We are all of us feeling after a solution of our modern difficulties. Schweitzer’s effort after a tolerable accommodation is poignantly personal like ours—and like ours it is tentative. It is too early to hope for complete satisfaction. Yet his efforts obviously tend in the same direction as ours. Schweitzer perceives that “in the last resort our relation with Jesus is a mystical one.” For the sake of this acknowledgment, as well as for other reasons which will be evident, I am fain to conclude this Introduction with Schweitzer’s own words—the words with which he concludes his latest book:
“In the last resort our relationship to Jesus is of a mystical sort. No personality of the past can be installed in the present [pg 056] by historical reflection or by affirmations about his authoritative significance. We get into relation with him only when we are brought together in the recognition of a common will, experience a clarification, enrichment, and quickening of our will by his, and find ourselves again in him. In this sense every deeper relationship between men is of a mystical sort. Our religion, therefore, so far as it proves itself specifically Christian, is not so much ‘Jesus-cult’ as Jesus-mystic.
“It is only thus that Jesus creates fellowship among us. It is not as a symbol that he does it, nor anything of the sort. In so far as we with one another and with him are of one will, to place the Kingdom of God above all, and to serve in behalf of this faith and hope, so far is there fellowship between him and us and the men of all generations who lived and live in the same thought.
“From this it will be manifest also in what way the free and the confined movements of religion which now go side by side will come together in unity. False compromises are of no avail. All concessions by which the free conception seeks to approach the confined can only result in ambiguity and inconsequence. The differences lie in the thought [pg 057] material which is presupposed on either side. All efforts after an agreement in this sphere are hopeless. These differences appear so prominent because there is a lack of elementary and vital religiousness. Two threads of water wind along side by side through the boulders and gravel of a great stream bed. It is of no avail that one seeks here and there to clear out of the way the masses that are piled up between them, in order that they may flow on in one bed. But when the water rises and overflows the boulders they find themselves together as a matter of course. So will the confined and the free spirit of religion come together when will and hope are directed again towards the Kingdom of God, and the fellowship with the spirit of Jesus becomes in them something elemental and mighty, and they are thereby brought so near together in the essence of their Weltanschauung and religion that the differences of thought material still exist indeed, but sink beneath the surface, as the boulders are covered by the rising flood and in the end barely glimmer out of the depths.
“The names by which Jesus was called in the thought material of late Judaism—Messiah, Son of Man, and Son of God—have [pg 058] become to us historical parables. Even when he applied these titles to himself, this was an historically conditioned expression of his apprehension of himself as a commander and ruler. We find no designation that might express his nature for us.
“Unknown and nameless he comes to us, as he approached those men on the seashore that knew not who he was. He says the same word: But do thou follow me! and he sets before us the tasks which we in our generation must accomplish. He commands. And to those that obey him, wise and unwise, he will reveal himself in what may be given them to experience in his fellowship of peace and activity, conflict and suffering, and as an unutterable secret they shall come to know who he is. ...
FOOTNOTES
1 Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien, 1901.
2 Christusmythe.
3 The Life of Christ in Recent Research, 1907.
4 Eschatology of the Gospels, 1910.
5 Geschichte der paulinischen Forschung, 1911.
6 Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu, 1st ed., 1888.
7 Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes, 2d ed., 1900; also Das älteste Evangelium, 1903.
8 Quest of the Historical Jesus, cap. XX.
9 Das Christus-Problem, 1902.
10 Op. cit.
11 Hibbert Journal, Oct., 1911, p. 84.
12 Vide The Living Word by Elwood Worcester, 1908.
CHAPTER I
THE MODERN “HISTORICAL” SOLUTION
1. Summary Account of It.
THE Synoptical texts do not explain how the idea of the Passion forced itself upon Jesus and what it meant to him. The speeches of Peter and Paul viewed the Passion in the aspect of a divine necessity which was prophesied by the Scripture. The Pauline theory likewise has nothing to do with history.
Therefore the idea of the Passion as it is developed here in connection with an account of Jesus’ life is not directly furnished by the texts but is deduced from them by implication. One is left here to the unavoidable necessity of formulating a theory, the truth of which can only be judged by the measure of clearness and order which it introduces into the Synoptic accounts.
All of the theoretical constructions which have an outspoken historical interest coincide in an alleged solution which we denominate the modern-historical. What is historical about it is the interest which prompts [pg 060] the endeavour to explain history. The modern factor in it is the psychological sympathy of comprehension by the help of which one endeavours to show how, under the impression of particular experiences, the idea of the Passion forced itself upon Jesus and was given by him a religious significance. This solution is based upon the following considerations:
For Jesus there could be no question of constituting a ground for the forgiveness of sins. That he already assumed, as the petition in the Lord’s Prayer shows,—it flowed indeed quite naturally from the pardoning father-love of God. Now the thought of the ransom (Mk 1045 ) recalls the Pauline theory of the atonement with its juridical character. This, indeed, has reference to the forgiveness of sins. It is therefore to be presumed that the juridical notion of the atonement, like the thought of the forgiveness of sins, was strange to Jesus, since it is not suggested by anything in the whole character of his teaching. Consequently the expressions about the significance of his Passion are in their traditional form influenced somehow or another by Pauline conceptions.
If one takes due account of this influence, the historical saying (Mk 1045) contains the [pg 061] notion of serving through sacrifice. This thought is here expressed in its highest potency. We stand upon the border where the heightened conception of service leads to that of sacrifice and atonement. The value of this sacrifice for others consists in the fact that this suffering death which Jesus underwent is at the same time the inaugural act through which the new morality of the Kingdom of God receives emphatic sanction and the new condition contemplated in the idea of the Kingdom is itself realised. This deed is the efficient first factor in a chain of transformations the supernatural conclusion of which is his “coming again” in glory, where the New Covenant which he sealed with his blood is fulfilled in him.
Therewith it is also explained why the determination to encounter suffering and death could and must suggest itself. The realisation of the Kingdom of God was Jesus’ mission. This he had undertaken to effect at first within narrow limits during his Galilean ministry. Through his preaching of the new morality grounded upon faith in the divine Father, and under the influence of the power which proceeded from him, the beginnings of this Kingdom developed. It was a happy, successful period—the “Galilean spring [pg 062] time,” Keim called it. The climax of this period was reached with the mission of the Disciples. Through their preaching the glorious seed was to be strewn abroad everywhere. As they upon their return announced to him their success he broke out with the cry of exultation which accounted the victory already present (Mt 1125-27).
Then came the time of defeat. The opposition was contrived and carried out from Jerusalem (Mk 71). Before this the sympathy of the people delivered him from the consequences of occasional friction with the officials. Now, however, as the opposition was systematically pursued, even his followers fell away from him. It was ominous that the discussion about ceremonial purification brought to light the contradiction in which Jesus found himself with the legal tradition (Mk 71-23). Before spring had again returned to the land he had been obliged to leave Galilee. Far away in the north, in quiet and solitary retirement, he collected his energies in the effort perfectly to understand himself.
For the realisation of the Kingdom there remained but one way still open to him,—namely, conflict with the power which opposed his work. He resolved to carry this conflict into the capital itself. There fate should decide. [pg 063] Perhaps the victory would fall to him. But, even if it should turn out that in the course of earthly events the fate of death awaited him inevitably, so long as he trod the path which his office prescribed, this very suffering of death must signify in God’s plan the performance by which his work was to be crowned. It was then God’s will that the moral state appropriate to the Kingdom of God should be inaugurated by the highest moral deed of the Messiah. With this thought he set out for Jerusalem—in order to remain Messiah.
2. The Four Assumptions of the Modern-Historical Solution.
1. The life of Jesus falls into two contrasted epochs. The first was fortunate, the second brought disillusion and ill success.
2. The form of the Synoptical Passion-idea in Mk 1045 (his giving himself a ransom for many) and in the institution of the Lord’s Supper (Mk 1424: his blood given for many) is somehow or another influenced by the Pauline theory of the atonement.
3. The conception of the Kingdom of God as a self-fulfilling ethical society in which service is the highest law dominated the idea of the Passion.
4. If Jesus’ Passion was the inaugural act of the new morality of the Kingdom of God, the success of it depended upon the Disciples being led to understand it in this sense and to act in accordance with it. The Passion-idea was a reflection.
Are these assumptions, considered individually, justified?
3. The Two Contrasted Periods. (First Assumption.)
The period of ill success is dated from the time following the mission of the Twelve. What are the events of the supposedly fortunate period? We pass over the vexatious discussion with the Pharisees about the healing of the paralytic (Mk 21-12), over the question of fasting (Mk 218-22), and that of the observance of the Sabbath (Mk 223-[36]). Already in Mk 36 it has come to the point of a murderous attack. Jesus has to renounce his family because they wish to fetch him home by force as one who is mentally incompetent (Mk 320-22, Mk 331-35). At Nazareth he is rejected (Mk 61-6).
In the same period occurs the attack which shocked him most profoundly. The Pharisees discredited him with the people by [pg 065] charging that he was in league with the devil (Mk 322-30). How deeply this saying wounded him may be seen from his reference to it in the commission to the Twelve. He prepared his Disciples for a similar experience. “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more those of his household” (Mt 1025).
Such are the well known events of the “successful period”! But they are nothing in comparison with those which he hints at when he is sending out the Twelve. In general terms he has already pronounced those blessed who are reproached and persecuted for his sake (Mt 511, 12). Now he leads his Disciples to expect oppression and distress (Mt 1017-25). Faithfulness to him involves the endurance of enmity (Mt 1022), the severance of the dearest ties (Mt 1037), and the bearing of the cross (Mt 1038). The Galilean period is to be regarded as a happy one: the commission to the Twelve is pessimistic in tone. How does that agree?
The hints also which he drops at that time in the presence of the people point to bitter catastrophes. What must have occurred in Chorazin, in Capernaum, and in Bethsaida that he calls down upon them the wrath of [pg 066] the Day of Judgment, in which it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for them (Mt 1120-24)!
Because this gloomy tone accords ill with the happy Galilean period, there is an obvious temptation to regard the Matthean speeches of the time of the Apostles’ mission as compositions which include fragments belonging to a later period. Where, however, could Jesus have spoken such words? So long as he remained in the north after the flight he made no speeches, and the utterances of the Jerusalem days have their own peculiar character, so that it is hard to know where to introduce references to Galilean occurrences and warnings to the Disciples in prospect of their journey.
Moreover, it is a fact that nothing is related about conspicuous successes in the first period. The successes first begin with the mission of the Twelve. Jesus celebrates the great moment of their return with words of enthusiasm (Mt 1125-27). Are we to suppose now that in the sequel the Pharisees triumphed over him completely and the people deserted him? Of such a retrogression of his cause the texts, however, record nothing. The discussion about ceremonial purification (Mt 71-23) does not furnish what was expected [pg 067] of it. Jesus had already at an earlier time come into much hotter conflict with the theologians of the capital (Mk 322-30). In the question about the laws of purification it was not he that was worsted.
Jesus’ defeat has been inferred from the fact that the “flight” to the north followed this scene (Mk 724 ff[.]). But the accounts do not in the least represent this departure as a flight, nor do they account for this journey to the north as a result of the previous controversy; rather it is we who interpolate a fictitious causal connection in the chronological sequence of the narrative. If Jesus immediately before this was supported by the popular favour and now leaves the region, we have a fact before us which stands unexplained in the texts. That it was a flight is an unprovable conjecture.
No importance need be attached to the fact that subsequently Jesus again appears on two occasions surrounded by a multitude (Mk 81-9: feeding of the 4000; and Mk 834 ff[.]: the scenes before and after the Transfiguration). This fact might perhaps be attributed to a literary reconstruction of the respective accounts,—as may be considered established, for example, in the case of the doublette of the feeding of the multitude.
Decisive, however, is the reception which the Passover caravan accorded to Jesus as he overtook it at Jericho. This ovation was not accorded to the man who had lost ground before the Pharisees in his own country and among his own people and at last had been forced to flee, but to the celebrated prophet emerging from his retirement. If this Galilean populace supported him now by their acclaim and enabled him to terrorise the magistrates in the capital for several days—for his purification of the Temple was nothing else but that—and to expose the scribes with his dry irony, is it possible that they did it for the man who a few weeks before had to yield to these theologians in his own land?
If one insists upon speaking of a successful period, it is the second that must be so denominated. For wherever Jesus appears in public after the return of the Twelve he is accompanied by a devoted multitude—in Galilee, from the Jordan to Jerusalem, and in the capital itself. The surly Jewish populace is an invention of the Fourth Evangelist. Then, too, the illegality of his secret arrest and hasty conviction shows what the Council feared from the popular favour in behalf of Jesus. That was the only “ill[ ]success” of [pg 069] the second period. It was indeed a fatal one.
The first and successful Galilean period is therefore in reality a time of humiliation and ill[ ]success. There is a double reason for regarding it nevertheless as a “happy” time. In the first place there is an æsthetic element in it, which Keim in particular strongly emphasises. A series of parables drawn from nature, as well as the wonderful speech against worldly care (Mt 625-34), seem hardly intelligible except as the reflection of a glad and cheerful sense for the beauty of nature.
With this is associated, in the second place, an historical postulate. In the first period no trace is discoverable of the idea of the Passion: the second is dominated by it. Hence the first was successful, the second unsuccessful,—for otherwise there is no way of accounting, psychologically or historically, for the change.
The historical facts speak differently. In the real period of ill[ ]success the resolution to suffer did not come to light. In the successful second period, on the other hand, Jesus disclosed to his Disciples that he must be put to death by the scribes. Thus the relation was the reverse. Herewith modern-historical psychology finds itself before an enigma.
4. The Influence of the Pauline Theory of the Atonement upon the Formulation of the Synoptical Prediction of the Passion. (Second Assumption.)
No proof can be brought to support the contention that the Passion passages in the Synoptic Gospels are influenced by Pauline conceptions. Here again we have a sort of postulate. For if the juridical character of Mk 1045 and Mk 1424 cannot be set down to the account of the Pauline medium, one must assume that Jesus’ own notion of the Passion contained this bold conception of atonement. The modern-historical solution, however, is not adapted to that alternative.
As a matter of fact it is demonstrable that no Pauline influence can be discerned here. According to Paul, Jesus said at the Last Supper: My body for you (1 Cor. 1124). In the same manner Luke has: My body which is given for you; the blood which is shed for you (Lk 2219, 20). Both the older Synoptists invariably write instead of this: for many. Mk 1045 = Mt 2028: to give his life a ransom for many. Mk 1424 = Mt 2628: my blood of the covenant which is shed for many. In the one case the persons who are to benefit by the Passion are definitely determined: they [pg 071] are the Disciples. In the other case it is a question of an indefinite number.
Nothing is accomplished by the argument that it comes in the end substantially to the same thing. Why, according to the older Synoptists, did Jesus speak of the many, according to Paul, of his own? The sole explanation lies in the fact that Paul wrote from the standpoint of the Church after the death of Jesus. From this point of view the saving efficacy of Jesus’ death is applied to a determinate community, to those, namely, who believe on him. The Disciples represent this community of believers in the historical sayings of Jesus, because from the standpoint of the Church, founded as it was upon belief in the Messiah, one could not conceive that Jesus’ words about his Passion could have any other reference but to the believers.
The early Synoptic “for many” is uttered, however, from the historical standpoint. That is to say, it is appropriate to the time when Jesus did not yet require belief in his messiahship, when consequently the number of persons whom his death is to benefit is left indeterminate. Of only one thing is he certain, that it is greater than the circle of his Disciples: hence he said, “for many.” Had [pg 072] he used the expression, “for you,” which Paul thought it natural to attribute to him, the Disciples must have concluded from it that he was dying for them alone, inasmuch as they could not then have the feeling that they were representatives of a future community of believers, according to the conception which was so obvious to Paul and the Church.
Inasmuch as this “for many” has held its place, in spite of the fact that Paul, writing from the churchly point of view, felt instinctively the necessity of substituting “for you” (though he thereby coined an expression which is historically impossible), one is not justified in assuming any sort of Pauline influence upon the traditional form of the early Synoptic Passion-idea. The bold theory of the atonement in the Synoptists is therefore historical. Any softening of it, such as the modern-historical solution must assume, is without justification.
Hence in the interpretation of Jesus’ saying the first requisite is to do justice to the expression “for many.” Because they have not done this, all expositions of the significance of Jesus’ death—from Paul to Ritschl—are unhistorical. One has but to substitute, for the community of believers with which they deal, the indeterminate and unqualified [pg 073] “many” of the historical saying, and their interpretation become simply meaningless. That interpretation alone is historical which renders it intelligible why, according to Jesus, the atonement accomplished by his death is to redound to the benefit of a number which is intentionally left indeterminate.
5. The Kingdom of God as an Ethical Entity in the Passion Idea. (Third Assumption.)
(a). Mk 1041-45. Service as the ethical conduct prescribed in expectation of the coming Kingdom.
The sons of Zebedee had advanced the claim to sit on either side of the Lord in his glory, i. e. when he should reign as Messiah upon his throne. The other Disciples object to this. Jesus calls them together and speaks to them about serving and ruling in connection with the Kingdom of God.
In this saying one is accustomed to find the ethical conception of the Kingdom of God. There is to be a revaluation of all values. The greatest in the Kingdom of heaven is he who becomes least, like a child (Mt 184), and the ruler is he who serves. Self-humiliation and the meekness of service, such is the [pg 074] new morality of the Kingdom of God which comes into force through Jesus’ service unto death.
With this, however, the fact is ignored that the Kingdom in which one reigns is thought of as a future thing, whereas the serving applies to the present! In our ethical fashion of viewing the matter, serving and reigning coincide logically and chronologically. With Jesus, however, it is not at all a question of a purely ethical exchange of the notions of serving and ruling; rather it is a contrast which develops in a chronological sequence. There is a sharp distinction made between the present and the future æon. He who is one day to count among the greatest in the Kingdom of God must now be as a child! He who advances a claim to a position of rule therein must now serve! The more lowly the position of humble service which one now assumes, in the time when the earthly rulers exercise authority by force, so much the more lofty will be his station as ruler when earthly force is done away and the Kingdom of God dawns. Hence he especially must humble himself even unto death who is to come as the Son of Man upon the clouds of heaven to judge and to rule the world. Before he mounts his throne he drinks the cup of suffering, [pg 075] which they also must taste who would reign with him!
So soon as one pays due attention to this “now and then” in Jesus’ speech, the trivial parallelism of phrase is replaced by a real and effective climax. The descending stages of service correspond to the ascending stages of rule.
1. Whosoever would become great among you, shall be your servant—Mk 1043.
2. Whosoever of you would be first, shall be bondservant of all (others)—Mk 1044.
3. Therefore the Son of Man expected the post of highest rule because he was not come to be served but to serve, in giving his life a ransom for many—Mk 1045.
The climax is a double one. The service of the Disciples extended only to their circle: the service of Jesus to an unlimited number, namely, to all such as were to benefit by his suffering and death. In the case of the Disciples it was merely a question of unselfish subjection: in the case of Jesus it meant the bitter suffering of death. Both count as serving, inasmuch as they establish a claim to a position of rule in the Kingdom.
The ordinary explanation does not satisfy the early Synoptic text but only that of Lk 2224-27. This text has torn the narrative from [pg 076] its proper connection, so that it appears as a dispute among the Disciples “which of them is accounted to be the greatest.”
With this, the “now and then” is eliminated from the situation, and it is only a question of a purely ethical inversion of the ideas of ruling and serving. Accordingly, Jesus’ speech, too, runs on in a lifeless parallelism. He that is greater among you, let him become as the younger, and he that is chief, as he that doth serve (Lk 2226). Instead of exemplifying by his own sacrifice of himself unto death for the great generality of men the conduct required of those who would reign with him, he speaks only of his serviceable character as displayed towards the Disciples: But I am in the midst of you as he that serveth (Lk 2227). By this he means a serving that is at the same time ruling. In the case of the two older Synoptists, however, it is not at all a question of the proclamation of the new morality of the Kingdom of God, where serving is ruling; rather it is a question of the significance of humility and service in expectation of the Kingdom of God. Service is the fundamental law of interim-ethics.
This thought is much deeper and more vital than the modern play upon words which we attribute to the Lord. Only through lowliness [pg 077] and childlikeness in this æon is one worthily prepared to reign in the Kingdom of God. Only he who is here morally purified and ennobled through suffering can be great there. Hence suffering is for Jesus the moral means of acquiring and confirming the messianic authority to which he is designated.
Earthly rule, because it depends upon force, is an emanation of the power of ungodliness. Authority in the Kingdom of God, where the power of this world is destroyed, signifies emanation from the divine power. Only he can be the bearer of such authority who has kept himself free from the contamination of earthly rule. To allot it to such as have prepared themselves through suffering is God’s affair and his alone (Mk 1039, 40).
But if service does not represent the morality of the Kingdom of God, Jesus’ conception of the Passion does not deal with the corresponding notion of the Kingdom as a self-developing ethical society, but rather with a super-moral entity, namely, the Kingdom of God in its eschatological aspect.
(b). The idea of the Passion and the Eschatological Expectation.
The investigation of the accounts of the Lord’s Supper [in the first part of this work] revealed a close connection between the eschatological [pg 078] conclusion (Mk 1425) and the expression about the blood shed for many (Mk 1424). The other passages about the Passion suggest a similar connection.
After Jesus with his “Yes” had himself pronounced the verdict of death he speaks of his “coming again” upon the clouds of heaven. Hereby, according to Mark’s text, he associates the two events in a single thought. Mk 1462: I am, and ye shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of Heaven. This logical connection is already weakened by Matthew, as in the case of the word about the cup. He substitutes for the “and” an expression which denotes a temporal sequence merely. Mt 2664: Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, henceforth shall ye, etc. The eschatological reference is lacking in Luke: he has omitted it also from the word about the cup.
A close connection between the thought of the Passion and eschatology is implied also in Jesus’ saying about the path of suffering which his followers must tread (Mk 834- 91). Whosoever shall be ashamed of Jesus when he suffers reproach and persecution in this adulterous and sinful world, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory [pg 079] of his Father with the holy angels. For this generation shall not sink into the grave until they see the Kingdom of God come with power!
This connection must have appeared extremely prominent to the hearers. After the departure from Cæsarea Philippi, under the impression of the secret of the Passion, which filled them with a sense of sadness and fear (Mk 930-32),—the Disciples dispute which of them shall receive the highest place in the Kingdom. In the house at Capernaum Jesus had to rebuke them (Mk 933-37). That was after he had spoken for the second time about his Passion.
On the way to Jerusalem the same scene was reenacted in closest conjunction with the third prediction of the Passion. (Mk 1032-41). The sons of Zebedee advance their claim to the seats upon the throne. This is not in the least a case of childish misunderstanding on the part of his followers, for Jesus in fact treats their suggestion with perfect seriousness. The eschatological expectation must accordingly have been thrown into such strong relief for the Disciples by Jesus’ prediction of his Passion that they necessarily reasoned within themselves about the position they should occupy in the coming Kingdom.
The modern-historical solution eliminates the eschatological conception of the Kingdom of God from the Passion, reducing it to the notion of an apotheosis, “the coming again,” as it is called. This expression is entirely false. Jesus never spoke of his coming again but only of his coming or of the advent of the Son of Man. We use the expression “coming again” because we connect death and glory by contrast, as though the new situation were conditioned merely upon a victorious transfiguration of Jesus. Our view makes him say: “I shall die, but I shall be glorified through my coming again.” As a matter of fact, however, he said: “I must suffer and the Son of Man shall appear upon the clouds of heaven.” But that for his hearers meant much more than an apotheosis—for with the appearing of the Son of Man dawned the eschatological Kingdom. Jesus therefore sets his death in temporal-causal connection with the eschatological dawning of the Kingdom. The eschatological notion of the Kingdom, not the modern-ethical notion, dominates his idea of the Passion.
6. The Form of the Prediction of the Passion. (Fourth Assumption.)
If the modern historical solution be correct [pg 081] in its conception, Jesus must have communicated the thought of the Passion to his Disciples in the form of an ethical reflection. If they were to comprehend the approaching catastrophe as the inauguration of the new morality, and were to derive from it incentive to a change of conduct, then he must have familiarised them with the character of this event from the very beginning, as soon as ever he announced it.
As a matter of fact, however, he imparted to them the thought of the Passion, not in the form of an ethical reflection, but as a secret, without further explanation. It is dominated by a “must,” the expression for incomprehensible divine necessity. The fact that the Passion-idea was a secret stands opposed to the modern-historical solution.
7. Résumé.
1. The assumption of a fortunate Galilean period which was followed by a time of defeat is historically untenable.
2. Pauline influence cannot have conditioned the form of the early Synoptic sayings about the Passion.
3. Not the ethical but the hyper-ethical, the eschatological, notion of the Kingdom [pg 082] dominates the Passion as Jesus conceived it.
4. The utterances of the Passion-idea did not occur in the form of an ethical reflection but it was a question of an incomprehensible secret which the Disciples had not the least need to understand and in fact did not.
Such is the situation with regard to the four pillars of the modern-historical solution. With them the whole structure collapses. It is after all a lifeless thought! The feeble modernity of it is visible in the fact that it does not get beyond a sort of representative significance of Jesus’ death. Jesus effects by his offering of himself nothing absolutely new, since throughout his whole public ministry he assumes that the Kingdom of God is already present as a dispensation of the forgiveness of sin or as the morally developing society. With his very appearance upon earth it is there. The performance of atonement, however, requires a real significance in Jesus’ death.
Herein lies the weakness of the modern dogmatic in contrast with the old. Paul, Anselm, and Luther know of an absolutely new situation which follows in time the death of Jesus [pg 083] and results as a consequence of it. Modern theology talks all around the subject; it has nothing specific to say, however, but involves itself in the cloud of its own assumptions. Both accounts, indeed, are unhistorical. Religiously considered, only the modern view is justifiable. The old dogmatic, however, is in this point the more historical, for it postulates at all events a real effect of the death of Jesus, as the Synoptical passages require.
In what, however, does this absolutely new thing consist which is there made to depend upon the death of Jesus? The Synoptic sayings give but one answer to this: the eschatological realisation of the Kingdom! The coming of the Kingdom of God with power is dependent upon the atonement which Jesus performs. That is substantially the secret of the Passion.
How is that to be understood? Only the history of Jesus can throw light upon it. In place of the modern-historical solution we advance now the eschatological-historical.
CHAPTER II
THE “DEVELOPMENT” OF JESUS
1. The Kingdom of God as an Ethical and as an Eschatological Fact.
THE concurrence in Jesus of an ethical with an eschatological line of thought has always constituted one of the most difficult problems of New Testament study. How can two such different views of the world, in part diametrically opposed to one another, be united in one process of thought?
The attempt has been made to evade the problem, with the just feeling that the two views cannot be united. Critical spirits like T. Colani (Jesus-Christ et les croyance messianique de son temps. 1864, pp. 94 ff., 169 ff.) and G. Volkmar (Die Evangelien. 1870, pp. 530 ff.) went to the length of eliminating altogether eschatology from the field of Jesus’ thought. All expressions of that sort were accordingly to be charged to the account of the eschatological expectation of a later time. This procedure is frustrated by the stubbornness of the texts: the eschatological sayings belong precisely to the best attested passages. [pg 085] The excision of them is an act of violence.
No more successful has been the attempt to evade the problem by sublimating the eschatology, as though Jesus had translated the realistic conceptions of his time into spiritual terms by using them in a figurative sense. The work of Eric Haupt (Die eschatologischen Aussagen Jesu in den synoptischen Evangelien, 1895) is based upon this thought. But there is nothing to justify us in assuming that Jesus attached to his words a non-natural sense, whereas his hearers, in accordance with the prevailing view, must have understood them realistically. Not only are we at a loss for a rational explanation of such a method on Jesus’ part, but he himself gives not the slightest hint of it.
So the problem remains as urgent as ever, how the juxtaposition of two discordant views of the world is to be explained. The sole solution seems to lie in the assumption of a gradual development. Jesus may have entertained at first a purely ethical view, looking for the realisation of the Kingdom of God through the spread and perfection of the moral-religious society which he was undertaking to establish. When, however, the opposition of the world put the organic completion of the Kingdom in doubt, the eschatological [pg 086] conception forced itself upon him. By the course of events he was brought to the pass where the fulfilment of the religious-ethical ideal, which hitherto he had regarded as the terminus of a continuous moral development, could be expected only as the result of a cosmic catastrophe in which God’s omnipotence should bring to its conclusion the work which he had undertaken.
Thus a complete revolution is supposed to have occurred in Jesus’ thought. But the problem is veiled rather than solved by disposing the terms of the contrast in chronological sequence. The acceptance of the eschatological notion, if it is to be rendered intelligible in this fashion, signifies nothing less than a total breach with the past, a break at which all development ceases. For the eschatological thought, if it be taken seriously, abrogates the ethical train of thought. It accepts no subordinate place. To such a position of impotence it was brought for the first time in Christian theology as the result of historical experience. Jesus, however, must have thought either eschatologically or uneschatologically, but not both together—nor in such a wise that the eschatological was superadded to supplement the uneschatological.
It has been proved that in the thought of the Passion it is only the eschatological idea of the Kingdom of God which is in view. It has been shown likewise that the assumption of a period of ill[ ]success after the mission of the Twelve is without historical justification. This, however, constitutes the indispensable presumption for every such development as has been assumed on the part of Jesus. Therefore the eschatological notion cannot have been forced upon Jesus by outward experiences, but it must from the beginning, even in the first Galilean period, have lain at the base of his preaching!
2. The Eschatological Character of the Charge to the Twelve.
“The Kingdom of God is at hand” (Mt 107)—this word which Jesus commissions his Disciples to proclaim is a summary expression of all his previous preaching. They are to carry it now throughout the cities of Israel. The charge of Jesus to the Twelve furnishes no means of determining in what sense this proclamation is meant.
If the common conception is right about the significance of this mission of the Twelve, the words with which he dismisses them present an extraordinary riddle. Full of hope [pg 088] and with the joy of productive effort he goes about to extend the scope of his activity for the founding of the Kingdom of God. The commission to the Twelve ought therefore to contain instruction about the missionary propaganda they were to carry out in this sense. One must hence expect that he would direct them how they should preach about the new relation to God and the new morality of the Kingdom.
The commission, however, is anything but a summary of the “teaching of Jesus.” It does not in the least contemplate instruction of a thoroughgoing kind, rather what is in question is a flying proclamation throughout Israel. The one errand of the Apostles as teachers is to cry out everywhere the warning of the nearness of the Kingdom of God—to the intent that all may be warned and given opportunity to repent. In this, however, no time is to be lost; therefore they are not to linger in a town where men are unsusceptible to their message, but to hasten on in order that they may pass through all the cities of Israel before the appearing of the Son of Man takes place. But “the coming of the Son of Man” signifies—the dawning of the Kingdom of God with power.
When they persecute you in this city flee [pg 089] unto another, for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone through the cities of Israel till the Son of Man be come (Mt 1023). If one so understands the com[m]ission to the Twelve as to suppose that Jesus would say through his Disciples that the time is now come for the realisation of the Kingdom by a new moral behaviour, that eschatological saying lies like an erratic boulder in the midst of a flowery meadow. If, however, one conceives of the embassage eschatologically, the saying acquires a great context: it is a rock in the midst of a wild mountain landscape. One cannot affirm of this saying that it has been interpolated here by a later age; rather with compelling force it fixes the presence of eschatological conceptions in the days of the mission of the Twelve.
The one and only article of instruction that is required is the call to repentance. Whosoever believes in the nearness of the Kingdom, repents. Hence Jesus gives the Disciples authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out and to heal the sick (Mt 101). By these signs they are to perceive that the power of ungodliness is coming to an end and the morning-glow of the Kingdom of God already dawns. That belongs to their errand as teachers, for whosoever fails to believe their [pg 090] signs, and thereupon brings forth no works of repentance unto the Kingdom of God,—that man is damned. Thus have C[h]orazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum come into condemnation. Faith and repentance were made easy for them by the signs and wonders with which they were favoured beyond others—and yet they did not come to themselves, as even pagan cities like Tyre and Sidon would have done (Mt 1120-24). This saying addressed to the people shows what significance Jesus ascribed to the signs in view of the eschatological embassage.
Thus the Disciples were to preach the Kingdom, Repentance, and the Judgment. Inasmuch, however, as the event they proclaimed was so near that it might at any moment surprise them, they must be prepared for what precedes it, namely, for the final insurrection of the power of this world. How they are to comport themselves in the face of this emergency so as not to be confounded—here is the point upon which Jesus’ parting words of instruction bear! In the general tumult of spirits all ties will be dissolved. Faction will divide even the family (Mt 1034-36). Whosoever would be loyal to the Kingdom of God must be ready to tear from out his heart those who were dearest [pg 091] to him, to endure reproach, and to bear the cross (Mt 1037, 38). The secular authority will bring upon them severe persecution (Mt 1017-31). Men will call them to account and subject them to torture in order to move them to denial of their cause. Brother shall deliver up brother to death, and the father his child; and children shall rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. Only he who remains steadfast in the midst of this general tumult, and confesses Jesus before men, shall be saved in the Day of Judgment, when he intervenes with God in their behalf (Mt 1032, 33).
In the commission to the Twelve Jesus imparts instruction about the woes of the approaching Kingdom. In the descriptive portions of it there may be much perhaps that betrays the colouring of a later time. By this concession, however, the character of the speech as a whole is not prejudiced. The question at issue is not about a course of conduct which they are to maintain after his death. For such instruction not a single historical word can be adduced. The woes precede the dawning of the Kingdom. Therefore the victorious proclamation of the nearness of the Kingdom must accommodate itself to the woes. Hence this juxtaposition of optimism [pg 092] and pessimism which the current interpretation finds so unaccountable. It is the sign manual of every eschatological Weltanschauung.
3. The New View.
The idea of Passion is dominated only by the eschatological conception of the Kingdom. In the charge to the Twelve the question is only about the eschatological—not about the ethical-nearness of the Kingdom. From this it follows, for one thing, that Jesus’ ministry counted only upon the eschatological realisation of the Kingdom. Then, however, it is evident that the relation of his ethical thoughts to the eschatological view can have suffered no alteration by reason of outward events but must have been the same from beginning to end.
In what relation, however, did his ethics and his eschatology stand to each other? So long as one starts with the ethics and seeks to comprehend the eschatology as something adventitious, there appears to be no organic connection between the two, since the ethics of Jesus, as we are accustomed to conceive it, is not in the least accommodated to the eschatology but stands upon a much [pg 093] higher level. One must therefore take the opposite course and see if the ethical proclamation in essence is not conditioned by the eschatological view of the world.