark xii.
35-37 was only "that Jesus clearly showed from the Scriptures that the Messiah
was not in reality the son of David." [2]

273
But how was it that the Messianic enthusiasm on the part of the people did not
lead to a Messianic controversy, in spite of the fact that Jesus "from the first
came forward in Jerusalem as Messiah"? This difficulty O. Holtzmann seems to
be trying to provide against when he remarks in a footnote: "We have no
evidence that Jesus, even during the last sojourn in Jerusalem, was recognised
as Messiah except by those who belonged to the inner circle of disciples. The
repetition by the children of the acclamations of the disciples (Matt. xxi. 15 and
16) can hardly be considered of much importance in this connexion." According
to this, Jesus entered Jerusalem as Messiah, but except for the disciples and a
few children no one recognised His entry as having a Messianic significance!
But Mark states that many spread their garments upon the way, and others
plucked down branches from the trees and strewed them in the way, and that
those that went before and those that followed after, cried "Hosanna!" The
Marcan narrative must therefore be kept out of sight for the moment in order
that the Life of Jesus as conceived by the modern Marcan hypothesis may not
be endangered.
We should not, however, regard the evidence of supernatural knowledge and
the self-contradictions of this Life of Jesus as a matter for censure, but rather as
a proof of the merits of O. Holtzmann's work. [3]
[1] Isaiah lxii. 11, "Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation
cometh."
[2] "For Jesus Himself," Oskar Holtzmann argues, "this discovery"-he means the
antinomy which He had discovered in Psalm ex.-"disposed of a doubt which had
always haunted him. If He had really known Himself to be descended from the
Davidic line, He would certainly not have publicly suggested a doubt as to the
Davidic descent of the Messiah."
[3] Oskar Holtzmann's work. War Jesus Ekstatiker? (Tubingen, 1903, 139 pp.)
is in reality a new reading of the life of Jesus. By emphasising the ecstatic
element he breaks with the "natural" conception of the life and teaching of
Jesus; and, in so far, approaches the eschatological view. But he gives a very
wide significance to the term ecstatic, subsuming under it, it might almost be
said, all the eschatological thoughts and utterances of Jesus. He explains, for
instance, that "the conviction of the approaching destruction of existing
conditions is ecstatic." At the same time, the only purpose served by the
hypothesis of ecstasy is to enable the author to attribute to Jesus "The belief
that in His own work the Kingdom of God was already beginning, and the
promise of the Kingdom to individuals; this can only be considered ecstatic."
The opposites which Bousset brings together by the conception of paradox are
united by Holtzmann by means of the hypothesis of ecstasy. That is, however,
to play fast and loose with the meaning of "ecstasy." An ecstasy is, in the usual
understanding of the word, an abnormal, transient condition of excitement in
which the subject's natural capacity for thought and feeling, and therewith all
impressions from without, are suspended, being superseded by an intense
mental excitation and activity. Jesus may possibly have been in an ecstatic

274
state at His baptism and at the transfiguration. What O. Holtzmann represents
as a kind of permanent ecstatic state is rather an eschatological fixed idea. With
eschatology, ecstasy has no essential connexion. It is possible to be
eschatologically minded without being an ecstatic, and vice versa. Philo
attributes a great importance to ecstasy in his religious life, but he was scarcely,
if at all, interested in eschatology.
302
He has written the last large-scale Life of Jesus, the only one which the Marcan
hypothesis has produced, and aims at providing a scientific basis for the
assumptions which the general lines of that hypothesis compel him to make;
and in this process it becomes clearly apparent that the connexion of events
can only be carried through at the decisive passages by violent treatment, or
even by rejection of the Marcan text in the interests of the Marcan hypothesis.
These merits do not belong in the same measure to the other modern Lives of
Jesus, which follow more or less the same lines. They are short sketches, in
some cases based on lectures, and their brevity makes them perhaps more
lively and convincing than Holtzmann's work; but they take for granted just what
he felt it necessary to prove. P. W. Schmidt's Geschichte Jesu (1899), which as
a work of literary art has few rivals among theological works of recent years,
confines itself to pure narrative. The volume of prolegomena which appeared in
1904, and is intended to exhibit the foundations of the narrative, treats of the
sources, of the Kingdom of God, of the Son of Man, and of the Law. It makes
the most of the weakening of the eschatological standpoint which is manifested
in the second edition of Johannes Weiss's "Preaching of Jesus," but it does not
give sufficient prominence to the difficulties of reconstructing the public ministry
of Jesus.
Neither Otto Schmiedel's "The Principal Problems of the Study of the Life of
Jesus," nor von Soden's "Vacation Lectures" on "The Principal Questions in the
Life of Jesus" fulfils the promise of its title. [2] They both
[1] P. W. Schmidt, now Professor in Basle, was born in Berlin in 1845.
[2] Otto Schmiedel, Professor at the Gymnasium at Eisenach, Die
Hauptproblem der Leben-Jesu-Forschung. Tubingen, 1902. 71 pp. Schmiedel
was born in 1858.
Hermann Freiherr von Soden, Die wichtigsten Fragen im Lehen Jesu. Von
Soden, Professor in Berlin, and preacher at the Jerusalem Kirche, was born in
1852.
We may mention also the following works:-
Fritz Barth (born 1856, Professor at Bern), Die Hauptprobleme des Lebens
Jesu. 1st ed., 1899; 2nd ed., 1903.
Friedrich Nippold's Der Entwicklungsgang des Lebens Jesu im Wortlaut der drei
ersten Evangelien (The Course of the Life of Jesus in the Words of the First
Three Evangelists) (Hamburg, 1895, 213 pp.) is only an arrangement of the
sections.

275
Konrad Furrer's Vortrage uber das Leben Jesu Christi (Lectures on the Life of
Jesus Christ) have a special charm by reason of the author's knowledge of the
country and the locality. Furrer, who was born in 1838, is Professor at Zurich.
Another work which should not be forgotten is R. Otto's Leben und Wirken Jesu
nach historisch-kritischer Auffassung (Life and Work of Jesus from the Point of
View of Historica1 Criticism). A Lecture. Gottingen, 1902. Rudolf Otto, born in
1869, is Privat-Docent at Gottingen.
303
aim rather at solving new problems proposed by themselves than at restating
the old ones and adding new. They hope to meet the views of Jonnes Weiss by
strongly emphasising the eschatology, and think they can escape the critical
scepticism of writers like Volkmar and Brandt by assuming an "Ur-Markus."
Their view is, therefore, that with a few modifications dictated by the
eschatological and sceptical school, the traditional conception of the Life of
Jesus is still tenable, whereas it is just the a priori presuppositions of this
conception, hitherto held to be self-evident, which constitute the main problems.
"It is self-evident," says von Soden in one passage, "in view of the inner
connexion in which the Kingdom of God and the Messiah stood in the thoughts
of the people . . . that in all classes the question must have been discussed, so
that Jesus could not permanently have avoided their question, 'What of the
Messiah? Art thou not He?'" Where, in the Synoptics, is there a word to show
that this is "self-evident"? When the disciples in Mark viii. tell Jesus "whom men
held Him to be," none of them suggests that any one had been tempted to
regard Him as the Messiah. And that was shortly before Jesus set out for
Jerusalem.
From the day when the envoys of the Scribes from Jerusalem first appeared in
the north, the easily influenced Galilaean multitude began, according to von
Soden, "to waver." How does he know that the Galilaeans were easily
influenced? How does he know they "wavered"? The Gospels tell us neither
one nor the other. The demand for a sign was, to quote von Soden again, a
demand for a proof of His Messiahship. "Yet another indication," adds the
author, "that later Christianity, in putting so high a value on the miracles of
Jesus as a proof of His Messiahship, departed widely from the thoughts of
Jesus."
Before levelling reproaches of this kind against later Christianity, it would be
well to point to some passage of Mark or Matthew in which there is mention of a
demand for a sign as a proof of His Messiahship.
When the appearance of Jesus in the south-we are still following von Soden-
aroused the Messianic expectations of the people, as they had formerly been
aroused in His native country, "they once more failed to understand the
correction of them which Jesus had made by
304
the manner of His entry and His conduct in Jerusalem." They are unable to
understand this "transvaluation of values," and as often as the impression made

276
by His personality suggested the thought that He was the Messiah, they
became doubtful again. Wherein consisted the correction of the Messianic
expectation given at the triumphal entry? Was it that He rode upon an ass?
Would it not be better if modern historical theology, instead of always making
the people "grow doubtful " were to grow a little doubtful of itself, and begin to
look for the evidence of that "transvaluation of values" which, according to them,
the contemporaries of Jesus were not able to follow?
Von Soden also possesses special information about the "peculiar history of the
origin" of the Messianic consciousness of Jesus. He knows that it was
subsidiary to a primary general religious consciousness of Sonship. The rise of
this Messianic consciousness implies, in its turn, the "transformation of the
conception of the Kingdom of God, and explains how in the mind of Jesus this
conception was both present and future." The greatness of Jesus is, he thinks,
to be found in the fact that for Him this Kingdom of God was only a "limiting
conception"-the ultimate goal of a gradual process of approximation. "To the
question whether it was to be realised here or in the beyond Jesus would have
answered, as He answered a similar question, 'That, no man knoweth; no, not
the Son.'"
As if He had not answered that question in the petition "Thy Kingdom come"-
supposing that such a question could ever have occurred to a contemporary-in
the sense that the Kingdom was to pass from the beyond into the present!
This modern historical theology will not allow Jesus to have formed a "theory" to
explain His thoughts about His passion. "For Him the certainty was amply
sufficient; 'My death will effect what My life has not been able to accomplish.'"
Is there then no theory implied in the saying about the "ransom for many," and
in that about "My blood which is shed for many for the forgiveness of sins,"
although Jesus does not explain it? How does von Soden know what was
"amply sufficient" for Jesus or what was not?
Otto Schmiedel goes so far as to deny that Jesus gave distinct ex- pression to
an expectation of suffering; the most He can have done-and this is only a
"perhaps"-is to have hinted at it in His discourses.
In strong contrast with this confidence in committing themselves to historical
conjectures stands the scepticism with which von Soden and Schmiedel
approach the Gospels. "It is at once evident," says Schmiedel "that the great
groups of discourses in Matthew, such as the Sermon the Mount, the Seven
Parables of the Kingdom, and so forth, were not
305
arranged in this order in the source (the Logia), still less by Jesus Himself. The
order is, doubtless, due to the Evangelist. But what is the answer the question,
"On what grounds is this 'at once' clear?" [1]
Von Soden's pronouncement is even more radical. "In the composition of the
discourses," he says, "no regard is paid in Matthew, any more than in John, to
the supposed audience, or to the point of time in the life of Jesus to which they
are attributed." As early as the Sermon on the Mount we find references to

277
persecutions, and warnings against false prophets. Similarly, in the charge to
the Twelve, there are also warnings, which undoubtedly belong to a later time.
Intimate sayings, evidently intended for the inner circle of disciples, have the
widest publicity given to them.
But why should whatever is incomprehensible to us be unhistorical? Would it
not be better simply to admit that we do not understand certain connexions of
ideas and turns of expression in the discourses of Jesus?
But instead even of making an analytical examination of the apparent
connexions, and stating them as problems, the discourses of Jesus and the
sections of the Gospels are tricked out with ingenious headings which have
nothing to do with them. Thus, for instance, von Soden heads the Beatitudes
(Matt. v. 3-12), "What Jesus brings to men," the following verses (Matt. v. 13-
16), "What He makes of men." P. W. Schmidt, in his "History of Jesus," shows
himself a past master in this art. "The rights of the wife" is the title of the
dialogue about divorce, as if the question at stake had been for Jesus the
equality of the sexes, and not simply and solely the sanctity of marriage.
"Sunshine for the children" is his heading for the scene where Jesus takes the
children in His arms-as if the purpose of Jesus had been to protest against
severity in the upbringing of children. Again, he brings together the stories of the
man who must first bury his father, of the rich young man, of the dispute about
precedence, of Zacchaeus, and others which have equally little connexion
under the heading "Discipline for Jesus' followers." These often brilliant
creations of artificial connexions of thought give a curious attractiveness to the
works of Schmidt and von Soden. The latter's survey of the Gospels is a really
delightful performance. But this kind of thing is not consistent with pure
objective history.
[1] Schmiedel is not altogether right in making "the Heidelberg Professor
Paulus" follow the same lines as Reimarus, "except that his works, of 1804 and
1828, are less malignant, but only the more dull for that." In reality the deistic
Life of Jesus by Reimarus, and the rationalistic Life by Paulus have nothing in
common. Paulus was perhaps influenced by Venturini, but not by Reimarus.
The assertion that Strauss wrote his "Life of Jesus for the German people"
because "Renan's fame gave him no peace" is not justified, either by Strauss's
character or by the circumstances in which the second Life of Jesus was
produced.
306
Disposing in this lofty fashion of the connexion of events, Schmiedel and von
Soden do not find it difficult to distinguish between Mark and "Ur-Markus"; that
is, to retain just so much of the Gospel as will fit in to their construction.
Schmiedel feels sure that Mark was a skilful writer, and that the redactor was "a
Christian of Pauline sympathies." According to "Ur-Markus," to which Mark iv.
33 belongs, the Lord speaks in parables in order that the people may
understand Him the better; "it was only by the redactor that the Pauline theory

278
about hardening their hearts (Rom. ix.-xi.) was interpolated, in Mark iv. 10 ff.
and the meaning of Mark iv. 33 was thus obscured."
It is high time that instead of merely asserting Pauline influences in Mark some
proof of the assertion should be given. What kind of appearance would Mark
have presented if it had really passed through the hands of a Pauline Christian?
Von Soden's analysis is no less confident. The three outstanding miracles, the
stilling of the storm, the casting out of the legion of devils, the overcoming of
death (Mark iv. 35-v. 43), the romantically told story of the death of the Baptist
(Mark vi. 17-29), the story of the feeding of the multitudes in the desert, of
Jesus' walking on the water, and of the transfiguration upon an high mountain,
and the healing of the lunatic boy-all these are dashed in with a broad brush,
and offer many analogies to Old Testament stories, and some suggestions of
Pauline conceptions, and reflections of experiences of individual believers and
of the Christian community. "All these passages were, doubtless, first written
down by the compiler of our Gospel."
But how can Schmiedel and von Soden fail to see that they are heading straight
for Bruno Bauer's position? They assert that there is no distinction of principle
between the way in which the Johannine and the Synoptic discourses are
composed: the recognition of this was Bruno Bauer's starting-point. They
propose to find experiences of the Christian community and Pauline teaching
reflected in the Gospel of Mark; Bruno Bauer asserted the same. The only
difference is that he was consistent, and extended his criticism to those portions
of the Gospel which do not present the stumbling-block of the supernatural.
Why should these not also contain the theology and the experiences of the
community transformed into history? Is it only because they remain within the
limits of the natural?
The real difficulty consists in the fact that all the passages which von Soden
ascribes to the redactor stand, in spite of their mythical colouring, in a closely-
knit historical connexion; in fact, the historical connexion is nowhere so close.
How can any one cut out the feeding of the multitudes and the transfiguration as
narratives of secondary origin without destroying the whole of the historical
fabric of the Gospel of Mark? Or
307
was it the redactor who created the plan of the Gospel of Mark, as von Soden
seems to imply? [1]
But in that case how can a modern Life of Jesus be founded on the Marcan
plan? How much of Mark is, in the end, historical? Why should not Peter's
confession at Caesarea Philippi have been derived from the theology of the
primitive Church, just as well as the transfiguration? The only difference is that
the incident at Caesarea Philippi is more within the limits of the possible,
whereas the scene upon the mountain has a supernatural colouring. But is the
incident at Philippi so entirely natural? Whence does Peter know that Jesus is
the Messiah?

279
This semi-scepticism is therefore quite unjustifiable, since in Mark natural and
supernatural both stand in an equally good and close historical connexion.
Either, then, one must be completely sceptical like Bruno Bauer, and challenge
without exception all the facts and connexions of events asserted by Mark; or, if
one means to found an his-
[1] Von Soden gives on pp. 24 ff. the passages of Mark which he supposes to
be derived from the Petrine tradition in a different order from that in which they
occur in Mark, regrouping them freely. He puts together, for instance, Mark i.
16-20, iii. 13-19, vi. 7-16, viii. 27-ix. 1, ix. 33-40, under the title "The formation
and training of the band of disciples." He supposes Mark, the pupil of Peter, to
have grouped in this way by a kind of association of ideas "what he had heard
Peter relate in his missionary journeys, when writing it down after Peter's death,
not connectedly, but giving as much as he could remember of it"; this would be
in accordance with the statement of Papias that Mark wrote "not in order."
Papias's statement, therefore, refers to an "Ur-Markus," which he found lacking
in historical order.
But what are we to make of a representative of the early Church thus
approaching the Gospels with the demand for historical arrangement? And
good, simple old Papias, of all people!
But if the Marcan plan was not laid down in "Ur-Markus," there is nothing for it-
since the plan was certainly not given in the collection of Logia-but to ascribe it
to the author of our Gospel of Mark, to the man, that is, who wrote down for the
first time these "Pauline conceptions," those reflections of experiences of
individual believers and of the community, and inserted them into the Gospel. It
is proposed, then, to retain the outline which he has given of the life of Jesus,
and reject at the same time what he relates. That is to say, he is to be believed
where it is convenient to believe him, and silenced where it is inconvenient. No
more complete refutation of the Marcan hypothesis could possibly be given than
this analysis, for it destroys its very foundation, the confident acceptance of the
historicity of the Marcan plan.
If there is to be an analysis of sources in Mark, then the Marcan plan must be
ascribed to "Ur-Markus," otherwise the analysis renders the Marcan hypothesis
historically useless. But if "Ur-Markus" is to be reconstructed on the basis of
assigning to it the Marcan plan, then we cannot separate the natural from the
supernatural, for the supernatural scenes, like the feeding of the multitude and
the transfiguratlon, are among the main features of the Marcan outline.
No hypothetical analysis of "Ur-Markus" has escaped this dilemma; what it can
affect by literary methods is historically useless, and what would be historically
useful cannot be attained nor "presented" by literary methods.
308
torical Life of Jesus upon Mark, one must take the Gospel as a whole because
of the plan which runs right through it, accepting it as historical and then
endeavouring to explain why certain narratives, like the feeding of the multitude
and the transfiguration, are bathed in a supernatural light, and what is the

280
historical basis which underlies them. A division between the natural and
supernatural in Mark is purely arbitrary, because the supernatural is an
essential part of the history. The mere fact that he has not adopted the mythical
material of the childhood stories and the post-resurrection scenes ought to have
been accepted as evidence that the supernatural material which he does
embody belongs to a category of its own and cannot be simply rejected as due
to the invention of the primitive Christian community. It must belong in some
way to the original tradition.
Oskar Holtzmann realises that to a certain extent. According to him Mark is a
writer "who embodied the materials which he received from the tradition more
faithfully than discriminatingly." "That which was related as a symbol of inner
events, he takes as history-in the case, for example, of the temptation, the
walking on the sea, the transfiguration of Jesus." "Again in other cases he has
made a remarkable occurrence into a supernatural miracle, as in the case of the
feeding of the multitude, where Jesus' courageous love and ready organising
skill overcame a momentary difficulty, whereas the Evangelist represents it as
an amazing miracle of Divine omnipotence."
Oskar Holtzmann is thus more cautious than von Soden. He is inclined to see in
the material which he wishes to exclude from the history, not so much
inventions of the Church as mistaken shaping of history by Mark, and in this
way he gets back to genuine old-fashioned rationalism. In the feeding of the
multitude Jesus showed "the confidence of a courageous housewife who knows
how to provide skilfully for a great crowd of children from small resources."
Perhaps in a future work Oskar Holtzmann will be less reserved, not for the
sake of theology, but of national well-being, and will inform his contemporaries
what kind of domestic economy it was which made it possible for the Lord to
satisfy with five loaves and two fishes several thousand hungry men.
Modern historical theology, therefore, with its three-quarters scepticism, is left at
last with only a torn and tattered Gospel of Mark in its hands. One would
naturally suppose that these preliminary operations upon the source would lead
to the production of a Life of Jesus of a similarly fragmentary character. Nothing
of the kind. The outline is still the same as in Schenkel's day, and the
confidence with which construction is carried out is not less complete. Only the
catch-words with which the narrative is enlivened have been changed, being
taken in part from Nietzsche. The liberal Jesus has given place to
309
Germanic Jesus. This is a figure which has as little to do with the Marcan
hypothesis as the "liberal" Jesus had which preceded it; otherwise it could not
so easily have survived the downfall of the Gospel of Mark as an historical
source. It is evident, therefore, that this professedly historical Jesus is not a
purely historical figure, but one which has been artificially transplanted into
history. As formerly in Renan the romantic spirit created the personality of Jesus
in its own image, so at the present day the Germanic spirit is making a Jesus
after its own likeness. What is admitted as historic is just what the Spirit of the

281
time can take out of the records in order to assimilate it to itself and bring out of
it a living form.
Frenssen betrays the secret of his teachers when in Hilligenlei he confidently
superscribes the narrative drawn from the "latest critical investigations" with the
title "The Life of the Saviour portrayed according to German research as the
basis for a spiritual re-birth of the German nation." [1]
As a matter of fact the Life of Jesus of the "Manuscript" [2] is unsatisfactory both
scientifically and artistically, just because it aims at being at once scientific and
artistic. If only Frenssen, with his strongly life-accepting instinct, which gives to
his thinking, at least in his earliest writings where he reveals himself without
artificiality, such a wonderful simplicity and force, had dared to read his Jesus
boldly from the original records, without following modern historical theology in
all its meanderings! He would have been able to force his way through the
underwood well enough if only he had been content to break the branches that
got in his way, instead of always waiting until some one went in front to
disentwine them for him. The dependence to which he surrenders himself is
really distressing. In reading almost every paragraph one can tell whether Kai
Jans was looking, as he wrote it, into Oskar Holtzmann or P. W. Schmidt or von
Soden. Frenssen resigns the dramatic scene of the healing of the blind man at
Jericho. Why? Because at this point
[1] Von Soden, for instance, germanises Jesus when he writes, "and this nature
is sound to the core. In spite of its inwardness there is no trace of an
exaggerated sentimentality. In spite of all the intensity of prayer there is nothing
of ecstasy or vision. No apocalyptic dream-pictures find a lodging-place in His
soul."
Is a man who teaches a world-renouncing ethic which sometimes soars to the
dizzy heights such as that of Matt. xix. 12, according to our conceptions "sound
to the core"? And does not the life of Jesus present a number of occasions on
which He seems to have been in an ecstasy?
Thus, von Soden has not simply read his Jesus out of the texts, but has added
something of his own, and that something is Germanic in colouring.
[3] i.e., the MS. Life of Jesus written by Kai Jans, one of the characters of the
novel. The wy in which the whole life-experience of this character prepares him
for the writing of the Life is strikingly-if not always acceptably-worked out.-
TRANSLATOR.
310
he was listening to Holtzmann, who proposes to regard the healing of the blind
man as only a symbolical representation of the "conversion of Zacchaeus."
Frenssen's masters have robbed him of all creative spontaneity. He does not
permit himself to discover motifs for himself but confines himself to working over
and treating in cruder colours those which he finds in his teachers.
And since he cannot veil his assumptions in the cautious, carefully modulated
language of the theologians, the faults of the modern treatment of the life of
Jesus appear in him exaggerated an hundredfold. The violent dislocation of

282
narratives from their connexion, and the forcing upon them of a modern
interpretation, becomes a mania with the writer and a torture to the reader. The
range of knowledge not drawn from the text is infinitely increased. Kai Jans
sees Jesus after the temptation cowering beneath the brow of the hill "a poor
lonely man torn by fearful doubts, a man in the deepest distress." He knows too
that there was often great danger that Jesus would "betray the 'Father in
heaven' and go back to His village to take up His handicraft again, but now as a
man with a torn and distracted soul and a conscience tortured by the gnawings
of remorse."
The pupil is not content, as his teachers had been, merely to make the people
sometimes believe in Jesus and sometimes doubt Him; he makes the
enthusiastic earthly Messianic belief of the people "tug and tear" at Jesus
Himself. Sometimes one is tempted to ask whether the author in his zeal "to use
conscientiously the results of the whole range of scientific criticism" has not
forgotten the main thing, the study of the Gospels themselves.
And is all this science supposed to be new? [1] Is this picture of Jesus really the
outcome of the latest criticism? Has it not been in existence since the beginning
of the 'forties, since Weisse's criticism of the Gospel history? Is it not in principle
the same as Renan's, only that Germanic lapses of taste here take the place of
Gallic, and "German art for German people," [2] here quite out of place, has
done its best to remove from the picture every trace of fidelity?
[1] Frenssen's Kai Jans professes to have used the "results of the whole range
of critical investigation" in writing his work. Among the books which he
enumerates and recommends in the after-word, we miss the works of Strauss,
Weisse, Keim, Volkmar, and Brandt, and, generally speaking, the names of
those who in the past have done something really great and original. Of the
moderns, Johannes Weiss is lacking. Wrede is mentioned, but is virtually
ignored. Pfleiderer's remarkable and profound presentation of Jesus in the
Urchristentum (E.T. "Primitive Christianity," vol. ii., 1909) is non-existent so far
as he is concerned.
[2] Heimatkunst, the ideal that every production of German art should be racy of
the soil. It has its relative justification as a protest against the long subservience
of some departments of German art to French taste.-TRANSLATOR.
311
Kai Jans' "Manuscript" represents the limit of the process of diminishing the
personality of Jesus. Weisse left Him still some greatness, something
unexplained, and did not venture to apply to everything the petty standards of
inquisitive modern psychology. In the 'sixties psychology became more
confident and Jesus smaller; at the close of the century the confidence of
psychology is at its greatest and the figure of Jesus its smallest-so small, that
Frenssen ventures to let His life be projected and written by one who is in the
midst of a love affair!
This human life of Jesus is to be "heart-stirring" from beginning to to end, and
"in no respect to go beyond human standards"! And this Jesus who "racks His

283
brains and shapes His plans" is to contribute to bring about a re-birth of the
German people. How could He? He is Himself only a phantom created by the
Germanic mind in pursuit of a religious will-o'-the-wisp.
It is possible, however, to do injustice to Frenssen's presentation, and to the
whole of the confident, unconsciously modernising criticism of which he here
acts as the mouthpiece. These writers have the great merit of having brought
certain cultured circles nearer to Jesus and made them more sympathetic
towards Him. Their fault lies in their confidence, which has blinded them to what
Jesus is and is not, what He can and cannot do, so that in the end they fail to
understand "the signs of the times" either as historians or as men of the
present.
If the Jesus who owes His birth to the Marcan hypothesis and modern
psychology were capable of regenerating the world He would have done it long
ago, for He is nearly sixty yars old and his latest portraits are much less life-like
than those drawn by Weisse, Schenkel, and Renan, or by Keim, the most
brilliant painter of them all.
For the last ten years modern historical theology has more and more adapted
itself to the needs of the man in the street. More and more, even in the best
class of works, it makes use of attractive head-lines as a means of presenting
its results in a lively form to the masses. Intoxicated with its own ingenuity in
inventing these, it becomes more and more confident in its cause, and has
come to believe that the world's salvation depends in no small measure upon
the spreading of its own "assured results" broad-cast among the people. It is
time that it should begin to doubt itself, to doubt its "historical" Jesus, to doubt
the confidence with which it has looked to its own construction for the moral and
religious regeneration of our time. Its Jesus is not alive, however Germanic they
may make Him.
It was no accident that the chief priest of "German art for German people" found
himself at one with the modern theologians and offered them his alliance. Since
the 'sixties the critical study of the Life of Jesus ln Germany has been
unconsciously under the influence of an
312
imposing modern-religious nationalism in art. It has been deflected by it as by
an underground magnetic current. It was in vain that a few purely historical
investigators uplifted their voices in protest. The process had to work itself out.
For historical criticism had become in the hands of most of those who practised
it, a secret struggle to reconcile the Germanic religious spirit with the Spirit of
Jesus of Nazareth. [1] It was concerned for the religious interests of the present.
Therefore its error had a kind of greatness, it was in fact the greatest thing
about it; and the severity with which the pure historian treats it is in proportion to
his respect for its spirit. For this German critical study of the Life of Jesus is an
essential part of German religion. As of old Jacob wrestled with the angel, so
German theology wrestles with Jesus of Nazareth and will not let Him go until
He bless it-that is, until He will consent to serve it and will suffer Himself to be

284
drawn by the Germanic spirit into the midst of our time and our civilisation. But
when the day breaks, the wrestler must let Him go. He will not cross the ford
with us. Jesus of Nazareth will not suffer Himself to be modernised. As an
historic figure He refuses to be detached from His own time. He has no answer
for the question, "Tell us Thy name in our speech and for our day!" But He does
bless those who have wrestled with Him, so that, though they cannot take Him
with them, yet, like men who have seen God face to face and received strength
in their souls, they go on their way with renewed courage, ready to do battle
with the world and its powers.
But the historic Jesus and the Germanic spirit cannot be brought together
except by an act of historic violence which in the end injures both religion and
history. A time will come when our theology, with its pride in its historical
character, will get rid of its rationalistic bias. This bias leads it to project back
into history what belongs to our own time, the eager struggle of the modern
religious spirit with the Spirit of Jesus, and seek in history justification and
authority for its beginning. The consequence is that it creates the historical
Jesus in its own image, so that it is not the modern spirit influenced by the Spirit
of Jesus, but the Jesus of Nazareth constructed by modern historical theology,
that is set to work upon our race. ,
Therefore both the theology and its picture of Jesus are poor and weak. Its
Jesus, because He has been measured by the petty standard of the modern
man, at variance with himself, not to say of the modern candidate in theology
who has made shipwreck; the theologians the themselves, because instead of
seeking, for themselves and others, hoow they may best bring the Spirit of
Jesus in living power into our world, they
[1] The Jesus of H. S. Chamberlain's Worte Christi, 1901, 286 pp., is also
modern. But the modernity is not so obtrusive, because he describes only the
teaching of Jesus, not His life.
313
keep continually forging new portraits of the historical Jesus, and think they
have accomplished something great when they have drawn an Oh! of
astonishment from the multitude, such as the crowds of a great city emit on
catching sight of a new advertisement in coloured lights.
Any one who, admiring the force and authority of genuine rationalism has got rid
of the naive self-satisfaction of modern theology, which is in essence only the
degenerate offspring of rationalism with a tincture of history, rejoices in the
feebleness and smallness of its professedly historical Jesus, rejoices in all
those who are beginning to doubt the truth of this portrait, rejoices in the over-
severity with which it is attacked, rejoices to take a share in its destruction.
Those who have begun to doubt are many, but most of them only make known
their doubts by their silence. There is one, however, who has spoken out, and
one of the greatest-Otto Pfleiderer. [1]
In the first edition of his Urchristentum, published in 1887, he still shared the
current conceptions and constructions, except that he held the credibility of

285
Mark to be more affected than was usually supposed by hypothetical Pauline
influences. In the second edition [2] his positive knowledge has been ground
down in the struggle with the sceptics-it is Brandt who has especially affected
him-and with the partisans of eschatology. This is the first advance-guard action
of modern theology coming into touch with the troops of Reimarus and Bruno
Bauer.
Pfieiderer accepts the purely eschatological conception of the Kingdom of God
and holds also that the ethics of Jesus were wholly conditioned by eschatology.
But in regard to the question of the Messiahship of Jesus he takes his stand
with the sceptics. He rejects the hypothesis of a Messiah who, as being a
"spiritual Messiah," conceals His claim, but on the other hand, he cannot accept
the eschatological Son-of-Man Messiahship having reference to the future,
which the eschatological school finds in the utterances of Jesus, since it implies
prophecies of His suffering, death, and resurrection which criticism cannot
admit. Instead of finding the explanation of how the Messianic title arose to the
reflections of Jesus about the death which lay before Him," he is inclined to find
it "rather in the reflection of the Christian community upon the catastrophic
death and exaltation of its Lord after this had actually taken place."
[1] Born in 1839 at Stettin. Studied at Tubingen, was appointed Professor in
1870 at Jena and in 1875 at Berlin. (Died 1908.)
[2] Das Urchristentum, seine Schriften und Lehren in geschichtlichem
Zusammenhang beschrieben 2nd ed. Berlin, 1902. Vol. i. (696 pp.), 615 ff.: Die
Predigt Jesu und der Glaube der Urgemeinde (English Translation, "Primitive
Christianity," chap. xvi.). Pfleiderer's latest views are set forth in his work, based
on academic lectures, Die Entstehung ties Urchristentums. (How Christianity
arose.) Munich, 1905. 255 pp.
314
Even the Marcan narrative is not history. The scepticism in regard to the main
source, with which writers like Oskar Holtzmann, Schmiedel, and von Soden
conduct a kind of intellectual flirtation, is here erected into a principle. "It must
be recognised," says Pfleiderer, "that in respect of the recasting of the history
under theological influences, the whole of our Gospels stand in principle on the
same footing. The distinction between Mark, the other two Synoptists, and John
is only relative-a distinction of degree corresponding to different stages of
theological reflection and the development of the ecclesiastical consciousness."
If only Bruno Bauer could have lived to see this triumph of his opinions!
Pfleiderer, however, is conscious that scepticism, too, has its difficulties. He
wishes, indeed, to reject the confession of Jesus before the Sanhedrin
"because its historicity is not well established (none of the disciples were
present to hear it, and the apocalyptic prophecy which is added. Mark xiv. 62, is
certainly derived from the ideas of the primitive Church)"; on the other hand, he
is inclined to admit as possibilities-though marking them with a note of
interrogation-that Jesus may have accepted the homage of the Passover

286
pilgrims, and that the controversy with the Scribes about the Son of David had
some kind of reference to Jesus Himself.
On the other hand, he takes it for granted that Jesus did not prophesy His
death, on the ground that the arrest, trial, and betrayal must have lain outside all
possibility of calculation even for Him. All these, he thinks, came upon Jesus
quite unexpectedly. The only thing that He might have apprehended was "an
attack by hired assassins," and it is to this that He refers in the saying about the
two swords in Luke xxii. 36 and 38, seeing that two swords would have sufficed
as a pro- tection against such an attack as that, though hardly for anything
further. When, however, he remarks in this connexion that "this has been
constantly overlooked" in the romances dealing with the Life of Jesus, he does
injustice to Bahrdt and Venturini, since according to them the chief concern of
the secret society in the later period of the life of Jesus was to protect Jesus
from the assassination with which He was menaced, and to secure His formal
arrest and trial by the Sanhediin. Their view of the historical situation is
therefore identical with Pfleiderer's, viz. that assassination was possible, but
that administrative action was unexpected and is inexplicable.
But how is this Jesus to be connected with primitive Christianity? How did the
primitive Church's belief in the Messiahship of Jesus arise? To that question
Pfleiderer can give no other answer than that of Volkmar and Brandt, that is to
say, none. He laboriously brings together wood, straw, and stubble, but where
he gets the fire from to kindle the
315
whole into the ardent faith of primitive Christianity he is unable to make clear.
According to Albert Kalthoff, [1] the fire lighted itself-Christianity arose-by
spontaneous combustion, when the inflammable material, religious and social,
which had collected together in the Roman Empire, came in contact with the
Jewish Messianic expectations. Jesus of Nazareth never existed; and even
supposing He had been one of the numerous Jewish Messiahs who were put to
death by crucifixion, He certainly did not found Christianity. The story of Jesus
which lies before us in the Gospels is in reality only the story of the way in which
the picture of Christ arose, that is to say, the story of the growth of the Christian
community. There is therefore no problem of the Life of Jesus, but only a
problem of the Christ.
Kalthoff has not indeed always been so negative. When in the year 1880 he
gave a series of lectures on the Life of Jesus he felt himself justified "in taking
as his basis without further argument the generally accepted results of modern
theology." Afterwards he became so completely doubtful about the Christ after
the flesh whom he had at that time depicted before his hearers that he wished
to exclude Him even from the register of theological literature, and omitted to
enter these lectures in the list of his writings, although they had appeared in
print. [2]
His quarrel with the historical Jesus of modern theology was that he could find
no connecting link between the Life of Jesus constructed by the latter and

287
primitive Christianity. Modern theology, he remarks in one passage, with great
justice, finds itself obliged to assume, at the point where the history of the
Church begins, "an immediate declension from and falsification of, a pure
original principle," and that in so doing "it is deserting the recognised methods
of historical science." If then we cannot trace the path from its beginning
onwards, we had better try to work backwards, endeavouring first to define in
the theology of the primitive Church the values which we shall look to find again
in the Life of Jesus.
In that he is right. Modern historical theology will not have refuted
[1] Albert Kalthoff, Das Christusproblem. Grundlinien zu einer Sozialtheologie.
(The Problem of the Christ: Ground-plan of a Social Theology.) Leipzig, 1902.
87 pp.
Die Entstehung des Christentums. Neue Bzitriige zum Christusproblem. (How
Christianity arose.) Leipzig, 1904. 155 pp.
Albert Kalthoff was born in 1850 at Barmen, and is engaged in pastoral work ln
Bremen.
[2] Das Leben Jesu. Lectures delivered before the Protestant Reform Society at
Berlin. Berlin, 1880. 173 pp.
316
him until it has explained how Christianity arose out of the life of Jesus without
calling in that theory of an initial "Fall" of which Harnack, Wernle, and all the rest
make use. Until this modern theology has made it in some measure intelligible
how, under the influence of the Jewish Messiah sect, in the twinkling of an eye,
in every direction at once, Graeco-Roman popular Christianity arose; until at
least it has described the popular Christianity of the first three generations it
must concede to all hypotheses which fairly face this problem and endeavour to
solve it their formal right of existence.
The criticism which Kalthoff directs against the "positive" accounts of the Life of
Jesus is, in part, very much to the point. "Jesus," he says in one place, "has
been made the receptacle into which every theologian pours his own ideas." He
rightly remarks that if we follow "the Christ" backwards from the Epistles and
Gospels of the New Testament right to the apocalyptic vision of Daniel, we
always find in Him superhuman traits alongside of the human. "Never and
nowhere," he insists, "is He that which critical theology has endeavoured to
make out of Him, a purely natural man, an indivisible historical unit." "The title of
'Christ' had been raised hy the Messianic apocalyptic writings so completely into
the sphere of the heroic that it had become impossible to apply it to a mere
historical man." Bruno Bauer had urged the same considerations upon the
theology of his time, declaring it to be unthinkable that a man could have arisen
among the Jews and declared "I am the Messiah."
But the unfortunate thing is that Kalthoff has not worked through Bruno Bauer's
criticism, and does not appear to assume it as a basis, hut remains standing
half-way instead of thinking the questions through to the end as that keen critic
did. According to Kalthoff it would appear that, year in year out, there was a

288
constant succession of Messianic disturbances among the Jews and of crucified
claimants of the Messiahship. "There had been many a 'Christ,'" he says in one
place, "before there was any question of a Jesus in connexion with this title."
How does Kalthoff know that? If he had fairly considered and felt the force of
Bruno Bauer's arguments, he would never have ventured on this assertion; he
would have learned that it is not only historically unproved, but intrinsically
impossible.
But Kalthoff was in far too great a hurry to present to his readers a description
of the growth of Christianity, and therewith of the picture of the Christ, to absorb
thoroughly the criticism of his great predecessor. He soon leads his reader
away from the high road of criticism into a morass of speculation, in order to
arrive by a short cut at Graeco-Roman primitive Christianity. But the trouble is
that while the guide walks
317
lightly and safely, the ordinary man, weighed down by the pressure of historical
considerations, sinks to rise no more.
The conjectural argument which Kalthoff follows out is in itself acute, and forms
a suitable pendent to Bauer's reconstruction of the course of events. Bauer
proposed to derive Christianity from the Graeco-Roman philosophy; Kalthoff,
recognising that the origin of popular Christianity constitutes the main question,
takes as his starting-point the social movements of the time.
In the Roman Empire, so runs his argument, among the oppressed masses of
the slaves and the populace, eruptive forces were concentrated under high
tension. A communistic movement arose, to which the influence of the Jewish
element in the proletariat gave a Messianic-Apocalyptic colouring. The Jewish
synagogue influenced Roman social conditions so that "the crude social ferment
at work in the Roman Empire amalgamated itself with the religious and
philosophical forces of the time to form the new Christian social movement."
Early Christian writers had learned in the synagogue to construct
"personifications." The whole Late-Jewish literature rests upon this principle.
Thus "the Christ" became the ideal hero of the Christian community, "from the
socio-religious standpoint the figure of Christ is the sublimated religious
expression for the sum of the social and ethical forces which were at work at a
certain period." The Lord's Supper was the memorial feast of this ideal hero.
"As the Christ to whose Parousia the community looks forward this Hero-god of
the community bears within Himself the capacity for expansion into the God of
the universe, into the Christ of the Church, who is identical in essential nature
with God the Father. Thus the belief in the Christ brought the Messianic hope of
the future into the minds of the masses, who had already a certain organisation,
and by directing their thoughts towards the future it won all those who were sick
of the past and despairing about the present."
The death and resurrection of Jesus represent experiences of the community.
"For a Jew crucified under Pontius Pilate there was certainly no resurrection. All
that is possible is a vague hypothesis of a vision lacking all historical reality, or

289
an escape into the vaguenesses of theological phraseology. But for the
Christian community the resurrection was something real, a matter of fact. For
the community as such was not annihilated in that persecution: it drew from it,
rather, new strength and life."
But what about the foundations of this imposing structure?
For what he has to tell us about the condition of the Roman Empire and the
social organisation of the proletariat in the time of Trajan-
318
for it was then that the Church first came out into the light-we may leave the
responsibility with Kalthoff. But we must inquire more closely how he brings the
Jewish apocalyptic into contact with the Roman proletariat.
Communism, he says, was common to both. It was the bond which united the
apocalyptic "other-worldliness" with reality. The only difficulty is that Kalthoff
omits to produce any proof out of the Jewish apocalypses that communism was
"the fundamental economic idea of the apocalyptic writers." He operates from
the first with a special preparation of apocalyptic thought, of a socialistic or
Hellenistic character. Messianism is supposed to have taken its rise from the
Deuteronomic reform as "a social theory which strives to realise itself in
practice." The apocalyptic of Daniel arose, according to him, under Platonic
influence. "The figure of the Messiah thus became a human figure; it lost its
specifically Jewish traits." He is the heavenly prototypal ideal man. Along with
this thought, and similarly derived from Plato, the conception of immortality
makes its appearance in apocalyptic. [1] This Platonic apocalyptic never had
any existence, or at least, to speak with the utmost possible caution, its
existence must not be asserted in the absence of all proof.
But, supposing it were admitted that Jewish apocalyptic had some affinity for
the Hellenic world, that it was Platonic and communistic, how are we to explain
the fact that the Gospels, which describe the genesis of Christ and Christianity,
imply a Galilaean and not a Roman environment?
As a matter of fact, Kalthoff says, they do imply a Roman environment. The
scene of the Gospel history is laid in Palestine, but it is drawn in Rome. The
agrarian conditions implied in the narratives and parables are Roman. A
vineyard with a wine-press of its own could only be found, according to Kalthoff,
on the large Roman estates. So, too, the legal conditions. The right of the
creditor to sell the debtor, with his wife and children, is a feature of Roman, not
of Jewish law.
Peter everywhere symbolises the Church at Rome. The confession of Peter had
to be transferred to Caesarea Philippi because this town, "as the seat of the
Roman administration," symbolised for Palestine the political presence of
Rome. , .
The woman with the issue was perhaps Poppaea Sabina, the wife of Nero,
"who in view of her strong leaning towards Judaism might well be described in
the symbolical style of the apocalyptic writings as the woman who touched the
hem of Jesus' garment."

290
[1] If Kalthoff would only have spoken of the conception of resurrection instead
of the conception of immortality! Then his subjective knowledge would have
been more or less tolerable.
319
The story of the unfaithful steward alludes to Pope Callixtus, who, when the
slave of a Christian in high position, was condemned to the mines for the crime
of embezzlement; that of the woman who was a sinner refers to Marcia, the
powerful mistress of Commodus, at whose interccssion Callixtus was released,
to be advanced soon afterwards to the bishopric of Rome. "These two
narratives, therefore," Kalthoff suggests, "which very clearly allude to events
well known at that time, and doubtless much discussed in the Christian
community, were admitted into the Gospel to express the views of the Church
regarding the life-story of a Roman bishop which had run its course under the
eyes of the community, and thereby to give to the events themselves the
Church's sanction and interpretation."
Kalthoff does not, unfortunately, mention whether this is a case of simple,
ingenuous, or of conscious, didactic, Early Christian imagination.
That kind of criticism is a casting out of Satan by the aid of Beelzebub. If he was
going to invent on this scale, Kalthoff need not have found any difficulty in
accepting the figure of Jesus evolved by modern theology. One feels annoyed
with him because, while his thesis is ingenious, and, as against "modern
theology" has a considerable measure of justification, he has worked it out in so
unmteresting a fashion. He has no one but himself to blame for the fact that
instead of leading to the right explanation, it only introduced a wearisome and
unproductive controversy. [1]
In the end there remains scarcely a shade of distinction between Kalthoff and
his opponents. They want to bring their "historical Jesus" into the midst of our
time. He wants to do the same with his "Christ." "A secularised Christ," he says,
"as the type of the self-determined man who amid strife and suffering carries
through victoriously, and fully realises, His own personality in order to give the
infinite fullness of love which He bears within Himself as a blessing to mankind-
a Christ such as that can awaken to new life the antique Christ-type of the
Church. He is no longer the Christ of the scholar, of the abstract theological
thinker with his scholastic rules and methods. He is the people's Christ, the
Christ of the ordinary man, the figure in which all those powers of the human
soul which are most natural and simple-and therefore most
[1] Against Kalthoff: Wilhelm Bousset, Was wissen wir von Jesus? (What do we
know about Jesus?) Lectures delivered before the Protestantenverein at
Bremen. alle, 1904. 73 pp. In reply: Albert Kalthoff, Was wissen wir von Jesus?
A settlement of accounts with Professor Bousset. Berlin, 1904. 43 pp.
A sound historical position is set forth in the clear and trenchant lecture of W.
Kapp, Das Christus- und Christentumsproblent bei Kalthoff. (The problem of the
Christ and of Christianity as handled by Kalthoff.) Strassburg, 1905. 23 pp.
320

291
exalted and divine-find an expression at once sensible and spiritual." But that is
precisely the description of the Jesus of modern historical theology; why, then,
make this long roundabout through scepticism? The Christ of Kalthoff is nothing
else than the Jesus of those whom he combats in such a lofty fashion; the only
difference is that he draws his figure of Christ in red ink on blotting-paper, and
because it is red in colour and smudgy in outline, wants to make out that it is
something new.
It is on ethical grounds that Eduard von Hartmann [1] refuses to accept the
Jesus of modern theology. He finds fault with it because in its anxiety to retain a
personality which would be of value to religion it does not sufficiently distinguish
between the authentic and the "historical" Jesus. When criticism has removed
the paintings-over and retouchings to which this authentic portrait of Jesus has
been subjected, it reaches, according to him, an unrecognisable painting below,
in which it is impossible to discover any clear likeness, least of all one of any
religious use and value.
Were it not for the tenacity and the simple fidelity of the epic tradition, nothing
whatever would have remained of the historic Jesus. What has remained is
merely of historical and psychological interest.
At His first appearance the historic Jesus was, according to Eduard von
Hartmann, almost "an impersonal being," since He regarded Himself so
exclusively as the vehicle of His message that His personality hardly came into
the question. As time went on, however. He developed a taste for glory and for
wonderful deeds, and fell at last into a condition of "abnormal exaltation of
personality." In the end He declares Himself to His disciples and before the
council as Messiah. "When He felt His death drawing nigh He struck the
balance of His life, found His mission a failure. His person and His cause
abandoned by God, and died with the unanswered question on His lips, 'My
God, why hast thou forsaken me?'"
It is significant that Eduard von Hartmann has not fallen into the mistake of
Schopenhauer and many other philosophers, of identifying the pessimism of
Jesus with the Indian speculative pessimism of Buddha. The pessimism of
Jesus, he says, is not metaphysical, it is "a pessimism of indignation," born of
the intolerable social and political conditions of the time. Von Hartmann also
clearly recognises the significance of eschatology, but he does not define its
character quite correctly, since he bases his impressions solely on the Talmud,
hardly making any use of
[1] Eduard von Hartmann, Das Christentum des Neuen Testaments. (The
Christianity of the N.T.) 2nd, revised and altered, edition of the "Letters on the
Christian Religion." Sachsa-in-the-Harz, 1905. 311 pp.
321
the Old Testament, of Enoch, the Psalms of Solomon, Baruch, or Fourth Ezra.
He has an irritating way of still using the name "Jehovah."
Like Reimarus-von Hartmann's positions are simply modernised Reimarus-he is
anxious to show that Christian theology has lost the right "to treat the ideal

292
Kingdom of God as belonging to itself." Jesus and His teaching, so far as they
have been preserved, belong to Judaism. His ethic is for us strange and full of
stumbling-blocks. He despises work, property, and the duties of family life. His
gospel is fundamentally plebeian, and completely excludes the idea of any
aristocracy except in so far as it consents to plebeianise itself, and this is true
not only as regards the aristocracy of rank, property, and fortune, but also the
aristocracy of intellect. Von Hartmann cannot resist the temptation to accuse
Jesus of "Semitic harshness," finding the evidence of this chiefly in Mark iv. 12,
where Jesus declares that the purpose of His parables was to obscure His
teaching and cause the hearts of the people to be hardened.
His judgment upon Jesus is: "He had no genius, but a certain talent which, in
the complete absence of any sound education, produced in general only
moderate results, and was not sufficient to preserve Him from numerous
weaknesses and serious errors; at heart a fanatic and a transcendental
enthusiast, who in spite of an inborn kindliness of disposition hates and
despises the world and everything it contains, and holds any interest in it to be
injurious to the sole true, transcendental interest; an amiable and modest youth
who, through a remarkable concatenation of circumstances arrived at the idea,
which was at that time epidemic, [1] that He was Himself the expected Messiah,
and in consequence of this met His fate."
It is to be regretted that a mind like Eduard von Hartmann's should not have got
beyond the externals of the history, and made an effort to grasp the simple and
impressive greatness of the figure of Jesus in its eschatological setting; and that
he should imagine he has disposed of the strangeness which he finds in Jesus
when he has made it as small as possible. And yet in another respect there is
something satisfactory about his book. It is the open struggle of the Germanic
spirit with Jesus. In this battle the victory will rest with true greatness. Others
wanted to make peace before the struggle, or thought that theologians could
fight the battle alone, and spare their contemporaries the doubts about the
historical Jesus through which it was necessary to pass in order to reach the
eternal Jesus-and to this end they kept preaching reconciliation while fighting
the battle. They could only preach it on a basis of postulates, and postulates
make poor preaching! Thus, Julicher, for
[1] Eduard von Hartmann ought, therefore, to have given his assistance to the
others who have made this assertion in proving that there really existed
Messianic claimants before and at the time of Jesus.
322
example, in his latest sketches of the Life of Jesus1 distinguishes between
"Jewish and supra-Jewish" in Jesus, and holds that Jesus transferred the ideal
of the Kingdom of God "to the solid ground of the present, bringing it into the
course of historical events," and further "associated with the Kingdom of God"
the idea of development which was utterly opposed to all Jewish ideas about
the Kingdom. Julicher also desires to raise "the strongest protest against the
poor little definition of His preaching which makes it consist in nothing further

293
than an announcement of the nearness of the Kingdom, and an exhortation to
the repentance necessary as a condition for attaining the Kingdom."
But when has a protest against the pure truth of history ever been of any avail?
Why proclaim peace where there is no peace, and attempt to put back the clock
of time? Is it not enough that Schleiermacher and Ritschl succeeded again and
again in making theology send on earth peace instead of a sword, and does not
the weakness of Christian thought as compared with the general culture of our
time result from the fact that it did not face the battle when it ought to have
faced it, but persisted in appealing to a court of arbitration on which all the
sciences were represented, but which it had successfully bribed in advance?
Now there comes to join the philosophers a jurist. Herr Doctor jur. De Jonge
lends his aid to Eduard von Hartmann in "destroying the ecclesiastical," and
"unveiling the Jewish picture of Jesus." [2]
[1] "Jesus," by Julicher, in Die Kultur der Gegenwart. (An encyclopaedic
publication which is appearing in parts.) Teubner, Berlin, 1905, pp. 40-69.
See also W. Bousset, "Jesus," Religionsgeschichtliche Volksbucher. (A series
of religious-historical monographs.) Published by Schiele, Halle, 1904.
Here should be mentioned also the thoughtful book, following very much the
lines of Julicher, by Eduard Grimm, entitled Die Ethik Jesu, Hamburg, 1903, 288
pp. The author, born in 1848, is the chief pastor at the Nicolaikirche in
Hamburg.
Another work which deserves mention is Arno Neumann, Jesu wie er
geschichtlich war (Jesus as he historically existed), Freiburg, 1904, 198 pp.
(New Paths to the Old God), a Life of Jesus distinguished by a lofty vein of
natural poetry and based upon solid theological knowledge. Arno Neumann is
headmaster of a school at Apolda.
[2] Jeschua. Der klassisch'e fildische Mann. Zerstorung des kirchlichen,
Enthullung des judischen Jesus-Bildes. Berlin, 1904, 112 pp. Earlier studies of
the Life of Jesua from the Jewish point of view had been less ambitious. Dr.
Aug. Wunsche had written in 1872 on "Jesus in His attitude towards women"
from the Talmudic standpoint (146 pp.), and had described Him from the same
standpoint as a Jesus who rejoiced in life, Der lebensfreudige Jesus der
synoptischen Evangelier. im Gegensatz W leidenden Messias der Kirche,
Leipzig, 1876, 444 pp. The basis is so far correct that the eschatological, world-
renouncing ethic which we find in Jesus was due to temporary conditions and is
therefore transitory, and had nothing whatever to do with Judaism as such. The
spirit of the Law is the opposite of world-renouncing. But the Talmud, be its
traditions never so trustworthy, could teach us little about Jesus because it has
preserved scarcely a trace of that eschatological phase of Jewish religion and
ethics.
323
De Jonge is a Jew by birth, baptized in 1889, who on the 22nd of November
1902 again separated himself from the Christian communion and was desirous
of being received back "with certain evangelical reservations" into the Jewish

294
community. In spite of his faithful observance of the Law, this was refused. Now
he is waiting "until in the Synagogue of the twentieth century a freedom of
conscience is accorded to him equal to that which in the first century was
enjoyed by John, the beloved disciple of Jeschua of Nazareth." In the meantime
he beguiles the period of waiting by describing Jesus and His earliest followers
in the character of pattern Jews, and sets them to work in the interest of his
"Jewish views with evangelical reservations."
It is the colourless, characterless Jesus of the Superintendents and
Konsistorialrats which especially arouses his enmity. With this figure he
contrasts his own Jesus, the man of holy anger, the man of holy calm, the man
of holy melancholy, the master of dialectic, the imperious ruler, the man of high
gifts and practical ability, the man of inexorable consistency and reforming
vigour.
Jesus was, according to De Jonge, a pupil of Hillel. He demanded voluntary
poverty only in special cases, not as a general principle. In the case of the rich
young man, He knew "that the property which he had inherited was derived in
this particular case from impure sources which must be cut off at once and for
ever."
But how does De Jonge know that Jesus knew this?
A writer who is attacking the common theological picture of Jesus, and who
displays in the process, as De Jonge does, not only wit and address, but
historical intuition, ought not to fall into the error of the theology with which he is
at feud; he ought to use sober history as his weapon against the supplementary
knowledge which his opponents seem to find between the lines, instead of
meeting it with an esoteric historical knowledge of his own.
De Jonge knows that Jesus possessed property inherited from His father: "One
proof may serve where many might be given-the hasty flight into Egypt with his
whole family to escape from Herod, and the long sojourn in that country."
De Jonge knows-he is here, however, following the Gospel of John, to which he
everywhere gives the preference-that Jesus was between forty and fifty years
old at the time of His first coming forward publicly. The statement in Luke iii. 23,
that He was thirty years old, can only mislead those who do not
remember that Luke was a portrait painter and only meant that "Jeschua, in
consequences of His glorious beauty and His ever-youthful appearance, looked
ten years younger than He really was."
De Jonge knows also that Jesus, at the time when He first emerged from
obscurity, was a widower and had a little son-the "lad" of John
324
vi. 9, who had the five barley loaves and two fishes, was in fact His son. This
and many other things the author finds in "the glorious John." According to De
Jonge too we ought to think of Jesus as the aristocratic Jew, more accustomed
to a dress coat than to a workman's blouse, something of an expert, as appears
from some of the parables in matters of the table, and conning the menu with
interest when He dined with "privy-finance-councillor" Zacchaeus.

295
But this is to modernise more distressingly than even the theologians!
De Jonge's one-sided preference for the Fourth Gospel is shared by
Kirchbach's book, "What did Jesus teach?" [1] but here everything, instead of
being judaised, is spiritualised. Kirchbach does not seem to have been
acquainted with Noack's "History of Jesus," otherwise he would hardly have
ventured to repeat the same experiment without the latter's touch of genius and
with much less skill and knowledge.
The teaching of Jesus is interpreted on the lines of the Kantian philosophy. The
saying, "No man hath seen God at any time," is to be understood as if it were
derived from the same system of thought as the "Critique of Pure Reason."
Jesus always used the words "death" and "life" in a purely metaphorical sense.
Eternal life is for Him not a life in another world, but in the present. He speaks of
Himself as the Son of God, not as the Jewish Messiah. Son of Man is only the
ethical explanation of Son of God. The only reason why a Son-of-Man problem
has arisen, is because Matthew translated the ancient term Son of Man in the
original collection of Logia "with extreme literality."
The great discourse of Matt. xxiii. with its warnings and threatenings is,
according to Kirchbach, merely "a patriotic oration in which Jesus gives
expression in moving words to His opposition to the Pharisees and His inborn
love of His native land."
The teaching of Jesus is not ascetic, it closely resembles the real teaching of
Epicurus, "that is, the rejection of all false metaphysics, and the resulting
condition of blessedness, of makaria." The only purpose of the demand
addressed to the rich young man was to try him. "If the youth, instead of slinking
away dejectedly because he was called upon to sell all his goods, had replied,
confident in the possession of a rich fund of courage, energy, ability, and
knowledge, 'Right gladly. It will not go to my heart to part with my little bit of
property; if I'm not
[1] Wolfgang Kirchbach, Was lehrte Jesus? Zicei Urevangelien. Berlin, 1897,
248 pp.; second greatly enlarged and improved edition, 1902, 339 pp. By the
same author, Das Buch Jesus. Die Urevangelien. Neu nachgewiesen, new
uberstzt, geordnet und aus der Ursprache erklart. (The Book of Jesus. The
Primitive Gospels. Newly traced, translated, arranged, and explained on the
basis of the original.) Berlin, 1897.
325
to have it why then I can do without it,' the Rabbi would probably in that case
not have taken him at his word, but would have said, 'Young man, I like you.
You have a good chance before you, you may do something in the Kingdom of
God, and in any case for My sake you may attach yourself to Me by way of trial.
We can talk about your stocks and bonds later.'"
Finally, Kirchbach succeeds, though only, it must be admitted, by the aid of
some rather awkward phraseology, in spiritualising John vi. "It is not the body,"
he explains, "of the long departed thinker, who apparently attached no
importance whatever to the question of personal survival, that we, who

296
understand Him in the right Greek sense, 'eat'; in the sense which He intended,
we eat and drink, and absorb into ourselves, His teaching, His spirit, His
sublime conception of life, by constantly recalling them in connexion with the
symbol of bread and flesh, the symbol of blood, the symbol of water." [1]
Worthless as Kirchbach's Life of Jesus is from an historical point of view, it is
quite comprehensible as a phase in the struggle between the modern view of
the world and Jesus. The aim of the work is to retain His significance for a
metaphysical and non-ascetic time; and since it is not possible to do this in the
case of the historical Jesus, the author denies His existence in favour of an
apocryphal Jesus.
It is, in fact, the characteristic feature of the Life-of-Jesus literature on the
threshold of the new century even in the productions of professedly historical
and scientific theology, to subordinate the historical interest to the interest of the
general world-view. And those who "wrest the Kingdom of Heaven" are
beginning to wrest Jesus Himself along with it. Men who have no qualifications
for the task, whose ignorance is nothing less than criminal, who loftily
anathematise scientific theology instead of making themselves in some
measure acquainted with the researches which it has carried out, feel impelled
to write a Life of Jesus, in order to set forth their general religious view in a
portrait of Jesus which has not the faintest claim to be historical, and the most
far-fetched of these find favour, and are eagerly absorbed by the multitude.
It would be something to be thankful for if all these Lives of Jesus
[1] Before him, Hugo Deiff, in his History of the Rabbi Jesus of Nazareth
(Leipzig, 1889, 428 pp.), had confined himself to the Fourth Gospel, and even
within that Gospel he drew some critical distinctions. His Jesus at first conceals
His Messiahship from the fear of arousing the political expectations of the
people, and speaks to them of the Son of Man in the third person. At His
second visit to Jerusalem He breaks with the rulers, is subsequently compelled,
in consequence of the conflict over the Sabbath, to leave Galilee, and then
gives up His own people and turns to the heathen. Deiff explains the raising of
Lazarus by supposing him to have been buried in a state of trance.
326
were based on as definite an idea and as acute historical observation as we find
in Albert Dulk's "The Error of the Life of Jesus." [1] In Dulk the story of the fate
of Jesus is also the story of the fate of religion. The Galilaean teacher, whose
true character was marked by deep religious inwardness, was doomed to
destruction from the moment when He set Himself upon the dizzy heights of the
divine sonship and the eschatological expectation. He died in despair, having
vainly expected, down to the very last, a "telegram from heaven." Religion as a
whole can only avoid the same fate by renouncing all transcendental elements.
The vast numbers of imaginative Lives of Jesus shrink into remarkably small
compass on a close examination. When one knows two or three of them, one
knows them all. They have scarcely altered since Venturini's time, except that

297
some of the cures performed by Jesus are handled in the modern Lives from
the point of view of the recent investigations in hypnotism and suggestion. [2]
According to Paul de Regia [2] Jesus was born out of wedlock. Joseph,
however, gave shelter and protection to the mother. De Regia dwells on the
beauty of the child. "His eyes were not exceptionally large, but were well-
opened, and were shaded by long, silky, dark-brown eyelashes, and rather
deep-set. They were of a blue-grey colour, which changed with changing
emotions, taking on various shades, especially blue and brownish-grey."
[1] Albert Dulk, Der Irrgang des Lebens Jesa. In geschichtlicher Auffassung
dargestellt. Erster Teil: Die historischen Wwzein und die galildische Blilte, 1884,
395 pp. Zweiter Teil: Der Messiaseinzug und die Erhebung ans Kreuz, 1885,
302 pp. (The Error of the Life of Jesus. Historically apprehended and set forth.
Pt. i., The Historical Roots and the Galilaean Blossom. Pt. ii., The Messianic
Entry and the Crucifixion.) The course of Dulk's own life was somewhat erratic.
Born in 1819, he came prominently forward in the revolution of 1848, as a
political pamphleteer and agitator. Later, though almost without means, he
undertook long journeys, even to Sinai and to Lapland. Finally, he worked as a
social democratic reformer. He died in 1884.
[2] A scientific treatment of this subject is supplied by Fr. Nippold, Die
psychiatrische Seite der Heilstatigkeit Jesu (The Psychiatric Side of Jesus'
Works of Healing), 1889, in which a luminous review of the medical material is
to be found. See also Dr. K. Kunz, Christus medicus, Freiburg in Baden, 1905,
74 pp. The scientific value of this work is, however, very much reduced by the
fact that author has no acquaintance with the preliminary questions belonging to
the sphere of history and literature, and regards all the miracles of healing as
actual events, believing himself able to explain them from the medical point of
view. The tendency of the work is mainly apologetic.
[3] Jesus von Nazareth. Described from the Scientific, Historical, and Social
Point of View. Translated from the French (into German) by A. Just. Leipzig,
1894. The author, whose real name is P. A. Desjardin, is a practising physician.
De Regla, too, makes the Fourth Gospel the basis of his narrative.
327
He and His disciples were Essenes, as was also the Baptist. That implies that
He was no longer a Jew in the strict sense. His preaching dealt with the rights of
man, and put forward socialistic and communistic demands: His religion in the
pure consciousness of communion with God. With eschatology He had nothing
whatever to do, it was first interpolated into His teaching by Matthew.
The miracles are all to be explained by suggestion and hypnotism. At the
marriage at Cana, Jesus noticed that the guests were taking too much and
therefore secretly bade the servants pour out water instead of wine while He
Himself said, "Drink, this is better wine." In this way He succeeded in
suggesting to a part of the company that they were really drinking wine. The
feeding of the multitude is explained by striking out a couple of noughts from the
numbers; the raising of Lazarus by supposing it a case of premature burial.

298
Jesus Himself when taken down from the cross was not dead, and the Essenes
succeeded in re-animating Him. His work is inspired with hatred against
Catholicism, but with a real reverence for Jesus.
Another mere variant of the plan of Venturini is the fictitious Life of Jesus of
Pierre Nahor. [1] The sentimental descriptions of nature and the long dialogues
characteristic of the Lives of Jesus of a hundred years ago are here again in full
force. After John had already begun to preach in the neighbourhood of the
Dead Sea, Jesus, in company with a distinguished Brahmin who possessed
property at Nazareth and had an influential following in Jerusalem, made a
journey to Egypt and was there indoctrinated into all kinds of Egyptian, Essene,
and Indian philosophy, thus giving the author, or rather the authoress, an
opportunity to develop her ideas on the philosophy of religion in didactic
dialogues. When He soon afterwards begins to work in Galilee the young
teacher is much aided by the fact that, at the instance of His fellow-traveller, He
had acquired from Egyptian mendicants a practical acquaintance with the
secrets of hypnotism. By His skill He healed Mary of Magdala, a distinguished
courtesan of Tiberias. They had met before at Alexandria. After being cured she
left Tiberias and went to live in a small house, inherited from her mother, at
Magdala.
Jesus Himself never went to Tiberias, but the social world of that place took an
interest in Him, and often had itself rowed to the beach when He was preaching.
Rich and pious ladies used to inquire of Him where He thought of preaching to
the people on a given day, and sent
[1] Pierre Nahor (Emilie Lerou), Jesus. Translated from the French by Walter
Bloch. Berlin, 1905. Its motto is: The figure of Jesus belongs, like all mysterious,
heroic, or mythical figures, to legend and poetry. In the introduction we find the
statement, "This book is a confession of faith." The narrative is based on the
Fourth Gospel.
328
baskets of bread and dried fish to the spot which He indicated, that the
multitude might not suffer hunger. This is the explanation of the stories about
the feeding of the multitudes; the people had no idea whence Jesus suddenly
obtained the supplies which He caused His disciples to distribute.
When he became aware that the priests had resolved upon His death, He made
His friend Joseph of Arimathea, a leading man among the Essenes, promise
that he would take Him down from the cross as soon as possible and lay Him in
the grave without other witnesses. Only Nicodemus was to be present. On the
cross He put Himself into a cataleptic trance; He was taken down from the cross
seemingly dead, and came to Himself again in the grave. After appearing
several times to His disciples he set out for Nazareth and dragged His way
painfully thither. With a last effort He reaches the house of His mysterious old
Indian teacher. At the door He falls helpless, just as the morning dawns. The old
slave-woman recognises Him and carries Him into the house, where He dies.

299
"The serene solemn night withdrew and day broke in blinding splendour behind
Tiberias."
Nikolas Notowitsch [1] finds in Luke i. 80 ("And the child grew . . . and was in
the deserts until the day of his shewing unto Israel") a "gap in the life of Jesus,"
in spite of the fact that this passage refers to the Baptist, and proposes to fill it
by putting Jesus to school with the Brahmins and Buddhists from His thirteenth
to His twenty-ninth year. As evidence for this he refers to statements about
Buddhist worship of a certain Issa which he professes to have found in the
monasteries of Little Thibet. The whole thing is, as was shown by the experts, a
bare-faced swindle and an impudent invention.
To the fictitious Lives of Jesus belong also in the main the theosophical "Lives,"
which equally play fast and loose with the history,
[1] La Vie inconnue de Jesus-Christ. Paris, 1894. 301 pp. German, under the
title Die Lucke im Leben Jesu (The Gap in the Life of Jesus), Stuttgart, 1894.
186 pp. See Holtzmann in the Theol. Jahresbericht, xiv. p. 140.
In a certain limited sense the work of A. Lillie, The Influence of Buddhism on
Primitive Christianity (London, 1893), is to be numbered among the fictitious
works on the life of Jesus. The fictitious element consists in Jesus being made
an Essene by the writer, and Essenism equated with Buddhism.
Among "edifying" romances on the life of Jesus intended for family reading, that
of the English writer J. H. Ingraham, The Prince of the House of David has had
a very long lease of life. It appeared in a German translation as early as 1858,
and was reissued in 1906 (Brunswick).
A fictitious life of Jesus of wonderful beauty is Peter Rosegger's I.N.R.I. Frohe
Botschaft sines armen Sunders (The Glad Tidings of a poor Sinner). Leipzig,
6th-10th thousand, 1906. 293 pp. , ^
A feminine point of view reveals itself in C. Ranch's Jeschua ben Joseph,
Oeichert, 1899.
329
though here with a view to proving that Jesus had absorbed the Egyptian and
Indian theosophy, and had been indoctrinated with "occult science." The
theosophists, however, have the advantage of escaping the dilemma between
reanimation after a trance and resurrection, since they are convinced that it was
possible for Jesus to reassume His body after He had really died. But in the
touching up and embellishment of the Gospel narratives they out-do even the
romancers.
Ernest Bosc, [1] writing as a theosophist, makes it the chief aim of his work to
describe the oriental origin of Christianity, and ventures to assert that Jesus was
not a Semite, but an Aryan. The Fourth Gospel is, of course, the basis of his
representation. He does not hesitate, however, to appeal also to the
anonymous "Revelations" published in 1849, which are a mere plagiarism from
Venturini.
A work which is written with some ability and with much out-of-the-way learning
is "Did Jesus live 100 B.C.?" [2] The author compares the Christian tradition

300
with the Jewish, and finds in the latter a reminiscence of a Jesus who lived in
the time of Alexander Jannaeus (104-76 B.C.). This person was transferred by
the earliest Evangelist to the later period, the attempt being facilitated by the
fact that during the procuratorship of Pilate a false prophet had attracted some
attsntion. The author, however, only professes to offer it as a hypothesis, and
apologises in advance for the offence which it is likely to cause.
[2] La Vie esoterique de Jesu-Christ et les origines orientales du christianisme.
Paris, 1902. 445 pp.
That Jesus was of Aryan race is argued by A. Muller, who assumes a Gaulish
immigration into Galilee. Jesus ein Arier. Leipzig, 1904. 74 pp.
[2] Did Jesus live 100 B.C.? London and Benares. Theosophical Publishing
Society, 1903. 440 pp.
A scientific discussion of the "Toledoth Jeshu," with citations from the Talmudic
tradition concerning Jesus, is offered by S. Krauss, Das Leben Jesu nach
judischen Quellen. 1902. 309 pp. According to him the Toledoth Jeshu was
committed to writing in the fifth century, and he is of opinion that the Jewish
legend is only a modified version of the Christian tradition.
* XIX *
THOROUGHGOING SCEPTICISM AND THOROUGHGOING ESCHATOLOGY
W. Wrede. Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien. Zugleich ein Beitrag zum
Verstandnis des Markusevangelinms. (The Messianic Secret in the Gospels.
Forming a contribution also to the understanding of the Gospel of Mark.)
Gottingen, 1901. 286 pp.
Albert Schweitzer. Das Messianitats- und Leidensgeheimnis. Eine Skizze des
Lebens Jesu. (The Secret of the Messiahship and the Passion. A Sketch of the
Life of Jesus.) Tubingen and Leipzig, 1901. 109 pp.
THE COINCIDENCE BETWEEN THE WORK OF WREDE [1] AND THE
"SKETCH of the Life of Jesus" is not more surprising in regard to the time of
their appearance than in regard to the character of their contents. They
appeared upon the self-same day, their titles are almost identical, and their
agreement in the criticism of the modern historical conception of the life of
Jssus extends sometimes to the very phraseology. And yet they are written
from quite different standpoints, one from the point of view of literary criticism,
the other from that of the historical recognition of eschatology. It seems to be
the fate of the Marcan hypothesis that at the decisive periods its problems
should always be attacked simultaneously and independently from the literary
and the historical sides, and the results declared in two different forms which
corroborate each other. So it was in the case of Weisse and Wilke; so it is again
now, when, retaining the assumption of the priority of Mark, the historicity of the
hitherto accepted view of the life of Jesus, based upon the Marcan narrative, is
called in question.
[1] William Wrede, bom in 1859 at Bucfcen in Hanover, was Professor at
Breslau. (He died in 1907).

301
Wrede names as his real predecessors on the same lines Bruno Bauer,
Volkmar, and the Dutch writer Hoekstra ("De Christologie van het canonieke
Marcus-Evangelie, vergeleken met die van de beide andere synoptische
Evangelien," Theol. Tijdischrift, v, 1871). .
In a certain limited degree the work of Ernest Havet (Le Christianisme et ses
origines) has a claim to be classed in the same category. His scepticism refers
principally to the entry into Jerusalem and the story of the passion.
331
The meaning of that is that the literary and the eschatological view, which have
hitherto been marching parallel, on either flank, to the advance of modern
theology, have now united their forces, brought theology to a halt, surrounded it,
and compelled it to give battle.
That in the last three or four years so much has been written in which this
enveloping movement has been ignored does not alter the real position of
modern historical theology in the least. The fact is deserving of notice that
during this period the study of the subject has not made a step in advance, but
has kept moving to and fro upon the old lines with wearisome iteration, and has
thrown itself with excessive zeal into the work of popularisation, simply because
it was incapable of advancing.
And even if it professes gratitude to Wrede for the very interesting historical
point which he has brought into the discussion, and is also willing to admit that
thoroughgoing eschatology has advanced the solution of many problems, these
are mere demonstrations which are quite inadequate to raise the blockade of
modern theology by the allied forces. Supposing that only a half-nay, only a
third-of the critical arguments which are common to Wrede and the "Sketch of
the Life of Jesus" are sound, then the modern historical view of the history is
wholly ruined.
The reader of Wrede's book cannot help feeling that here no quarter is given;
and any one who goes carefully through the present writer's "Sketch" must
come to see that between the modern historical and the eschatological Life of
Jesus no compromise is possible.
Thoroughgoing scepticism and thoroughgoing eschatology may, in their union,
either destroy, or be destroyed by modern historical theology; but they cannot
combine with it and enable it to advance, any more than they can be advanced
by it.
We are confronted with a decisive issue. As with Strauss's "Life of Jesus," so
with the surprising agreement in the critical basis of these two schools-we are
not here considering the respective solutions which they offer-there has entered
into the domain of the theology of the day a force with which it cannot possibly
ally itself. Its whole territory is threatened. It must either reconquer it step by
step or else surrender it. It has no longer the right to advance a single assertion
until it has taken up a definite position in regard to the fundamental questions
raised by the new criticism.

302
Modern historical theology is no doubt still far from recognising this. It is warned
that the dyke is letting in water and sends a couple of masons to repair the leak;
as if the leak did not mean that the whole masonry is undermined, and must be
rebuilt from the foundation.
To vary the metaphor, theology comes home to find the broker's marks
332
on all the furniture and goes on as before quite comfortably, ignoring the fact it
will lose everything if it does not pay its debts.
The critical objections which Wrede and the "Sketch" agree in bringing against
the modern treatment of the subject are as follows.
In order to find in Mark the Life of Jesus of which it is in search modern theology
is obliged to read between the lines a whole host of things, and those often the
most important, and then to foist them upon the text by means of psychological
conjecture. It is determined to find evidence in Mark of a development of Jesus,
a development of the disciples, and a development of the outer circumstances;
and professes in so doing to be only reproducing the views and indications of
the Evangelist. In reality, however, there is not a word of all this in the
Evangelist, and when his interpreters are asked what are the hints and
indications on which they base their assertions they have nothing to offer save
argumenta e silentio.
Mark knows nothing of any development in Jesus, he knows nothing of any
paedagogic considerations which are supposed to have determined the conduct
of Jesus towards the disciples and the people; he knows nothing of any conflict
in the mind of Jesus between a spiritual and a popular, political Messianic ideal;
he does not know, either, that in this respect there was any difference between
the view of Jesus and that of the people; he knows nothing of the idea that the
use of the ass at the triumphal entry symbolised a non-political Messiahship; he
knows nothing of the idea that the question about the Messiah's being the Son
of David had something to do with this alternative between political and non-
political; he does not know, either, that Jesus explained the secret of the
passion to the disciples, nor that they had any understanding of it; he only
knows that from first to last they were in all respects equally wanting in
understanding; he does not know that the first period was a period of success
and the second a period of failure; he represents the Pharisees and Herodians
as (from iii. 6 onwards) resolved upon the death of Jesus, while the people,
down to the very last day when He preached in the temple, are enthusiastically
loyal to Him.
All these things of which the Evangelist says nothing-and they are the
foundations of the modern view-should first be proved, if proved they can be;
they ought not to be simply read into the text as something self-evident. For it is
just those things which appear so self-evident to the prevailing critical temper
which are in reality the least evident of all.
Another hitherto self-evident point-the "historical kernel" which it has been
customary to extract from the narratives-must be given up, until it is proved, if it

303
is capable of proof, that we can and ought to distinguish between the kernel and
the husk. We may take all that is
333
reported as either historical or unhistorical, but, in respect of the definite
predictions of the passion, death, and resurrection, we ought to give up taking
the reference to the passion as historical and letting the rest go; we may accept
the idea of the atoning death, or we may reject it, but we ought not to ascribe to
Jesus a feeble, anaemic version of this idea, while setting down to the account
of the Pauline theology the interpretation of the passion which we actually find
in Mark.
Whatever the results obtained by the aid of the historical kernel, the method
pursued is the same; "it is detached from its context and transformed into
something different." "It finally comes to this," says Wrede, "that each critic
retains whatever portion of the traditional sayings can be fitted into his
construction of the facts and his conception of historical possibility and rejects
the rest." The psychological explanation of motive, and the psychological
connexion of the events and actions which such critics have proposed to find in
Mark, simply do not exist. That being so, nothing is to be made out of his
account by the application of a priori psychology. A vast quantity of treasures of
scholarship and erudition, of art and artifice, which the Marcan hypothesis has
gathered into its storehouse in the two generations of its existence to aid it in
constructing its life of Jesus has become worthless, and can be of no further
service to true historical research. Theology has been simplified. What would
become of it if that did not happen every hundred years or so? And the
simplification was badly needed, for no one since Strauss had cleared away its
impedimenta.
Thoroughgoing scepticism and thoroughgoing eschatology, between them, are
compelling theology to read the Marcan text again with simplicity of mind. The
simplicity consists in dispensing with the connecting links which it has been
accustomed to discover between the sections of the narrative (pericopes), in
looking at each one separately, and recognising that it is difficult to pass from
one to the other. <> The material with which it has hitherto been usual to solder
the sections together into a life of Jesus will not stand the temperature test.
Exposed to the cold air of critical scepticism it cracks; when the furnace of
eschatology is heated to a certain point the solderings melt. In both cases the
sections all fall apart.
Formerly it was possible to book through-tickets at the supplementary-
psychological-knowledge office which enabled those travelling in the interests of
Life-of-Jesus construction to use express trains, thus avoiding the
inconvenience of having to stop at every little station, change, and run the risk
of missing their connexion. This ticket office is now closed. There is a station at
the end of each section of the narrative, and the connexlons are not
guaranteed.

304
The fact is, it is not simply that there is no very obvious psychological connexion
between the sections; in almost every case there is a positive
334
break in the connexion. And there is a great deal in the Marcan narrative which
is inexplicable and even self-contradictory.
In their statement of the problems raised by this want of connexion Wrede and
the "Sketch" are in the most exact agreement. That these difficulties are not
artificially constructed has been shown by our survey of the history of the
attempts to write the Life of Jesus, in the course of which these problems
emerge one after another, after Bruno Bauer had by anticipation grasped them
all in their complexity.
How do the demoniacs know that Jesus is the Son of God? Why does the blind
man at Jericho address Him as the Son of David, when no one else knows His
Messianic dignity? How was it that these occurrences did not give a new
direction to the thoughts of the people in regard to Jesus? How did the
Messianic entry come about? How was it possible without provoking the
interference of the Roman garrison of occupation? Why is it as completely
ignored in the subsequent controversies as if it had never taken place? Why
was it not brought up at the trial of Jesus? "The Messianic acclamation at the
entry into Jerusalem," says Wrede, "is in Mark quite an isolated incident. It has
no sequel, neither is there any preparation for it beforehand."
Why does Jesus in Mark iv. 10-12 speak of the parabolic form of discourse as
designed to conceal the mystery of the Kingdom of God, whereas the
explanation which He proceeds to give to the disciples has nothing mysterious
about it? What is the mystery of the Kingdom of God? Why does Jesus forbid
His miracles to be made known even in cases where there is no apparent
purpose for the prohibition? Why is His Messiahship a secret and yet no secret,
since it is known, not only to the disciples, but to the demoniacs, the blind man
at Jericho, the multitude at Jerusalem-which must, as Bruno Bauer expresses it,
"have fallen from heaven"-and to the High Priest?
Why does Jesus first reveal His Messiahship to the disciples at Caesarea
Philippi, not at the moment when He sends them forth to preach? How does
Peter know without having been told by Jesus that the Messiahship belongs to
his Master? Why must it remain a secret until the "resurrection"? Why does
Jesus indicate His Messiahship only by the title Son of Man? And why is it that
this title is so far from prominent in primitive Christian theology?
What is the meaning of the statement that Jesus at Jerusalem discovered a
difficulty in the fact that the Messiah was described as at once David's son and
David's Lord? How are we to explain the fact that Jesus had to open the eyes of
the people to the greatness of the Baptist's office, subsequently to the mission
of the Twelve, and to enlighten the disciples themselves in regard to it during
the descent from the mount of transfiguration? Why should this be described in
Matt. xi. 14 and 15
335

305
as a mystery difficult to grasp ("If ye can receive it" . . . "He that hath ears to
hear, let him hear")? What is the meaning of the saying that he that is least in
the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than the Baptist? Does the Baptist, then, not
enter into the Kingdom of Heaven? How is the Kingdom of Heaven subjected to
violence since the days of the Baptist? Who are the violent? What is the Baptist
intended to understand from the answer of Jesus?
What importance was attached to the miracles by Jesus Himself? What office
must they have caused the people to attribute to Him? Why is the discourse at
the sending out of the Twelve filled with predictions of persecutions which
experience had given no reason to anticipate, and which did not, as a matter of
fact, occur? What is the meaning of the saying in Matt. x. 23 about the imminent
coming of the Son of Man, seeing that the disciples after all returned to Jesus
without its being fulfilled? Why does Jesus leave the people just when His work
among them is most successful, and journey northwards? Why had He,
immediately after the sending forth of the Twelve, manifested a desire to
withdraw Himself from the multitude who were longing for salvation?
How does the multitude mentioned in Mark viii. 34 suddenly appear at
Caesarea Philippi? Why is its presence no longer implied in Mark ix. 30? How
could Jesus possibly have travelled unrecognised through Galilee, and how
could He have avoided being thronged in Capernaum although He stayed at
"the house"?
How came He so suddenly to speak to His disciples of His suffering and dying
and rising again, without, moreover, explaining to them either the natural or the
moral "wherefore"? "There is no trace of any attempt on the part of Jesus," says
Wrede, "to break this strange thought gradually to His disciples . . . the
prediction is always flung down before the disciples without preparation, it is, in
fact, a characteristic feature of these sayings that all attempt to aid the
understanding of the disciples is lacking."
Did Jesus journey to Jerusalem with the purpose of working there, or of dying
there? How comes it that in Mark x. 39, He holds out to the sons of Zebedee the
prospect of drinking His cup and being baptized with His baptism? And how can
He, after speaking so decidedly of the necessity of His death, think it possible in
Gethsemane that the cup might yet pass from Him? Who are the undefined
"many," for whom, according to Mark x. 45 and xiv. 24, His death shall serve as
a ransom? [1]
[1] These and the following questions are raised more especially in the Sketch
of the Life of Jesus.
336
How came it that Jesus alone was arrested? Why were no witness called at His
trial to testify that He had given Himself out to be the Messiah? How is it that on
the morning after His arrest the temper of the multitude seems to be completely
changed, so that no one stirs a finger to help Him?
In what form does Jesus conceive the resurrection, which He promises to His
disciples, to be combined with the coming on the clouds of heaven to which He

306
points His judge? In what relation do these predictions stand to the prospect
held out at the time of the sending forth of the Twelve, but not realized, of the
immediate appearance of the Son of Man?
What is the meaning of the further prediction on the way to Gethsemane (Mark
xiv. 28) that after His resurrection He will go before the disciples into Galilee?
How is the other version of this saying (Mark xvi. 7) to be explained, according
to which it means, as spoken by the angel, that the disciples are to journey to
Galilee to have their first meeting with the risen Jesus there, whereas, on the
lips of Jesus, it betokened that, just as now as a sufferer He was going before
them from Galilee to Jerusalem, so, after His resurrection, He would go before
them from Jerusalem to Galilee? And what was to happen there?
These problems were covered up by the naturalistic psychology as by a light
snow-drift. The snow has melted, and they now stand out from the narratives
like black points of rock. It is no longer allowable to avoid these questions, or to
solve them, each by itself, by softening them down and giving them an
interpretation by which the reported facts acquire a quite different significance
from that which they bear for the Evangelist. Either the Marcan text as it stands
is historical, and therefore to be retained, or it is not, and then it should be given
up. What is really unhistorical is any softening down of the wording, and the
meaning which it naturally bears.
The sceptical and eschatological schools, however, go still farther in company.
If the connexion in Mark is really no connexion, it is important to try to discover
whether any principle can be discovered in this want of connexion. Can any
order be brought into the chaos? To this the answer is in the affirmative.
The complete want of connexion, with all its self-contradictions, is ultimately due
to the fact that two representations of the life of Jesus, or, to speak more
accurately, of His public ministry, are here crushed into one; a natural and a
deliberately supernatural representation. A dogmatic element has intruded itself
into the description of this Life-something which has no concern with the events
which form the outward course of that Life. This dogmatic element is the
Messianic secret of Jesus and all the secrets and concealments which go along
with it.
337
Hence the irrational and self-contradictory features of the presentation of Jesus,
out of which a rational psychology can make only something which is
unhistorical and does violence to the text, since it must necessarily get rid of the
constant want of connexion and self-contradiction which belongs to the essence
of the narrative, and portray a Jesus who was the Messiah, not one who at once
was and was not Messiah as the Evangelist depicts Him. When rational
psychology conceives Him as one who was Messiah, but not in the sense
expected by the people, that is a concession to the self-contradictions of the
Marcan representation; which, however, does justice neither to the text nor to
the history which it records, since the Gospel does not contain the faintest hint
that the contradiction was of this nature.

307
Up to this point-up to the complete reconstruction of the system which runs
through the disconnectedness, and the tracing back of the dogmatic element to
the Messianic secret-there extends a close agreement between thoroughgoing
scepticism and thoroughgoing eschatology. The critical arguments are identical,
the construction is analogous and based on the same principle. The defenders
of the modern psychological view cannot, therefore, play off one school against
the other, as one of them proposed to do, but must deal with them both at once.
They differ only when they explain whence the system that runs through the
disconnectedness comes. Here the ways divide, as Bauer saw long ago. The
inconsistency between the public life of Jesus and His Messianic claim lies
either in the nature of the Jewish Messianic conception, or in the representation
of the Evangelist. There is, on the one hand, the eschatological solution, which
at one stroke raises the Marcan account as it stands, with all its
disconnectedness and inconsistencies, into genuine history; and there is, on the
other hand, the literary solution, which regards the incongruous dogmatic
element as interpolated by the earliest Evangelist into the tradition and therefore
strikes out the Messianic claim altogether from the historical Life of Jesus.
Tertium non datur.
But in some respects it really hardly matters which of the two "solutions" one
adopts. They are both merely wooden towers erected upon the solid main
building of the consentient critical induction which offers the enigmas detailed
above to modern historical theology. It is interesting in this connexion that
Wrede's scepticism is just as constructive as the eschatological outline of the
Life of Jesus in the "Sketch."
Bruno Bauer chose the literary solution because he thought that we had no
evidence for an eschatological expectation existing in the time of Christ. Wrede,
though he follows Johannes Weiss in assuming the existence of a Jewish
eschatological Messianic expectation, finds in the Gospel only the Christian
conception of the Messiah. "If Jesus," he thinks, "really knew Himself to be the
Messiah and designated Himself
338
as such, the genuine tradition is so closely interwoven with later accretions that
it is not easy to recognise it." In any case, Jesus cannot, according to Wrede,
have spoken of His Messianic Coming in the way which the Synoptists report.
The Messiahship of Jesus, as we find it in the Gospels, is a product of Early
Christian theology correcting history according to its own conceptions.
It is therefore necessary to distinguish in Mark between the reported events
which constitute the outward course of the history of Jesus, and the dogmatic
idea which claims to lay down the lines of its inward course. The principle of
division is found in the contradictions.
The recorded events form, according to Wrede, the following picture. Jesus
came forward as a teacher, [1] first and principally in Galilee. He was
surrounded by a company of disciples, went about with them, and gave them
instruction. To some of them He accorded a special confidence. A larger

308
multitude sometimes attached itself to Him, in addition to the disciples. He is
fond of discoursing in parables. Besides the teaching there are the miracles.
These make a stir, and He is thronged by the multitudes. He gives special
attention to the cases of demoniacs. He is in such close touch with the people
that He does not hesitate to associate even with publicans and sinners.
Towards the Law He takes up an attitude of some freedom. He encounters the
opposition of the Pharisees and the Jewish authorities. They set traps for Him
and endeavour to bring about His fall. Finally they succeed, when He ventures
to show Himself not only on Judaean soil, but in Jerusalem. He remains passive
and is condemned to death. The Roman administration supports the Jewish
authorities.
"The texture of the Marcan narrative as we know it," continues Wrede, "is not
complete until to the warp of these general historical notions there is added a
strong weft of ideas of a dogmatic character, the substance of which is that
"Jesus, the bearer of a special office to which He was appointed by God,"
becomes "a higher, superhuman being." If this is the case, however, then "the
motives of His conduct are not derived from human characteristics, human aims
and necessities." "The one motive which runs throughout is rather a Divine
decree which lies beyond human understanding. This He seeks to fulfil alike in
His actions and His sufferings. The teaching of Jesus is accordingly
supernatural." On this assumption the want of understanding of the disciples to
whom He communicates, without commentary, unconnected portions of this
supernatural knowledge becomes natural and explicable. The people are,
moreover, essentially "non-receptive of revelation."
"It is these motifs and not those which are inherently historical which
[1] It would perhaps be more historical to say "as a prophet."
339
give movement and direction to the Marcan narrative. It is they that give the
general colour. On them naturally depends the main interest, it is to them that
the thought of the writer is really directed. The consequence is that the general
picture offered by the Gospel is not an historical representation of the Life of
Jesus. Only some faded remnants of such an impression have been taken over
into a supra-historical religious view. In this sense the Gospel of Mark belongs
to the history of dogma."
The two conceptions of the Life of Jesus, the natural and the supernatural, are
brought, not without inconsistencies, into a kind of harmony by means of the
idea of intentional secrecy. The Messiahship of Jesus is concealed in His life as
in a closed dark lantern, which, however, is not quite closed-otherwise one
could not see that it was there-and allows a few bright beams to escape.
The idea of a secret which must remain a secret until the resurrection of Jesus
could only arise at a time when nothing was known of a Messianic claim of
Jesus during His life upon earth: that is to say, at a time when the Messiahship
of Jesus was thought of as beginning with the resurrection. But that is a weighty

309
piece of indirect historical evidence that Jesus did not really profess to be the
Messiah at all.
The positive fact which is to be inferred from this is that the appearances of the
risen Jesus produced a sudden revolution in His disciples' conception of Him.
"The resurrection" is for Wrede the real Messianic event in the Life of Jesus.
Who is responsible, then, for introducing this singular feature, so destructive of
the real historical connexion, into the life of Jesus, which was in reality that of a
teacher? It is quite impossible, Wrede argues, that the idea of the Messianic
secret is the invention of Mark. "A thing like that is not done by a single
individual. It must, therefore, have been a view which was current in certain
circles, and was held by a considerable number, though not necessarily
perhaps by a very great number of persons. To say this is not to deny that Mark
had a share and perhaps a considerable share in the creation of the view which
he sets forth . . . the motifs themselves are doubtless not, in part at least,
peculiar to the Evangelist, but the concrete embodiment of them is certainly his
own work; and to this extent we may speak of a special Marcan point of view
which manifests itself here and there. Where the line is to be drawn between
what is traditional and what is individual cannot always be determined even by a
careful examination directed to this end. We must leave it commingled, as we
find it."
The Marcan narrative has therefore arisen from the impulse to give a Messianic
form to the earthly life of Jesus. This impulse was, however, restrained by the
impression and tradition of the non-Messianic char-
340
acter of the life of Jesus, which were still strong and vivid, and it was therefore
not able wholly to recast the material, but could only bore its way into it and
force it apart, as the roots of the bramble disintegrate a rock. In the Gospel
literature which arose on the basis of Mark the Messianic secret becomes
gradually of more subordinate importance and the life of Jesus more Messianic
in character, until in the Fourth Gospel He openly comes before the people with
Messianic claims.
In estimating the value of this construction we must not attach too much
importance to its a priori assumptions and difficulties. In this respect Wrede's
position is much more precarious than that of his precursor Bruno Bauer.
According to the latter the interpolation of the Messianic secret is the personal,
absolutely original act of the Evangelist. Wrede thinks of it as a collective act,
representing the new conception as moulded by the tradition before it was fixed
by the Evangelist. That is very much more difficult to carry through. Tradition
alters its materials in a different way from that in which we find them altered in
Mark. Tradition transforms from without. Mark's way of drawing secret threads
of a different material through the texture of the tradition, without otherwise
altering it, is purely literary, and could only be the work of an individual person.

310
A creative tradition would have carried out the theory of the Messianic secret in
the life of Jesus much more boldly and logically, that is to say, at once more
arbitrarily and more consistently.
The only alternative is to distinguish two stages of tradition in early Christianity,
a naive, freely-working, earlier stage, and a more artificial later stage confined
to a smaller circle of a more literary character. Wrede does, as a matter of fact,
propose to find in Mark traces of a simpler and bolder transformation which,
leaving aside the Messianic secret, makes Jesus an openly-professed Messiah,
and is therefore of a distinct origin from the conception of the secret Christ. To
this tradition may belong, he thinks, the entry into Jerusalem and the confession
before the High Priest, since these narratives "naively" imply an openly avowed
Messiahship.
The word "naively" is out of place here; a really naive tradition which intended to
represent the entry of Jesus as Messianic would have done so in quite a
different way from Mark, and would not have stultified itself so curiously as we
find done even in Matthew, where the Galilaean Passover pilgrims, after the
"Messianic entry," answer the question of the people of Jerusalem as to who it
was whom they were acclaiming, with the words "This is the Prophet Jesus from
Nazareth of Galileo" (Matt. xxi. 11).
The tradition, too, which makes Jesus acknowledge His Messiahstiip
341
before His judges is not "naive" in Wrede's sense, for, if it were, it would not
represent the High Priest's knowledge of Jesus' Messiahship as something so
extraordinary and peculiar to himself that he can cite witnesses only for the
saying about the Temple, not with reference to Jesus' Messianic claim, and
bases his condemnation only on the fact that Jesus in answer to his question
acknowledges Himself as Messiah - and Jesus does so, it should be remarked,
as in other passages, with an appeal to a future justification of His claim. The
confession before the council is therefore anything but a "naive representation
of an openly avowed Messiahship."
The Messianic statements in these two passages present precisely the same
remarkable character as in all the other cases to which Wrede draws attention.
We have not here to do with a different tradition, with a clear Messianic light
streaming in through the window-pane, but, just as elsewhere, with the rays of a
dark lantern. The real point is that Wrede cannot bring these two passages
within the lines of the theory of secrecy, and practically admits this by assuming
the existence of a second and rather divergent line of tradition. What concerns
us is to note that this theory does not suffice to explain the two facts in question,
the knowledge of Jesus' Messiahship shown by the Galilaean Passover pilgrims
at the time of the entry into Jerusalem, and the knowledge of the High Priest at
His trial.
We can only touch on the question whether any one who wished to date back in
some way or other the Messiahship into the life of Jesus could not have done it
much more simply by making Jesus give His closest followers some hints

311
regarding it. Why does the re-moulder of the history, instead of doing that, have
recourse to a supernatural knowledge on the part of the demoniacs and the
disciples? For Wrede rightly remarks, as Bruno Bauer and the "Sketch" also do,
that the incident of Caesarea Philippi, as represented by Mark, involves a
miracle, since Jesus does not, as is generally supposed, reveal His
Messiahship to Peter; it is Peter who reveals it to Jesus (Mark viii. 29). This fact,
however, makes nonsense of the whole theory about the disciples' want of
understanding. It will not therefore fit into the concealment theory, and Wrede,
as a matter of fact, feels obliged to give up that theory as regards this incident.
"This scene," he remarks, "can hardly have been created by Mark himself." It
also, therefore, belongs to another tradition.
Here, then, is a third Messianic fact which cannot be brought within the lines of
Wrede's "literary" theory of the Messianic secret. And these three facts are
precisely the most important of all: Peter's confession, the Entry into Jerusalem,
and the High Priest's knowledge of Jesus' Messiahship! In each case Wrede
finds himself obliged to refer these to
342
tradition instead of to the literary conception of Mark. [1] This tradition
undermines his literary hypothesis, for the conception of a tradition always
involves the possibility of genuine historical elements.
How greatly this inescapable intrusion of tradition weakens the theory of the
literary interpolation of the Messiahship into the history, becomes evident when
we consider the story of the passion. The representation that Jesus was publicly
put to death as Messiah because He had publicly acknowledged Himself to be
so, must, like the High Priest's knowledge of His claim, be referred to the other
tradition which has nothing to do with the Messianic secret, but boldly antedates
the Messiahship without employing any finesse of that kind. But that strongly
tends to confirm the historicity of this tradition, and throws the burden of proof
upon those who deny it. It is wholly independent of the hypothesis of secrecy,
and in fact directly opposed to it. If, on the other hand, in spite of all the
difficulties, the representation that Jesus was condemned to death on account
of His Messianic claims is dragged by main force into the theory of secrecy, the
question arises: What interest had the persons who set up the literary theory of
secrecy, in representing Jesus as having been openly put to death as Messiah
and in consequence of His Messianic claims? And the answer is: "None
whatever: quite the contrary." For in doing so the theory of secrecy stultifies
itself. As though one were to develop a photographic plate with painful care
and, just when one had finished, fling open the shutters, so, on this hypothesis,
the natural Messianic light suddenly shines into the room which ought to be
lighted only by the rays of the dark lantern.
Here, therefore, the theory of secrecy abandoned the method which it had
hitherto followed in regard to the traditional material. For if Jesus was not
condemned and crucified at Jerusalem as Messiah, a tradition must have
existed which preserved the truth about the last conflicts, and the motives of the

312
condemnation. This is supposed to have been here completely set aside by the
theory of the secret Messiahship, which, instead of drawing its delicate threads
through the older tradition, has simply substituted its own representation of
events. But in that case why not do away with the remainder of the public
ministry? why not at least get rid of the public appearance at Jerusalem? How
can the crudeness of method shown in the case of the passion be harmonised
[1] The difficulties which the incident at Caesarea Philippi places in the way of
Wrede's construction may be realised by placing two of his statements side oy
side. P. 101: "From this it is evident that this incident contains no element which
cannot be easily understood on the basis of Mark's ideas." P. 238: "But in
another aspect this incident stands in direct contradiction to the Marcan view of
the disciples. It is inconsistent with their general 'want of understanding,' and
can therefore hardly have been created by Mark himself."
343
with the skilful conservatism towards the non-Messianic tradition which it is
obvious that the "Marcan circle" has scrupulously observed elsewhere?
If according to the original tradition, of which Wrede admits the existence, Jesus
went to Jerusalem not to die, but to work there, the dogmatic view, according to
which He went to Jerusalem to die, must have struck out the whole account of
His sojourn in Jerusalem and His death in order to put something else in its
place. What we now read in the Gospels concerning those last days in
Jerusalem cannot be derived from the original tradition, for one who came to
work, and, according to Wrede "to work with decisive effect," would not have
cast all His preaching into the form of obscure parables of judgment and
minatory discourses. That is a style of speech which could be adopted only by
one who was determined to force his adversaries to put him to death. Therefore
the narrative of the last days of Jesus must be, from beginning to end, a
creation of the dogmatic idea. And, as a matter of fact, Wrede, here in
agreement with Weisse, "sees grounds for asserting that the sojourn at
Jerusalem is presented to us in the Gospels in a very much abridged and
weakened version." That is a euphemistic expression, for if it was really the
dogmatic idea which was responsible for representing Jesus as being
condemned as Messiah, it is not a mere case of "abridging and weakening
down," but of displacing the tradition in favour of a new one.
But if Jesus was not condemned as Messiah, on what grounds was He
condemned? And, again, what interest had those whose concern was to make
the Messiahship a secret of His earthly life, in making Him die as Messiah,
contrary to the received tradition? And what interest could the tradition have had
in falsifying history in that way? Even admitting that the prediction of the passion
to the disciples is of a dogmatic character, and is to be regarded as a creation
of primitive Christian theology, the historic fact that He died would have been a
sufficient fulfilment of those sayings. That He was publicly condemned and
crucified as Messiah has nothing to do with the fulfilment of those predictions,
and goes far beyond it.

313
To take a more general point: what interest had primitive theology ln dating
back the Messiahship of Jesus to the time of His earthly ministry? None
whatever. Paul shows us with what complete indifference the earthly life of
Jesus was regarded by primitive Christianity. The discourses in Acts show an
equal indifference, since in them also Jesus first becomes the Messiah by virtue
of His exaltation. To date the Messiahship earlier was not an undertaking which
offered any advantage to primitive theology, in fact it would only have raised
difficulties for it, since it involved the hypothesis of a dual Messiahship, one of
earthly
344
humiliation and one of future glory. The fact is, if one reads through the early
literature one becomes aware that so long as theology had an eschatological
orientation and was dominated by the expectation of the Parousia the question
of how Jesus of Nazareth "had been" the Messiah not only did not exist, but
was impossible. Primitive theology is simply a theology of the future, with no
interest in history! It was only with the decline of eschatological interest and the
change in the orientation of Christianity which was connected therewith that an
interest in the life of Jesus and the "historical Messiahship" arose.
That is to say, the Gnostics, who were the first to assert the Messiahship of the
historical Jesus, and who were obliged to assert it precisely because they
denied the eschatological conceptions, forced this view upon the theology of the
Early Church, and compelled it to create in the Logos Christology an un-Gnostic
mould in which to cast the speculative conception of the historical Messiahship
of Jesus; and that is what we find in the Fourth Gospel. Prior to the anti-Gnostic
controversies we find in the early Christian literature no conscious dating back
of the Messiahship of Jesus to His earthly life, and no theological interest at
work upon the dogmatic recasting of His history. [1] It is therefore difficult to
suppose that the Messianic secret in Mark, that is to say, in the very earliest
tradition, was derived from primitive theology. The assertion of the Messiahship
of Jesus was wholly independent of the latter. The instinct which led Bruno
Bauer to explain the Messianic secret as the literary invention of Mark himself
was therefore quite correct. Once suppose that tradition and primitive theology
have anything to do with the matter, and the theory of the interpolation of the
Messiahship into the history becomes almost impossible to carry through. But
Wrede's greatness consists precisely in the fact that he was compelled by his
acute perception of the significance of the critical data to set aside the purely
literary version of the hypothesis and make Mark, so to speak, the instrument of
the literary realisation of the ideas of a definite intellectual circle within the
sphere of primitive theology.
The positive difficulty which confronts the sceptical theory is to explain how the
Messianic beliefs of the first generation arose, if Jesus, throughout His life, was
for all, even for the disciples, merely a "teacher," and gave even His intimates
no hint of the dignity which He claimed for Himself. It is difficult to eliminate the
Messiahship from the "Life of Jesus," especially from the narrative of the

314
passion; it is more difficult still, as Keim saw long ago, to bring it back again
after its
[1] The question of the attitude of pre-Origenic theology towards the historic
Jesus, and of the influence exercised by dogma upon the evangelical tradition
regarding Jesus in the course of the first two centuries, is certainly deserving of
a detailed examination.
345
elimination from the "Life" into the theology of the primitive Church. In Wrede's
acute and logical thinking this difficulty seems to leap to light.
Since the Messianic secret in Mark is always connected with the resurrection,
the date at which the Messianic belief of the disciples arose must be the
resurrection of Jesus. "But the idea of dating the Messiahship from the
resurrection is certainly not a thought of Jesus, but of the primitive Church. It
presupposes the Church's experience of the appearance of the risen Jesus."
The psychologist will say that the "resurrection experiences," however they may
be conceived, are only intelligible as based upon the expectation of the
resurrection, and this again as based on references of Jesus to the resurrection.
But leaving psychology aside, let us accept the resurrection experiences of the
disciples as a pure psychological miracle. Even so, how can the appearances of
the risen Jesus have suggested to the disciples the idea that Jesus, the
crucified teacher, was the Messiah? Apart from any expectations, how can this
conclusion have resulted for them from the mere "fact of the resurrection"? The
fact of the appearance did not by any means imply it. In certain circles, indeed,
according to Mark vi. 14-16, in the very highest quarters, the resurrection of the
Baptist was believed in; but that did not make John the Baptist the Messiah.
The inexplicable thing is that, according to Wrede, the disciples began at once
to assert confidently and unanimously that He was the Messiah and would
before long appear in glory.
But how did the appearance of the risen Jesus suddenly become for them a
proof of His Messiahship and the basis of their eschatology? That Wrede fails to
explain, and so makes this "event" an "historical" miracle which in reality is
harder to believe than the supernatural event.
Any one who holds "historical" miracles to be just as impossible as any other
kind, even when they occur in a critical and sceptical work, will be forced to the
conclusion that the Messianic eschatological significance attached to the
"resurrection experience" by the disciples implies some kind of Messianic
eschatological references on the part of the historical Jesus which gave to the
"resurrection" its Messianic eschatological significance. Here Wrede himself,
though without admitting it, postulates some Messianic hints on the part of
Jesus, since he conceives the judgment of the disciples upon the resurrection to
have been not analytical, but synthetic, inasmuch as they add something to it,
and that, indeed, the main thing, which was not implied in the conception of the
event as such.

315
Here again the merit of Wrede's contribution to criticism consists in the fact that
he takes the position as it is and does not try to improve it artificially. Bruno
Bauer and others supposed that the belief in the
346
Messiahship of Jesus had slowly solidified out of a kind of gaseous state or had
been forced into primitive theology by the literary invention of Mark. Wrede,
however, feels himself obliged to base it upon an historical fact, and, moreover,
the same historical fact which is pointed to by the sayings in the Synoptics and
the Pauline theology. But in so doing he creates an almost insurmountable
difficulty for his hypothesis.
We can only briefly refer to the question what form the accounts of the
resurrection must have taken if the historic fact which underlay them was the
first surprised apprehension and recognition of the Messiahship of Jesus on the
part of the disciples. The Messianic teaching would necessarily in that case
have been somehow or other put into the mouth of the risen Jesus. It is,
however, completely absent, because it was already contained in the teaching
of Jesus during His earthly life. The theory of Messianic secrecy must therefore
have re-moulded not merely the story of the passion, but also that of the
resurrection, removing the revelation of the Messiahship to the disciples from
the latter in order to insert it into the public ministry!
Wrede, moreover, will only take account of the Marcan text as it stands, not of
the historical possibility that the "futuristic Messiahship" which meets us in the
mysterious utterances of Jesus goes back in some form to a sound tradition.
Further he does not take the eschatological character of the teaching of Jesus
into his calculations, but works on the false assumption that he can analyse the
Marcan text in and by itself and so discover the principle on which it is
composed. He carries out experiments on the law of crystallisation of the
narrative material in this Gospel, but instead of doing so in the natural and
historical atmosphere he does it in an atmosphere artificially neutralised, which
contains no trace of contemporary conceptions. [1] Consequently the
conclusion based on the sum of his observations has in it something arbi-
[1] Certain of the conceptions with which Wrede operates are simply not in
accordance with the text, because he gives them a different significance from
that which they have in the narrative. Thus, for example, he always takes the
"resurrection," when it occurs in the mouth of Jesus, as a reference to that
resurrection which as an historical fact became a matter of apprehended
experience to the apostles. But Jesus speaks without any distinction of His
resurrection and of His Parousia. The conception of the resurrection, therefore,
if one is to arrive at it inductively from the Marcan text, is most closely bound up
with the Parousia. The Evangelist would thus seem to have made Jesus predict
a different kind of resurrection from that which actually happened. The
resurrection, according to the Marcan text, is an eschatological event, and has
no reference whatever to Wrede's "historical resurrection." Further, if their
resurrection experience was the first and fundamental point in the Messianic

316
enlightenment of the disciples, why did they only begin to proclaim it some
weeks later? This is a problem which was long ago recognised by Reimarus,
and which is not solved by merely assuming that the disciples were afraid.
347
trary. Everything which conflicts with the rational construction of the course of
the history is referred directly to the theory of the concealment of the Messianic
secret. But in the carrying out of that theory a number of self-contradictions,
without which it could not subsist, must be recognised and noted.
Thus, for example, all the prohibitions, [1] whatever they may refer to, even
including the command not to make known His miracles, are referred to the
same category as the injunction not to reveal the Messianic secret. But what
justification is there for that? It presupposes that according to Mark the miracles
could be taken as proofs of the Messiahship, an idea of which there is no hint
whatever in Mark. "The miracles," Wrede argues, "are certainly used by the
earliest Christians as evidence of the nature and significance of Christ. ... I need
hardly point to the fact that Mark, not less than Matthew, Luke, and John, must
have held the opinion that the miracles of Jesus encountered a wide-spread
and ardent Messianic expectation."
In John this Messianic significance of the miracles is certainly assumed; but
then the really eschatological view of things has here fallen into the background.
It seems indeed as if genuine eschatology excluded the Messianic interpretation
of the miracles. In Matthew the miracles of Jesus have nothing whatever to do
with the proof of the Messiahship, but, as is evident from the saying about
Chorazin and Bethsaida, Matt. xi. 20-24, are only an exhibition of mercy
intended to awaken repentance, or, according to Matt. xii. 28, an indication of
the nearness of the Kingdom of God. They have as little to do with the
Messianic office as in the Acts of the Apostles. [2] In Mark, from first to last,
there is not a single syllable to suggest that the miracles have a Messianic
significance. Even admitting the possibility that the "miracles of Jesus
encountered an ardent Messianic expectation," that does not necessarily imply
a Messianic significance in them. To justify that conclusion requires the pre-
supposition that the Messiah was expected to be some
[1] P. 33 ff. The prohibitions in Mark i. 43 and 44, v. 43, vii. 36, and viii. 26 are
put on the same footing with the really Messianic prohibitions in viii. 30 and ix.
9, with which may be associated also the imposition of silence upon the
demoniacs who recognise his Messiahship in Mark i. 34 and iii. 12.
[2] The narrative in Matt. xiv. 22-33, according to which the disciples, after
seeing Jesus walk upon the sea, hail Him on His coming into the boat as the
Son of God, and the description of the deeds of Jesus as "deeds of Christ," in
the introduction to the Baptist's question in Matt. xi. 2, do not cancel the old
theory even in Matthew, because the Synoptists, differing therein from the
fourth Evangelist, do not represent the demand for a sign as a demand for a
Messianic sign, nor the cures wrought by Jesus as Messianic proofs of power.
The action of the demons in crying out upon Jesus as the son of God betokens

317
their recognition of Him; it has nothing to do wlth the miracles of healing as
such.
348
kind of an earthly man who should do miracles. This is presupposed by Wrede,
by Bruno Bauer, and by modern theology in general but it has not been proved,
and it is at variance with eschatology, which pictured the Messiah to itself as a
heavenly being in a world which was already being transformed into something
supra-mundane.
The assumption that the clue to the explanation of the command not to make
known the miracles is to be found in the necessity of guarding the secret of the
Messiahship is, therefore, not justified. The miracles are connected with the
Kingdom and the nearness of the Kingdom, not with the Messiah. But Wrede is
obliged to refer everything to the Messianic secret, because he leaves the
preaching of the Kingdom out of account.
The same process is repeated in the discussion of the veiling of the mystery of
the Kingdom of God in the parables of Mark iv. The mystery of the Kingdom is
for Wrede the secret of Jesus' Messiahship. "We have learned in the
meantime," he says, "that one main element in this mystery is that Jesus is the
Messiah, the Son of God. If Jesus, according to Mark, conceals his
Messiahship, we are justified in interpreting the

That is one of the weakest points in Wrede's whole theory. Where is there any
hint of this in these parables? And why should the secret of the Kingdom of God
contain within it as one of its principal features the secret of the Messiahship of
Jesus?
"Mark's account of Jesus' parabolic teaching," he concludes, "is completely
unhistorical," because it is directly opposed to the essential nature of the
parables. The ultimate reason, according to Wrede, why this whole view of the
parables arose, was simply "because the general opinion was already in
existence that Jesus had revealed Himself to the disciples, but concealed
Himself from the multitude."
Instead of simply admitting that we are unable to discover what the mystery of
the Kingdom in Mark iv. is, any more than we can understand why it must be
veiled, and numbering it among the unsolved problems of Jesus' preaching of
the Kingdom, Wrede forces this chapter inside the lines of his theory of the
veiled Messiahship.
The desire of Jesus to be alone, too, and remain unrecognised (Mark vii. 24,
and ix. 30 ff.) is supposed to have some kind of connexion with Messiahship.
He even brings the multitude, which in Mark x. 47 ff. rebukes the blind beggar at
Jericho who cried out to Jesus, into the service of his theory . . . on the ground
that the beggar had addressed Him as Son of David. But all the narrative says
is that they told him to hold his peace-to cease making an outcry-not that they
did so because of his addressing Jesus as "Son of David."
In an equally arbitrary fashion the surprising introduction of the

318
349
"multitude" in Mark viii. 34, after the incident of Caesarea Philippi, is dragged
into the theory of secrecy. [1] Wrede does not feel the possibility or impossibility
of the sudden appearance of the multitude in this locality as an historical
problem, any more than he grasps the sudden withdrawal of Jesus from His
public ministry as primarily an historical question. Mark is for him a writer who is
to be judged from a pathological point of view, a writer who, dominated by the
fixed idea of introducing everywhere the Messianic secret of Jesus, is always
creating mysterious and unintelligible situations, even when these do not
directly serve the interests of his theory, and who in some of his descriptions,
writes in a rather "fairy-tale" style. When all is said, his treatment of the history
scarcely differs from that of the fourth Evangelist.
The absence of historical prepossessions which Wrede skilfully assumes in his
examination of the connexion in Mark is not really complete. He is bound to
refer everything inexplicable to the principle of the concealment of the
Messiahship, which is the only principle that he recognises in the dogmatic
stratum of the narrative, and is consequently obliged to deny the historicity of
such passages, whereas in reality the veiling of the Messiahship is only
involved in a few places and is there indicated in clear and simple words. He is
unwilling to recognise that there is a second, wider circle of mystery which has
to do, not with Jesus' Messiahship, but with His preaching of the Kingdom, with
the mystery of the Kingdom of God in the wider sense, and that within this
second circle there lie a number of historical problems, above all the mission of
the Twelve and the inexplicable abandonment of public activity on the part of
Jesus which followed soon afterwards. His mistake consists in endeavouring by
violent methods to subsume the more general, the mystery of the Kingdom of
God, under the more special, the mystery of the Messiahship, instead of
inserting the latter as the smaller circle, within the wider, the secret of the
Kingdom of God.
As he does not deal with the teaching of Jesus, he has no occasion to take
account of the secret of the Kingdom of God. That is the more remarkable
because corresponding to one fundamental idea of the Messianic secret there
is a parallel, more general dogmatic conception in Jesus' preaching of the
Kingdom. For if Jesus in Matt. x. gives the disciples nothing to take with them
on their mission but predictions of Peering; if at the very beginning of His
ministry He closes the Beatitudes with a blessing upon the persecuted; if in
Mark viii. 34 ff. He Warns the people that they will have to choose between life
and life, aetween death and death; if, in short, from the first, He loses no
opportunity of preaching about suffering and following Him in His suffer-
[1] For further examples of the pressing of the theory to its utmost limits see
Wrede, p. 134 ff.
350
ings; that is just as much a matter of dogma as His own sufferings and
predictions of sufferings. For in both cases the necessity of suffering, the

319
necessity of facing death, is not "a necessity of the historical situation," not a
necessity which arises out of the circumstances; it is an assertion put forth
without empirical basis, a prophecy of storm while the sky is blue, since neither
Jesus nor the people to whom He spoke were undergoing any persecution; and
when His fate overtook Him not even the disciples were involved in it. It is
distinctly remarkable that, except for a few meagre references, the enigmatic
character of Jesus' constant predictions of suffering has not been discussed in
the Life-of-Jesus literature. [1]
What has now to be done, therefore, is, in contradistinction to Wrede, to make a
critical examination of the dogmatic element in the life of Jesus on the
assumption that the atmosphere of the time was saturated with eschatology,
that is, to keep in even closer touch with the facts than Wrede does, and
moreover, to proceed, not from the particular to the general, but from the
general to the particular, carefully considering whether the dogmatic element is
not precisely the historical element. For, after all, why should not Jesus think in
terms of doctrine, and make history in action, just as well as a poor Evangelist
can do it on paper, under the pressure of the theological interests of the
primitive community.
Once again, however, we must repeat that the critical analysis and the assertion
of a system running through the disorder are the same in the eschatological as
in the sceptical hypothesis, only that in the eschatological analysis a number of
problems come more clearly to light. The two constructions are related like the
bones and cartilage of the body. The general structure is the same, only that in
the case of the one a solid substance, lime, is distributed even in the minutest
portions, giving it firmness and solidity, while in the other case this is lacking.
This reinforcing substance is the eschatological world-view.
How is it to be explained that Wrede, in spite of the eschatological school, in
spite of Johannes Weiss, could, in critically investigating the connecting
principle of the life of Jesus, simply leave eschatology out of account? The
blame rests with the eschatological school itself, for it applied the eschatological
explanation only to the preaching of Jesus, and not even to the whole of this,
but only to the Messianic secret, instead of using it also to throw light upon the
whole public work of Jesus, the connexion and want of connexion between the
events. It repre-
[1] It is always assumed as self-evident that Jesus is speaking of the sufferings
a persecutions which would take place after His death, or that the Evangelist, in
making Him speak in this way, is thinking of these later persecutions. There is
no hint of that in the text.
351
sented Jesus as thinking and speaking eschatologically in some of the most
important passages of His teaching, but for the rest gave as uneschatological a
presentation of His life as modern historical theology had done. The teaching of
Jesus and the history of Jesus were set in different keys. Instead of destroying
the modern-historical scheme of the life of Jesus, or subjecting it to a rigorous

320
examination, and thereby undertaking the performance of a highly valuable
service to criticism, the eschatological theory confined itself within the limits of
New Testament Theology, and left it to Wrede to reveal one after another by a
laborious purely critical method the difficulties which from its point of view it
might have grasped historically at a single glance. It inevitably follows that
Wrede is unjust to Johannes Weiss and Johannes Weiss towards Wrede. [1]
It is quite inexplicable that the eschatological school, with its clear perception of
the eschatological element in the preaching of the Kingdom of God, did not also
hit upon the thought of the "dogmatic" element in the history of Jesus.
Eschatology is simply "dogmatic history"-history as moulded by theological
beliefs-which breaks in upon the natural course of history and abrogates it. Is it
not even a priori the only conceivable view that the conduct of one who looked
forward to His Messianic "Parousia" in the near future should be determined,
not by the natural course of events, but by that expectation? The chaotic
confusion of the narratives ought to have suggested the thought that the events
had been thrown into this confusion by the volcanic force of an incalculable
personality, not by some kind of carelessness or freak of the tradition.
A very little consideration suffices to show that there is something quite
incomprehensible in the public ministry of Jesus taken as a whole. According to
Mark it lasted less than a year, for since he speaks of only one Passover-
journey we may conclude that no other Passover fell within the period of Jesus'
activity as a teacher. If it is proposed to
[1] That the eschatological school showed a certain timidity in drawing the
consequences of its recognition of the character of the preaching of Jesus and
examining the tradition from the eschatological standpoint can be seen from
Johannes Weiss's work, "The Earliest Gospel" (Das alteste Evangelium),
Gottingen, 1903, 414 pp. Ingenious and interesting as this work is in detail, one
is surprised to find the author of the "Preaching of Jesus" here endeavouring to
distinguish between Mark and "Ur-Markus," to point to examples of Pauline
influence, to exhibit clearly the "tendencies" which guided, respectively, the
original Evangelist and the redactor-all this as if he did not possess in his
eschatological view of the preaching of Jesus a dominant conception which
gives him a clue to quite a different psychology from that which he actually
applies. Against Wrede he brings forward many arguments which are worthy of
attention, but he can hardly be said to have refuted him, because it is
impossible for Weiss to treat the question in the exact form in which it was
raised by Wrede.
352
assume that He allowed a Passover to go by without going up to Jerusalem, His
adversaries, who took Him to task about hand-washings and about rubbing the
ears of corn on the Sabbath, would certainly have made a most serious matter
of this, and we should have to suppose that the Evangelist for some reason or
other thought fit to suppress the fact. That is to say, the burden of proof lies
upon those who assert a longer duration for the ministry of Jesus.

321
Until they have succeeded in proving it, we may assume something like the
following course of events. Jesus, in going up to a Passover came in contact
with the movement initiated by John the Baptist in Judaea, and, after the lapse
of a little time-if we bring into the reckoning the forty days' sojourn in the
wilderness mentioned in Mark i. 13, a few weeks later-appeared in Galilee
proclaiming the near approach of the Kingdom of God. According to Mark He
had known Himself since His baptism to be the Messiah, but from the historical
point of view that does not matter, since history is concerned with the first
announcement of the Messiahship, not with inward psychological processes. [1]
This work of preaching the Kingdom was continued until the sending forth of the
Twelve; that is to say, at the most for a few weeks. Perhaps in the saying "the
harvest is great but the labourers are few," with which Jesus closes His work
prior to sending forth the disciples, there lies an allusion to the actual state of
the natural fields. The flocking of the people to Him after the Mission of the
Twelve, when a great multitude thronged about Him for several days during His
journey along the northern shore of the lake, can be more naturally explained if
the harvest had just been brought in.
However that may be, it is certain that Jesus, in the midst of His initial success,
left Galilee, journeyed northwards, and only resumed His work as a teacher in
Judaea on the way to Jerusalem! Of His "public ministry," therefore, a large
section falls out, being cancelled by a period of inexplicable concealment; it
dwindles to a few weeks of preaching here and there in Galilee and the few
days of His sojourn in Jerusalem. [2]
[1] Wrede certainly goes too far in asserting that even in Mark's version the
experience at the baptism is conceived as an open miracle, perceptible to
others. The way in which the revelations to the prophets are recounted in the
Old Testament does not make in favour of this. Otherwise we should have to
suppose that the Evangelist described the incident as a miracle which took
place in the presence of a multitude without perceiving that in this case the
Messianic secret was a secret no longer. If so, the story of the baptism stands
on the same footing as the story of the Messianic entry: it is a revelation of the
Messiahship which has absolutely no results.
[2] The statement of Mark that Jesus, coming out of the north, appeared for a
moment again in Decapolis and Capernaum, and then started off to the north
once more (Mark vii. 31-viii. 27), may here provisionally be left out of account
since it stands in relation with the twofold account of the feeding of the
multitude. So too the enigmatic appearance and disappearance of the people
(Mark viii. 34-ix. 30) may here be passed over. These statements make no
difference to the fact that Jesus really broke off his work in Galilee shortly after
the Mission of the Twelve, since they imply at most a quite transient contact
with the people.
353
But in that case the public life of Jesus becomes practically unintelligible. The
explanation that His cause in Galilee was lost, and that He was obliged to flee,

322
has not the slightest foundation in the text. [1] That was recognised even by
Keim, the inventor of the successful and unsucessful periods in the life of Jesus,
as is shown by his suggestion that the Evangelists had intentionally removed
the traces of failure from the decisive period which led up to the northern
journey. The controversy over the washing of hands in Mark vii. 1-23, to which
appeal is always made, is really a defeat for the Pharisees. The theory of the
"desertion of the Galilaeans," which appears with more or less artistic variations
in all modern Lives of Jesus, owes its existence not to any other confirmatory
fact, but simply to the circumstance that Mark makes the simple statement:
"And Jesus departed and went into the region of Tyre" (vii. 24) without offering
any explanation of this decision.
The only conclusion which the text warrants is that Mark mentioned no reason
because he knew of none. The decision of Jesus did not rest upon the recorded
facts, since it ignores these, but upon considerations lying outside the history.
His life at this period was dominated by a "dogmatic idea" which rendered Him
indifferent to all else . . . even to the happy and successful work as a teacher
which was opening before Him. How could Jesus the "teacher" abandon at that
moment a people so anxious to learn and so eager for salvation? His action
suggests a doubt-whether He really felt Himself to be a "teacher." If all the
controversial discourses and sayings and answers to questions, which were so
to speak wrung from Him, were subtracted from the sum of His utterances, how
much of the didactic preaching of Jesus would be left over?
But even the supposed didactic preaching is not really that of a "teacher," since
the purpose of His parables was, according to Mark iv. 10-12, not to reveal, but
to conceal, and of the Kingdom of God He spoke only in parables (Mark iv. 34).
Perhaps, however, we are not justified in extending the theory of concealment,
simply because it is mentioned in connexion with the first parable, to all the
parables which He ever spoke, for it is never men-
[1] On the theory of the successful and unsuccessful periods in the work of
Jesus see the "Sketch," p. 3 ff., "The four Pre-suppositions of the Modern
Historical Solution."
354
tioned again. It could hardly indeed be applied to the parables with a moral, like
that, for instance, of the pearl of great price. It is equally inapplicable to the
parables of coming judgment uttered at Jerusalem in which He explicitly exhorts
the people to be prepared and watchful in view of the coming of judgment and
of the Kingdom. But here too it is deserving of notice that Jesus, whenever He
desires to make known anything further concerning the Kingdom of God than
just its near approach, seems to be confined, as it were by a higher law, to the
parabolic form of discourse. It is as though, for reasons which we cannot grasp,
His teaching lay under certain limitations. It appears as a kind of accessory
aspect of His vocation. Thus it was possible for Him to give up His work as a
teacher even at the moment when it promised the greatest success.

323
Accordingly the fact of His always speaking in parables and of His taking this
inexplicable resolution both point back to a mysterious presupposition which
greatly reduces the importance of Jesus' work as a teacher.
One reason for this limitation is distinctly stated in Mark iv. 10-12, viz.
predestination! Jesus knows that the truth which He offers is exclusively for
those who have been definitely chosen, that the general and public
announcement of His message could only thwart the plans of God, since the
chosen are already winning their salvation from God. Only the phrase, "Repent
for the Kingdom of God is at hand" and its variants belong to the public
preaching. And this, therefore, is the only message which He commits to His
disciples when sending them forth. What this repentance, supplementary to the
law, the special ethic of the interval before the coming of the Kingdom
(Interimesethik) is, in its positive acceptation, He explains in the Sermon on the
Mount. But all that goes beyond that simple phrase must be publicly presented
only in parables, in order that those only, who are shown to possess
predestination by having the initial knowledge which enables them to
understand the parables, may receive a more advanced knowledge, which is
imparted to them in a measure corresponding to their original degree ot
knowledge: "Unto him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall
be taken away even that which he hath" (Mark iv. 24-25).
The predestinarian view goes along with the eschatology. It is pushed to its
utmost consequences in the closing incident of the parable of the marriage of
the King's son (Matt. xxii. 1-14) where the man who, in response to a publicly
issued invitation, sits down at the table of the King, but is recognised from his
appearance as not called, is thrown out into perdition. "Many are called but few
are chosen."
The ethical idea of salvation and the predestinarian limitation of acceptance to
the elect are constantly in conflict in the mind of Jesus. In
355
one case, however. He finds relief in the thought of predestination. When the
rich young man turned away, not having strength to give up his possessions for
the sake of following Jesus as he had been commanded to do, Jesus and His
disciples were forced to draw the conclusion that he, like other rich men, was
lost, and could not enter into the Kingdom of God. But immediately afterwards
Jesus makes the suggestion, "With men it is impossible, but not with God, for
with God all things are possible" (Mark x. 17-27). That is, He will not give up the
hope that the young man, in spite of appearances, which are against him, will
be found to have belonged to the Kingdom of God, solely in virtue of the secret
all-powerful will of God. Of a "conversion" of the young man there is no
question.
In the Beatitudes, on the other hand, the argument is reversed; the
predestination is inferred from its outward manifestation. It may seem to us
inconceivable, but they are really predestinarian in form. Blessed are the poor in
spirit! Blessed are the meek! Blessed are the peacemakers!-that does not mean

324
that by virtue of their being poor in spirit, meek, peace-loving, they deserve the
Kingdom. Jesus does not intend the saying as an injunction or exhortation, but
as a simple statement of fact: in their being poor in spirit, in their meekness, in
their love of peace, it is made manifest that they are predestined to the
Kingdom. By the possession of these qualities they are marked as belonging to
it. In the case of others (Matt. v. 10-12) the predestination to the Kingdom is
made manifest by the persecutions which befall them in this world. These are
the light of the world, which already shines among men for the glory of God
(Matt. v. 14-15).
The kingdom cannot be "earned"; what happens is that men are called to it, and
show themselves to be called to it. On careful examination it appears that the
idea of reward in the sayings of Jesus is not really an idea of reward, because it
is relieved against a background of predestination. For the present it is sufficient
to note the fact that the eschatologico-predestinarian view brings a mysterious
element of dogma not merely into the teaching, but also into the public ministry
of Jesus.
To take another point, what is the mystery of the Kingdom of God? It must
consist of something more than merely its near approach, and something of
extreme importance; otherwise Jesus would be here indulging in mere mystery-
mongering. The saying about the candle which he puts upon the stand, in order
that what was hidden may be revealed to those who have ears to hear, implies
that He is making a tremendous revelation to those who understand the
parables about the growth of the seed. The mystery must therefore contain the
explanation why the Kingdom must now come, and how men are to know how
near it is. For the general fact that it is very near had already been openly
proclaimed
356
both by the Baptist and by Jesus. The mystery, therefore, must consist of
something more than that.
In these parables it is not the idea of development, but of the apparent absence
of causation which occupies the foremost place. The description aims at
suggesting the question, how, and by what power incomparably great and
glorious results can be infallibly produced by an insignificant fact without human
aid. A man sowed seed. Much of it was lost, but the little that fell into good
ground brought forth a harvest-thirty, sixty, an hundredfold-which left no trace of
the loss in the sowing. How did that come about?
A man sows seed and does not trouble any further about it-cannot indeed do
anything to help it, but he knows that after a definite time the glorious harvest
which arises out of the seed will stand before him. By what power is that
effected?
An extremely minute grain of mustard seed is planted in the earth and there
necessarily arises out of it a great bush, which cannot certainly have been
contained in the grain of seed. How was that?

325
What the parables emphasise is, therefore, so to speak, the in itself negative,
inadequate, character of the initial fact, upon which, as by a miracle, there
follows in the appointed time, through the power of God, some great thing. They
lay stress not upon the natural, but upon the miraculous character of such
occurrences.
But what is the initial fact of the parables? It is the sowing.
It is not said that by the man who sows the seed Jesus means Himself. The
man has no importance. In the parable of the mustard seed he is not even
mentioned. All that is asserted is that the initial fact is already present, as
certainly present as the time of the sowing is past at the moment when Jesus
speaks. That being so, the Kingdom of God must follow as certainly as harvest
follows seed-sowing. As a man believes in the harvest, without being able to
explain it, simply because the seed has been sown; so with the same absolute
confidence he may believe in the Kingdom of God.
And the initial fact which is symbolised? Jesus can only mean a fact which was
actually in existence-the movement of repentance evoked by the Baptist and
now intensified by His own preaching. That necessarily involves the bringing in
of the Kingdom by the power of God; as man's sowing necessitates the giving of
the harvest by the same Infinite Power. Any one who knows this sees with
different eyes the corn growing in the fields and the harvest ripening, for he
sees the one fact in the other, and awaits along with the earthly harvest the
heavenly, the revelation of the Kingdom of God.
If we look into the thought more closely we see that the coming of the Kingdom
of God is not only symbolically or analogically/but also
357
really and temporally connected with the harvest. The harvest ripening upon
earth is the last! With it comes also the Kingdom of God which brings in the new
age. When the reapers are sent into the fields, the Lord in Heaven will cause
His harvest to be reaped by the holy angels.
If the three parables of Mark iv. contain the mystery of the Kingdom of God, and
are therefore capable of being summed up in a single formula this can be
nothing else than the joyful exhortation: "Ye who have eyes to see, read, in the
harvest which is ripening upon earth, what is being prepared in heaven!" The
eager eschatological hope was to regard the natural process as the last of its
kind, and to see in it a special significance in view of the event of which it was to
give the signal.
The analogical and temporal parallelism becomes complete if we assume that
the movement initiated by the Baptist began in the spring, and notice that
Jesus, according to Matt. ix. 37 and 38, before sending out the disciples to
make a speedy proclamation of the nearness of the Kingdom of God, uttered
the remarkable saying about the rich harvest. It seems like a final expression of
the thought contained in the parables about the seed and its promise, and finds
its most natural explanation in the supposition that the harvest was actually at
hand.

326
Whatever may be thought of this attempt to divine historically the secret of the
Kingdom of God, there is one thing that cannot be got away from, viz. that the
initial fact to which Jesus points, under the figure of the sowing, is somehow or
other connected with the eschatological preaching of repentance, which had
been begun by the Baptist.
That may be the more confidently asserted because Jesus in another
mysterious saying describes the days of the Baptist as a time which makes
preparation for the coming of the Kingdom of God. "From the days of John the
Baptist," He says in Matt. xi. 12, "even until now, the Kingdom of Heaven is
subjected to violence, and the violent wrest it to themselves." The saying has
nothing to do with the entering of individuals into the Kingdom; it simply asserts,
that since the coming of the Baptist a certain number of persons are engaged in
forcing on and compelling the coming of the Kingdom. Jesus' expectation of the
Kingdom is an expectation based upon a fact which exercises an active
influence upon the Kingdom of God. It was not He, and not the Baptist who
"were working at the coming of the Kingdom"; it is the host of penitents which is
wringing it from God, so that it may now come at any moment.
The eschatological insight of Johannes Weiss made an end of the modern view
that Jesus founded the Kingdom. It did away with all activity, as exercised upon
the Kingdom of God, and made the part of Jesus purely a waiting one. Now the
activity comes back into the preaching of the Kingdom, but this time
eschatologically conditioned. The
358
secret of the Kingdom of God which Jesus unveils in the parables about
confident expectation in Mark iv., and declares in so many words in the eulogy
on the Baptist (Matt. xi.), amounts to this, that in the movement to which the
Baptist gave the first impulse, and which still continued, there was an initial fact
which was drawing after it the coming of the Kingdom, in a fashion which was
miraculous, unintelligible, but unfailingly certain, since the sufficient cause for it
lay in the power and purpose of God.
It should be observed that Jesus in these parables, as well as in the related
saying at the sending forth of the Twelve, uses the formula, "He that hath ears
to hear, let him hear" (Mark iv. 23 and Matt. xi. 15) thereby signifying that in this
utterance there lies concealed a supernatural knowledge concerning the plans
of God, which only those who have ears to hear-that is, the foreordained-can
detect. For others these sayings are unintelligible.
If this genuinely "historical" interpretation of the mystery of the Kingdom of God
is correct, Jesus must have expected the coming of the Kingdom at harvest
time. And that is just what He did expect. It is for that reason that He sends out
His disciples to make known in Israel, as speedily as may be, what is about to
happen. That in this He is actuated by a dogmatic idea, becomes clear when we
notice that, according to Mark, the mission of the Twelve followed immediately
on the rejection at Nazareth. The unreceptiveness of the Nazarenes had made
no impression upon Him; He was only astonished at their unbelief (Mark vi. 6).

327
This passage is often interpreted to mean that He was astonished to find His
miracle-working power fail Him. There is no hint of that in the text. What He is
astonished at is, that in His native town there were so few believers, that is,
elect, knowing as He does that the Kingdom of God may appear at any
moment. But that fact makes no difference whatever to the nearness of the
coming of the Kingdom.
The Evangelist, therefore, places the rejection at Nazareth and the mission of
the Twelve side by side, simply because he found them in this temporal
connexion in the tradition. If he had been working by "association of ideas," he
would not have arrived at this order. The want of connexion, the impossibility of
applying any natural explanation, is just what is historical, because the course
of the history was determined, not by outward events, but by the decisions of
Jesus, and these were determined by dogmatic, eschatoiogical considerations.
To how great an extent this was the case in regard to the mission of the Twelve
is clearly seen from the "charge" which Jesus gave them. He tells them in plain
words (Matt. x. 23), that He does not expect to see them back in the present
age. The Parousia of the Son of Man,
359
which is logically and temporally identical with the dawn of the Kingdom will take
place before they shall have completed a hasty journey through the cities of
Israel to announce it. That the words mean this and nothing else, that they
ought not to be in any way weakened down, should be sufficiently evident. This
is the form in which Jesus reveals to them the secret of the Kingdom of God. A
few days later, He utters the saying about the violent who, since the days of
John the Baptist, are forcing on the coming of the Kingdom.
It is equally clear, and here the dogmatic considerations which guided the
resolutions of Jesus become still more prominent, that this prediction was not
fulfilled. The disciples returned to Him; and the appearing of the Son of Man had
not taken place. The actual history disavowed the dogmatic history on which the
action of Jesus had been based. An event of supernatural history which must
take place, and must take place at that particular point of time, failed to come
about. That was for Jesus, who lived wholly in the dogmatic history, the first
"historical" occurrence, the central event which closed the former period of His
activity and gave the coming period a new character. To this extent modern
theology is justified when it distinguishes two periods in the Life of Jesus; an
earlier, in which He is surrounded by the people, a later in which He is
"deserted" by them, and travels about with the Twelve only. It is a sound
observation that the two periods are sharply distinguished by the attitude of
Jesus. To explain this difference of attitude, which they thought themselves
bound to account for on natural historical grounds, theologians of the modern
historical school invented the theory of growing opposition and waning support.
Weisse, no doubt, had expressed himself in direct opposition to this theory. [1]
Keim, who gave it its place in theology, was aware that in setting it up he was
going against the plain sense of the texts. Later writers lost this consciousness,

328
just as in the first and third Gospel the significance of the Messianic secret in
Mark gradually faded away; they imagined that they could find the basis of fact
for the theory in the texts, and did not realise that they only believed in the
desertion of the multitude and the "flights and retirements" of Jesus because
they could not otherwise explain historically the alteration in His conduct, His
withdrawal from public work, and His resolve to die.
The thoroughgoing eschatoiogical school makes better work of it.
[1] Weisse found that there was no hint in the sources of the desertion of the
people, since according to these, Jesus was opposed only by the Pharisees,
not by the people. The abandonment of the Galilaean work, and the departure
to Jerusalem, must, he thought, have been due to some unrecorded fact which
revealed to Jesus that the time had come to act in this way. Perhaps, he adds, it
was the waning of Jesus' miracle-working power which caused the change in
His attitude, since it is remarkable that He performed no further miracles during
His sojourn at Jerusalem.
360
They recognise in the non-occurrence of the Parousia promised in Matt x. 23,
the "historic fact," in the estimation of Jesus, which in some way determined the
alteration in His plans, and His attitude towards the multitude.
The whole history of "Christianity" down to the present day, that is to say, the
real inner history of it, is based on the delay of the Parousia, the non-
occurrence of the Parousia, the abandonment of eschatology, the progress and
completion of the "de-eschatologising" of religion which has been connected
therewith. It should be noted that the non-fulfilment of Matt. x. 23 is the first
postponement of the Parousia. We have therefore here the first significant date
in the "history of Christianity"; it gives to the work of Jesus a new direction,
otherwise in explicable.
Here we recognise also why the Marcan hypothesis, in constructing its view of
the Life of Jesus, found itself obliged to have recourse more and more to the
help of modern psychology, and thus necessarily became more and more
unhistorical. The fact which alone makes possible an understanding of the
whole, is lacking in this Gospel. Without Matt. x. and xi. everything remains
enigmatic. For this reason Bruno Bauer and Wrede are in their own way the
only consistent representatives of the Marcan hypothesis from the point of view
of historical criticism, when they arrive at the result that the Marcan account is
inherently unintelligible. Keim, with his strong sense of historical reality, rightly
felt that the plan of the Life of Jesus should not be constructed exclusively on
the basis of Mark.
The recognition that Mark alone gives an inadequate basis, is more important
than any "Ur-Markus" theories, for which it is impossible to discover a literary
foundation, or find an historical use. A simple induction from the "facts" takes us
beyond Mark. In the discourse-material of Matthew, which the modern-historical
school thought they could sift in here and there, wherever there seemed to be

329
room for it, there lie hidden certain facts-facts which never happened, but are all
the more important for that. -
Why Mark describes the events and discourses in the neighbourhood of the
mission of the Twelve with such careful authentication is a literary question
which the historical study of the life of Jesus may leave open; the more so
since, even as a literary question, it is insoluble.
The prediction of the Parousia of the Son of Man is not the only one which
remained unfulfilled. There is the prediction of sufferings which is connected
with it. To put it more acurately, the prediction of the appearing of the Son of
Man in Matt. x. 23 runs up into a prediction of sufferings, which, working up to a
climax, forms the remainder of the
361
discourse at the sending forth of the disciples. This prediction of sufferings has
as little to do with objective history as the prediction of the Parousia.
Consequently, none of the Lives of Jesus, which follow the lines of a natural
psychology, from Weisse down to Oskar Holtzmann, can make anything of it. [1]
They either strike it out, or transfer it to the last "gloomy epoch" of the life of
Jesus, regard it as an unintelligible anticipation, or put it down to the account of
"primitive theology," which serves as a scrap-heap for everything for which they
cannot find a place in the "historical life of Jesus."
In the texts it is quite evident that Jesus is not speaking of sufferings after His
death, but of sufferings which will befall them as soon as they have gone forth
from Him. The death of Jesus is not here pre-supposed, but only the Parousia
of the Son of Man, and it is implied that this will occur just after these sufferings
and bring them to a close. If the theology of the primitive Church had remoulded
the tradition, as is always being asserted, it would have made Jesus give His
followers directions for their conduct after His death. That we do not find
anything of this kind is the best proof that there can be no question of a
remoulding of the Life of Jesus by primitive theology. How easy it would have
been for the Early Church to scatter here and there through the discourses of
Jesus directions which were only to be applied after His death! But the simple
fact is that it did not do so.
The sufferings of which the prospect is held out at the sending forth are doubly,
trebly, nay four times over, unhistorical. In the first place-and this is the only
point which modern historical theology has noticed-because there is not a
shadow of a suggestion in the outward cir- cumstances of anything which could
form a natural occasion for such predictions of, and exhortations relating to,
sufferings. In the second place-and this has been overlooked by modern
theology because it had already declared them to be unhistorical in its own
characteristic fashion, viz, by striking them out-because they were not fulfilled.
In the third place-and this has not entered into the mind of modern theology at
all-because these sayings were spoken in the closest connexion with the
promise of the Parousia and are placed in the closest connexion with that event.
In the fourth place, because the description of that which is to befall the

330
disciples is quite without any basis in experience, A time of general dissension
will begin, in which brothers will rise up sgainst brothers, and fathers against
sons and children against their Parents to cause them to be put to death (Matt.
x. 21). And the disciples Mall be hated of all men for His name's sake." Let them
strive to hold
[1] The most logical attitude in regard to it is Bousset's, who proposes to treat
the mission and everything connected with it as a "confused and unintelligible"
tradition.
362
out to the "end," that is, to the coming of the Son of Man, in order that they may
be saved (Matt. x. 22).
But why should they suddenly be hated and persecuted for the name of Jesus,
seeing that this name played no part whatever in their preaching? That is simply
inconceivable. The relation of Jesus to the Son of Man, the fact, that is to say,
that it is He who is to be manifested as Son of Man, must therefore in some way
or other become known in the interval; not, however, through the disciples, but
by some other means of revelation. A kind of supernatural illumination will
suddenly make known all that Jesus has been keeping secret regarding the
Kingdom of God and His position in the Kingdom. This illumination will arise as
suddenly and without preparation as the spirit of strife.
And as a matter of fact Jesus predicts to the disciples in the same discourse
that to their own surprise a supernatural wisdom will suddenly speak from their
lips, so that it will be not they but the Spirit of God who will answer the great
ones of the earth. As the Spirit is for Jesus and early Christian theology
something concrete which is to descend upon the elect among mankind only in
consequence of a definite event-the outpouring of the Spirit which, according to
the prophecy of Joel, should precede the day of judgment-Jesus must have
anticipated that this would occur during the absence of the disciples, in the
midst of the time of strife and confusion.
To put it differently; the whole of the discourse at the sending forth of the
Twelve, taken in the clear sense of the words, is a prediction of the events of
the "time of the end," events which are immediately at hand, in which the
supernatural eschatological course of history will break through into the natural
course. The expectation of sufferings is therefore doctrinal and unhistorical, as
is, precisely in the same way, the expectation of the pouring forth of the Spirit
uttered at the same time. The Parousia of the Son of Man is to be preceded
according to the Messianic dogma by a time of strife and confusion-as it were,
the birth-throes of the Messiah-and the outpouring of the Spirit. It should be
noticed that according to Joel ii. and iii. the outpouring of the Spirit, along with
the miraculous signs, forms the prelude to the judgment; and also, that in the
same context, Joel iii. 13, the judgment is described as the harvest-day of God.
[1] Here we have a remarkable parallel to the
[1] Joel iii. 13, "Put in the sickle for the harvest is ripe!" In the Apocalypse of
John, too, the Last Judgment is described as the heavenly harvest: "Thrust in

331
thy sickle and reap; for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the
earth is ripe. And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and
the earth was reaped" (Rev. xiv. 15 and 16).
The most remarkable parallel to the discourse at the sending forth of the
disciples is offered by the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch: "Behold, the days
come, when the time of the world shall be ripe, and the harvest of the sowing of
the good and of the evil shall come, when the Almighty shall bring upon the
earth and upon its inhabitants and upon their rulers confusion of spirit and terror
that makes the heart stand still; and they shall hate one another and provoke
one another to war; and the despised shall have power over them of reputation,
and the mean shall exalt themselves over them that are highly esteemed. And
the many shall be at the mercy of the few . . . and all who shall be saved and
shall escape the before-mentioned (dangers) . . . shall be given into the hands
of my servant, the Messiah. (Cap. lxx. 2, 3, 9. Following the translation of E.
Kautzsch.)
The connexion between the ideas of harvest and of judgment was therefore one
of the stock features of the apocalyptic writings. And as the Apocalypse of
Baruch dates from the period about A.D. 70, it may be assumed that this
association of ideas was also current in the Jewish apocalyptic of the time of
Jesus. Here is a basis for understanding the secret of the Kingdom of God in
the parables of sowing and reaping historically and in accordance with the ideas
of the time. What Jesus did was to make known to those who understood Him
that the coming earthly harvest was the last, and was also the token of the
coming heavenly harvest. The eschatological interpretation is immensely
strengthened by these parallels.
363
saying about the harvest in Matt. ix. 38, which forms the introduction to the
discourse at the sending forth of the disciples.
There is only one point in which the predicted course of eschatological events is
incomplete: the appearance of Elias is not mentioned.
Jesus could not prophesy to the disciples the Parousia of the Son of Man
without pointing them, at the same time, to the pre-eschatological events which
must first occur. He must open to them a part of the secret of the Kingdom of
God, viz. the nearness of the harvest, that they might not be taken by surprise
and caused to doubt by these events.
Thus this discourse is historical as a whole and down to the smallest detail
precisely because, according to the view of modern theology, it must be judged
unhistorical. It is, in fact, full of eschatological dogma. Jesus had no need to
instruct the disciples as to what they were to teach; for they had only to utter a
cry. But concerning the events which should supervene, it was necessary that
He should give them information. Therefore the discourse does not consist of
instruction, but of predictions of sufferings and of the Parousia.
That being so, we may judge with what right the modern psychological theology
dismisses the great Matthaean discourses off-hand as mere "composite

332
structures." Just let any one try to show how the Evangelist when he was
racking his brains over the task of making a "discourse at the sending forth of
the disciples," half by the method of piecing it together out of traditional sayings
and "primitive theology," and half by inventing it, lighted on the curious idea of
making Jesus speak entirely of inopportune and unpractical matters; and of
then going on to provide the evidence that they never happened.
The foretelling of the sufferings that belong to the eschatological distress is part
and parcel of the preaching of the approach of the King-
364
dom of God, it embodies the secret of the Kingdom. It is for that reason that the
thought of suffering appears at the end of the Beatitudes and in the closing

an individual psychological temptation, but the general eschatological time of

tribulation, from which God is besought to exempt those who pray so earnestly
for the coming of the Kingdom and not to expose them to that tribulation by way
of putting them to the test.
There followed neither the sufferings, nor the outpouring of the Spirit, nor the
Parousia of the Son of Man. The disciples returned safe and sound and full of a
proud satisfaction; for one promise had been realised-the power which had
been given them over the demons.
But from the moment when they rejoined Him, all His thoughts and efforts were
devoted to getting rid of the people in order to be alone with them (Mark vi. 30-
33). Previously, during their absence. He had, almost in open speech, taught
the multitude concerning the Baptist concerning that which was to precede the
coming of the Kingdom, and concerning the judgment which should come upon
the impenitent, even upon whole towns of them (Matt. xi. 20-24), because, in
spite of the miracles which they had witnessed, they had not recognised the day
of grace and diligently used it for repentance. At the same time He had rejoiced
before them over all those whom God had enlightened that they might see what
was going forward; and had called them to His side (Matt. xi. 25-30).
And now suddenly, the moment the disciples return, His one thought is to get
away from the people. They, however, follow Him and overtake Him on the
shores of the lake. He puts the Jordan between Himself and them by crossing
to Bethsaida. They also come to Bethsaida. He returns to Capernaum. They do
the same. Since in Galilee it is impossible for Him to be alone, and He
absolutely must be alone, He "slips away" to the north. Once more modern
theology was right: He really does flee; not, however, from hostile Scribes, but
from the people, who dog His footsteps in order to await in His company the
appearing of the Kingdom of God and of the Son of Man-to await it in vain. [1]
In Strauss's first Life of Jesus the question is thrown out whether,
[1] With what right does modern critical theology tear apart even the discourse
in Matt. xi. in order to make the "cry of jubilation" into the cry with which Jesus
saluted the return of His disciples, and to find lodgment for the woes upon
Chorazin and Bethsaida somewhere else in an appropriately gloomy context? Is

333
not all this apparently disconnected material held together by an inner bond of
connexion-the secret of the Kingdom of God which is imminently impending
over Jesus and the people? Or, is Jesus expected to preach like one who has a
thesis to maintain and seeks about for the most logical arrangement? Does not
a certain lack of orderly connexion belong to the very idea of prophetic speech?
365
in view of Matt. x. 23, Jesus did not think of His Parousia as a transformation
which should take place during His lifetime. Ghillany bases his work on this
possibility as on an established historical fact. Dalman takes this hypothesis to
be the necessary correlative of the interpretation of the self-designation Son of
Man on the basis of Daniel and the Apocalypses.
If Jesus, he argues, designated Himself in this futuristic sense as the Son of
Man who comes from Heaven, He must have assumed that He would first be
transported thither. "A man who had died or been rapt away from the earth
might perhaps be brought into the world again in this way, or one who had
never been on earth might so descend thither." But as this conception of
transformation and removal seems to Dalman untenable in the case of Jesus,
he treats it as a reductio ad absurdum of the eschatological interpretation of the
title.
But why? If Jesus as a man walking in a natural body upon earth, predicts to
His disciples the Parousia of the Son of Man in the immediate future, with the
secret conviction that He Himself was to be revealed as the Son of Man, He
must have made precisely this assumption that He would first be supernaturally
removed and transformed. He thought of Himself as any one must who believes
in the immediate coming of the last things, as living in two different conditions:
the present, and the future condition into which He is to be transferred at the
coming of the new supernatural world. We learn later that the disciples on the
way up to Jerusalem were entirely possessed by the thought of what they
should be when this transformation took place. They contend as to who shall
have the highest position (Mark ix. 33); James and John wish Jesus to promise
them in advance the thrones on His right hand and on His left (Mark x. 35-37).
He, moreover, does not rebuke them for indulging such thoughts, but only tells
them how much, in the present age, of service, humiliation, and suffering is
necessary to constitute a claim to such places in the future age, and that it does
not in the last resort belong to Him to allot the places on His left and on His
right, but that they shall be given to those for whom they are prepared;
therefore, perhaps not to any of the disciples (Mark x. 40). At this point,
therefore, the knowledge and will of Jesus are thwarted and limited by the
predestinarianism which is bound up with eschatology.
It is quite mistaken, however, to speak as modern theology does, of the
"service" here required as belonging to the "new ethic of the Kingdom of God."
There is for Jesus no ethic of the Kingdom of God, for in the Kingdom of God all
natural relationships, even, for example, the distinction of sex (Mark xii. 25 and

334
26), are abolished. Temptation and sin no longer exist. All is "reign," a "reign"
which has gradations
366
-Jesus speaks of the "least in the Kingdom of God"-according as it has been
determined in each individual case from all eternity, and according as each by
his self-humiliation and refusal to rule in the present age has proved his fitness
for bearing rule in the future Kingdom.
For the loftier stations, however, it is necesasry to have proved oneself in
persecution and suffering. Accordingly, Jesus asks the sons of Zebedee
whether, since they claim these thrones on His right hand and on His left, they
feel themselves strong enough to drink of His cup and be baptized with His
baptism (Mark x. 38). To serve, to humble oneself, to incur persecution and
death, belong to "the ethic of the interim" just as much as does penitence. They
are indeed only a higher form of penitence.
A vivid eschatological expectation is therefore impossible to conceive apart from
the idea of a metamorphosis. The resurrection is only a special case of this
metamorphosis, the form in which the new condition of things is realised in the
case of those who are already dead. The resurrection, the metamorphosis, and
the Parousia of the Son of Man take place simultaneously, and are one and the
same act. [1] It is therefore quite indifferent whether a man loses his life shortly
before the Parousia in order to "find his life," if that is what is ordained for him;
that signifies only that he will undergo the eschatological metamorphosis with
the dead instead of with the living.
The Pauline eschatology recognises both conceptions side by side, in such a
way, however, that the resurrection is subordinated to the metamorphosis.
"Behold, I shew you a mystery," he says in 1 Cor. xv. 51 ff.; "we shall not all
sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at
the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised
incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
The apostle himself desires to be one of those who live to experience the
metamorphosis and to be clothed with the heavenly mode of existence (2 Cor.
v. 1 ft.). The metamorphosis, however, and the resurrection are, for those who
are "in Christ," connected with a being caught up into the clouds of heaven (1
Thess. iv. 15 ft.). Therefore Paul also makes one and the same event of the
metamorphosis, resurrection, and translation.
In seeking clues to the eschatology of Jesus, scholars have passed over the
eschatology which lies closest to it, that of Paul. But why? Is it not
[1] If, therefore, Jesus at a later point predicted to His disciples His resurrection,
He means by that, not a single isolated act, but a complex occurrence
consisting of His metamorphosis, translation to heaven, and Parousia as the
Son of Man. And with this is associated the general eschatological resurrection
of the dead. It is, therefore, one and the same thing whether He speaks of His
resurrection or of His coming on the clouds of heaven.
367

335
identical with that of Jesus, at least in so far that both are "Jewish eschatology"?
Did not Reimarus long ago declare that the eschatology of the primitive
Christian community was identical with the Jewish, and only went beyond it in
claiming a definite knowledge on a single point which was unessential to the
nature and course of the expected events, in knowing, that is, who the Son of
Man should be? That Christians drew no distinction between their own
eschatology and the Jewish is evident from the whole character of the earlier
apocalyptic literature, and not least from the Apocalypse of John! After all, what
alteration did the belief that Jesus was the Son of Man who was to be revealed
make in the general scheme of the course of apocalyptic events?
From the Rabbinic literature little help is to be derived towards the
understanding of the world of thought in which Jesus lived, and His view of His
own Person. The latest researches may be said to have made that clear. A few
moral maxims, a few halting parables-that is all that can be produced in the way
of parallels. Even the conception which is there suggested of the hidden coming
and work of the Messiah is of little importance. We find the same ideas in the
mouth of Trypho in Justin's dialogue, and that makes their Jewish character
doubtful. That Jesus of Nazareth knew Himself to be the Son of Man who was
to be revealed is for us the great fact of His self-consciousness, which is not to
be further explained, whether there had been any kind of preparation for it in
contemporary theology or not.
The self-consciousness of Jesus cannot in fact be illustrated or explained; all
that can be explained is the eschatological view, in which the Man who
possessed that self-consciousness saw reflected in advance the coming events,
both those of a more general character, and those which especially related to
Himself. [1]
The eschatology of Jesus can therefore only be interpreted by the aid of the
curiously intermittent Jewish apocalyptic literature of the period between Daniel
and the Bar-Cochba rising. What else, indeed, are the Synoptic Gospels, the
Pauline letters, the Christian apocalypses than products of Jewish apocalyptic,
belonging, moreover, to its greatest and most nourishing period? Historically
regarded, the Baptist, Jesus, and Paul are simply the culminating
manifestations of Jewish apocalyptic thought. The usual representation is the
exact converse of the truth. Writers describe Jewish eschatology in order to
illustrate the ideas of Jesus. But what is this "Jewish eschatology" after all? It is
an escha-
[1] The title of Baldensperger's book, The Self-consciousness of Jesus in the
Light of the Messianic Hopes of His Time, really contains a promise which is
impossible of fulfilment. The contemporary "Messianic hopes" can only explain
the hopes of Jesus so far as they corresponded thereto, not His view of His own
Person, in which He is absolutely original.
368
tology with a great gap in it, because the culminating period, with the
documents which relate to it, has been left out. The true historian will describe

336
the eschatology of the Baptist, of Jesus, and of Paul in order to explain Jewish
eschatology. It is nothing less than a misfortune for the science of New
Testament Theology that no real attempt has hitherto been made to write the
history of Jewish eschatology as it really was-that is, with the inclusion of the
Baptist, of Jesus, and of Paul. [1]
All this has had to be said in order to justify the apparently self-evident assertion
that Mark, Matthew, and Paul are the best sources for the Jewish eschatology
of the time of Jesus. They represent a phase which even in detail is self-
explanatory, of that Jewish apocalyptic hope which manifested itself from time
to time. We are, therefore, justified in first reconstructing the Jewish apocalyptic
of the time independently out of these documents, that is to say, in bringing the
details of the discourses of Jesus into an eschatological system, and then on
the basis of this system endeavouring to explain the apparently disconnected
events in the history of His public life.
The lines of connection which run backwards towards the Psalms of Solomon,
Enoch, and Daniel, and forwards towards the apocalypses of Baruch and
Enoch, are extremely important for the understanding of certain general
conceptions. On the other hand, it is impossible to over-emphasise the
uniqueness of the point of view from which the eschatology of the time of the
Baptist, of Jesus, and of Paul presents itself to us.
In the first place, men feel themselves so close to the coming events that they
only see what lies nearest to them, the imaginative development of detail
entirely ceases. In the second place, it appears to us as though seen, so to
speak, from within, passed through the medium of powerful minds like those of
the Baptist and Jesus. That is why it is so great and simple. On the other hand,
a certain complication arises from the fact that it now intersects actual history.
All these are original features of it, which are not found in the Jewish
apocalyptic writings of the preceding and following periods, and that is why
these documents give us so little help in regard to the characteristic detail of the
eschatology of Jesus and His contemporaries.
A further point to be noticed is that the eschatology of the time of Jesus shows
the influence of the eschatology of the ancient prophets in a way which is not
paralleled either before or after. Compare the
[1] Even Baldensperger's book. Die messianisch-apokalyptischen Hoffnungen
des Judentums (1903), passes at a stride from the Psalms of Solomon to
Fourth Ezra. The coming volume is to deal with the eschatology of Jesus. That
is a "theological," but not an historical division of the material. The second
volume should properly come in the middle of the first.
369
Synoptic eschatology with that of the Psalms of Solomon. In place of the legal
righteousness, which, since the return from the exile, had formed the link of
connexion between the present and the future, we find the prophetic ethic, the
demand for a general repentance, even in the case of the Baptist. In the

337
Apocalypses of Baruch and Ezra we see, especially in the theological character
of the latter, the persistent traces of this ethical deepening of apocalyptic.
But even in individual conceptions the apocalyptic of the Baptist, and of the
period which he introduces, reaches back to the eschatology of the prophetic
writings. The pouring forth of the spirit, and the figure of Elias, who comes again
to earth, play a great role in it. The difficulty is indeed, consciously felt of
combining the two eschatologies, and bringing the prophetic within the Danielic.
How, it is asked, can the Son of David be at the same time the Danielic Son-of-
Man Messiah, at once David's son and David's Lord?
It is inadequate to speak of a synthesis of the two eschatologies. What has
happened is nothing less than the remoulding, the elevation, of the Daniel-
Enoch apocalyptic by the spirit and conceptions belonging to the ancient
prophetic hope.
A great simplification and deepening of eschatology begins to show itself even
in the Psalms of Solomon. The conception of righteousness which the writer
applies is, in spite of its legal aspect, of an ethical, prophetic character. It is an
eschatology associated with great historical events, the eschatology of a
Pharisaism which is fighting for a cause, and has therefore a certain inward
greatness. [1] Between the Psalms of Solomon and the appearance of the
Baptist there lies the decadence of Pharisaism. At this point there suddenly
appears an eschatological movement detached from Pharisaism, which was
declining into an external legalism, a movement resting on a basis of its own,
and thoroughly penetrated with the spirit of the ancient prophets.
The ultimate differentia of this eschatology is that it was not, like the other
apocalyptic movements, called into existence by historical events. The
Apocalypse of Daniel was called forth by the religious oppression of Antiochus;
[2] the Psalms of Solomon by the civil strife
[1] The fact that in the Psalms of Solomon the Messiah is designated by the
ancient prophetic name of the Son of David is significant of the rising influence
of the ancient prophetic literature. This designation has nothing whatever to do
with a political ideal of a kingly Messiah. This Davidic King and his Kingdom are,
in their character and the manner of their coming, every whit as supernatural as
the Son of Man and His coming. The same historical fact was read into both
Daniel and the prophets.
[2] Enoch is an offshoot of the Danielic apocalyptic writings. The earliest portion,
the Apocalypse of the Ten Weeks, is independent of Daniel and of
contemporary origin. The Similitudes (capp. xxxvii.-lxix.), which, with their
description of the Judgment of the Son of Man, are so important in connexion
with the thoughts of Jesus, may be placed in 80-70 B.C. They do not
presuppose the taking of Jerusalem by Pompey.
370
at Jerusalem and the first appearance of the Roman power under Pompey; [l]
Fourth Ezra and Baruch by the destruction of Jerusalem. [2] The apocalyptic
movement in the time of Jesus is not connected with any historical event. It

338
cannot be said, as Bruno Bauer rightly perceived that we know anything about
the Messianic expectations of the Jewish people at that time. [3] On the
contrary, the indifference shown by the Roman administration towards the
movement proves that the Romans knew nothing of a condition of great and
general Messianic excitement among the Jewish people. The conduct of the
Pharisaic party also, and the indifference of the great mass of the people, show
that there can have been no question at that time of a national movement. What
is really remarkable about this wave of apocalyptic enthusiasm is the fact that it
was called forth not by external events, but solely by the appearance of two
great personalities, and subsides with their disappearance, without leaving
among the people generally any trace, except a feeling of hatred towards the
new sect.
The Baptist and Jesus are not, therefore, borne upon the current of a general
eschatological movement. The period offers no events calculated to give an
impulse to eschatological enthusiasm. They themselves set the times in motion
by acting, by creating eschatological facts. It is this mighty creative force which
constitutes the difficulty in grasping historically the eschatology of Jesus and the
Baptist. Instead of literary artifice speaking out of a distant imaginary past, there
now enter into the field of eschatology men, living, acting men. It was the only
time when that ever happened in Jewish eschatology.
There is silence all around. The Baptist appears, and cries: "Repent, for the
Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Soon after that comes Jesus, and in the
knowledge that He is the coming Son of Man lays hold of the wheel of the world
to set it moving on that last revolution which is to bring all ordinary history to a
close. It refuses to turn, and He throws
[1] The Psalms of Solomon are therefore a decade later than the Similitudes.
[2] The Apocalypse of Baruch seems to have been composed not very long
after the Fall of Jerusalem. Fourth Ezra is twenty to thirty years later.
[3] The Psalms of Solomon form the last document of Jewish eschatology
before the coming of the Baptist. For almost a hundred years, from 60 B.C. until
A.D. 30, we have no information regarding eschatological movements! And do
the Psalms of Solomon really point to a deep eschatological movement at the
time of the taking of Jerusalem by Pompey? Hardly, I think. It is to be noticed in
studying the times of Jesus that the surrounding circumstances have no
eschatological character. The Fall of Jerusalem marks the next turning-point in
the history ot apocalyptic hope, as Baruch and Fourth Ezra show.
371
Himself upon it. Then it does turn; and crushes Him. Instead of bringing in the
eschatological conditions, He has destroyed them. The wheel rolls onward, and
the mangled body of the one immeasurably great Man, who was strong enough
to think of Himself as the spiritual ruler of mankind and to bend history to His
purpose, is hanging upon it still. That is His victory and His reign.
These considerations regarding the distinctive character of the Synoptic
eschatology were necessary in order to explain the significance of the sending

339
forth of the disciples and the discourse which Jesus uttered upon that occasion.
Jesus' purpose is to set in motion the eschatological development of history, to
let loose the final woes, the confusion and strife, from which shall issue the
Parousia, and so to introduce the supra-mundane phase of the eschatological
drama. That is His task, for which He has authority here below. That is why He
says in the same discourse, "Think not that I am come to send peace on the
earth; I am not come to send peace, but a sword" (Matt. x. 34).
It was with a view to this initial movement that He chose His disciples. They are
not His helpers in the work of teaching; we never see them in that capacity, and
He did not prepare them to carry on that work after His death. The very fact that
He chooses just twelve shows that it is a dogmatic idea which He has in mind.
He chooses them as those who are destined to hurl the firebrand into the world,
and are afterwards, as those who have been the comrades of the unrecognised
Messiah, before He came to His Kingdom, to be His associates in ruling and
judging it. [1]
But what was to be the fate of the future Son of Man during the Messianic woes
of the last times? It appears as if it was appointed for
[1] Jesus promises them expressly that at the appearing of the Son of Man they
shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Matt. xix. 28). It
is to their part in the judgment that belong also the authority to bind and to loose
which He entrusts to them-first to Peter personally (Matt. xvi. 19) and afterwards
to all the Twelve (Matt. xviii. 18)-in such a way, too, that their present decisions
will be somehow or other binding at the Judgment. Or does the "upon earth"
refer only to the fact that the Messianic Last Judgment will be held on earth? "I
give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt
bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shall loose on
earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matt. xvi. 19). Why should these words not be
historical? Is it because in the same context Jesus speaks of the "church" which
He will found upon the Rock-disciple? But if one has once got a clear idea from
Paul, 2 Clement, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Shepherd of Hermans,
what the pre-existing "church" was which was to appear in the last times, it will
no longer appear impossible that Jesus might have spoken of the church
against which the gates of hell shall not prevail. Of course, if the passage is
given an uneschatological reference to the Church as we know it, it loses all
real meaning and becomes a treasure-trove to the Roman Catholic exegete,
and a terror to the Protestant.
372
Him to share the persecution and the suffering. He says that those wh shall be
saved must take their cross and follow Him (Matt. x. 38), that His followers must
be willing to lose their lives for His sake, and that only those who in this time of
terror confess their allegiance to Him shall be confessed by Him before His
heavenly Father (Matt. x. 32). Similarly, in the last of the Beatitudes, He had
pronounced those blessed who were despised and persecuted for His sake
(Matt. v. 11, 12). As the future bearer of the supreme rule He must go through

340
the deepest humiliation. There is danger that His followers may doubt Him.
Therefore, the last words of His message to the Baptist, just at the time when
He had sent forth the Twelve, is, "Blessed is he whosoever shall not be
offended in me" (Matt. xi. 6).
If He makes a point of familiarising others with the thought that in the time of
tribulation they may even lose their lives. He must have recognised that this
possibility was still more strongly present in His own case. It is possible that in
the enigmatic saying about the disciples fasting "when the bridegroom is taken
away from them" (Mark ii. 20), there is a hint of what Jesus expected. In that
case suffering, death, and resurrection must have been closely united in the
Messianic consciousness from the first. So much, however, is certain, viz. that
the thought of suffering formed part, at the time of the sending forth the
disciples, of the mystery of the Kingdom of God and of the Messiahship of
Jesus, and that in the form that Jesus and all the elect were to be brought low in
-struggle against the evil world-
power which would arise against them; brought down, it might be, even to
death. It mattered as little in His own case as in that of others whether at the
time of the Parousia He should be one of those who should be metamorphosed,
or one who had died and risen again. The question arises, however, how this
self-consciousness of Jesus could remain concealed. It is true the miracles had
nothing to do with the Messiahship, since no one expected the Messiah to come
as an earthly miracle-worker in the present age. On the contrary, it would have
been the greatest of miracles if any one had recognised the Messiah in an
earthly miracle-worker. How far the cries of the demoniacs who addressed Him
as Messiah were intelligible by the people must remain an open question. What
is clear is that His Messiahship did not become known in this way even to His
disciples.
And yet in all His speech and action the Messianic consciousness shines forth.
One might, indeed, speak of the acts of His Messianic consciousness. The
Beatitudes, nay, the whole of the Sermon on the Mount, with the authoritative "I"
for ever breaking through, bear witness to the high dignity which He ascribed to
Himself. Did not this "I" set the people thinking?
373
What must they have thought when, at the close of this discourse, He spoke of
people who, at the Day of Judgment, would call upon Him as Lord, and appeal
to the works that they had done in His name, and who yet were destined to be
rejected because He would not recognise them (Matt. vii. 21-23)?
What must they have thought of Him when He pronounced those blessed who
were persecuted and despised for His sake (Matt. v. 11, 12)? By what authority
did this man forgive sins (Mark ii. 5 ff.)?
In the discourse at the sending forth of the disciples the "I" is still more
prominent. He demands of men that in the trials to come they shall confess
Him, that they shall love Him more than father or mother, bear their cross after
Him, and follow Him to the death, since it is only for such that He can entreat

341
His Heavenly Father (Matt. x. 32 ff.). Admitting that the expression "Heavenly
Father" contained no riddle for the listening disciples, since He had taught them
to pray "Our Father which art in Heaven," we have still to ask who was He
whose yea or nay should prevail with God to determine the fate of men at the
Judgment?
And yet they found it hard, nay impossible, to think of Him as Messiah. They
guessed Him to be a prophet; some thought of Elias, some of John the Baptist
risen from the dead, as appears clearly from the answer of the disciples at
Caesarea Philippi. [1] The Messiah was a supernatural personality who was to
appear in the last times, and who was not expected upon earth before that.
At this point a difficulty presents itself. How could Jesus be Elias for the people?
Did they not hold John the Baptist to be Elias? Not in the least! Jesus was the
first and the only person who attributed this office to him. And, moreover, He
declares it to the people as something mysterious, difficult to understand-"If ye
can receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come. He that hath ears to hear, let
him hear" (Matt. xi. 14, 15). In making this revelation He is communicating to
them a piece of supernatural knowledge, opening up a part of the mystery of the
Kingdom of God. Therefore He uses the same formula of emphasis as when
making known in parables the mystery of the Kingdom of God (Mark iv.).
The disciples were not with Him at this time, and therefore did not learn what
was the role of John the Baptist. When a little later, in de-
[1] That he could be taken for the Baptist risen from the dead shows how short
a time before the death of the Baptist His ministry had begun. He only became
known, as the Baptist's question shows, at the time of the mission of the
disciples; Herod first heard of Him after the death of the Baptist. Had he known
anything of Jesus beforehand, it would have been impossible for him suddenly
to identify Him with the Baptist risen from the dead. This elementary
consideration has been overlooked in all calculations of the length of the public
ministry of Jesus.
374
scending from the mount of transfiguration He predicted to the three who
formed the inner circle of His followers the resurrection of the Son of Man, they
came to Him with difficulties about the rising from the dead-how could this be
possible when, according to the Pharisees and Scribes, Elias must first come?-
whereupon Jesus explains to them that the preacher of repentance whom
Herod had put to death had been Elias (Mark ix. 11-13).
Why did not the people take the Baptist to be Elias? In the first place no doubt
because he did not describe himself as such. In the next place because he did
no miracle! He was only a natural man without any evidence of supernatural
power, only a prophet. In the third place, and that was the decisive point, he had
himself pointed forward to the coming of Elias. He who was to come, he whom
he preached, was not the Messiah, but Elias.
He describes him, not as a supernatural personality, not as a judge, not as one
who will be manifested at the unveiling of the heavenly world, but as one who in

342
his work shall resemble himself, only much greater-one who, like himself,
baptizes, though with the Holy Spirit. Had it ever been represented as the work
of the Messiah to baptize?
Before the Last Judgment, so it was inferred from Joel, the great outpouring of
the spirit was to take place; before the Last Judgment, so taught Malachi, Elias
was to corns. Until these events had occurred the manifestation of the Son of
Man was not to be looked for. Men's thoughts were fixed, therefore, not on the
Messiah, but upon Elias and the outpouring of the Spirit. [1] The Baptist in his
preaching combines both ideas, and predicts the coming of the Great One who
shall "baptize with the Holy Spirit," i.e. who brings about the outpouring of the
Spirit. His own preaching was only designed to secure that at His coming that
Great One should find a community sanctified and prepared to receive the
Spirit.
When he heard in the prison of one who did great wonders and signs, he
desired to learn with certainty whether this was "he who was to come." If this
question is taken as referring to the Messiahship the whole narrative loses its
meaning, and it upsets the theory of the Messianic secret, since in this case at
least one person had become aware, independently, of the office which
belonged to Jesus, not to mention all the ineptitudes involved in making the
Baptist here speak in doubt and confusion. Moreover, on this false interpretation
of the question the point of Jesus' discourse is lost, for in this case it is not clear
why he says to the people afterwards, "If ye can receive it, John himself is
Elias." This revelation presupposes that Jesus and the people, who had
[1] That had been rightly remarked by Colani. Later, however, theology lost sign
of the fact because it did not know how to make any historical use of it.
375
heard the question which had been addressed to Him, also gave it its only
natural meaning, referring it to Jesus as the bearer of the office of Elias.
That even the first Evangelist gives the episode a Messianic setting by
introducing it with the words "When John heard in the prison of the works of the
Christ" does not alter the facts of the body of the narrative. The sequel directly
contradicts the introduction. And this interpretation fully explains the evasive
answer of Jesus, in which exegesis has always recognised a certain reserve
without ever being able to make it intelligible why Jesus did not simply send him
the message, "Yes, I am he"-whereto, however, according to modern theology,
He would have needed to add, "but another kind of Messiah from him whom
you expect.
The fact was, the Baptist had put Him in an extremely difficult position. He could
not answer that He was Elias if He held Himself to be the Messiah; on the other
hand He could not, and would not, disclose to him, and still less to the
messengers and the listening multitude, the secret of His Messiahship.
Therefore He sends this obscure message, which only contains a confirmation
of the facts which John had already heard and closes with a warning, come

343
what may, not to be offended in Him. Of this the Baptist was to make what he
could.
It mattered, in fact, little how John understood the message. The time was much
more advanced than he supposed; the hammer of the world's clock had risen to
strike the last hour. All that he needed to know was that he had no cause to
doubt.
In revealing to the people the true office of the Baptist, Jesus unveiled to them
almost the whole mystery of the Kingdom of God, and nearly disclosed the
secret of His Messiahship. For if Elias was already present, was not the coming
of the Kingdom close at hand? And if John was Elias, who was Jesus? . . .
There could only be one answer; the Messiah. But this seemed impossible,
because Messiah was expected as a supernatural personality. The eulogy on
the Baptist is, historically regarded, identical in content with the prediction of the
Parousia in the discourse at the sending forth of the disciples. For after the
coming of Elias there must follow immediately the judgment and the other
events belonging to the last time. Now we can understand why in the
enumeration of the events of the last time in the discourse to the Twelve the
coming of Elias is not mentioned.
376
Elias was to do: and yet Jesus makes him Elias, simply because He expected
His own manifestation as Son of Man, and before that it was necessary that
Elias must first have come. And even when John was dead Jesus still told the
disciples that in him Elias had come, although the death of Elias was not
contemplated in the eschatological doctrine and was in fact unthinkable. But
Jesus must somehow drag or force the eschatological events into the
framework of the actual occurrences.
Thus the conception of the "dogmatic element" in the narrative widens in an
unsuspected fashion. And even what before seemed natural becomes on a
closer examination doctrinal. The Baptist is made into Elias solely by the force
of Jesus' Messianic consciousness.
A short time afterwards, immediately upon the return of the disciples, He spoke
and acted before their eyes in a way which presupposed the Messianic secret.
The people had been dogging his steps; at a lonely spot on the shores of the
lake they surrounded Him, and He "taught them about many things" (Mark vi.
30-34). The day was drawing to a close, but they held closely to Him without
troubling about food. In the evening, before sending them away, He fed them.
Weisse, long ago, had constantly emphasised the fact that the feeding of the
multitude was one of the greatest historical problems, because this narrative,
like that of the transfiguration, is very firmly riveted to its historical setting and,
therefore, imperatively demands explanation. How is the historical element in it
to be got at? Certainly not by seeking to explain the apparently miraculous in it
on natural lines, by representing that at the bidding of Jesus people brought out
the baskets of provisions which they had been concealing, and, thus importing

344
into the tradition a natural fact which, so far from being hinted at in the narrative,
is actually excluded by it.
Our solution is that the whole is historical, except the closing remark that they
were all filled. Jesus distributed the provisions which He and His disciples had
with them among the multitude so that each received a very little, after He had
first offered thanks. The significance lies in the giving of thanks and in the fact
that they had received from Him consecrated food. Because He is the future
Messiah, this meal becomes without their knowledge the Messianic feast. With
the morsel of bread which He gives His disciples to distribute to the people He
consecrates them as partakers in the coming Messianic feast, and gives them
the guarantee that they, who had shared His table in the time of His obscurity,
would also share it in the time of His glory. In the prayer He gave thanks not
only for the food, but also for the coming Kingdom and all its blessings. It is the
counterpart of the Lord's prayer, where He so strangely inserts the petition for
daily bread between the petitions tor the coming of the Kingdom and for

377
The feeding of the multitude was more than a love-feast, a fellowship-meal. It
was from the point of view of Jesus a sacrament of salvation.
We never realise sufficiently that in a period when the judgment and the glory
were expected as close at hand, one thought arising out of this expectation
must have acquired special prominence-how, namely, in the present time a man
could obtain a guarantee of coming scatheless through the judgment, of being
saved and received into the Kingdom, of being signed and sealed for
deliverance amid the coming trial, as the Chosen People in Egypt had a sign
revealed to them from God by means of which they might be manifest as those
who were to be spared. But once we do realise this, we can understand why the
thought of signing and sealing runs through the whole of the apocalyptic
literature. It is found as early as the ninth chapter of Ezekiel. There, God is
making preparation for judgment. The day of visitation of the city is at hand. But
first the Lord calls unto "the man clothed with linen who had the writer's ink-horn
by his side" and said unto him, "Go through the midst of the city, through the
midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh
and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof." Only
after that does He give command to those who are charged with the judgment
to begin, adding, "But come not near any man upon whom is the mark" (Ezek.
ix. 4 and 6).
In the fifteenth of the Psalms of Solomon, [1] the last eschatological writing
before the movement initiated by the Baptist, it is expressly said in the
description of the judgment that "the saints of God bear a sign upon them which
saves them."
In the Pauline theology very striking prominence is given to the thought of being
sealed unto salvation. The apostle is conscious of bearing about with him in his
body "the marks of Jesus" (Gal. vi. 17), the "dying" of Jesus (2 Cor. iv. 10). This

345
sign is received in baptism, since it is a baptism "into the death of Christ"; in this
act the recipient is in a certain sense really buried with Him, and thenceforth
walks among Men as one who belongs, even here below, to risen humanity
(Rom. vi. 1 ff.). Baptism is the seal, the earnest of the spirit, the pledge of that
which is to come (2 Cor. i. 22; Eph. i. 13, 14, iv. 30).
This conception of baptism as a "salvation" in view of that which was to come
goes down through the whole of ancient theology. Its preaching might really be
summed up in the words, "Keep your baptism holy and without blemish."
In the Shepherd of Hermas even the spirits of the men of the past must receive
"the seal, which is the water" in order that they may "bear the name of God
upon them." That is why the tower is built over the
[1] Psal. Sol. xv. 8.
378
water, and the stones which are brought up out of the deep are rolled through
the water (Vis. iii. and Sim. ix. 16).
In the Apocalypse of John the thought of the sealing stands prominently in the
foreground. The locusts receive power to hurt those only who have not the seal
of God on their foreheads (Rev. ix. 4, 5). The beast (Rev. xiii. 16 ff.) compels
men to bear his mark; only those who will not accept it are to reign with Christ
(Rev. xx. 4), The chosen hundred and forty-four thousand bear the name of
God and the name of the Lamb upon their foreheads (Rev. xiv. 1).
"Assurance of salvation" in a time of eschatological expectation demanded
some kind of security for the future of which the earnest could be possessed in
the present. And with this the pre-destinarian thought of election was in
complete accord. If we find the thought of being sealed unto salvation
previously in the Psalms of Solomon, and subsequently in the same
signification in Paul, in the Apocalypse of John, and down to the Shepherd of
Hermas, it may be assumed in advance that it will be found in some form or
other in the so strongly eschatological teaching of Jesus and the Baptist.
It may be said, indeed, to dominate completely the eschatological preaching of
the Baptist, for this preaching does not confine itself to the declaration of the
nearness of the Kingdom, and the demand for repentance, but leads up to an
act to which it gives a special reference in relation to the forgiveness of sins and
the outpouring of the spirit. It is a mistake to regard baptism with water as a
"symbolic act" in the modern sense, and make the Baptist decry his own wares
by saying, "I baptize only with water, but the other can baptize with the Holy
Spirit." He is not contrasting the two baptisms, but connecting them-he who is
baptized by him has the certainty that he will share in the outpouring of the
Spirit which shall precede the judgment, and at the judgment shall receive
forgiveness of sins, as one who is signed with the mark of repentance. The
object of being baptized by him is to secure baptism with the Spirit later. The
forgiveness of sins associated with baptism is proleptic, it is to be realised at the
judgment. The Baptist himself did not forgive sin. [1] If he had done so, how

346
could such offence have been taken when Jesus claimed for Himself the right to
forgive sins in the present (Mark ii. 10)?
The baptism of John was therefore an eschatological sacrament point-
[1] That the baptism of John was essentially an act which gave a claim to
something future may be seen from the fact that Jesus speaks of His sufferings
and death as a special baptism, and asks the sons of Zebedee whether they
are willing, for the sake of gaining the thrones on His right hand and His left, to
undergo this baptism. If the baptism of John had had no real sacramental
significance it would unintelligible that Jesus should use this metaphor.
379
ing forward to the pouring forth of the spirit and to the judgment, a provision for
"salvation." Hence the wrath of the Baptist when he saw Pharisees and
Sadducees crowding to his baptism: "Ye generation of vipers, who hath warned
you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth now fruits meet for repentance"
(Matt. iii. 7, 8). By the reception of baptism, that is, they are saved from the
judgment.
As a cleansing unto salvation it is a divine institution, a revealed means of
grace. That is why the question of Jesus, whether the baptism of John was from
heaven or from men, placed the Scribes at Jerusalem in so awkward a dilemma
(Mark xi. 30).
The authority of Jesus, however, goes farther than that of the Baptist. As the
Messiah who is to come He can give even here below to those who gather
about Him a right to partake in the Messianic feast, by this distribution of food to
them; only, they do not know what is happening to them and He cannot solve
the riddle for them. The supper at the Lake of Gennesareth was a veiled
eschatological sacrament. Neither the disciples nor the multitude understood
what was happening, since they did not know who He was who thus made them
His guests. [1] This meal
[1] The thought of the Messianic feast is found in Isaiah lv. 1 ff. and lxv. 12 ff. It
is very strongly marked in Isa. xxv. 6-8, a passage which perhaps dates from
the time of Alexander the Great, "and Jahweh of Hosts will prepare upon this
mountain for all peoples a feast of fat things, a feast of wine on the lees, of fat
things prepared with marrow, of wine on the lees well refined. He shall destroy,
in this mountain, among all peoples, the veil which has veiled all peoples and
the covering which has covered all nations. He shall destroy death for ever, and
the Lord Jahweh shall wipe away the tears from off all faces; and the reproach
of His people shall disappear from the earth." (The German follows Kautzsch's
translation.)
In Enoch xxiv. and xxv. the conception of the Messianic feast is connected with
that of the tree of life which shall offer its fruits to the elect upon the mountain of
the King. Similarly in the Testament of Levi, cap. xviii. 11.
The decisive passage is in Enoch lxii. 14. After the Parousia of the Son of Man,
and after the Judgment, the elect who have been saved "shall eat with the Son
of Man, shall sit down and rise up with Him to all eternity."

347
Jesus' references to the Messianic feast are therefore not merely images, but
point to a reality. In Matt. viii. 11 and 12 He prophesies that many shall come
from the East and from the West to sit at meat with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
In Matt. xxii. 1-14 the Messianic feast is pictured as a royal marriage, in Matt.
xxv. 1-13 as a marriage feast.
The Apocalypse is dominated by the thought of the feast in all its forms. In Rev.
ii. 7 it appears in connexion with the thought of the tree of life; in ii. 17 it is
pictured as a feeding with manna; in iii. 21 it is the feast which the Lord will
celebrate with His followers; in vii. 16, 17 there is an allusion to the Lamb who
shall feed His own so that they shall no more hunger or thirst; chapter xix.
describes the marriage feast of the Lamb.
The Messianic feast therefore played a dominant part in the conception of
blessedness from Enoch to the Apocalypse of John. From this we can estimate
what sacramental significance a guarantee of taking part in that feast must have
had. The meaning of the celebration was obvious in itself, and was made
manifest in the conduct of it. The sacramental effect was wholly independent of
the apprehension and comprehension of the recipient. Therefore, in this also
the meal at the lake-side was a true sacrament.
380
must have been transformed by tradition into a miracle, a result which may have
been in part due to the references to the wonders of the Messianic feast which
were doubtless contained in the prayers, not to speak of the eschatological
enthusiasm which then prevailed universally. Did not the disciples believe that
on the same evening, when they had been commanded to take Jesus into their
ship at the mouth of the Jordan to which point He had walked along the shore-
did they not believe that they saw Him come walking towards them upon the
waves of the sea? The impulse to the introduction of the miraculous into the
narrative came from the unintelligible element with which the men who
surrounded Jesus were at this time confronted. [1]
The Last Supper at Jerusalem had the same sacramental significance as that at
the lake. Towards the end of the meal Jesus, after giving thanks, distributes the
bread and wine. This had as little to do with the satisfaction of hunger as the
distribution to the Galilaean believers. The act of Jesus is an end in itself, and
the significance of the celebration consists in the fact that it is He Himself who
makes the distribution. In Jerusalem, however, they understood what was
meant, and He explained it to them explicitly by telling them that He would drink
no more of the fruit of the vine until He drank it new in the Kingdom of God. The
mysterious images which He used at the time of the distribution concerning the
atoning significance of His death do not touch the essence of the celebration,
they are only discourses accompanying it.
On this interpretation, therefore, we may think of Baptism and the Lord's Supper
as from the first eschatological sacraments in the eschatological movement
which later detached itself from Judaism under the name of Christianity. That
explains why we find them both in Paul and in the earliest theology as

348
sacramental acts, not as symbolic ceremonies, and find them dominating the
whole Christian doctrine. Apart from the assumption of the eschatological
sacraments, we can only make the history of dogma begin with a "fall" from the
earlier purer theology into the sacramental magical, without being able to
adduce a single syllable in support of the idea that after the death of Jesus
Baptism and the Lord's Supper existed even for an hour as symbolical actions-
Paul, indeed, makes this supposition wholly impossible.
In any case the adoption of the baptism of John in Christian practice cannot be
explained except on the assumption that it was the sacrament
[1] Weisse rightly remarks that the task of the historian in dealing with Mark
must consist in explaining how such "myths" could be accepted by a chronicler
who stood so relatively near the events as our Mark does.
381
of the eschatological community, a revealed means of securing "salvation"
which was not altered in the slightest by the Messiahship of Jesus. How else
could we explain the fact that baptism, without any commandment of Jesus, and
without Jesus' ever having baptized, was taken over, as a matter of course, into
Christianity, and was given a special reference to the receiving of the Spirit?
It is no use proposing to explain it as having been instituted as a symbolical
repetition of the baptism of Jesus, thought of as "an anointing to the
Messiahship." There is not a single passage in ancient theology to support such
a theory. And we may point also to the fact that Paul never refers to the baptism
of Jesus in explaining the character of Christian baptism, never, in fact, makes
any distinct reference to it. And how could baptism, if it had been a symbolical
repetition of the baptism of Jesus, ever nave acquired this magic-sacramental
sense of "salvation"?
Nothing shows more clearly than the dual character of ancient baptism, which
makes it the guarantee both of the reception of the Spirit and of deliverance
from the judgment, that it is nothing else than the eschatological baptism of
John with a single difference. Baptism with water and baptism with the Spirit are
now connected not only logically, but also in point of time, seeing that since the
day of Pentecost the period of the outpouring of the Spirit is present. The two
portions of the eschatological sacrament which in the Baptist's preaching were
distinguished in point of time-because he did not expect the outpouring of the
Spirit until some future period-are now brought together, since one
eschatological condition-the baptism with the Spirit-is now present. The
"Christianising" of baptism consisted in this and in nothing else; though Paul
carried it a stage farther when he formed the conception of baptism as a mystic
partaking in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Thus the thoroughgoing eschatological interpretation of the Life of Jesus puts
into the hands of those who are reconstructing the history of dogma in the
earliest times an explanation of the conception of the sacraments, of which they
had been able hitherto only to note the presence as an x of which the origin was
undiscoverable, and for which they possessed no equation by which it could be

349
evaluated. If Christianity as the religion of historically revealed mysteries was
able to lay hold upon Hellenism and overcome it, the reason of this was that it
was already in its purely eschatological beginnings a religion of sacraments, a
religion of eschatological sacraments, since Jesus had recognised a Divine
institution in the baptism of John, and had Himself performed a sacramental
action in the distribution of food at the Lake of Gennesareth and at the Last
Supper.
This being so, the feeding of the multitude also belongs to the dogmatic
382
element in the history. But no one had previously recognised it as what it really
was, an indirect disclosure of the Messianic secret, just as no one had
understood the full significance of Jesus' description of the Baptist as Elias.
But how does Peter at Caesarea Philippi know the secret of his Master? What
he there declares is not a conviction which had gradually dawned on him, and
slowly grown through various stages of probability and certainty.
The real character of this incident has been interpreted with remarkable
penetration by Wrede. The incident itself, he says, is to be understood in quite
as supernatural a fashion in Mark as in Matthew. But on the other hand one
does not receive the impression that the writer intends to represent the
confession as a merit or a discovery of Peter. "For according to the text of Mark,
Jesus shows no trace of joy or surprise at this confession. His only answer
consists of the command to say nothing about His Messiahship." Keim, whom
Wrede quotes, had received a similar impression from the Marcan account, and
had supposed that Jesus had actually found the confession of Peter
inopportune.
How is all this to be explained-the supernatural knowledge of Peter and the
rather curt fashion in which Jesus receives his declaration?
It might be worth while to put the story of the transfiguration side by side with
the incident at Caesarea Philippi, since there the Divine Sonship of Jesus is "a
second time" revealed to the "three," Peter, James, and John, and the
revelation is made supernaturally by a voice from heaven. It is rather striking
that Mark does not seem to be conscious that he is reporting something which
the disciples knew already. At the beginning of the actual transfiguration Peter
still addresses Jesus simply as Rabbi (Mark ix. 5). And what does it mean when
Jesus, during the descent from the mountain, forbids them to speak to any man
concerning that which they have seen until after the resurrection of the Son of
Man? That would exclude even the other disciples who knew only the secret of
His Messiahship. But why should they not be told of the Divine confirmation of
that which Peter had declared at Caesarea Philippi and Jesus had "admitted"?
What has the transfiguration to do with the resurrection of the dead? And why
are the thoughts of the disciples suddenly busied, not with what they have seen,
not with the fact that the Son of Man shall rise from the dead, but simply with
the possibility of the rising from the dead, the difficulty being that Elias was not
yet present? Those who see in the transfiguration a projection backwards of the

350
Pauline theology into the Gospel history do not realise what are the principal
points and difficulties of the narrative. The problem lies in the conversation
during
383
the descent. Against the Messiahship of Jesus, against His rising from the
dead, they have only one objection to suggest: Elias had not yet come.
We see here, in the first place, the importance of the revelation which Jesus
had made to the people in declaring to them the secret that the Baptist is Elias.
From the standpoint of the eschatological expectation no one could recognise
Elias in the Baptist, unless he knew of the Messiahship of Jesus. And no one
could believe in the Messiahship and "resurrection" of Jesus, that is, in His
Parousia, without presupposing that Elias had in some way or other already
come. This was therefore the primary difficulty of the disciples, the stumbling-
block which Jesus must remove for them by making the same revelation
concerning the Baptist to them as to the people. It is also once more abundantly
clear that expectation was directed at that time primarily to the coming of Elias.
[1] But since the whole eschatological movement arose out of the Baptist's
preaching, the natural conclusion is that by "him who was to come after" and
baptize with the Holy Spirit John meant, not the Messiah, but Elias.
But if the non-appearance of Elias was the primary difficulty of the disciples in
connexion with the Messiahship of Jesus and all that it implied, why does it only
strike the "three," and moreover, all three of them together, now, and not at
Caesarea Philippi? [2] How could Peter there have declared it and here be still
labouring with the rest over the difficulty which stood in the way of his own
declaration? To make the narrative coherent, the transfiguration, as being a
revelation of the Messiahship, ought to precede the incident at Caesarea
Philippi. Now let us look at the connexion in which it actually occurs. It falls in
that inexplicable section Mark viii. 34-ix. 30 in which the multitude suddenly
appears in the company of Jesus who is sojourning in a Gentile district, only to
disappear again, equally enigmatically, afterwards, when He sets out for
Galilee, instead of accompanying Him back to their own country.
In this section everything points to the situation during the days at Bethsaida
after the return of the disciples from their mission. Jesus is surrounded by the
people, while what He desires is to be alone with His immediate followers. The
disciples make use of the healing powers which He had bestowed upon them
when sending them forth, and have the experience of finding that they are not in
all cases adequate (Mark ix. 14-29). The mountain to which He takes the "three"
is not a mountain
[1] It is to be noticed that the cry of Jesus from the cross, "Eli, Eli," was
immediately interpreted by the bystanders as referring to Elias.
[2] From this difficulty we can see, too, how impossible it was for any of them to
have "arrived gradually at the knowledge of the Messiahship of Jesus."
384

351
in the north, or as some have suggested, an imaginary mountain of the
Evangelist, but the same to which Jesus went up to pray and to be alone on the
evening of the feeding of the multitude (Mark vi. 46 and ix. 2). The house to
which He goes after His return from the transfiguration is therefore to be placed
at Bethsaida.
Another thing which points to a sojourn at Bethsaida after the feeding of the
multitude is the story of the healing of the blind man at Bethsaida (Mark viii. 22-
26).
The circumstances, therefore, which we have to presuppose are that Jesus is
surrounded and thronged by the people at Bethsaida. In order to be alone He
once more puts the Jordan between Himself and the multitude, and goes with
the "three" to the mountain where He had prayed after the feeding of the five
thousand. This is the only way in which we can understand how the people
failed to follow Him, and He was able really to carry out His plan.
But how could this story be torn out of its natural context and its scene removed
to Caesarea Philippi, where il is both on external and internal grounds
impossible? What we need to notice is the Marcan account of the events which
followed the sending forth of the disciples. We have two stories of the feeding of
the multitude with a crossing of the lake after each (Mark vi. 31-56, Mark viii. 1-
22), two stories of Jesus going away towards the north with the same motive,
that of being alone and unrecognised. The first time, after the controversy about
the washing of hands, His course is directed towards Tyre (Mark vii. 24-30), the
second time, after the demand for a sign, he goes into the district of Caesarea
Philippi (Mark viii. 27). The scene of the controversy about the washing of
hands is some locality in the plain of Gennesareth (Mark vi. 53 ff.); Dalmanutha
is named as the place where the sign was demanded (Mark viii. 10 ff.).
The most natural conclusion is to identify the two cases of feeding the multitude,
and the two journeys northwards. In that case we should have in the section
Mark vi. 31-ix. 30, two sets of narratives worked into one another, both
recounting how Jesus, after the disciples came back to Him, went with them
from Capernaum to the northern shore of the lake, was there surprised by the
multitude, and after the meal which He gave them, crossed the Jordan by boat
to Bethsaida, stayed there for a while, and then returned again by ship to the
country of Gennesareth, and was there again overtaken and surrounded by the
people; then after some controversial encounters with the Scribes, who at the
report of His miracles had come down from Jerusalem (Mark vii. 1), left Galilee
and again went northwards. [1]
The seams at the joining of the narratives can be recognised in Mark
[l] For the hypothesis of the two sets of narratives which have been worked into
one another, see the "Sketch of the Life of Jesus," 1901, p. 52 ff., "After the
Mission of the Disciples. Literary and historical problems." A theory resting on
the same principle was lately worked out in detail by Johannes Weiss, Das
alteste Evangelium (The Earliest Gospel), 1903, p. 205 ff.
385

352
vii. 31, where Jesus is suddenly transferred from the north to Decapolis, and in
the saying in Mark viii. 14 ff., which makes explicit reference to the two miracles
of feeding the multitude. Whether the Evangelist himself worked these two sets
of narratives together, or whether he found them already united, cannot be
determined, and is not of any direct historical interest. The disorder is in any
case so complete that we cannot fully reconstruct each of the separate sets of
narratives.
The external reasons why the narratives of Mark viii. 34-ix. 30, of which the
scene is on the northern shore of the lake, are placed in this way after the
incident of Caesarea Philippi are not difficult to grasp. The section contains an
impressive discourse to the people on following Jesus in His sufferings,
crucifixion, and death (Mark viii. 34-ix. 1). For this reason the whole series of
scenes is attached to the revelation, of the secret of the suffering of the Son of
Man; and the redactor did not stop to think how the people could suddenly
appear, and as suddenly disappear again. The statement, too, "He called the
people with the disciples" (Mark viii. 34), helped to mislead him into inserting the
section at this point, although this very remark points to the circumstances of
the time just after the return of the disciples, when Jesus was sometimes alone
with the disciples, and sometimes calls the eager multitude about Him.
The whole scene belongs, therefore, to the days which He spent at Bethsaida,
and originally followed immediately upon the crossing of the lake, after the
feeding of the multitude. It was after Jesus had been six days surrounded by the
people, not six days after the revelation at Caesarea Philippi, that the
"transfiguration" took place (Mark ix. 2). On this assumption, all the difficulties of
the incident at Caesarea Philippi are cleared up in a moment; there is no longer
anything strange in the fact that Peter declares to Jesus who He really is, while
Jesus appears neither surprised nor especially rejoiced at the insight of His
disciple. The transfiguration had, in fact, been the revelation of the secret of the
Messiahship to the three who constituted the inner circle of the disciples. [1]
And Jesus had not Himself revealed it to them; what had happened was, that in
a state of rapture common to them all, in which they
[1] It is typical of the constant agreement of the critical conclusions in
thoroughgoing scepticism and thoroughgoing eschatology that Wrede also
observes: "The transfiguration and Peter's confession are closely connected in
content" (p. 123). He also clearly perceives the inconsistency in the fact that
Peter at Caesarea Philippi gives evidence of possessing a knowledge which he
and his fellow-disciples do not show elsewhere (p. 119), but the fact that it is
Peter, not Jesus, who reveals the Messianic secret, constitutes a very serious
difficulty for Wrede's readirg of the facts, since this assumes Jesus to have
been the revealer of it.
386
had seen the Master in a glorious transfiguration, they had seen Him talking
with Moses and Elias and had heard a voice from heaven saying, "This is my
beloved Son, hear ye Him."

353
We must always make a fresh effort to realise to ourselves, that Jesus and His
immediate followers were, at that time, in an enthusiastic state of intense
eschatological expectation. We must picture them among the people, who were
filled with penitence for their sins, and with faith in the Kingdom, hourly
expecting the coming of the Kingdom, and the revelation of Jesus as the Son of
Man, seeing in the eager multitude itself a sign that their reckoning of the time
was correct; thus the psychological conditions were present for a common
ecstatic experience such as is described in the account of the transfiguration.
In this ecstasy the "three" heard the voice from heaven saying who He was.
Therefore, the Matthaean report, according to which Jesus praises Simon
"because flesh and blood have not revealed it to him, but the Father who is in
heaven," is not really at variance with the briefer Marcan account, since it rightly
indicates the source of Peter's knowledge.
Nevertheless Jesus was astonished. For Peter here disregarded the command
given during the descent from the mount of transfiguration. He had "betrayed" to
the Twelve Jesus' consciousness of His Messiahship. One receives the
impression that Jesus did not put the question to the disciples in order to reveal
Himself to them as Messiah, and that by the impulsive speech of Peter, upon
whose silence He had counted because of His command, and to whom He had
not specially addressed the question. He was forced to take a different line of
action in regard to the Twelve from what He had intended. It is probable that He
had never had the intention of revealing the secret of His Messiahship to the
disciples. Otherwise He would not have kept it from them at the time of their
mission, when He did not expect them to return before the Parousia. Even at
the transfiguration the "three" do not learn it from His lips, but in a state of
ecstasy, an ecstasy which He shared with them. At Caesarea Philippi it is not
He, but Peter, who reveals His Messiahship. We may say, therefore, that Jesus
did not voluntarily give up His Messianic secret; it was wrung from Him by the
pressure of events.
However that may be, from Caesarea Philippi onwards it was known to the
other disciples through Peter; what Jesus Himself revealed to them, was the
secret of his sufferings.
Pfleiderer and Wrede were quite right in pointing to the clear and definite
predictions of the suffering, death, and resurrection as the historically
inexplicable element in our reports, since the necessity of Jesus' death, by
which modern theology endeavours to make His resolve and His predictions
intelligible, is not a necessity which arises out of
387
the historical course of events. There was not present any natural ground for
such a resolve on the part of Jesus. Had He returned to Galilee, He would
immediately have had the multitudes flocking after Him again.
In order to make the historical possibility of the resolve to suffer and the
prediction of the sufferings in some measure intelligible, modern theology has to
ignore the prediction of the resurrection which is bound up with them, for this is

354
"dogmatic." That is, however, not permissible. We must, as Wrede insists, take
the words as they are, and must not even indulge in ingenious explanations of
the "three days." Therefore, the resolve to suffer and to die are dogmatic;
therefore, according to him, they are unhistorical, and only to be explained by a
literary hypothesis.
But the thoroughgoing eschatological school says they are dogmatic, and
therefore historical; because they find their explanation in eschatological
conceptions.
Wrede held that the Messianic conception implied in the Marcan narrative is not
the Jewish Messianic conception, just because of the thought of suffering and
death which it involves. No stress must be laid on the fact that in Fourth Ezra vii.
29 the Christ dies and rises again, because His death takes place at the end of
the Messianic Kingdom. [1] The Jewish Messiah is essentially a glorious being
who shall appear in the last time. True, but the case in which the Messiah
should be present, prior to the Parousia, should cause the final tribulations to
come upon the earth, and should Himself undergo them, does not arise in the
Jewish eschatology as described from without. It first arises with the self-
consciousness of Jesus. Therefore, the Jewish conception of the Messiah has
no information to give us upon this point.
In order to understand Jesus' resolve to suffer, we must first recognise that the
mystery of this suffering is involved in the mystery of the Kingdom of God, since
the Kingdom cannot come until t
certainty of suffering is quite independent of the historic circumstances, as the
beatitude on the persecuted in the sermon on the mount, and the predictions in
the discourse at the sending forth of the Twelve, clearly show. Jesus' prediction
of His own sufferings at Caesarea Philippi is precisely as unintelligible, precisely
as dogmatic, and therefore precisely as historical as the prediction to the
disciples at the time of their mission. The "must be" of the sufferings is the
same-the coming of the Kingdom, and of the Parousia, which are dependent
upon the
[1] "After these years shall my Son, the Christ, die, together with all who have
the breath of men. Then shall the Age be changed into the primeval silence;
seven dys, as at the first beginning so that no man shall be left. After seven
days shall the Age, which now sleeps, awake, and perishability shall itself
perish."
388
In the first period Jesus' thoughts concerning His own sufferings were included
in the more general thought 01 the sufferings which formed part of the mystery
of the Kingdom of God. The exhortations to hold steadfastly to Him in the time
of trial, and not to lose faith in Him certainly tended to suggest that He thought
of Himself as the central point amid these conflicts and confusions, and
reckoned on the possibility of His own death as much as on that of others. Upon
this point nothing more definite can be said, since the mystery of Jesus' own
sufferings does not detach itself from the mystery of the sufferings connected

355
with the Kingdom of God until after the Messianic secret is made known at
Caesarea Philippi. What is certain is that, for Him, suffering was always
associated with the Messianic secret, since He placed His Parousia at the end
of the pre-Messianic tribulations in which He was to have His part.
The suffering, death, and resurrection of which the secret was revealed at
Caesarea Philippi are not therefore in themselves new or surprising. [1] The
novelty lies in the form in which they are conceived. The tribulation, so far as
Jesus is concerned, is now connected with an historic event: He will go to
Jerusalem, there to suffer death at the hands of the authorities.
For the future, however, He no longer speaks of the general tribulation which
He is to bring upon the earth, nor of the sufferings which await His followers, nor
of the sufferings in which they must rally round Him. In the predictions of the
passion there is no word of that;
[1] Difficult problems are involved in the prediction of the resurrection in Mark
xiv. 28. Jesus there promises His disciples that He will "go before them" into
Galilee. That cannot mean that He will go alone into Galilee before them, and
that they shall there meet with Him, their risen Master; what He contemplates is
that He shall return with them, at their head, from Jerusalem to Galilee. Was it
that the manifestation of the Son of Man and of the Judgment should take place
there? So much is clear: the saying, far from directing the disciples to go away
to Galilee, chains them to Jerusalem, there to await Him who should lead them
home. It should not therefore be claimed as supporting the tradition of the
Galilaean appearances.
We find it "corrected" by the saying of the "young man" at the grave, who gays
to the women, "Go, tell His disciples and Peter that He goeth before you into
Galilee. There shall ye see Him as He said unto you."
Here then the idea of following in point of time is foisted upon the words "he
goeth before you," whereas in the original the word has a purely local sense,

Mark x. 32.
But the correction is itself meaningless since the visions took place in
Jerusalem. We have therefore in this passage a more detailed indication of the
way in which Jesus thought of the events subsequent to His Resurrection. The
interpretation of this unfulfilled saying is, however, wholly impossible for us: it
was net less so for the earliest tradition, as is shown by the attempt to give it a
meaning by the "correction."
389
at Jerusalem there is no word of that. This thought disappears once for all.
In the secret of His passion which Jesus reveals to the disciples at Caesarea
Philippi the pre-Messianic tribulation is for others set aside, abolished,
concentrated upon Himself alone, and that in the form that they are fulfilled in
His own passion and death at Jerusalem. That was the new conviction that had
dawned upon Him. He must suffer for others . . . that the Kingdom might come.

356
This change was due to the non-fulfillment of the promises made in the
discourse at the sending forth of the Twelve. He had thought then to let loose
the final tribulation and so compel the coming of the Kingdom. And the
cataclysm had not occurred. He had expected it also after the return of the
disciples. In Bethsaida, in speaking to the multitude which He had consecrated
by the foretaste of the Messianic feast, as also to the disciples at the time of
their mission. He had turned their thoughts to things to come and had adjured
them to be prepared to suffer with Him, to give up their lives, not to be ashamed
of Him in His humiliation, since otherwise the Son of Man would be ashamed of
them when He came in glory (Mark viii. 34-ix. 1) [1]
In leaving Galilee He abandoned the hope that the final tribulation would begin
of itself. If it delays, that means that there is still something to be done, and yet
another of the violent must lay violent hands upon the Kingdom of God. The
movement of repentance had not been sufficient. When, in accordance with His
commission, by sending forth the disciples with their message, he hurled the
fire-brand which should kindle the fiery trials of the Last Time, the flame went
out. He had not succeeded in sending the sword on earth and stirring up the
conflict. And until the time of trial had come, the coming of the Kingdom and His
own manifestation as Son of Man were impossible.
That meant-not that the Kingdom was not near at hand-but that God had
appointed otherwise in regard to the time of trial. He had heard the Lord's
Prayer in which Jesus and His followers prayed for the coming of the Kingdom-
and at the same time, for deliverance from the polloi for whom Jesus dies are
those predestined to the Kingdom, since His death must at last compel the
Coming of the Kingdom. [1]
This thought Jesus found in the prophecies of Isaiah, which spoke of the
suffering Servant of the Lord. The mysterious description of Him who in His
humiliation was despised and misunderstood, who, nevertheless bears the guilt
of others and afterwards is made manifest in what He has done for them,
points, He feels, to Himself.
And since He found it there set down that He must suffer unrecognised, and
that those for whom He suffered should doubt Him, His suffering should, nay
must, remain a mystery. In that case those who doubted Him would not bring
condemnation [1] upon themselves. He no
[1] Weisse and Bruno Bauer had long ago pointed out how curious it was that
Jesus in the sayings about His sufferings spoke of "many" instead of speaking
of "His own" or "the believers." Weisse found in the words the thought that
Jesus died for the nation as a whole; Bruno Bauer that the "for many" in the
words of Jesus was derived from the view of the later theology of the Christian
community. This explanation is certainly wrong, for so soon as the words of
Jesus come into any kind of contact with early theology the "many" disappear to
give place to the "believers." In the Pauline words of institution the form is: My
body for you (1 Cor. xi. 24).

357
Johannes Weiss follows in the footsteps of Weisse when he interprets the
"many" as the nation (Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes, 2nd ed., 1909, p.
201). He gives however, quite a false turn to this interpretation by arguing that
the "many" cannot include the disciples, since they "who in faith and penitence
have received the tidings of the Kingdom of God no longer need a special
means of deliverance such as this." They are the chosen, to them the Kingdom
is assured. But a ransom, a special means of salvation, is needful for the mass
of the people, who in their blindness have incurred the guilt of rejecting the
Messiah. For this grave sin, which is, nevertheless, to some extent excused as
due to ignorance, there is a unique atoning sacrifice, the death of the Messiah.
This theory is based on a distinction of which there is no hint in the teaching ot
Jesus; and it takes no account of the predestinarianism which is an integral part
ot eschatology, and which, in fact, dominated the thoughts of Jesus. The Lord is
conscious that He dies only for the elect. For others His death can avail nothing,
not even their own repentance. Moreover, He does not die in orcier that this one
or that one may come into the Kingdom of God; He provides the atonement in
order that the Kingdom itself may come. Until the Kingdom comes even the
elect cannot possess it.
391
longer needs to adjure them for their own sakes to be faithful to Him and to
stand by Him even amid reproach and humiliation; He can calmly predict to His
disciples that they shall all be offended in Him and shall flee (Mark xiv. 26, 27);
He can tell Peter, who boasts that he will die with Him, that before the dawn he
shall deny Him thrice (Mark xiv. 29-31); all that is so set down in the Scripture.
They must doubt Him. But now they shall not lose their blessedness, for He
bears all sins and transgressions. That, too, is buried in the atonement which
He offers.
Therefore, also, there is no need for them to understand His secret. He spoke of
it to them without any explanation. It is sufficient that they should know why He
goes up to Jerusalem. They, on their part, are thinking only of the coming
transformation of all things, as their conversation shows. The prospect which He
has opened up to them is clear enough; the only thing that they do not
understand is why He must first die at Jerusalem. The first time that Peter
ventured to speak to Him about it, He had turned on him w^h cruel harshness,
had almost cursed him (Mark viii. 32, 33) ; from that time forward they no longer
dared to ask Him anything about it. The new thought of His own passion has its
basis therefore in the authority with which Jesus was armed to bring about the
beginning of the final tribulation. Ethically regarded, His taking the suffering
upon Himself is an act of mercy and compassion towards those who would
otherwise have had to bear these tribulations, and perhaps would not have
stood the test. Historically regarded, the thought of His sufferings involves the
same lofty treatment both of history and eschatology as was manifested in the
identification of the Baptist with Elias. For now He identifies His condemnation
and execution, which are to take place on natural lines, with the predicted pre-

358
Messianic tribulations. This imperious forcing of eschatology into history is also
its destruction; its assertion and abandonment at the same time.
Towards Passover, therefore, Jesus sets out for Jerusalem, solely in order to
die there. [1] "It is," says Wrede, "beyond question the opinion of Mark that
Jesus went to Jerusalem because He had decided to die; that is obvious even
from the details of the story." It is therefore a mistake to speak of Jesus as
"teaching" in Jerusalem. He has no intention of doing so. As a prophet He
foretells in veiled parabolic form the offence which must come (Mark xii. 1-12),
exhorts men to watch for the Parousia, pictures the nature of the judgment
which the Son of
[1] One might use it as a principle of division by which to classify the lives of
Jesus, whether they make Him go to Jerusalem to work or to die. Here as in so
many other places Weisse's clearness of perception is surprising. Jesus'
journey was according to him a pilgrimage to death, not to the Passover.
392
Man shall hold, and, for the rest, thinks only how He can so provoke the
Pharisees and the rulers that they will be compelled to get rid of Him. That is
why He violently cleanses the Temple, and attacks the Pharisees, in the
presence of the people, with passionate invective.
From the revelation at Caesarea Philippi onward, all that belongs to the history
of Jesus, in the strict sense, are the events which lead up to His death; or, to
put it more accurately, the events in which He Himself is the sole actor. The
other things which happen, the questions which are laid before Him for decision,
the episodic incidents which occur in those days, have nothing to do with the
real "Life of Jesus," since they contribute nothing to the decisive issue, but
merely form the anecdotic fringes of the real outward and inward event, the
deliberate bringing down of death upon Himself.
It is in truth surprising that He succeeded in transforming into history this
resolve which had its roots in dogma, and really dying alone. Is it not almost
unintelligible that His disciples were not involved in His fate? Not even the
disciple who smote with the sword was arrested along with Him (Mark xiv. 47);
Peter, recognised in the courtyard of the High Priest's house as one who had
been with Jesus the Nazarene, is allowed to go free.
For a moment indeed, Jesus believes that the "three" are destined to share His
fate, not from any outward necessity, but because they had professed
themselves able to suffer the last extremities with Him. The sons of Zebedee,
when He asked them whether, in order to sit at His right hand and His left, they
are prepared to drink His cup and be baptized with His baptism, had declared
that they were, and thereupon He had predicted that they should do so (Mark x.
38, 39). Peter again had that very night, in spite of the warning of Jesus, sworn
that he would go even unto death with Him (Mark xiv. 30, 31). Hence He is
conscious of a higher possibility that these three are to go through the trial with
Him. He takes them with Him to Gethsemane and bids them remain near Him
and watch with Him. And since they do not perceive the danger of the hour. He

359
adjures them to watch and pray. They are to pray that they may not have to

though the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak. Amid His own sore distress He is
anxious about them and their capacity to share His trial as they had declared
their willingness to do. [1]
Here also it is once more made clear that for Jesus the necessity of His death is
grounded in dogma, not in external historical facts. Above the dogmatic
eschatological necessity, however, there stands the omnipotence of God, which
is bound by no limitations. As Jesus in the Lord's
[1] "That ye enter not into temptation" is the content of the prayer that they are
to offer while watching with Him.
393
Prayer had taught His followers to
and as in His fears for the three He bids them pray for the same thing, so now
He Himself prays for deliverance, even in this last moment when He knows that
the armed band which is coming to arrest Him is already on the way. Literal
history does not exist for Him, only the will of God; and this is exalted even
above eschatological necessity.
But how did this exact agreement between the fate of Jesus and His predictions
come about? Why did the authorities strike at Him only, not at His whole
following, not even at the disciples?
He was arrested and condemned on account of His Messianic claims. But how
did the High Priest know that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah? And why does
he put the accusation as a direct question without calling witnesses in support
of it? Why was the attempt first made to bring up a saying about the Temple
which could be interpreted as blasphemy in order to condemn Him on this
ground (Mark xiv. 57-59)? Before that again, as is evident from Mark's account,
they had brought up a whole crowd of witnesses in the hope of securing
evidence sufficient to justify His condemnation; and the attempt had not
succeeded.
It was only after all these attempts had failed that the High Priest brought his
accusation concerning the Messianic claim, and he did so without citing the
three necessary witnesses. Why so? Because he had not got them. The
condemnation of Jesus depended on His own admission. That was why they
had endeavoured to convict Him upon other charges. [1]
This wholly unintelligible feature of the trial confirms what is evident also from
the discourses and attitude of Jesus at Jerusalem, viz. that He had not been
held by the multitude to be the Messiah, that the idea of His making such claims
had not for a moment occurred to them-lay in fact for them quite beyond the
range of possibility. Therefore He cannot have made a Messianic entry.
According to Havet, Brandt, Wellhausen, Dalman, and Wrede the ovation at the
entry had no Messianic character whatever. It is wholly mistaken, as Wrede
quite rightly remarks, to represent matters as if the Messianic ovation was
forced upon Jesus-that He accepted it with inner repugnance and in silent

360
passivity. For that would involve the supposition that the people had for a
moment regarded Him as Mes-
[1] As long ago as 1880, H. W. Bleby (The Trial of Jesus considered as a
Judicial Act) had emphasised this circumstance as significant. The injustice in
the trial of Jesus consisted, according to him, in the fact that He was
condemned on His own admission without any witnesses being called. Dalman,
it is true, will not admit that this technical error was very serious.
But the really important point is not whether the condemnation was legal or not;
it is the significant fact that the High Priest called no witnesses. Why did he not
call any? This question was obscured by Bleby and Dalman by other problems.
394
siah and then afterwards had shown themselves as completely without any
suspicion of His Messiahship as though they had in the interval drunk of the
waters of Lethe. The exact opposite is true: Jesus Himself made the
preparations for the Messianic entry. Its Messianic features were due to His
arrangements. He made a point of riding upon the ass, not because He was
weary, but because He desired that the Messianic prophecy of Zech. ix. 9
should be secretly fulfilled.
The entry is therefore a Messianic act on the part of Jesus, an action in which
His consciousness of His office breaks through, as it did at the sending forth of
the disciples, in the explanation that the Baptist was Elias, and in the feeding of
the multitude. But others can have had no suspicion of the Messianic
significance of that which was going on before their eyes. The entry into
Jerusalem was therefore Messianic for Jesus, but not Messianic for the people.
But what was He for the people? Here Wrede's theory that He was a teacher
again refutes itself. In the triumphal entry there is more than the ovation offered
to a teacher. The jubilations have reference to "Him who is to come"; it is to Him
that the acclamations are offered and because of Him that the people rejoice in
the nearness of the Kingdom, as in Mark, the cries of jubilation show; for here,
as Dalman rightly remarks, there is actually no mention of the Messiah.
Jesus therefore made His entry into Jerusalem as the Prophet, as Elias. That is
confirmed by Matthew (xxi. 11), although Matthew gives a Messianic colouring
to the entry itself by bringing in the acclamation in which He was designated the
Son of David, just as, conversely, he reports the Baptist's question rightly, and
introduces it wrongly, by making the Baptist hear of the "works of the Christ."
Was Mark conscious, one wonders, that it was not a Messianic entry that he
was reporting? We do not know. It is not inherently impossible that, as Wrede
asserts, "he had no real view concerning the historical life of Jesus," did not
know whether Jesus was recognised as Messiah, and took no interest in the
question from an historical point of view. Fortunately for us! For that is why he
simply hands on tradition and does not write a Life of Jesus.
The Marcan hypothesis went astray in conceiving this Gospel as a Life of Jesus
written with either complete or partial historical consciousness, and interpreting
it on these lines, on the sole ground that it only brings in the name Son of Man

361
twice prior to the incident at Caesarea Philippi. The Life of Jesus cannot be
arrived at by following the arrangement of a single Gospel, but only on the basis
of the tradition which is preserved more or less faithfully in the earliest pair of
Synoptic Gospels.
Questions of literary priority, indeed literary questions in general, have in the
last resort, as Keim remarked long ago, nothing to do with
397
the gaining of a clear idea of the course of events, since the Evangelists had not
themselves a clear idea of it before their minds; it can only be arrived at
hypothetically by an experimental reconstruction based on the necessary inner
connexion of the incidents.
But who could possibly have had in early times a clear conception of the Life of
Jesus? Even its most critical moments were totally unintelligible to the disciples
who had themselves shared in the experiences, and who were the only sources
for the tradition. They were simply swept through these events by the
momentum of the purpose of Jesus. That is why the tradition is incoherent. The
reality had been incoherent too, since it was only the secret Messianic self-
consciousness of Jesus which created alike the events and their connexion.
Every Life of Jesus remains therefore a reconstruction on the basis of a more or
less accurate insight into the nature of the dynamic self-consciousness of Jesus
which created the history.
The people, whatever Mark may have thought, did not offer Jesus a Messianic
ovation at all; it was He who, in the conviction that they were wholly unable to
recognise it, played with His Messianic self-consciousness before their eyes,
just as He did at the time after tha sending forth of the disciples, when, as now,
He thought the end at hand. It was in the same way, too, that He closed the
invective against the Pharisees with the words "I say unto you, ye shall see me
no more until ye shall say. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord"
(Matt. xxiii. 39). This saying implies His Parousia.
Similarly He is playing with His secret in that crucial question regarding the
Messiahship in Mark xii. 35-37. There is no question of dissociating the Davidic
Sonship from the Messiahship. [1] He asks only how can the Christ in virtue of
His descent from David be, as his son, inferior to David, and yet be addressed
by David in the Psalm as his Lord? The answer is; by reason of the
metamorphosis and Parousia in which natural relationships are abolished and
the scion of David's line who is the predestined Son of Man shall take
possession of His unique glory.
Far from rejecting the Davidic Sonship in this saying, Jesus, on the contrary,
presupposes His possession of it. That raises the question whether He did not
really during His lifetime regard Himself as a descendant of David and whether
He was not regarded as such. Paul, who otherwise shows no interest in the
earthly phase of the existence of the Lord, certainly implies His descent from
David.

362
The blind man at Jericho, too, cries out to the Nazarene prophet as "Son of
David" (Mark x. 47). But in doing so he does not mean to
[1] That would have been to utter a heresy which would alone have sufficed to
secure His condemnation. It would certainly have been brought up as a charge
against Him.
396
address Jesus as Messiah, for afterwards, when he is brought to Him he simply
calls Him "Rabbi" (Mark x. 51) And the people thought nothing further about
what he had said. When the expectant people bid him keep silence they do not
do so because the expression Son of David offends them, but because his
clamour annoys them. Jesus, however, was struck by this cry, stood still and
caused him, as he was standing timidly behind the eager multitude, to be
brought to Him. It is possible, of course, that this address is a mere mistake in
the tradition, the same tradition which unsuspectingly brought in the expression
Son of Man at the wrong place.
So much, however, is certain: the people were not made aware of the
Messiahship of Jesus by the cry of the blind man any more than by the outcries
of the demoniacs. The entry into Jerusalem was not a Messianic ovation. All
that history is concerned with is that this fact should be admitted on all hands.
Except Jesus and the disciples, therefore, no one knew the secret of His
Messiahship even in those days at Jerusalem. But the High Priest suddenly
showed himself in possession of it. How? Through the betrayal of Judas.
For a hundred and fifty years the question has been historically discussed why
Judas betrayed his Master. That the main question for history was what he
betrayed was suspected by few and they touched on it only in a timid kind of
way-indeed the problems of the trial of Jesus may be said to have been non-
existent for criticism.
The traitorous act of Judas cannot have consisted in informing the Sanhedrin
where Jesus was to be found at a suitable place for an arrest. They could have
had that information more cheaply by causing Jesus to be watched by spies.
But Mark expressly says that Judas when he betrayed Jesus did not yet know
of a favourable opportunity for the arrest, but was seeking such an opportunity.
Mark xiv. 10, 11, "And Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, went unto the chief
priests, to betray him unto them. And when they heard it, they were glad, and
promised to give him money. And he sought how he might conveniently betray
him."
In the betrayal, therefore, there were two points, a more general and a more
special: the general fact by which he gave Jesus into their power, and the
undertaking to let them know of the next opportunity when they could arrest Him
quietly, without publicity. The betrayal by which he brought his Master to death,
in consequence of which the rulers decided upon the arrest, knowing that their
cause was safe in any case, was the betrayal of the Messianic secret. Jesus
died because two of His disciples had broken His command of silence: Peter
when he made known the secret of the Messiahship to the Twelve at Caesarea

363
Philippi; Judas Iscariot by communicating it to the High Priest. But the difficulty
was that Judas was the sole witness. Therefore the betrayal was useless so
397
far as the actual trial was concerned unless Jesus admitted the charge. So they
first tried to secure His condemnation on other grounds, and only when these
attempts broke down did the High Priest put, in the form of a question, the
charge in support of which he could have brought no witnesses.
But Jesus immediately admitted it, and strengthened the admission by an
allusion to His Parousia in the near future as Son of Man.
The betrayal and the trial can only be rightly understood when it is realised that
the public knew nothing whatever of the secret of the Messiahship. [1]
It is the same in regard to the scene in the presence of Pilate. The people on
that morning knew nothing of the trial of Jesus, but came to Pilate with the sole
object of asking the release of a prisoner, as was the custom at the feast (Mark
xv. 6-8). The idea then occurs to Pilate, who was just about to hand over,
willingly enough, this troublesome fellow and prophet to the priestly faction, to
play off the people against the priests and work on the multitude to petition for
the release of Jesus. In this way he would have secured himself on both sides.
He would have condemned Jesus to please the priests, and after condemning
Him would have released Him to please the people. The priests are greatly
embarrassed by the presence of the multitude. They had done everything so
quickly and quietly that they might well have hoped to get Jesus crucified before
any one knew what was happening or had had time to wonder at His non-
appearance in the Temple.
The priests therefore go among the people and induce them not to agree to the
Procurator's proposal. How? By telling them why He was condemned, by
revealing to them the Messianic secret. That makes Him at once from a prophet
worthy of honour into a deluded enthusiast and blasphemer. That was the
explanation of the "fickleness" of the Jeru- salem mob which is always so
eloquently described, without any evidence for it except this single inexplicable
case.
At midday of the same day-it was the 14th Nisan, and in the evening the
Paschal lamb would be eaten-Jesus cried aloud and expired. He had chosen to
remain fully conscious to the last.
[1] When it is assumed that the Messianic claims of Jesus were generally
known during those last days at Jerusalem there is a temptation to explain the
absence of witnesses in regard to them by supposing that they were too much a
matter of common knowledge to require evidence. But in that case why should
the High Priest not have fulfilled the prescribed formalities? Why make such
efforts first to establish a different charge? Thus the obscure and unintelligible
procedure at the trial of Jesus becomes in the end the clearest proof that the
public knew nothing of the Messiahship of Jesus.
* XX *
RESULTS

364
THOSE WHO ARE FOND OF TALKING ABOUT NEGATIVE THEOLOGY CAN
FIND their account here. There is nothing more negative than the result of the
critical study of the Life of Jesus.
The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah, who
preached the ethic of the Kingdom of God, who founded the Kingdom of
Heaven upon earth, and died to give His work its final consecration, never had
any existence. He is a figure designed by rationalism, endowed with life by
liberalism, and clothed by modern theology in an historical garb.
This image has not been destroyed from without, it has fallen to pieces, cleft
and disintegrated by the concrete historical problems which came to the surface
one after another, and in spite of all the artifice, art, artificiality, and violence
which was applied to them, refused to be planed down to fit the design on which
the Jesus of the theology of the last hundred and thirty years had been
constructed, and were no sooner covered over than they appeared again in a
new form. The thoroughgoing sceptical and the thoroughgoing eschatological
school have only completed the work of destruction by linking the problems into
a system and so making an end of the Divide et impera of modern theology,
which undertook to solve each of them separately, that is, in a less difficult form.
Henceforth it is no longer permissible to take one problem out of the series and
dispose of it by itself, since the weight of the whole hangs upon each.
Whatever the ultimate solution may be, the historical Jesus of whom the
criticism of the future, taking as its starting-point the problems which have been
recognised and admitted, will draw the portrait, can never render modern
theology the services which it claimed from its own half-historical, half-modern,
Jesus. He will be a Jesus, who was Messiah, and lived as such, either on the
ground of a literary fiction of the earliest Evangelist, or on the ground of a purely
eschatological Messianic conception.
In either case, He will not be a Jesus Christ to whom the religion of the present
can ascribe, according to its long-cherished custom, its own
399
thoughts and ideas, as it did with the Jesus of its own making. Nor will He be a
figure which can be made by a popular historical treatment so sympathetic and
universally intelligible to the multitude. The historical Jesus will be to our time a
stranger and an enigma.
The study of the Life of Jesus has had a curious history. It set out in quest of the
historical Jesus, believing that when it had found Him it could bring Him straight
into our time as a Teacher and Saviour. It loosed the bands by which He had
been riveted for centuries to the stony rocks of ecclesiastical doctrine, and
rejoiced to see life and movement coming into the figure once more, and the
historical Jesus advancing, as it seemed, to meet it. But He does not stay; He
passes by our time and returns to His own. What surprised and dismayed the
theology of the last forty years was that, despite all forced and arbitrary
interpretations, it could not keep Him in our time, but had to let Him go. He
returned to His own time, not owing to the application of any historical ingenuity,

365
but by the same inevitable necessity by which the liberated pendulum returns to
its original position.
The historical foundation of Christianity as built up by rationalistic, by liberal,
and by modern theology no longer exists; but that does not mean that
Christianity has lost its historical foundation. The work which historical theology
thought itself bound to carry out, and which fell to pieces just as it was nearing
completion, was only the brick facing of the real immovable historical foundation
which is independent of any historical comfirmation or justification.
Jesus means something to our world because a mighty spiritual force streams
forth from Him and flows through our time also. This fact can neither be shaken
nor confirmed by any historical discovery. It is the solid foundation of
Christianity.
The mistake was to suppose that Jesus could come to mean more to our time
by entering into it as a man like ourselves. That is not possible. First because
such a Jesus never existed. Secondly because, although historical knowledge
can no doubt introduce greater clearness into an existing spiritual life, it cannot
call spiritual life into existence. History can destroy the present; it can reconcile
the present with the past; can even to a certain extent transport the present into
the past; but to contribute to the making of the present is not given unto it.
But it is impossible to over-estimate the value of what German research upon
the Life of Jesus has accomplished. It is a uniquely great expression of
sincerity, one of the most significant events in the whole mental and spiritual life
of humanity. What has been done for the religious life of the present and the
immediate future by scholars such as P. W. Schmidt, Bousset, Jiilicher, Weinel,
Wernle—and their pupil Frenssen—and the others who have been called to the
task of bringing
400
to the knowledge of wider circles, in a form which is popular without being
superficial, the results of religious-historical study, only becomes evident when
one examines the literature and social culture of the Latin nations, who have
been scarcely if at all touched by the influence of these thinkers.
And yet the time of doubt was bound to come. We modern theologians are too
proud of our historical method, too proud of our historical Jesus, too confident in
our belief in the spiritual gains which our historical theology can bring to the
world. The thought that we could build up by the increase of historical
knowledge a new and vigorous Christianity and set free new spiritual forces,
rules us like a fixed idea, and prevents us from seeing that the task which we
have grappled with and in some measure discharged is only one of the
intellectual preliminaries of the great religious task. We thought that it was for us
to lead our time by a roundabout way through the historical Jesus, as we
understood Him, in order to bring it to the Jesus who is a spiritual power in the
present. This roundabout way has now been closed by genuine history.
There was a danger of our thrusting ourselves between men and the Gospels,
and refusing to leave the individual man alone with the sayings of Jesus.

366
There was a danger that we should offer them a Jesus who was too small,
because we had forced Him into conformity with our human standards and
human psychology. To see that, one need only read the Lives of Jesus written
since the 'sixties, and notice what they have made of the great imperious
sayings of the Lord, how they have weakened down His imperative world-
contemning demands upon individuals, that He might not come into conflict with
our ethical ideals, and might tune His denial of the world to our acceptance of it.
Many of the greatest sayings are found lying in a corner like explosive shells
from which the charges have been removed. No small portion of elemental
religious power needed to be drawn off from His sayings to prevent them from
conflicting with our system of religious world-acceptance. We have made Jesus
hold another language with our time from that which He really held.
In the process we ourselves have been enfeebled, and have robbed our own
thoughts of their vigour in order to project them back into history and make them
speak to us out of the past. It is nothing less than a misfortune for modern
theology that it mixes history with everything and ends by being proud of the
skill with which it finds its own thoughts— even to its beggarly pseudo-
metaphysic with which it has banished genuine speculative metaphysic from the
sphere of religion—in Jesus, and represents Him as expressing them. It had
almost deserved the re-
401
proach: "he who putteth his hand to the plough, and looketh back, is not fit for
the Kingdom of God."
It was no small matter, therefore, that in the course of the critical study of the
Life of Jesus, after a resistance lasting for two generations, during which first
one expedient was tried and then another, theology was forced by genuine
history to begin to doubt the artificial history with which it had thought to give
new life to our Christianity, and to yield to the facts, which, as Wrede strikingly
said, are sometimes the most radical critics of all. History will force it to find a
way to transcend history, and to fight for the lordship and rule of Jesus over this
world with weapons tempered in a different forge.
We are experiencing what Paul experienced. In the very moment when we were
coming nearer to the historical Jesus than men had ever come before, and were
already stretching out our hands to draw Him into our own time, we have been
obliged to give up the attempt and acknowledge our failure in that paradoxical
saying: "If we have known Christ after the flesh yet henceforth know we Him no
more." And further we must be prepared to find that the historical knowledge of
the personality and life of Jesus will not be a help, but perhaps even an offence
to religion.
But the truth is, it is not Jesus as historically known, but Jesus as spiritually
arisen within men, who is significant for our time and can help it. Not the
historical Jesus, but the spirit which goes forth from Him and in the spirits of
men strives for new influence and rule, is that which overcomes the world.

367
It is not given to history to disengage that which is abiding and eternal in the
being of Jesus from the historical forms in which it worked itself out, and to
introduce it into our world as a living influence. It has toiled in vain at this
undertaking. As a water-plant is beautiful so long as it is growing in the water,
but once torn from its roots, withers and becomes unrecognisable, so it is with
the historical Jesus when He is wrenched loose from the soil of eschatology,
and the attempt is made to conceive Him "historically" as a Being not subject to
temporal conditions. The abiding and eternal in Jesus is absolutely independent
of historical knowledge and can only be understood by contact with His spirit
which is still at work in the world. In proportion as we have the Spirit of Jesus
we have the true knowledge of Jesus.
Jesus as a concrete historical personality remains a stranger to our time, but
His spirit, which lies hidden in His words, is known in simplicity, and its influence
is direct. Every saying contains in its own way the whole Jesus. The very
strangeness and unconditionedness in which He stands before us makes it
easier for individuals to find their own personal standpoint in regard to Him.
402
Men feared that to admit the claims of eschatology would abolish the
significance of His words for our time; and hence there was a feverish
eagerness to discover in them any elements that might be considered not
eschatologically conditioned. When any sayings were found of which the
wording did not absolutely imply an eschatological connexion there was a great
jubilation—these at least had been saved uninjured from the coming debacle.
But in reality that which is eternal in the words of Jesus is due to the very fact
that they are based on an eschatological worldview, and contain the expression
of a mind for which the contemporary world with its historical and social
circumstances no longer had any existence. They are appropriate, therefore, to
any world, for in every world they raise the man who dares to meet their
challenge, and does not turn and twist them into meaninglessness, above his
world and his time, making him inwardly free, so that he is fitted to be, in his
own world and in his own time, a simple channel of the power of Jesus.
Modern Lives of Jesus are too general in their scope. They aim at influencing,
by giving a complete impression of the life of Jesus, a whole community. But the
historical Jesus, as He is depicted in the Gospels, influenced individuals by the
individual word. They understood Him so far as it was necessary for them to
understand, without forming any conception of His life as a whole, since this in
its ultimate aims remained a mystery even for the disciples.
Because it is thus preoccupied with the general, the universal, modern theology
is determined to find its world-accepting ethic in the teaching of Jesus. Therein
lies its weakness. The world affirms itself automatically; the modern spirit
cannot but affirm it. But why on that account abolish the conflict between
modern life, with the world-affirming spirit which inspires it as a whole, and the
world-negating spirit of Jesus? Why spare the spirit of the individual man its
appointed task of fighting its way through the world-negation of Jesus, of

368
contending with Him at every step over the value of material and intellectual
goods—a conflict in which it may never rest? For the general, for the institutions
of society, the rule is: affirmation of the world, in conscious opposition to the
view of Jesus, on the ground that the world has affirmed itself! This general
affirmation of the world, however, if it is to be Christian, must in the individual
spirit be Christianised and transfigured by the personal rejection of the world
which is preached in the sayings of Jesus. It is only by means of the tension
thus set up that religious energy can be communicated to our time. There was a
danger that modern theology, for the sake of peace, would deny the world-
negation in the sayings of Jesus, with which Protestantism was out of
sympathy, and thus unstring the bow and make Protestantism a mere
sociological instead of a re-
403
ligious force. There was perhaps also a danger of inward insincerity in the fact
that it refused to admit to itself and others that it maintained its affirmation of the
world in opposition to the sayings of Jesus, simply because it could not do
otherwise.
For that reason it is a good thing that the true historical Jesus should overthrow
the modern Jesus, should rise up against the modern spirit and send upon
earth, not peace, but a sword. He was not teacher, not a casuist; He was an
imperious ruler. It was because He was so in His inmost being that He could
think of Himself as the Son of Man. That was only the temporally conditioned
expression of the fact that He was an authoritative ruler. The names in which
men expressed their recognition of Him as such, Messiah, Son of Man, Son of
God, have become for us historical parables. We can find no designation which
expresses what He is for us.
He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lake-side,
He came to those men who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same word:
"Follow thou me!" and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfil for our time. He
commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He
will reveal Himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass
through in His fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their
own experience Who He is.

369