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 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 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 predestinarian 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.(289) If he had done so, how 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 pointing
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.(290) This meal 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.(291)
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 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 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 have 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 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
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 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
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.(292) 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?(293) 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 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 it 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.(294)
The seams at the joining of the narratives can be recognised in Mark 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.(295) 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
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.”
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 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.