THE
LIFE OF JESUS
CRITICALLY EXAMINED
BY
DR. DAVID FRIEDRICH STRAUSS
Translated from the Fourth German Edition
By GEORGE ELIOT
FOURTH EDITION. IN ONE VOLUME.
London
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO. Lim.
1902
INTRODUCTION TO THE PRESENT EDITION,
BY PROFESSOR OTTO PFLEIDERER, D.D.
The Leben Jesu of David Friedrich Strauss, which was published in the
year 1835, marked an epoch in the history of theology. On the one hand,
this book represents the crisis in theology at which the doubts and
critical objections of centuries as to the credibility of the Bible
narratives had accumulated in such overwhelming volume as to break
through and sweep away all the defences of orthodox apologetics. On the
other hand, in the very completeness of the destructive criticism of
past tradition lay the germs of a new science of constructive critical
inquiry, the work of which was to bring to light the truth of history.
It is quite true that the Life of Jesus of 1835 was far from perfect,
as judged by the present standard of scientific criticism, and Biblical
science has long since advanced beyond it. Nevertheless, it cannot be
disputed that it takes rank amongst the standard works which are secure
of a permanent place in literature for all time, for the reason that
they give final expression to the spirit of their age, and represent
typically one of its characteristic tendencies. The liberating and
purifying influence which such works exert on their own time, as well
as the service they render in opening out new lines of thought, lends
to them, for all coming generations, a peculiar value as admirable
weapons in the great fight for truth and freedom. Indeed, if our
scientists are to be believed, when they tell us that the development
of the individual is only an abbreviated repetition of the similar but
much slower phases of the development of the species, it is hardly too
much to maintain, that in the present and in the future every
individual who determines to make his way from the bondage of a naïve
trust in authority and tradition into the freedom and light of mature
thought must pass through precisely that stage of thorough-going
logical negative criticism which is represented by Strauss’s work in a
unique manner. As, according to Christian ethics, the formation of a
pure moral character is possible only by the death of the old Adam, the
rise of true religious convictions is by a similar Stirb und werde, die
and come to life. The imaginary lights of mythological tradition must
be put out, that the eye may distinguish the false from the true in the
twilight of the Biblical origins of our religion. The ancient
structures of belief, which the childish fancy of men had constructed
of truth and poetry, Wahrheit und Dichtung, must be taken down and
cleared away, in order that a new erection of more durable materials
may be raised. To all earnest seekers after truth, the Leben Jesu of
Strauss may be helpful, not as supplying the truth ready to hand, but
as stripping the bandages of prejudice from the eyes, and so enabling
them clearly to see and rightly to seek it.
For these reasons it is obvious that the publication of a new edition
of the English translation of this work needs no justification. It is
only those who consider the first appearance of the book inexcusable
and unfortunate that can call in question the desirability of its
republication. But no one can hold such an opinion who is able to
follow the course of the history of the religious thought of
Protestantism. The critical process which reached its conclusion in
Strauss’s book, with its negative or revolutionary results, was latent
from the beginning in the life-blood of Protestantism. The theologians
of the Reformed Churches of the sixteenth century subjected the
traditions of Catholic Church history to keen historical criticism; and
if they did not then think of extending its operations to Biblical
tradition, we are justified in recognising in the well-known
declarations of Luther, as to the inferior value of certain books of
the Bible, and as to the unimportance of physical in comparison with
spiritual miracles, plain predictions of the line of development which
Protestant theology was destined ultimately to take.
It is intelligible enough that the criticism of the Bible could not
arise amongst the orthodox theologians of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. They were restrained by a rigid doctrine of inspiration from
an unprejudiced treatment of the Bible, and were moreover too much
absorbed in dogmatic controversies and the defence of their confessions
of faith, to feel the need of more searching Biblical studies. It was
amongst English Free-thinkers and Deists that the credibility of the
Biblical narratives was first seriously assailed, and with so much
temper as to greatly detract from the scientific value of the result.
Thomas Woolston’s Discourses on the Miracles of our Saviour (six in
number, 1727–1729) are specially noteworthy. They attack the literal
interpretation of the miracles as ludicrous and offensive, and advocate
the allegorical interpretation of them as figures and parables of
spiritual truths. It is possible to find in Woolston’s theory an
anticipation of the mythical principle of interpretation which Strauss
opposes to the rationalistic one. Reimarus, the author of the
Wolfenbüttel Fragments, by the publication of which Lessing threw
German theology into a ferment, occupies the same position as the
English Deists, and indeed owed much to their influence. But at the
same time a noteworthy difference is observable from the very first
between the way in which Lessing treated these questions and their
treatment by the earlier Free-thinkers; and the difference is
characteristic of the two schools. German rationalism bears the marks
of its origin in the idealistic optimism of the philosophy of Leibnitz
and Wolff, and remains in sympathy with the ethical spirit of Biblical
religion; whilst the but faintly religious naturalism of the English
Deists leads them, with their rejection of the Biblical miracles, to
attack the religion of the Bible, and drag down into the mire its
representatives and heroes. With this the German Rationalists have no
sympathy. They were unable to treat the Biblical narratives of miracles
as historical occurrences, but they were not prepared on that account
to regard them as deceit and delusion on the part of Biblical heroes,
or as the invention of Biblical narrators: their reverence for the
Bible and its religion kept them from both of these inferences. They
tried to get over the difficulty in two ways,—either they looked upon
the narratives of miracles, particularly those of the Old Testament, as
popular religious legends, traditions, or “myths,” of the same kind as
the myths to be met with in all heathen religions; or, on the other
hand, regarding them as containing the actual history of perfectly
natural events, they ascribed the miraculous appearance and form which
they bear simply to the mistaken judgment of the narrators, or, in
other cases, to the erroneous view of the interpreters. The latter
method was employed especially by Dr. Paulus in his commentary on the
Gospels, in which he seeks, with a great display of learning and
ingenuity, to explain all the miracles of the New Testament. The
theologian Schleiermacher also made frequent use of it in his Lectures
on the Life of Jesus; and traces of it are to be met with even in the
commentaries of theologians of the supernaturalist school—as, for
instance, Olshausen’s. The inexcusable violence which was thereby done
to the Biblical narratives, by which they are forced to say something
quite different from what the unsophisticated narrators intended them
to say, according to the plain sense of their words, was not felt; nor
were these interpreters conscious of how much the Gospels are deprived
of their choicest treasures of ideal truth and poetic beauty by this
method of treatment, and this only for the sake of securing instead
miserable common-place stories as the final outcome of critical
examination.
The favour with which this radically false rationalistic interpretation
of the Gospels was received by very many German theologians at the
beginning of this century finds its sole explanation and excuse in the
prevailing view of the time—that our Gospels were written very soon
after the death of Jesus, during the first generation of Christians,
and two of them by eye-witnesses—the apostles Matthew and John. On this
supposition, the occurrence in the Gospels of unhistorical elements, of
religious legends, such as might be without hesitation allowed in the
Old Testament, could not be thought of. Or if the admissibility of this
point of view was granted in the case of the birth-stories of the
opening chapters of Matthew and Luke (as by De Wette), objection was
felt against its application to the miracles of the public life of
Jesus. Thus, on the question of the historicity of the gospel
narratives, theologians held views which were confused, undecided,
contradictory, and lacking thoroughness. This state of things could not
last; simple faith had at every point lost its security; doubt attached
to the miraculous narratives of the New no less than to those of the
Old Testament. But before Strauss no one had had the courage to explain
all these narratives of both Testaments alike by the logical
application of one and the same principle; and mainly for the reason,
that the critics were all under the bondage of the supposition of the
apostolic authorship of the Gospels of Matthew and John. Yet even this
supposition had received various shocks prior to Strauss. Critics had
been unable to close their eyes to the fact that there are differences
between these two Gospels particularly, of such a fundamental nature as
to preclude the possibility of both being right, and therefore of both
having been written by eye-witnesses and apostles. Under the influence
of dogmatic and sentimental motives, Schleiermacher and his disciples
accepted it as an a priori certainty that John is to be preferred to
Matthew; and from this secure position, as was imagined, these
theologians assailed the narrative of Matthew at all points, and
undermined the tradition of its apostolic authority. But suppose the
same arguments with which they assailed Matthew might be used against
their favourite evangelist John? What if it could be shown that his
narrative is in no respect more probable, but, on the contrary, more
improbable, than that of Matthew? In that case, must not the critical
verdict which those theologians had given against Matthew so
triumphantly and without regard to its consequences, apply equally to
John, and thereby overthrow the only remaining pillar of apostolic
authority for the gospel tradition?
This logical consequence, which was at the time deemed an unheard-of
innovation, notwithstanding the opinions of a few individual critics
(Vogel, Bretschneider), Strauss had the courage to draw. By that act he
cast off the fetters by which the examination of the Gospels had till
then been bound, and secured a free field for a thorough-going
criticism of them. Since the external evidence of the authorship of the
Gospels is not of a kind or a date such as to compel us to consider the
tradition of their apostolic origin established, and as the matter of
all the Gospels alike is not free from historical improbability, there
is nothing, Strauss argued, to prevent our complete abandonment of the
historicity of their miraculous narratives, though the Rationalists
continue to maintain it, or our treating them as religious legends or
myths, similar to those which, as was admitted, the Old Testament
contained. The novelty in the work of Strauss was not the application
of the principle of “myth” to Biblical narratives; others had already
made use of it in the case of the Old and to some extent in the case of
the New Testament; the originality lay in the uncompromising
thoroughness with which the principle was applied to every section of
the gospel story; the originality lay in the merciless acumen and
clearness with which the discrepancies between the Gospels and the
difficulties presented to the critical understanding by their
narratives were laid bare, and with which all the subterfuges of
supernaturalist apologists, as well as all the forced and artificial
interpretations of semi-critical Rationalists, were exposed, thereby
cutting off all ways of escape from the final consequences of
criticism.
The merciless thoroughness and unreserved honesty with which criticism
did its negative work in this book, by exposing the baselessness of the
supposed knowledge of the gospel history, produced a profound shock
amongst theologians and laymen. It was not merely the untaught
multitude who believed that the foundations of Christianity must perish
with the miraculous stories of the Bible; learned theologians were
distressed as the daring critic so rudely, and without any regard to
consequences, roused them from the illusions of their sentimental or
speculative dogmatism and their precipitate treaty of peace between
faith and knowledge. “Strauss was hated,” as Baur truly said, “because
the spirit of the time was unable to look upon its own portrait, which
he held up before it in faithful, clearly drawn lines. The spirit of
this age resists with all its power the proof of its ignorance on a
matter about which it has long thought itself certain. Instead of
acknowledging what had to be acknowledged, if any progress was to be
made, all possible attempts were instituted to create fresh illusions
as to the true state of the case, by reviving obsolete hypotheses and
by theological charlatanism. But a higher certainty as to the truth of
the gospel history can be attained in no other way than by
acknowledging, on the basis of Strauss’s criticism, that our previous
knowledge is no knowledge at all.” But here we come upon the limits of
the criticism of Strauss: it brought home to men the fact of their want
of knowledge, but it did not conduct to the required new and positive
knowledge. This Strauss was unable to do, because he offered a critique
of the gospel history only, without a critique of the documents which
form the sources of this history.
In these words Baur has accurately described the main defect of
Strauss’s book. When Strauss drew from the discrepancies and
contradictions of the various narratives of the Gospels the conclusion
that they have all alike little credibility, the conclusion was
intelligible enough in reply to the ingenious artifices of the
traditional harmonists, who maintained that in spite of the
contradictions the evangelists were all alike worthy of credit; but
really this line of procedure on the part of Strauss conformed as
little as that of the harmonists to the principles of strict historical
inquiry. These principles require us to examine the relative value of
the various sources with reference to their age, to the situation, the
character, the interests, and aims of their author; to assign
accordingly to one account a higher measure of credibility than to
another; and so, by distinguishing between what is better and what is
not so well attested, to make out what is probable and reach the
original matter of fact. It is true Strauss made some advance towards
such a differentiation of the relative value of the gospel narratives;
and particularly with reference to the inferior historical value of the
Johannine in comparison with the Synoptic narrative, he has made acute
observations, the worth of which ought to be estimated the higher as
they boldly opposed the then dominant preference for the Gospel of
John, and effectively prepared the way for the criticism of Baur. But
it was not Strauss’s forte to prepare, as the foundation of the
material critique of the gospel history, a thorough critique of the
literary sources, nor, in the state of the general science of criticism
at the time, could this be very well expected. When all deductions have
been made, to Strauss belongs the honour of having given, by his
criticism of the gospel narratives, the most effective impulse to a
more penetrating examination of the sources of the gospel story, and of
having prepared the way for this to no small extent, particularly as
regards the Fourth Gospel. Baur’s classical critique of this Gospel
completed in this direction the criticism of Strauss, and laid its
foundations deeper. As regards the Synoptic Gospels, Weisse and Ewald,
Holtzmann and Volkmar, did good work towards clearing up the relations
of the Gospels to each other, especially in establishing the priority
of Mark, by which a firmer basis was laid for the positive decision of
the question as to the historical foundations of the gospel tradition.
The fruit of this critique of the sources, carried on from various
sides with painstaking industry, was the new literature dealing with
the life of Jesus, which, just a generation after the first Leben Jesu
of Strauss, took up again the problems it had raised, but in a new
fashion, and with improved critical apparatus. We shall have further on
to refer to Strauss’s new life of Jesus.
The same scholar, Weisse, who was the first to point out the want in
Strauss’s book of a more satisfactory critique of the sources, and who
had sought to supply this defect in his Evangelische Geschichte (1838),
called attention at the same time to a defect in the mythical theory of
Strauss. Weisse was fully agreed with Strauss so far, that we must
acknowledge the presence of religious myths in miraculous narratives of
the Bible, but he was not satisfied with the way in which Strauss had
explained their origin. According to Strauss, the early Christians had
simply transferred to Jesus as the actual Messiah the miraculous
legends of the Old Testament, out of which the Jews were supposed to
have composed the miraculous portrait of their expected Messiah; and he
was right in thinking that the miraculous stories of the Old Testament
do undoubtedly supply the motives and models of no few narratives in
the New Testament, but not, surely, of all. Precisely the chief
miracles—the birth of Jesus, his baptism, transfiguration,
resurrection, the change of water into wine at Cana, the stilling of
the storm, and walking on the sea—violence must be used to explain
these miracles by reference to Old Testament types, and the Jewish idea
of the Messiah offers no lines corresponding to these. At this point
therefore, at all events, we must look about us for another method of
explanation. And Weisse was undoubtedly right in pointing to the
spontaneous productivity of the Christian spirit in the primitive
Church as the source of the miraculous narratives, in which it gave
expression in symbolic and allegorical forms to its ideal truth and the
new inspired life of which it was conscious. Not that these narratives
were intended by the narrators themselves to be merely allegories, or
symbolical illustrations of spiritual truths; but the religious
imagination gave birth to these illustrations after the manner of
unconscious poetry, that is, without distinguishing between the poetic
form and the essential truth of the idea; believing, as the religious
imagination did, in the ideal content of the narratives, and being at
the same time unable to give vivid and sensible expression to it in any
other than the material form of outward miracles, it involuntarily came
to believe also in the reality of the symbolical form of the narrative
to which it had itself given rise; it conceived idea and history both
together in such inseparable combination as to confer on each equal
truth and certainty.
In the production of such ideal narratives the same process is
observable to-day in the experience of simple religious believers:
feeling the ideal truth of the content of the stories, they come to
believe also in the reality of the outward history in which the idea
has for them been incorporated. But the critical understanding of the
historical inquirer is permitted, and indeed is bound, to distinguish
clearly and definitely, as the simple-minded believer cannot do,
between the spiritual idea and the outward form of its representation,
and to find in the former both the productive power and the permanent
kernel within the outward husk. This explanation of the miraculous
legends of the Bible is not only more correct and profound than
Strauss’s from the point of view of historical science, but for the
religious consciousness it is far less objectionable, as Weisse
observes with truth; inasmuch as in this case the legends do not appear
as the worthless product of the idle play of the imagination, but as
the normal expression, rationally and psychologically intelligible, of
a creative religious spirit, which displays its treasures of ideal
truth in this legendary and mythical poetry for the benefit of the
originators and the wider world. Nor should it be left unnoticed that
Strauss himself had already indicated in a few cases this more profound
explanation of myths by means of the religious idea. At the close of
his interpretation of the story of the Transfiguration (§ 107), for
instance, he says, we may see from this example very plainly how the
natural system of explanation, by insisting on the historical certainty
of the narratives, lets go their ideal truth, sacrificing the content
to the form of the story, whereas the mythical interpretation, by
resigning the historical material body of such narratives, really
rescues and preserves their idea, their soul and spirit. He might,
however, have unfolded the idea of the Transfiguration with greater
definiteness and fulness if he had not merely alluded to the dogmatic
discussion of Paul in 2 Cor. iii. 7 sq., but had recognised it as the
real theme of the gospel story, and had interpreted the latter
accordingly. In the same way, in the case of the story of the birth of
Jesus (Luke i. and ii.), Strauss laid great emphasis on the analogies
and figures of the Old Testament, which, after all, could only
contribute as secondary motives in the formation of this birth-story,
while its real origin is to be sought in the Pauline Messianic idea of
“the Son of God, according to the spirit of holiness” (Rom. i. 4; 1
Cor. xv. 45 sq.), a fact Strauss overlooked. This defect takes a really
surprising form when he comes to explain the miracles of the Fourth
Gospel, which, in complete independence of any suggestion from the Old
Testament, are entirely based upon the dogmatic ideas of the
Alexandrian theology, and simply supply their transparent symbolic
vestment. How much more truthfully and profoundly can the miracle at
Cana, or the raising of Lazarus, or the cure of the man born blind, be
interpreted from this point of view than from that of Strauss! In this
respect Baur’s interpretation of the Fourth Gospel was an immense
advance beyond Strauss, as the latter himself acknowledged
subsequently.
With the above defects of Strauss’s method of interpretation is
connected, in the last place, the fact that the outcome of his book in
reference to the decisive question,—What, then, is the historical
kernel of the evangelical tradition, what the real character of Jesus
and of his work?—is meagre and unsatisfactory. In the closing essay at
the end of his work, it is true, he endeavoured to restore dogmatically
what he had destroyed critically, but he effected this in a way which
amounted to the transformation of religious faith in Christ into a
metaphysical allegory. The predications of faith with regard to Christ
are to be regarded as containing predications as to the relations of
the human race to the Absolute, as to the self-abasement of the
Infinite to the Finite, and the return of the Infinite to itself, as to
mind and its power over nature, and its dependence on it, and the like.
In all this Strauss was led astray by the influence of the Hegelian
philosophy, which looked for the truth of religion in logical and
metaphysical categories instead of in the facts and experiences of
moral feeling and volition. But as there is no essential relation
between these metaphysical ideas and the person of Jesus, he is made
arbitrarily, as any one else might have been, an illustration and
example of absolute ideas to which he stands in no more intimate
relation than the rest of the human race; whereby the special
historical importance of the originator of the Christian community, and
of the first model of its religious and moral life, is not only left
without explanation, but is lost altogether, a result which does
violence not merely to the religious consciousness, but is
unsatisfactory to historical science, which is concerned to understand
Jesus as the originating source of Christianity. It is quite true that
we can go with Strauss in his answer to the alternative of Ullmann
whether the church created the Christ of the Gospels or he the church,
by declaring the alternative false, and the two things in so far both
tenable as the Christ of the Gospels is a creation of the faith of the
church, but this faith an effect of the person of the historical Jesus.
We find this answer to Ullmann just, but cannot free Strauss from the
charge of having worked out in his book the first only of these two
positions, and of having passed over the second. He has shown no more
than that the church formed the mythical traditions about Jesus out of
its faith in him as the Messiah. But how did the church come by the
faith that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah? To this question—which is
the main question of a Life of Jesus—Strauss gave his readers no
answer. Undoubtedly it can be urged in his defence that the criticism
of the sources was at that time still in a condition of too great
confusion and uncertainty to permit any successful answer to that
problem of the historical kernel of the life of Jesus. Nevertheless the
difficulty of the matter could not relieve the historian of the duty of
at least making an attempt to trace from the materials left to him, as
the residue of his critical analysis of the deeds and words of Jesus,
the main outlines of his character, to bring out the peculiarity and
originality of his religious genius, and in this way to discover in the
original personality and reforming activity of Jesus the originating
cause of the rise of the community of his disciples and their faith in
him as the Messiah and his divine mission. If in his closing essay
Strauss had presented a religious and moral description of Jesus of
this nature, instead of a metaphysical allegory as a substitute for the
shattered mythological conception of tradition, though the objection of
the church to his work would not have been wanting, it would then
undoubtedly have taken a less passionately denunciatory form than was
the case, in consequence of the purely negative character of the
result, unrelieved by any modifying conclusion.
In proportion to the strength of the feeling of these defects, shared
by readers of all parties, was the urgency of the duty laid upon
scientific theologians of preparing, by a renewed and more thorough
examination of the Gospels, the stones of a new edifice to be reared
upon the site laid bare by Strauss’s critical labours. “In the darkness
which criticism produces, by putting out all the lights hitherto
thought to be historical, the eye has first to learn by gradual habit
to again distinguish a few single objects,” as Strauss himself remarked
in his third edition. But this difficult task was not accomplished by
those apologists who endeavoured to make good the damage by the
antiquated arts of the harmonists, with their petty concessions,
mystifications, and evasions, but by those courageous inquirers who,
undeterred by dogmatic considerations, sought by a strictly historical
method to set in the true light the exact composition and the mutual
relations of the evangelical documents. We have already remarked that
Baur and his disciples, the so-called Tübingen school, took a leading
part in this work, while other independent students co-operated with
them, supplementing and correcting their labours. This, however, is not
the place to follow these inquiries in detail; but we must glance at
their result as regards the historical treatment of the life of Jesus.
For an entire generation the examination of the literary details of the
Gospels had occupied theologians so exclusively that the interest in
the supreme problems of the evangelical history seemed to have been
almost lost sight of. But this interest was newly awakened, and made
itself felt far beyond learned theological circles, by the nearly
simultaneous publication of Renan’s Vie de Jésus and Strauss’s second
Leben Jesu für das deutsche Volk (1864). These two works, with all
their dissimilarity, resemble each other in this, that they were both
written by scholars of the highest eminence, not for the learned world,
but for educated people generally, both throwing overboard, therefore,
the ballast of learned detailed criticism, and presenting the results
of their inquiries in a language intelligible to everybody, and
attractive from its literary excellence. They are alike also in this,
that both subordinate the criticism of the gospel traditions to a
positive description of the personality of Jesus, of his essential
religious tendency and genius, of his relation to the Messianic idea of
his nation, to the law and the temple, to the hierarchy and religious
and political parties of his time, both seeking an explanation of the
reformatory success of the commencement, and also of the tragical issue
of his labours in these factors. But inasmuch as Strauss confines
himself to what he can deem the ascertained or probable facts, after a
strict critique of the sources, the portrait delineated by him turns
out naturally somewhat indistinct and defective in its outlines; the
meagreness of the result answers to the caution of his historical
conscience. Renan, on the other hand, feels no such scruples; in his
criticism of the sources he goes to work with a much lighter heart, and
claims for the biographer the right to help himself over the lacunæ and
obscurities or contradictions of his authorities by calling in the aid
of the creative imagination, with its powers of combination and
inference. By this means he has succeeded in presenting a life of Jesus
distinguished for its epic vividness and dramatic development, but its
æsthetic charm has been purchased at the price of its historical
solidity. This novelistic feature becomes most questionable when it
wanders into the vagaries of the naturalistic explanation of the
miracles (e.g. the raising of Lazarus), and in such cases casts
reflections on the moral character of Jesus. On the other hand, for
Renan must be claimed the merit of having emphasised the social aspects
of the Messianic mission of Jesus, and of having attempted to sketch
the development of his inner life, a change in the phases of his
reformatory labours. As to Strauss’s second Life of Jesus, its strength
lies, as in the first, not so much in the first part, which deals with
the positive side of the history, as in the second part, where it comes
to treat of the mythical side of the history. But in the second work,
in the place of the analysis of the traditions given in the first, we
get a synthetic presentation of the rise and gradual growth and
elaboration, in more and more exalted forms, of the idea of the Christ
of mythical tradition; the successive stages of the development of the
Christian consciousness are set forth by reference to the genesis of
the ideas of Christ’s person, power, and supernatural exaltation. Thus
this genetic method of treatment, followed in the later work, supplants
and confirms the result of the former one; while the latter had shown
that the miraculous narratives in the Gospels are myth and not history,
the new Life shows how in these myths, after all, history is reflected,
namely, the history of the religious consciousness of the Christian
community. The great advance of this new treatment upon that of the
previous work was the fruit of the intervening studies of Baur and his
disciples, to which Renan, to the detriment of the critical and
historical value of his work, had not paid sufficient attention.
The two works of Renan and Strauss were followed by a deluge of
literature on the life of Jesus, the historical value of which is very
various. To give an account of all these books would require more space
than is at my disposal. I must confine myself to the work of Theodor
Keim, an English translation of which has been published under the
“Theological Translation Fund.” The work is so distinguished by the
richness of its learned material, and the ability with which it is
handled, as to constitute it the best representation of the present
condition of our knowledge of the life of Jesus. Keim’s standpoint
differs from that of Strauss by the warmth of religious feeling and
enthusiasm which pervades his entire work, while at the same time no
fetters are laid upon the critical reason; freedom and piety join
hands, in order to be just to the double claim which the truth of
history on the one hand, and the church on the other, are justified in
presenting. The most brilliant part of Keim’s work is his delineation
of the religious personality of Jesus,—how in it were combined, in a
unique degree, strength and harmony, complete openness towards the
world, with perfect inwardness towards God, so as to become the source
of a new religion, in which self-surrender and liberty, humility and
energy, enthusiasm and lucidity, are blended, and the chasm of previous
ages between God and man filled up. His description of the
psychological development of the Messianic consciousness of Jesus out
of inward experiences and outward impressions and impulses, is also
drawn with great delicacy of touch; at all events, it is an able and
suggestive effort to penetrate, as far as the state of the sources
admits, by means of sympathetic and reproductive divination, to the
personal experiences and mental states of the religious genius from
whom a new epoch in the world’s religious history proceeded. Still, as
in the kindred efforts of Renan, Weizsäcker, Beyschlag and Weiss, we
may never forget how much, with the poverty of the ascertained
historical materials, is left to the uncontrolled power of combination
and divination; in other words, to the imagination, which at best can
do no more than roughly and approximately arrive at the truth, while it
may no less easily go far astray. It is certainly to be deemed an
advance that in the more recent works on the life of Jesus the subject
of main interest is not so much the external miracles as the internal,
the problems of the peculiar nature and development of his religious
consciousness and character, his view of his vocation, his attitude
towards the Messianic idea, and the like. Yet this advance is
manifestly attended by the temptation to sacrifice the caution of
historical criticism to the production of a biography as rich in detail
and as dramatic in movement as possible, and to represent things as the
ascertained results of critical examination, which are really nothing
more than subjective combinations of the writers, to which a certain
degree of probability may be attached, though the possibility will
always remain, that the actual facts were something quite different.
The subtle examination of the question, whether Jesus himself ever
declared himself to be the Messiah, or spoke of his return in celestial
glory, by Martineau, in his Seat of Authority in Religion, is in this
respect deserving of all attention, and is of great value, as at least
supplying a needed lesson in caution in view of the excessive
confidence with which questions such as these have been treated by
Renan, Keim, and later writers. In any case, the reserve and caution of
Strauss are quite justified as a corrective and counterpoise to the
extravagances committed in the opposite direction.
With regard to the miraculous narratives of the Gospels, the advance of
more recent criticism beyond the first book of Strauss has been in two
directions. First, these questions no longer constitute the central
point of historical interest, but are subordinated in importance to the
problems of the religious consciousness of Jesus. Secondly, we do not
now seek to interpret these narratives so exclusively and without
distinction from the one motive of the transference to Jesus of the
types of the Old Testament; but the great difference between the
various narratives of miracles is clearly recognised, and various clues
are accordingly used in their explanation; whilst in one narrative we
observe merely symbols of religious and dogmatic ideas, in others we
discover, behind the glorifying tendency to idealism, some background
of historical fact, for instance, in the miracles of healing, as is now
very generally acknowledged. It cannot be denied, it is true, that with
this perfectly legitimate endeavour is connected the peril of falling
back into the old abuses of rationalistic artifice. Even Keim has not
quite escaped this danger, inasmuch as he abandons the basis of strict
history in the case of the story of the resurrection of Jesus, and
makes concessions to supernaturalistic dogma; as the sequel of which
the old doctrine of miracles may be readmitted into Lives of Jesus, as
is really the case in the works of Beyschlag and Weiss.
In this danger appears the necessity for the continued prosecution of
the negative work of criticism, a duty as yet by no means
supererogatory. The inclination to sink into the slumber of dogma is so
natural to every generation that the most uncompromising critical
intellect must without intermission stand upon the watch against it.
And as this task was performed by Strauss in his first Life of Jesus in
a manner that may serve as a model for all time, the book, like every
truly classical work, must ever retain its value. Strauss’s criticism
broke down the ramparts of dogmatism, new and old, and opened to the
inquiring mind the breach through which the conquest of historical
truth might be won.
Otto Pfleiderer.
Certior factus ex Britannia, librum meum, quem de vita Jesu XI abhinc
annis composui, virorum ejusmodi studiis faventium cura in linguam
Britannicam translatum, brevi illic in publicum proditurum esse,
lælitia anxietate temperata commoveor.
Nam ut gratulari sibi æquum est auctorem, cujus operi contigit, patriæ
terræ ac linguæ fines transgredi, ita sollicitudo eundem subeat necesse
est, ne, qui domi placuit liber, foris displiceat, aut cujus inter
populares vel adversariorum numero creverat auctoritas, apud exteros
neglectus in obscuro maneat. Solum enim cœlumque vix minore libri quam
plantæ periculo mutant. Et facilius quidem transtuleris opera in illis
rebus versantia, de quibus inter diversas gentes communis quidam aut
certe parum discrepans sensus obtinet: ut, quæ poetæ aut disciplinarum
quas exactas dicunt periti proferunt, inter politiores hujus seculi
nationes fere solent esse communia. Neque tamen vel hoc in librorum
genere plane æquum Germano cum Britannis aut Gallis certamen. Peregrina
enim cum facilius nostra quam illorum et lingua et indoles recipiat,
longe frequentius poetæ quoque illorum in nostram quam nostri in
illorum linguas transferuntur. At Germanicum opus in theologiæ et
philosophiæ quasi confinio versans, si trajicere in Britanniam parat,
ne illa quidem inter utramque gentem sensus et studiorum communione
adjuvatur. Tam diversa enim utrimque via istæ disciplinæ processerunt,
ut in theologia impii, in philosophia superstitiosi Britannis Germani
iidem videamur. Cum iis, qui in Britannia ausi sunt, historias,
Judæorum et Christianorum religione sacratas, examini ut ajunt critico
subjicere, nihil agendum esset, nisi ut Lockii sui atque Humii
principia philosophica, sicut ad reliquas omnes historias, ita ad illas
etiam, quas legibus istis hucusque superstitio subtraxerat, adhiberent:
in Germania ad hoc monstri res degeneraverat, ut superstitioni a
theologorum potissima parte derelictæ philosophia succurreret, critico
ergo non simplex sanæ philosophiæ contra theologorum superstitionem,
sed duplex et contra philosophorum ex sanioribus principiis deductas
ineptas conclusiones, et contra theologorum propter philosophica ista
auxilia ornamentaque inflatam atque induratam superstitionem, certamen
ineundum esset. Ex hoc rei statu proprie Germanico natum opus meum,
nominibus insuper atque opinionibus theologorum ac philosophorum
nostratium refertum, nec scholarum etiam vocabula, quibus nostræ tantum
aures assuevere, satis evitans, a Britannorum usu ingenioque non posse
non abhorrere, tam probe scio, ut de translato in eorum linguam, licet
interpretatio, quantum quidem ejus inspicere potuerim, et accurata et
perspicua sit et librum, quantum in ipsa est, popularibus commendet,
num gaudendum mihi magnopere sit, mehercule nesciam.
Accedit, quod a primo libri mei ortu duo lustra, et a recentissima
etiam editione unum jam lustrum intercessit. Ut tum, quum opus
inchoabam, via incedebam, quam pauci ingressi, totam emensus nemo erat,
ita per primum illud lustrum nullæ fere nisi adversariorum voces
audiebantur, principia mea negantium et historiam in Evangeliis vel
meram, vel levissima tantum erroris rumorisve adspersione tinctam
contineri affirmantium, cum quibus non modo non disputandum, sed a
quibus ne discendum quidem quidquam erat, quod ad rem et ad librum vere
emendandum pertineret. Proximo demum lustro viri vestigia mea non
refugientes neque evitantes, sed persequentes, ubi ego substiteram
longius progressi, rem revera juverunt atque promoverunt. Narrationes
in Evangeliis traditas, quas rerum vere gestarum esse persuadere mihi
non potueram, mythorum in modum, qui inter antiquas gentes inveniuntur,
aut in ore populi a minutis initiis coaluisse et eundo crevisse, aut a
singulis, sed qui vere ita evenisse superstitiose in animum induxerant,
fictas esse existimaveram. Quod ut sufficit explicandis plerisque
eorum, quæ dubitationem moventia tribus prioribus Evangeliis
continentur: ita quarti Evangelii auctorem ad tuendas et illustrandas
sententias suas haud raro meras fabulas scientem confinxisse, a Baurio,
theologo Tubingensi doctissimo, nuper ita demonstratum est, ut critici
me judicii rigori religiosius quam verius temperasse intelligam. Dumque
prima a Christo secula accuratius perscrutantur, partes partiumque
certamina, quibus nova ecclesia commovebatur, in apricum proferunt,
narrationum haud paucarum, quas fabulas esse ego bene quidem
perspexeram, sed unde ortæ essent demonstrare non valueram, veram in
illis primæ ecclesiæ motibus originem detegere theologis Tubingensibus
contigit.
Imperfectum igitur opus meum, ut solent rerum initia, non ob hoc tamen,
quod sententiæ deest, timerem, ne a Britannis sperneretur, nisi formæ
etiam illud quod supra dixi peregrinum atque inusitatum accederet. Qui
si suum Hennellium non audiverunt, de iisdem rebus cum Britannis
Britannice agentem, quomodo audient, si quis Germanus surget, cujus
liber cum sua lingua non potuerit cogitandi quoque disputandique morem
prorsus Germanicum exuere? Sed absit omen verbis meis, atque ut pridem
in Germania, ita mox in Britannia jaceat liber hic εἰς πτῶσιν καὶ
ἀνάστασιν πολλῶν καὶ εἰς σημεῖον ἀντιλεγόμενον ὂπως ἂν ἀποκαλυφθῶσιν ἐκ
πολλῶν καρδιῶν διαλογισμοί.
STRAUSS.
Scribebam Heilbronnæ. Med. mens. April a. 1846.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST GERMAN EDITION.
It appeared to the author of the work, the first half of which is
herewith submitted to the public, that it was time to substitute a new
mode of considering the life of Jesus, in the place of the antiquated
systems of supranaturalism and naturalism. This application of the term
antiquated will in the present day be more readily admitted in relation
to the latter system than to the former. For while the interest excited
by the explanations of the miracles and the conjectural facts of the
rationalists has long ago cooled, the commentaries now most read are
those which aim to adapt the supernatural interpretation of the sacred
history to modern taste. Nevertheless, in point of fact, the orthodox
view of this history became superannuated earlier than the
rationalistic, since it was only because the former had ceased to
satisfy an advanced state of culture, that the latter was developed,
while the recent attempts to recover, by the aid of a mystical
philosophy, the supernatural point of view held by our forefathers,
betray themselves, by the exaggerating spirit in which they are
conceived, to be final, desperate efforts to render the past present,
the inconceivable conceivable.
The new point of view, which must take the place of the above, is the
mythical. This theory is not brought to bear on the evangelical history
for the first time in the present work: it has long been applied to
particular parts of that history, and is here only extended to its
entire tenor. It is not by any means meant that the whole history of
Jesus is to be represented as mythical, but only that every part of it
is to be subjected to a critical examination, to ascertain whether it
have not some admixture of the mythical. The exegesis of the ancient
church set out from the double presupposition: first, that the gospels
contained a history, and secondly, that this history was a supernatural
one. Rationalism rejected the latter of these presuppositions, but only
to cling the more tenaciously to the former, maintaining that these
books present unadulterated, though only natural, history. Science
cannot rest satisfied with this half-measure: the other presupposition
also must be relinquished, and the inquiry must first be made whether
in fact, and to what extent, the ground on which we stand in the
gospels is historical. This is the natural course of things, and thus
far the appearance of a work like the present is not only justifiable,
but even necessary.
It is certainly not therefore evident that the author is precisely the
individual whose vocation it is to appear in this position. He has a
very vivid consciousness that many others would have been able to
execute such a work with incomparably superior erudition. Yet on the
other hand he believes himself to be at least possessed of one
qualification which especially fitted him to undertake this task. The
majority of the most learned and acute theologians of the present day
fail in the main requirement for such a work, a requirement without
which no amount of learning will suffice to achieve anything in the
domain of criticism—namely, the internal liberation of the feelings and
intellect from certain religious and dogmatical presuppositions; and
this the author early attained by means of philosophical studies. If
theologians regard this absence of presupposition from his work, as
unchristian: he regards the believing presuppositions of theirs as
unscientific. Widely as in this respect the tone of the present work
may be contrasted with the edifying devoutness and enthusiastic
mysticism of recent books on similar subjects; still it will nowhere
depart from the seriousness of science, or sink into frivolity; and it
seems a just demand in return, that the judgments which are passed upon
it should also confine themselves to the domain of science, and keep
aloof from bigotry and fanaticism.
The author is aware that the essence of the Christian faith is
perfectly independent of his criticism. The supernatural birth of
Christ, his miracles, his resurrection and ascension, remain eternal
truths, whatever doubts may be cast on their reality as historical
facts. The certainty of this can alone give calmness and dignity to our
criticism, and distinguish it from the naturalistic criticism of the
last century, the design of which was, with the historical fact, to
subvert also the religious truth, and which thus necessarily became
frivolous. A dissertation at the close of the work will show that the
dogmatic significance of the life of Jesus remains inviolate: in the
meantime let the calmness and insensibility with which, in the course
of it, criticism undertakes apparently dangerous operations, be
explained solely by the security of the author’s conviction that no
injury is threatened to the Christian faith. Investigations of this
kind may, however, inflict a wound on the faith of individuals. Should
this be the case with theologians, they have in their science the means
of healing such wounds, from which, if they would not remain behind the
development of their age, they cannot possibly be exempt. For the laity
the subject is certainly not adequately prepared; and for this reason
the present work is so framed, that at least the unlearned among them
will quickly and often perceive that the book is not destined for them.
If from curiosity or excessive zeal against heresy they persist in
their perusal, they will then have, as Schleiermacher says on a similar
occasion, to bear the punishment in their conscience, since their
feelings directly urge on them the conviction that they understand not
that of which they are ambitious to speak.
A new opinion, which aims to fill the place of an older one, ought
fully to adjust its position with respect to the latter. Hence the way
to the mythical view is here taken in each particular point through the
supranaturalistic and rationalistic opinions and their respective
refutations; but, as becomes a valid refutation, with an acknowledgment
of what is true in the opinions combated, and an adoption of this truth
into the new theory. This method also brings with it the extrinsic
advantage, that the work may now serve as a repertory of the principal
opinions and treatises concerning all parts of the evangelical history.
The author has not, however, aimed to give a complete bibliographical
view of this department of theological literature, but, where it was
possible, has adhered to the chief works in each separate class of
opinions. For the rationalistic system the works of Paulus remain
classical, and are therefore pre-eminently referred to; for the
orthodox opinions, the commentary of Olshausen is especially important,
as the most recent and approved attempt to render the supranatural
interpretation philosophical and modern; while as a preliminary to a
critical investigation of the life of Jesus, the commentaries of
Fritzsche are excellently adapted, since they exhibit, together with
uncommon philological learning, that freedom from prejudice and
scientific indifference to results and consequences, which form the
first condition of progress in this region of inquiry.
The second volume, which will open with a detailed examination of the
miracles of Jesus, and which will conclude the whole work, is already
prepared and will be in the press immediately on the completion of the
first.
THE AUTHOR.
Tübingen, 24th May, 1835.
PREFACE TO THE FOURTH GERMAN EDITION.
As this new edition of my critical examination of the life of Jesus
appears simultaneously with the first volume of my Dogmatik, it will
not be expected to contain any essential alterations. Indeed, even in
the absence of other labours, I should scarcely have been inclined to
undertake such on the present occasion. The critical researches
prompted by the appearance of my work have, after the stormy reaction
of the first few years, at length entered on that quiet course, which
promises the most valuable assistance towards the confirmation and more
precise determination of the negative results at which I have arrived.
But these fruits still require some years for their maturing; and it
must therefore be deferred to a future opportunity to enrich this work
by the use of them. I could not persuade myself to do so, at least in
the present instance, by prosecuting a polemic against opposite
opinions. Already in the last edition there was more of a polemical
character than accorded with the unity and calmness proper to such a
work; hence I was in this respect admonished rather to abridge than to
amplify. But that edition also contained too much of compliance. The
intermingling voices of opponents, critics, and fellow labourers, to
which I held it a duty attentively to listen, had confused the idea of
the work in my mind; in the diligent comparison of divergent opinions I
had lost sight of the subject itself. Hence on coming with a more
collected mind to this last revision, I found alterations at which I
could not but wonder, and by which I had evidently done myself
injustice. In all these passages the earlier readings are now restored,
and thus my labour in this new edition has chiefly consisted in
whetting, as it were, my good sword, to free it from the notches made
in it rather by my own grinding, than by the blows of my enemies.
THE AUTHOR.
Stuttgard, 17th October, 1840.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE MYTHICAL POINT OF VIEW IN RELATION TO THE GOSPEL
HISTORIES.
PAGE
§ 1. Inevitable rise of different modes of explaining sacred
histories 39
2. Different explanations of sacred legends among the Greeks 40
3. Allegorical interpretations among the Hebrews. Philo 41
4. Allegorical interpretations among the Christians. Origen 41
5. Transition to more modern times. Deists and Naturalists of
the 17th and 18th centuries. The Wolfenbüttel Fragmentist 44
6. Natural mode of explanation adopted by the Rationalists.
Eichhorn. Paulus 46
7. Moral interpretation of Kant 50
8. Rise of the mythical mode of interpreting the sacred
history, in reference first to the Old Testament 52
9. The mythical mode of interpretation in reference to the
New Testament 57
10. The notion of the mythus in its application to sacred
histories not clearly apprehended by theologians 59
11. The application of the notion of the mythus too
circumscribed 63
12. Opposition to the mythical view of the Gospel history 65
13. The possibility of the existence of mythi in the New
Testament considered in reference to external evidences 69
14. The possibility of mythi in the New Testament considered
on internal grounds 75
15. Definition of the evangelical mythus, and its distinctive
characteristics 86
16. Criteria by which to distinguish the unhistorical in the
Gospel narrative 87
FIRST PART.
HISTORY OF THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF JESUS.
CHAPTER I.
ANNUNCIATION AND BIRTH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST.
§ 17. Account given by Luke. Immediate supernatural character
of the representation 95
18. Natural explanation of the narrative 100
19. Mythical view of the narrative in its different stages 104
CHAPTER II.
DAVIDICAL DESCENT OF JESUS, ACCORDING TO THE GENEALOGICAL TABLES OF
MATTHEW AND LUKE.
§ 20. The two genealogies of Jesus considered separately and
irrespectively of one another 108
21. Comparison of the two genealogies. Attempt to reconcile
their contradictions 112
22. The genealogies unhistorical 117
CHAPTER III.
ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE CONCEPTION OF JESUS.—ITS SUPERNATURAL
CHARACTER.—VISIT OF MARY TO ELIZABETH.
§ 23. Sketch of the different canonical and apocryphal accounts 119
24. Disagreements of the canonical gospels in relation to the
form of the annunciation 121
25. Import of the angel’s message. Fulfilment of the prophecy
of Isaiah 126
26. Jesus begotten of the Holy Ghost. Criticism of the
orthodox opinion 130
27. Retrospect of the genealogies 132
28. Natural explanation of the history of the conception 137
29. History of the conception of Jesus viewed as a mythus 140
30. Relation of Joseph to Mary. Brothers of Jesus 143
31. Visit of Mary to Elizabeth 148
CHAPTER IV.
BIRTH AND EARLIEST EVENTS OF THE LIFE OF JESUS.
§ 32. The census 152
33. Particular circumstances of the birth of Jesus. The
circumcision 156
34. The Magi and their star. The flight into Egypt, and the
murder of the children in Bethlehem. Criticism of the
supranaturalistic view 162
35. Attempts at a natural explanation of the history of the
Magi. Transition to the mythical explanation 169
36. The purely mythical explanation of the narrative
concerning the Magi, and of the events with which it
is connected 173
37. Chronological relation between the visit of the Magi,
together with the flight into Egypt, and the presentation
in the temple recorded by Luke 178
38. The presentation of Jesus in the temple 181
39. Retrospect. Difference between Matthew and Luke as to the
original residence of the parents of Jesus 184
CHAPTER V.
THE FIRST VISIT TO THE TEMPLE, AND THE EDUCATION OF JESUS.
§ 40. Jesus, when twelve years old, in the temple 191
41. This narrative also mythical 196
42. On the external life of Jesus up to the time of his
public appearance 198
43. The intellectual development of Jesus 201
SECOND PART.
HISTORY OF THE PUBLIC LIFE OF JESUS.
CHAPTER I.
RELATIONS BETWEEN JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST.
§ 44. Chronological relations between John and Jesus 209
45. Appearance and design of the Baptist. His personal
relations with Jesus 214
46. Was Jesus acknowledged by John as the Messiah? and in
what sense? 219
47. Opinion of the evangelists and of Jesus concerning
the Baptist, with his own judgment of himself. Result
of the inquiry into the relationship between these
two individuals 230
48. The execution of John the Baptist 234
CHAPTER II.
BAPTISM AND TEMPTATION OF JESUS.
§ 49. Why did Jesus receive baptism from John? 237
50. The scene at the baptism of Jesus considered as
supernatural, and as natural 239
51. An attempt at a criticism and mythical interpretation
of the narratives 242
52. Relation of the supernatural at the baptism of Jesus
to the supernatural in his conception 247
53. Place and time of the temptation of Jesus. Divergencies
of the evangelists on this subject 249
54. The history of the temptation conceived in the sense
of the evangelists 252
55. The temptation considered as a natural occurrence either
internal or external; and also as a parable 255
56. The history of the temptation as a mythus 259
CHAPTER III.
LOCALITY AND CHRONOLOGY OF THE PUBLIC LIFE OF JESUS.
§ 57. Difference between the synoptical writers and John, as
to the customary scene of the ministry of Jesus 264
58. The residence of Jesus at Capernaum 271
59. Divergencies of the Evangelists as to the chronology
of the life of Jesus. Duration of his public ministry 275
60. The attempts at a chronological arrangement of the
particular events in the public life of Jesus 278
CHAPTER IV.
JESUS AS THE MESSIAH.
§ 61. Jesus, the Son of Man 281
62. How soon did Jesus conceive himself to be the Messiah,
and find recognition as such from others? 284
63. Jesus, the Son of God 288
64. The divine mission and authority of Jesus. His
pre-existence 291
65. The messianic plan of Jesus. Indications of a political
element 293
66. Data for the pure spirituality of the messianic plan
of Jesus. Balance 295
67. The relation of Jesus to the Mosaic law 297
68. Scope of the messianic plan of Jesus. Relation to
the Gentiles 300
69. Relation of the messianic plan of Jesus to the
Samaritans. His interview with the woman of Samaria 303
CHAPTER V.
THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS.
§ 70. Calling of the first companions of Jesus. Difference
between the first two Evangelists and the fourth 309
71. Peter’s draught of fishes 315
72. Calling of Matthew. Connexion of Jesus with the publicans 319
73. The twelve apostles 323
74. The twelve considered individually. The three or four
most confidential disciples of Jesus 326
75. The rest of the twelve, and the seventy disciples 330
CHAPTER VI.
THE DISCOURSES OF JESUS IN THE THREE FIRST GOSPELS.
§ 76. The Sermon on the Mount 334
77. Instructions to the twelve. Lamentations over the
Galilean cities. Joy over the calling of the simple 342
78. The parables 345
79. Miscellaneous instructions and controversies of Jesus 355
CHAPTER VII.
DISCOURSES OF JESUS IN THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
§ 80. Conversation of Jesus with Nicodemus 365
81. The discourses of Jesus, John v.–xii. 371
82. Isolated maxims of Jesus, common to the fourth gospel
and the synoptical ones 377
83. The modern discussions on the authenticity of the
discourses in the Gospel of John. Result 381
CHAPTER VIII.
EVENTS IN THE PUBLIC LIFE OF JESUS, EXCLUSIVE OF THE MIRACLES.
§ 84. General comparison of the manner of narration that
distinguishes the several Evangelists 387
85. Isolated groups of anecdotes. Imputation of a league
with Beelzebub, and demand of a sign 391
86. Visit of the mother and brethren of Jesus. The woman
who pronounces the mother of Jesus blessed 394
87. Contentions for pre-eminence among the disciples. The
love of Jesus for children 396
88. The purification of the temple 399
89. Narratives of the anointing of Jesus by a woman 402
90. The narratives of the woman taken in adultery, and of
Mary and Martha 409
CHAPTER IX.
MIRACLES OF JESUS.
§ 91. Jesus considered as a worker of miracles 413
92. The demoniacs, considered generally 415
93. Cases of the expulsion of demons by Jesus, considered
singly 423
94. Cures of lepers 437
95. Cures of the blind 441
96. Cures of paralytics. Did Jesus regard diseases as
punishments? 452
97. Involuntary cures 457
98. Cures at a distance 462
99. Cures on the sabbath 471
100. Resuscitations of the dead 476
101. Anecdotes having relation to the sea 496
102. The miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fishes 507
103. Jesus turns water into wine 519
104. Jesus curses a barren fig-tree 527
CHAPTER X.
THE TRANSFIGURATION OF JESUS, AND HIS LAST JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM.
§ 105. The transfiguration of Jesus considered as a miraculous
external event 535
106. The natural explanation of the narrative in various
forms 537
107. The history of the transfiguration considered as a mythus 540
108. Diverging accounts concerning the last journey of Jesus
to Jerusalem 546
109. Divergencies of the gospels, in relation to the point
from which Jesus made his entrance into Jerusalem 549
110. More particular circumstances of the entrance. Its
object and historical reality 553
THIRD PART.
HISTORY OF THE PASSION, DEATH, AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS.
CHAPTER I.
RELATION OF JESUS TO THE IDEA OF A SUFFERING AND DYING MESSIAH; HIS
DISCOURSES ON HIS DEATH, RESURRECTION, AND SECOND ADVENT.
§ 111. Did Jesus in precise terms predict his passion and death? 563
112. The predictions of Jesus concerning his death in general;
their relation to the Jewish idea of the Messiah;
declarations of Jesus concerning the object and effects of
his death 567
113. Precise declarations of Jesus concerning his future
resurrection 574
114. Figurative discourses, in which Jesus is supposed to have
announced his resurrection 576
115. The discourses of Jesus on his second advent. Criticism
of the different interpretations 582
116. Origin of the discourses on the second advent 591
CHAPTER II.
MACHINATIONS OF THE ENEMIES OF JESUS; TREACHERY OF JUDAS; LAST SUPPER
WITH THE DISCIPLES.
§ 117. Development of the relation of Jesus to his enemies 599
118. Jesus and his betrayer 602
119. Different opinions concerning the character of Judas,
and the motives of his treachery 607
120. Preparation for the passover 611
121. Divergent statements respecting the time of the last
supper 614
122. Divergencies in relation to the occurrences at the last
meal of Jesus 621
123. Announcement of the betrayal and the denial 626
124. The institution of the Lord’s supper 631
CHAPTER III.
RETIREMENT TO THE MOUNT OF OLIVES, ARREST, TRIAL, CONDEMNATION, AND
CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS.
§ 125. Agony of Jesus in the garden 635
126. Relation of the fourth gospel to the events in Gethsemane.
The farewell discourses in John, and the scene following
the announcement of the Greeks 640
127. Arrest of Jesus 649
128. Examination of Jesus before the high priest 653
129. The denial by Peter 658
130. The death of the betrayer 662
131. Jesus before Pilate and Herod 669
132. The crucifixion 677
CHAPTER IV.
DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS.
§ 133. Prodigies attendant on the death of Jesus 691
134. The wound by a spear in the side of Jesus 697
135. Burial of Jesus 701
136. The watch at the grave of Jesus 705
137. First tidings of the resurrection 709
138. Appearances of the risen Jesus in Galilee and in Judea,
including those mentioned by Paul and by apocryphal
writings 718
139. Quality of the body and life of Jesus after the
resurrection 728
140. Debates concerning the reality of the death and
resurrection of Jesus 735
CHAPTER V.
THE ASCENSION.
§ 141. The last commands and promises of Jesus 745
142. The so-called ascension considered as a supernatural
and as a natural event 749
143. Insufficiency of the narratives of the ascension. Mythical
conception of those narratives 752
CONCLUDING DISSERTATION.
THE DOGMATIC IMPORT OF THE LIFE OF JESUS.
§ 144. Necessary transition from criticism to dogma 757
145. The Christology of the orthodox system 758
146. Objections to the Christology of the church 764
147. The Christology of rationalism 767
148. The eclectic Christology of Schleiermacher 768
149. Christology interpreted symbolically. Kant. De Wette 773
150. The speculative Christology 777
151. Last dilemma 778
152. Relation of the critical and speculative theology to
the church 781
THE LIFE OF JESUS.
INTRODUCTION.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE MYTHICAL POINT OF VIEW IN RELATION TO THE GOSPEL
HISTORIES.
§ 1.
INEVITABLE RISE OF DIFFERENT MODES OF EXPLAINING SACRED HISTORIES.
Wherever a religion, resting upon written records, prolongs and extends
the sphere of its dominion, accompanying its votaries through the
varied and progressive stages of mental cultivation, a discrepancy
between the representations of those ancient records, referred to as
sacred, and the notions of more advanced periods of mental development,
will inevitably sooner or later arise. In the first instance this
disagreement is felt in reference only to the unessential—the external
form: the expressions and delineations are seen to be inappropriate;
but by degrees it manifests itself also in regard to that which is
essential: the fundamental ideas and opinions in these early writings
fail to be commensurate with a more advanced civilisation. As long as
this discrepancy is either not in itself so considerable, or else is
not so universally discerned and acknowledged, as to lead to a complete
renunciation of these Scriptures as of sacred authority, so long will a
system of reconciliation by means of interpretation be adopted and
pursued by those who have a more or less distinct consciousness of the
existing incongruity.
A main element in all religious records is sacred history; a history of
events in which the divine enters, without intermediation, into the
human; the ideal thus assuming an immediate embodiment. But as the
progress of mental cultivation mainly consists in the gradual
recognition of a chain of causes and effects connecting natural
phenomena with each other; so the mind in its development becomes ever
increasingly conscious of those mediate links which are indispensable
to the realization of the ideal; [1] and hence the discrepancy between
the modern culture and the ancient records, with regard to their
historical portion, becomes so apparent, that the immediate
intervention of the divine in human affairs loses its probability.
Besides, as the humanity of these records is the humanity of an early
period, consequently of an age comparatively undeveloped and
necessarily rude, a sense of repulsion is likewise excited. The
incongruity may be thus expressed. The divine cannot so have happened;
(not immediately, not in forms so rude;) or, that which has so happened
cannot have been divine:—and if a reconciliation be sought by means of
interpretation, it will be attempted to prove, either that the divine
did not manifest itself in the manner related,—which is to deny the
historical validity of the ancient Scriptures; or, that the actual
occurrences were not divine—which is to explain away the absolute
contents of these books. In both cases the interpretation may be
partial or impartial: partial, if undertaken with a determination to
close the eyes to the secretly recognised fact of the disagreement
between the modern culture and the ancient records, and to see only in
such interpretation the original signification of these records;
impartial, if it unequivocally acknowledges and openly avows that the
matters narrated in these books must be viewed in a light altogether
different from that in which they were regarded by the authors
themselves. This latter method, however, by no means involves the
entire rejection of the religious documents; on the contrary, the
essential may be firmly retained, whilst the unessential is
unreservedly abandoned.
§ 2.
DIFFERENT EXPLANATIONS OF SACRED LEGENDS AMONG THE GREEKS.
Though the Hellenistic religion cannot be said to have rested upon
written records, it became enshrined in the Greek poems, for example,
in those of Homer and Hesiod; and these, no less than its orally
transmitted legends, did not fail to receive continually varying
interpretations, successively adapted to the progressive intellectual
culture of the Greeks. At an early period the rigid philosophy of the
Greeks, and under its influence even some of the Greek poets,
recognized the impossibility of ascribing to Deity manifestations so
grossly human, so immediate, and so barbarous, as those exhibited and
represented as divine in the wild conflicts of Hesiod’s Theogony, and
in the domestic occupations and trivial pursuits of the Homeric
deities. Hence arose the quarrel of Plato, and prior to him of Pindar,
with Homer; [2] hence the cause which induced Anaxagoras, to whom the
invention of the allegorical mode of interpretation is ascribed, to
apply the Homeric delineations to virtue and to justice; [3] hence it
was that the Stoics understood the Theogony of Hesiod as relating to
the action of the elements, which, according to their notions,
constituted, in their highest union, the divine nature. [4] Thus did
these several thinkers, each according to his own peculiar mode of
thought, succeed in discovering an absolute meaning in these
representations: the one finding in them a physical, the other an
ethical signification, whilst, at the same time, they gave up their
external form, ceasing to regard them as strictly historical.
On the other hand, the more popular and sophistical culture of another
class of thinkers led them to opposite conclusions. Though, in their
estimation, every semblance of the divine had evaporated from these
histories; though they were convinced that the proceedings ascribed to
the gods were not godlike, still they did not abandon the historical
sense of these narratives. With Evemerus [5] they transformed the
subjects of these histories from gods to men, to heroes and sages of
antiquity, kings and tyrants, who, through deeds of might and valour,
had acquired divine honours. Some indeed went still further, and, with
Polybius, [6] considered the whole system of heathen theology as a
fable, invented by the founders of states to awe the people into
subjection.
§ 3.
ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATIONS AMONG THE HEBREWS.—PHILO.
Whilst, on the one hand, the isolation and stability of the Hebrews
served to retard the development of similar manifestations amongst this
people, on the other hand, when once actually developed, they were the
more marked; because, in proportion to the high degree of authority
ascribed to the sacred records, was the skill and caution required in
their interpretation. Thus, even in Palestine, subsequent to the exile,
and particularly after the time of the Maccabees, many ingenious
attempts were made to interpret the Old Testament so as to remove
offensive literalities, supply deficiencies, and introduce the notions
of a later age. Examples of this system of interpretation occur in the
writings of the Rabbins, and even in the New Testament; [7] but it was
at that place where the Jewish mind came into contact with Greek
civilization, and under its influence was carried beyond the limits of
its own national culture—namely at Alexandria—that the allegorical mode
of interpretation was first consistently applied to the whole body of
historical narrative in the Old Testament. Many had prepared the way,
but it was Philo who first fully developed the doctrine of both a
common and a deeper sense of the Holy Scriptures. He was by no means
inclined to cast away the former, but generally placed the two
together, side by side, and even declared himself opposed to those who,
everywhere and without necessity, sacrificed the literal to the higher
signification. In many cases, however, he absolutely discarded the
verbal meaning and historical conception, and considered the narrative
merely as the figurative representation of an idea. He did so, for
example, whenever the sacred story appeared to him to present
delineations unworthy of Deity, tending either to materialism or
anthropomorphism, or otherwise to contain contradictions. [8]
The fact that the Jews, whilst they adopted this mode of explaining the
Old Testament, (which, in order to save the purity of the intrinsic
signification, often sacrificed the historical form), were never led
into the opposite system of Evemerus (which preserved the historical
form by divesting the history of the divine, and reducing it to a
record of mere human events), is to be ascribed to the tenacity with
which that people ever adhered to the supernatural point of view. The
latter mode of interpretation was first brought to bear upon the Old
Testament by the Christians.
§ 4.
ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATIONS AMONG THE CHRISTIANS.—ORIGEN.
To the early Christians who, antecedent to the fixing of the christian
canon, made especial use of the Old Testament as their principal sacred
record, an allegorical interpretation was the more indispensable,
inasmuch as they had made greater advances beyond the views of the Old
Testament writers than even the most enlightened of the Jews. It was no
wonder therefore that this mode of explanation, already in vogue among
the Jews, was almost universally adopted by the primitive christian
churches. It was however again in Alexandria that it found the fullest
application amongst the Christians, and that in connexion with the name
of Origen. Origen attributes a threefold meaning to the Scriptures,
corresponding with his distribution of the human being into three
parts: the literal sense answering to the body; the moral, to the soul;
and the mystical, to the spirit. [9] The rule with him was to retain
all three meanings, though differing in worth; in some particular
cases, however, he was of opinion that the literal interpretation
either gave no sense at all, or else a perverted sense, in order the
more directly to impel the reader to the discovery of its mystical
signification. Origen’s repeated observation that it is not the purpose
of the biblical narratives to transmit old tales, but to instruct in
the rules of life; [10] his assertion that the merely literal
acceptation of many of the narratives would prove destructive of the
christian religion; [11] and his application of the passage “The letter
killeth, but the spirit giveth life,” [12] to the relative worth of the
allegorical and the literal modes of biblical interpretation, may be
understood as indicating only the inferiority of the literal to the
deeper signification. But the literal sense is decidedly given up when
it is said, “Every passage of Scripture has a spiritual element, but
not every one has a corporeal element;” [13] “A spiritual truth often
exists embodied in a corporeal falsehood”; [14] “The Scriptures contain
many things which never came to pass, interwoven with the history, and
he must be dull indeed who does not of his own accord observe that much
which the Scriptures represent as having happened never actually
occurred.” [15] Among the passages which Origen regarded as admitting
no other than an allegorical interpretation, besides those which too
sensibly humanised the Deity, [16] he included those which attributed
unworthy action to individuals who had held intimate communion with
God. [17]
It was not however from the Old Testament views alone that Origen had,
in consequence of his christian training, departed so widely that he
felt himself compelled, if he would retain his reverence for the sacred
records, to allegorize their contents, as a means of reconciling the
contradiction which had arisen between them and his own mind. There was
much likewise in the New Testament writings which so little accorded
with his philosophical notions, that he found himself constrained to
adopt a similar proceeding in reference to them. He reasoned thus:—the
New Testament and the Old are the work of the same spirit, and this
spirit would proceed in the same manner in the production of the one
and of the other, interweaving fiction with reality, in order thereby
to direct the mind to the spiritual signification. [18] In a remarkable
passage of his work against Celsus, Origen classes together, and in no
ambiguous language, the partially fabulous stories of profane history,
and of heathen mythology, with the gospel narratives. [19] He expresses
himself as follows: “In almost every history it is a difficult task,
and not unfrequently an impossible one, to demonstrate the reality of
the events recorded, however true they may in fact be. Let us suppose
some individual to deny the reality of a Trojan war on account of the
incredibilities mixed up with the history; as, for example, the birth
of Achilles from a goddess of the sea. How could we substantiate the
fact, encumbered as it is with the numerous and undeniable poetical
fictions which have, in some unascertainable manner, become interwoven
with the generally admitted account of the war between the Greeks and
the Trojans? There is no alternative: he who would study history with
understanding, and not suffer himself to be deluded, must weigh each
separate detail, and consider what is worthy of credit and may be
believed without further evidence; what, on the contrary, must be
regarded as merely figurative; (τίνα δὲ τροπολογήσει) always bearing in
mind the aim of the narrator—and what must be wholly mistrusted as
being written with intent to please certain individuals.” In conclusion
Origen says, “I was desirous of making these preliminary observations
in relation to the entire history of Jesus given in the Gospels, not
with the view of exacting from the enlightened a blind and baseless
belief, but with design to show how indispensable to the study of this
history are not only judgment and diligent examination, but, so to
speak, the very penetrating into the mind of the author, in order to
discover the particular aim with which each narrative may have been
written.”
We here see Origen almost transcending the limits of his own customary
point of view, and verging towards the more modern mythical view. But
if his own prepossessions in favour of the supernatural, and his fear
of giving offence to the orthodox church, combined to hinder him from
making a wider application of the allegorical mode of interpretation to
the Old Testament, the same causes operated still more powerfully in
relation to the New Testament; so that when we further inquire of which
of the gospel histories in particular did Origen reject the historical
meaning, in order to hold fast a truth worthy of God? the instances
will prove to be meagre in the extreme. For when he says, in
illustration of the above-mentioned passage, that amongst other things,
it is not to be understood literally that Satan showed to Jesus all the
kingdoms of the earth from a mountain, because this is impossible to
the bodily eye; he here gives not a strictly allegorical
interpretation, but merely a different turn to the literal sense,
which, according to him, relates not to an external fact, but to the
internal fact of a vision. Again, even where the text offers a tempting
opportunity of sacrificing the literal to the spiritual meaning, as,
for example, the cursing of the fig-tree, [20] Origen does not speak
out freely. He is most explicit when speaking of the expulsion of the
buyers and sellers from the temple; he characterizes the conduct of
Jesus, according to the literal interpretation, as assuming and
seditious. [21] He moreover expressly remarks that the Scriptures
contain many more historical than merely scriptural truths. [22]
§ 5.
TRANSITION TO MORE MODERN TIMES.—DEISTS AND NATURALISTS OF THE 17TH AND
18TH CENTURIES.—THE WOLFENBÜTTEL FRAGMENTIST.
Thus was developed one of those forms of interpretation to which the
Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, in common with all other religious
records, in relation to their historical contents, became necessarily
subjected; that, namely, which recognizes in them the divine, but
denies it to have actually manifested itself in so immediate a manner.
The other principal mode of interpretation, which, to a certain extent,
acknowledges the course of events to have been historically true, but
assigns it to a human and not a divine origin, was developed amongst
the enemies of Christianity by a Celsus, a Porphyry, and a Julian. They
indeed rejected much of the history as altogether fabulous; but they
admitted many of the incidents related of Moses, Jesus, and others, to
be historical facts: these facts were however considered by them as
originating from common motives; and they attributed their apparently
supernatural character either to gross fraud or impious sorcery.
It is worthy of observation that the circumstances attending the
introduction of these several modes of interpretation into the heathen
and Jewish religions, on the one hand, and into the christian religion,
on the other, were different. The religion and sacred literature of the
Greeks and Hebrews had been gradually developed with the development of
the nation, and it was not until the intellectual culture of the people
had outgrown the religion of their fathers, and the latter was in
consequence verging towards decay, that the discrepancy which is the
source of these varying interpretations became apparent. Christianity,
on the contrary, came into a world of already advanced civilization;
which was, with the exception of that of Palestine, the
Judaico-Hellenistic and the Greek. Consequently a disagreement
manifested itself at the very beginning; it was not now, however, as in
former times, between modern culture and an ancient religion, but
between a new religion and ancient culture. The production of
allegorical interpretations among the Pagans and the Hebrews, was a
sign that their religion had lost its vitality; the allegories of
Origen and the attacks of Celsus, in reference to Christianity, were
evidences rather that the world had not as yet duly accommodated itself
to the new religion. As however with the christianizing of the Roman
empire, and the overthrow of the chief heresies, the christian
principle gained an ever-increasing supremacy; as the schools of
heathen wisdom closed; and the uncivilized Germanic tribes lent
themselves to the teaching of the church;—the world, during the tedious
centuries of the middle ages, was satisfied with Christianity, both in
form and in substance. Almost all traces of these modes of
interpretation which presuppose a discrepancy between the culture of a
nation, or of the world, and religion, in consequence disappeared. The
reformation effected the first breach in the solid structure of the
faith of the church. It was the first vital expression of a culture,
which had now in the heart of Christendom itself, as formerly in
relation to Paganism and Judaism, acquired strength and independence
sufficient to create a reaction against the soil of its birth, the
prevailing religion. This reaction, so long as it was directed against
the dominant hierarchy, constituted the sublime, but quickly
terminated, drama of the reformation. In its later direction against
the Bible, it appeared again upon the stage in the barren revolutionary
efforts of deism; and many and various have been the forms it has
assumed in its progress down to the present time.
The deists and naturalists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
renewed the polemic attacks of the pagan adversaries of Christianity in
the bosom of the christian church; and gave to the public an irregular
and confused mass of criticisms, impugning the authenticity and
credibility of the Scriptures, and exposing to contempt the events
recorded in the sacred volume. Toland, [23] Bolingbroke, [24] and
others, pronounced the Bible to be a collection of unauthentic and
fabulous books; whilst some spared no pains to despoil the biblical
histories, and the heroes whose actions they celebrate, of every ray of
divine light. Thus, according to Morgan, [25] the law of Moses is a
miserable system of superstition, blindness, and slavery; the Jewish
priests are deceivers; and the Jewish prophets the originators of the
distractions and civil wars of the two kingdoms of Judah and Israel.
According to Chubb, [26] the Jewish religion cannot be a revelation
from God, because it debases the moral character of the Deity by
attributing to him arbitrary conduct, partiality for a particular
people, and above all, the cruel command to exterminate the Canaanitish
nations. Assaults were likewise made by these and other deists upon the
New Testament: the Apostles were suspected of being actuated by selfish
and mercenary motives; [27] the character of Jesus himself was not
spared, [28] and the fact of his resurrection was denied. [29] The
miracles of Jesus, wrought by an immediate exercise of divine power in
human acts and concerns, were made the particular objects of attack by
Woolston. [30] This writer is also worthy of notice on account of the
peculiar position taken by him between the ancient allegorists and the
modern naturalists. His whole reasoning turns upon the alternative;
either to retain the historical reality of the miracles narrated in the
Bible, and thus to sacrifice the divine character of the narratives,
and reduce the miracles to mere artifices, miserable juggleries, or
commonplace deceptions; or, in order to hold fast the divine character
of these narratives, to reject them entirely as details of actual
occurrences, and regard them as historical representations of certain
spiritual truths. Woolston cites the authority of the most
distinguished allegorists among the fathers in support of this view. He
is wrong however in representing them as supplanting the literal by the
figurative meaning. These ancient fathers, on the contrary, were
disposed to retain both the literal and the allegorical meaning. (A few
examples in Origen, it is true, are an exception to this rule.) It may
be doubted, from the language of Woolston, which alternative was
adopted by himself. If we reason from the fact, that before he appeared
as the opponent of the commonly entertained views of Christianity, he
occupied himself with allegorical interpretations of the Scriptures,
[31] we may be led to consider the latter alternative as expressing his
real conviction. On the other hand, he enlarges with so evident a
predilection on the absurdities of the miracles, when literally
understood, and the manner in which he treats the whole subject is so
tinged with levity, that we may suspect the Deist to put forward the
allegorical interpretations merely as a screen, from behind which he
might inveigh the more unreservedly against the literal signification.
Similar deistical objections against the Bible, and the divine
character of its history, were propagated in Germany chiefly by an
anonymous author (Reimarus) whose manuscripts were discovered by
Lessing in the Wolfenbüttel library. Some portions of these
manuscripts, called the “Wolfenbüttel Fragments,” were published by
Lessing in 1774. They consist of Essays, one of which treats of the
many arguments which may be urged against revealed religion in general;
the others relate partly to the Old and partly to the New Testament. It
is the opinion of the Fragmentist, in relation to the Old Testament,
first, that the men, of whom the Scriptures narrate that they had
immediate communications with God, were so unworthy, that such
intercourse, admitting its reality, compromised the character of Deity;
secondly, that the result of this intercourse,—the instructions and
laws alleged to have been thus divinely communicated,—were so barbarous
and destructive, that to ascribe them to God is impossible; and
thirdly, that the accompanying miracles were at once absurd and
incredible. From the whole, it appears to him clear, that the divine
communications were only pretended; and that the miracles were
delusions, practised with the design of giving stability and efficiency
to certain laws and institutions highly advantageous to the rulers and
priests. The author finds much to condemn in the conduct of the
patriarchs, and their simulations of divine communications; such as the
command to Abraham to sacrifice his son. But it is chiefly Moses upon
whom he seeks, in a long section, to cast all the obloquy of an
impostor, who did not scruple to employ the most disgraceful means in
order to make himself the despotic ruler of a free people: who, to
effect his purpose, feigned divine apparitions, and pretended to have
received the command of God to perpetrate acts which, but for this
divine sanction, would have been stigmatized as fraudulent, as highway
robbery, as inhuman barbarity. For instance, the spoiling of the
Egyptians, and the extirpation of the inhabitants of Canaan; atrocities
which, when introduced by the words “Jehovah hath said it,” became
instantly transformed into deeds worthy of God. The Fragmentist is as
little disposed to admit the divinity of the New Testament histories.
He considers the aim of Jesus to have been political; and his connexion
with John the Baptist a preconcerted arrangement, by which the one
party should recommend the other to the people. He views the death of
Jesus as an event by no means foreseen by himself, but which frustrated
all his plans; a catastrophe which his disciples knew not how else to
repair than by the fraudulent pretence that Jesus was risen from the
dead, and by an artful alteration of his doctrines [32].
§ 6.
NATURAL MODE OF EXPLANATION ADOPTED BY THE
RATIONALISTS.—EICHHORN.—PAULUS.
Whilst the reality of the biblical revelation, together with the divine
origin and supernatural character of the Jewish and Christian
histories, were tenaciously maintained in opposition to the English
deists by numerous English apologists, and in opposition to the
Wolfenbüttel Fragmentist by the great majority of German theologians,
there arose a distinct class of theologians in Germany, who struck into
a new path. The ancient pagan mythology, as understood by Evemerus,
admitted of two modes of explanation, each of which was in fact
adopted. The deities of the popular worship might, on the one hand, be
regarded as good and benevolent men; as wise lawgivers, and just
rulers, of early times, whom the gratitude of their contemporaries and
posterity had encircled with divine glory; or they might, on the other
hand, be viewed as artful impostors and cruel tyrants, who had veiled
themselves in a nimbus of divinity, for the purpose of subjugating the
people to their dominion. So, likewise, in the purely human explanation
of the bible histories, besides the method of the deists to regard the
subjects of these narratives as wicked and deceitful men, there was yet
another course open; to divest these individuals of their immediate
divinity, but to accord to them an undegraded humanity; not indeed to
look upon their deeds as miraculous;—as little on the other hand to
decry them as impositions;—but to explain their proceedings as
altogether natural, yet morally irreprehensible. If the Naturalist was
led by his special enmity to the Christianity of the church to the
former explanation, the Rationalist, anxious, on the contrary, to
remain within the pale of the church, was attracted towards the latter.
Eichhorn, in his critical examination of the Wolfenbüttel Fragments,
[33] directly opposes this rationalistic view to that maintained by the
Naturalist. He agrees with the Fragmentist in refusing to recognize an
immediate divine agency, at all events in the narratives of early date.
The mythological researches of a Heyne had so far enlarged his circle
of vision as to lead Eichhorn to perceive that divine interpositions
must be alike admitted, or alike denied, in the primitive histories of
all people. It was the practice of all nations, of the Grecians as well
as the Orientals, to refer every unexpected or inexplicable occurrence
immediately to the Deity. The sages of antiquity lived in continual
communion with superior intelligences. Whilst these representations
(such is Eichhorn’s statement of the matter) are always, in reference
to the Hebrew records, understood verbally and literally, it has
hitherto been customary to explain similar representations in the pagan
histories, by presupposing either deception and gross falsehood, or the
misinterpretation and corruption of tradition. But Eichhorn thinks
justice evidently requires that Hebrew and pagan history should be
treated in the same way; so that intercourse with celestial beings
during a state of infancy, must either be accorded to all nations,
pagan and Hebrew, or equally denied to all. The mind hesitates to make
so universal an admission: first, on account of the not unfrequent
errors contained in religions claiming to have been divinely
communicated; secondly, from a sense of the difficulty of explaining
the transition of the human race from a state of divine tutelage to one
of self-dependence: and lastly, because in proportion as intelligence
increases, and the authenticity of the records may be more and more
confidently relied upon, in the same proportion do these immediate
divine influences invariably disappear. If, accordingly, the notion of
supernatural interposition is to be rejected with regard to the
Hebrews, as well as to all other people, the view generally taken of
pagan antiquity presents itself, at first sight, as that most obviously
applicable to the early Hebrews; namely, that their pretended
revelations were based upon deceit and falsehood, or that their
miraculous histories should be referred to the misrepresentations and
corruptions of tradition. This is the view of the subject actually
applied by the Fragmentist to the Old Testament; a representation, says
Eichhorn, from which the mind on a nearer contemplation recoils. Is it
conceivable that the greatest men of antiquity, whose influence
operated so powerfully and so beneficially upon their age, should one
and all have been impostors, and yet have escaped the detection of
their contemporaries?
According to Eichhorn, so perverted a view could arise only in a mind
that refused to interpret the ancient records in the spirit of their
age. Truly, had they been composed with all the philosophical accuracy
of the writers of the present day, we should have been compelled to
find in them either actual divine interpositions, or a fraudulent
pretence. But they are the production of an infant and unscientific
age; and treat, without reserve of divine interventions, in accordance
with the conceptions and phraseology of that early period. So that, in
point of fact, we have neither miracles to wonder at, on the one hand,
nor deceptions to unmask on the other; but simply the language of a
former age to translate into that of our own day. Eichhorn observes
that before the human race had gained a knowledge of the true causes of
things, all occurrences were referred to supernatural agencies, or to
the interposition of superhuman beings. Lofty conceptions, noble
resolves, useful inventions and regulations, but more especially vivid
dreams, were the operations of that Deity under whose immediate
influence they believed themselves placed. Manifestations of
distinguished intelligence and skill, by which some individual excited
the wonder of the people, were regarded as miraculous; as signs of
supernatural endowments, and of a particular intercourse with higher
beings. And this was the belief, not of the people only, but also of
these eminent individuals, who entertained no doubt of the fact, and
who exulted in the full conviction of being in mysterious connexion
with the Deity. Eichhorn is of opinion that no objection can be urged
against the attempt to resolve all the Mosaic narratives into natural
occurrences, and thus far he concedes to the Fragmentist his primary
position; but he rejects his inference that Moses was an impostor,
pronouncing the conclusion to be over-hasty and unjust. Thus Eichhorn
agreed with the Naturalists in divesting the biblical narratives of all
their immediately divine contents, but he differed from them in this,
that he explained the supernatural lustre which adorns these histories,
not as a fictitious colouring imparted with design to deceive, but as a
natural and as it were spontaneous illumination reflected from
antiquity itself.
In conformity with these principles Eichhorn sought to explain
naturally the histories of Noah, Abraham, Moses, etc. Viewed in the
light of that age, the appointment of Moses to be the leader of the
Israelites was nothing more than the long cherished project of the
patriot to emancipate his people, which when presented before his mind
with more than usual vividness in his dreams, was believed by him to be
a divine inspiration. The flame and smoke which ascended from Mount
Sinai, at the giving of the law, was merely a fire which Moses kindled
in order to make a deeper impression upon the imagination of the
people, together with an accidental thunderstorm which arose at that
particular moment. The shining of his countenance was the natural
effect of being over-heated: but it was supposed to be a divine
manifestation, not only by the people, but by Moses himself, he being
ignorant of the true cause.
Eichhorn was more reserved in his application of this mode of
interpretation to the New Testament. Indeed, it was only to a few of
the narratives in the Acts of the Apostles, such as the miracle of the
day of Pentecost, the conversion of the Apostle Paul, and the many
apparitions of angels, that he allowed himself to apply it. Here too,
he refers the supernatural to the figurative language of the Bible; in
which, for example, a happy accident is called—a protecting angel; a
joyous thought—the salutation of an angel; and a peaceful state of
mind—a comforting angel. It is however remarkable that Eichhorn was
conscious of the inapplicability of the natural explanation to some
parts of the gospel history, and with respect to many of the narratives
took a more elevated view.
Many writings in a similar spirit, which partially included the New
Testament within the circle of their explanations, appeared; but it was
Dr. Paulus who by his commentary on the Gospels [34] in 1800, first
acquired the full reputation of a christian Evemerus. In the
introduction to this work he states it to be the primary requisite of
the biblical critic to be able to distinguish between what is fact, and
what is opinion. That which has been actually experienced, internally
or externally, by the participants in an event, he calls fact. The
interpretation of an event, the supposed causes to which it is referred
either by the participants or by the narrators, he calls opinion. But,
according to Dr. Paulus, these two elements become so easily blended
and confounded in the minds both of the original sharers in an event,
and of the subsequent relators and historians, that fact and opinion
lose their distinction; so that the one and the other are believed and
recorded with equal confidence in their historical truth. This
intermixture is particularly apparent in the historical books of the
New Testament; since at the time when Jesus lived, it was still the
prevailing disposition to derive every striking occurrence from an
invisible and superhuman cause. It is consequently the chief task of
the historian who desires to deal with matters of fact, that is to say,
in reference to the New Testament, to separate these two constituent
elements so closely amalgamated, and yet in themselves so distinct; and
to extricate the pure kernel of fact from the shell of opinion. In
order to do this, in the absence of any more genuine account which
would serve as a correcting parallel, he must transplant himself in
imagination upon the theatre of action, and strive to the utmost to
contemplate the events by the light of the age in which they occurred.
And from this point of view he must seek to supply the deficiencies of
the narration, by filling in those explanatory collateral
circumstances, which the relator himself is so often led by his
predilection for the supernatural to leave unnoticed. It is well known
in what manner Dr. Paulus applies these principles to the New Testament
in his Commentary, and still more fully in his later production, “The
Life of Jesus.” He firmly maintains the historical truth of the gospel
narratives, and he aims to weave them into one consecutive
chronologically-arranged detail of facts; but he explains away every
trace of immediate divine agency, and denies all supernatural
intervention. Jesus is not to him the Son of God in the sense of the
Church, but a wise and virtuous human being; and the effects he
produced are not miracles, but acts sometimes of benevolence and
friendship, sometimes of medical skill, sometimes also the results of
accident and good fortune.
This view proposed by Eichhorn, and more completely developed by
Paulus, necessarily presupposes the Old and New Testament writings to
contain a minute and faithful narration, composed shortly after the
occurrence of the events recorded, and derived, wherever this was
possible, from the testimony of eye-witnesses. For it is only from an
accurate and original report that the ungarbled fact can be
disentangled from interwoven opinion. If the report be later and less
original, what security is there that what is taken for the
matter-of-fact kernel does not belong to opinion or tradition? To avoid
this objection, Eichhorn sought to assign a date to the Old Testament
histories approximating as nearly as possible to the events they
record: and here he, and other theologians of the same school, found no
difficulty in admitting suppositions the most unnatural: for example,
that the Pentateuch was written during the passage through the
wilderness. However this critic admits that some portions of the Old
Testament, the Book of Judges, for instance, could not have been
written contemporaneously with the events; that the historian must have
contemplated his heroes through the dim mist of intervening ages, which
might easily have magnified them into giant forms. No historian who had
either witnessed the circumstances, or had been closely connected with
them in point of time, could embellish after such fashion, except with
the express aim to amuse at the expense of truth. But with regard to
remote occurrences it is quite different. The imagination is no longer
restricted by the fixed limits of historical reality, but is aided in
its flight by the notion that in earlier times all things were better
and nobler; and the historian is tempted to speak in loftier phrase,
and to use hyperbolical expressions. Least of all is it possible to
avoid embellishment, when the compiler of a subsequent age derives his
materials from the orally transmitted traditions of antiquity. The
adventures and wondrous exploits of ancestors, handed down by father to
son, and by son to grandson, in glowing and enthusiastic
representations, and sung by the poet in lofty strains, are registered
in the written records of the historian in similar terms of high
flowing diction. Though Eichhorn took this view of a portion of the Old
Testament Books, he believed he was not giving up their historical
basis, but was still able, after clearing away the more or less evident
legendary additions, to trace out the natural course of the history.
But in one instance at least, this master of the natural mode of
interpretation in reference to the Old Testament, took a more elevated
view:—namely, of the history of the creation and the fall. In his
influential work on primitive history, [35] although he had from the
first declared the account of the creation to be poetry, he
nevertheless maintained that of the fall to be neither mythology nor
allegory, but true history. The historical basis that remained after
the removal of the supernatural, he stated to be this: that the human
constitution had at the very beginning become impaired by the eating of
a poisonous fruit. He thought it indeed very possible in itself, and
confirmed by numerous examples in profane history, that purely
historical narratives might be overlaid by a mythical account; but
owing to a supranaturalistic notion, he refused to allow the same
possibility to the Bible, because he thought it unworthy of the Deity
to admit a mythological fragment into a book, which bore such
incontestable traces of its divine origin. Later, however, Eichhorn
himself declared that he had changed his opinion with regard to the
second and third chapters of Genesis. [36] He no longer saw in them an
historical account of the effects of poison, but rather the mythical
embodying of a philosophical thought; namely, that the desire for a
better condition than that in which man actually is, is the source of
all the evil in the world. Thus, in this point at least, Eichhorn
preferred to give up the history in order to hold fast the idea, rather
than to cling to the history with the sacrifice of every more elevated
conception. For the rest, he agreed with Paulus and others in
considering the miraculous in the sacred history as a drapery which
needs only to be drawn aside, in order to disclose the pure historic
form.
§ 7.
MORAL INTERPRETATION OF KANT.
Amidst these natural explanations which the end of the eighteenth
century brought forth in rich abundance, it was a remarkable interlude
to see the old allegorical system of the christian fathers all at once
called up from its grave, and revived in the form of the moral
interpretation of Kant. He, as a philosopher, did not concern himself
with the history, as did the rationalist theologians, but like the
fathers of the church, he sought the idea involved in the history: not
however considering it as they did an absolute idea, at once
theoretical as well as practical, but regarding it only on its
practical side, as what he called the moral imperative and consequently
belonging to the finite. He moreover attributed these ideas wrought
into the biblical text, not to the Divine Spirit, but to its
philosophical interpreters, or in a deeper sense, to the moral
condition of the authors of the book themselves. This opinion Kant [37]
bases upon the fact, that in all religions old and new which are partly
comprised in sacred books, intelligent and well-meaning teachers of the
people have continued to explain them, until they have brought their
actual contents into agreement with the universal principles of
morality. Thus did the moral philosophers amongst the Greeks and Romans
with their fabulous legends; till at last they explained the grossest
polytheism as mere symbolical representations of the attributes of the
one divine Being, and gave a mystical sense to the many vicious actions
of their gods, and to the wildest dreams of their poets, in order to
bring the popular faith, which it was not expedient to destroy, into
agreement with the doctrines of morality. The later Judaism and
Christianity itself he thinks have been formed upon similar
explanations, occasionally much forced, but always directed to objects
undoubtedly good and necessary for all men. Thus the Mahometans gave a
spiritual meaning to the sensual descriptions of their paradise, and
thus the Hindoos, or at least the more enlightened part of them,
interpreted their Vedas. In like manner, according to Kant, the
Christian Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, must be interpreted
throughout in a sense which agrees with the universal practical laws of
a religion of pure reason: and such an explanation, even though it
should, apparently or actually, do violence to the text, which is the
case with many of the biblical narratives, is to be preferred to a
literal one, which either contains no morality at all or is in
opposition to the moral principle. For example, the expressions
breathing vengeance against enemies in many of the Psalms are made to
refer to the desires and passions which we must strive by all means to
bring into subjection; and the miraculous account in the New Testament
of the descent of Jesus from heaven, of his relationship to God, etc.,
is taken as an imaginative description of the ideal of humanity
well-pleasing to God. That such an interpretation is possible, without
even always too offensive an opposition to the literal sense of these
records of the popular faith, arises according to the profound
observations of Kant from this: that long before the existence of these
records, the disposition to a moral religion was latent in the human
mind; that its first manifestations were directed to the worship of the
Deity, and on this very account gave occasion to those pretended
revelations; still, though unintentionally, imparting even to these
fictions somewhat of the spiritual character of their origin. In reply
to the charge of dishonesty brought against his system of
interpretation, he thinks it a sufficient defence to observe, that it
does not pretend that the sense now given to the sacred books, always
existed in the intention of the authors; this question it sets aside,
and only claims for itself the right to interpret them after its own
fashion.
Whilst Kant in this manner sought to educe moral thoughts from the
biblical writings, even in their historical part, and was even inclined
to consider these thoughts as the fundamental object of the history: on
the one hand, he derived these thoughts only from himself and the
cultivation of his age, and therefore could seldom assume that they had
actually been laid down by the authors of those writings; and on the
other hand, and for the same reason, he omitted to show what was the
relation between these thoughts and those symbolic representations, and
how it happened that the one came to be expressed by the other.
§ 8.
RISE OF THE MYTHICAL MODE OF INTERPRETING THE SACRED HISTORY, IN
REFERENCE FIRST TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.
It was impossible to rest satisfied with modes of proceeding so
unhistorical on the one hand, and so unphilosophical on the other.
Added to which, the study of mythology, now become far more general and
more prolific in its results, exerted an increasing influence on the
views taken of biblical history. Eichhorn had indeed insisted that all
primitive histories, whether Hebrew or Pagan, should be treated alike,
but this equality gradually disappeared; for though the mythical view
became more and more developed in relation to profane history, the
natural mode of explanation was still rigidly adhered to for the Hebrew
records. All could not imitate Paulus, who sought to establish
consistency of treatment by extending the same natural explanation
which he gave to the Bible, to such also of the Greek legends as
presented any points of resemblance; on the contrary, opinion in
general took the opposite course, and began to regard many of the
biblical narratives as mythi. Semler had already spoken of a kind of
Jewish mythology, and had even called the histories of Samson and
Esther mythi; Eichhorn too had done much to prepare the way, now
further pursued by Gabler, Schelling, and others, who established the
notion of the mythus as one of universal application to ancient
history, sacred as well as profane, according to the principle of
Heyne: A mythis omnis priscorum hominum cum historia tum philosophia
procedit. [38] And Bauer in 1820 ventured so far as to publish a Hebrew
mythology of the Old and New Testament. [39] The earliest records of
all nations are, in the opinion of Bauer, mythical: why should the
writings of the Hebrews form a solitary exception?—whereas in point of
fact a cursory glance at their sacred books proves that they also
contain mythical elements. A narrative he explains, after Gabler and
Schelling, to be recognizable as mythus, first, when it proceeds from
an age in which no written records existed, but in which facts were
transmitted through the medium of oral tradition alone; secondly, when
it presents an historical account of events which are either absolutely
or relatively beyond the reach of experience, such as occurrences
connected with the spiritual world, and incidents to which, from the
nature of the circumstances, no one could have been witness; or
thirdly, when it deals in the marvellous and is couched in symbolical
language. Not a few narratives of this description occur in the Bible;
and an unwillingness to regard them as mythi can arise only from a
false conception of the nature of a mythus, or of the character of the
biblical writings. In the one case mythi are confounded with fables,
premeditated fictions, and wilful falsehoods, instead of being
recognised as the necessary vehicle of expression for the first efforts
of the human mind; in the other case it certainly does appear
improbable, (the notion of inspiration presupposed,) that God should
have admitted the substitution of mythical for actual representations
of facts and ideas, but a nearer examination of the scriptures shows
that this very notion of inspiration, far from being any hindrance to
the mythical interpretation, is itself of mythical origin.
Wegscheider ascribed this greater unwillingness to recognise mythi in
the early records of the Hebrew and Christian religion than in the
heathen religions, partly to the prevailing ignorance respecting the
progress of historical and philosophical science; partly to a certain
timidity which dares not call things manifestly identical by the same
name. At the same time he declared it impossible to rescue the Bible
from the reproaches and scoffs of its enemies except by the
acknowledgment of mythi in the sacred writings, and the separation of
their inherent meaning from their unhistorical form. [40]
These biblical critics gave the following general definition of the
mythus. It is the representation of an event or of an idea in a form
which is historical, but, at the same time characterized by the rich
pictorial and imaginative mode of thought and expression of the
primitive ages. They also distinguished several kinds of mythi. [41]
1st. Historical mythi: narratives of real events coloured by the light
of antiquity, which confounded the divine and the human, the natural
and the supernatural.
2nd. Philosophical mythi: such as clothe in the garb of historical
narrative a simple thought, a precept, or an idea of the time.
3rd. Poetical mythi: historical and philosophical mythi partly blended
together, and partly embellished by the creations of the imagination,
in which the original fact or idea is almost obscured by the veil which
the fancy of the poet has woven around it.
To classify the biblical mythi according to these several distinctions
is a difficult task, since the mythus which is purely symbolical wears
the semblance of history equally with the mythus which represents an
actual occurrence. These critics however laid down rules by which the
different mythi might be distinguished. The first essential is, they
say, to determine whether the narrative have a distinct object, and
what that object is. Where no object, for the sake of which the legend
might have been invented, is discoverable, every one would pronounce
the mythus to be historical. But if all the principal circumstances of
the narrative concur to symbolize a particular truth, this undoubtedly
was the object of the narrative, and the mythus is philosophical. The
blending of the historical and philosophical mythus is particularly to
be recognised when we can detect in the narrative an attempt to derive
events from their causes. In many instances the existence of an
historical foundation is proved also by independent testimony;
sometimes certain particulars in the mythus are intimately connected
with known genuine history, or bear in themselves undeniable and
inherent characteristics of probability: so that the critic, while he
rejects the external form, may yet retain the groundwork as historical.
The poetical mythus is the most difficult to distinguish, and Bauer
gives only a negative criterion. When the narrative is so wonderful on
the one hand as to exclude the possibility of its being a detail of
facts, and when on the other it discovers no attempt to symbolize a
particular thought, it may be suspected that the entire narrative owes
its birth to the imagination of the poet. Schelling particularly
remarks on the unartificial and spontaneous origin of mythi in general.
The unhistorical which is interwoven with the matters of fact in the
historical mythus is not, he observes, the artistical product of design
and invention. It has on the contrary glided in of itself, as it were,
in the lapse of time and in the course of transmission. And, speaking
of philosophical mythi, he says: the sages of antiquity clothed their
ideas in an historical garb, not only in order to accommodate those
ideas to the apprehension of a people who must be awakened by sensible
impressions, but also on their own account: deficient themselves in
clear abstract ideas, and in ability to give expression to their dim
conceptions, they sought to illumine what was obscure in their
representations by means of sensible imagery. [42]
We have already remarked, that the natural mode of interpreting the Old
Testament could be maintained only so long as the records were held to
be contemporaneous, or nearly so, with the events recorded.
Consequently it was precisely those theologians, Vater, De Wette and
others who controverted this opinion, who contributed to establish the
mythical view of the sacred histories. Vater [43] expressed the opinion
that the peculiar character of the narrations in the Pentateuch could
not be rightly understood, unless it were conceded that they are not
the production of an eye witness, but are a series of transmitted
traditions. Their traditional origin being admitted, we cease to feel
surprised at the traces which they discover of a subsequent age; at
numerical exaggerations, together with other inaccuracies and
contradictions; at the twilight which hangs over many of the
occurrences; and at representations such as, that the clothes of the
Israelites waxed not old during their passage through the wilderness.
Vater even contends, that unless we ascribe a great share of the
marvellous contained in the Pentateuch to tradition, we do violence to
the original sense of the compilers of these narratives.
The natural mode of explanation was still more decidedly opposed by De
Wette than by Vater. He advocated the mythical interpretation of a
large proportion of the Old Testament histories. In order to test the
historical credibility of a narrative, he says, [44] we must ascertain
the intention of the narrator. If that intention be not to satisfy the
natural thirst for historical truth by a simple narration of facts, but
rather to delight or touch the feelings, or to illustrate some
philosophical or religious truth, then his narrative has no pretension
to historical validity. Even when the narrator is conscious of strictly
historical intentions, nevertheless his point of view may not be the
historical: he may be a poetical narrator, not indeed subjectively, as
a poet drawing inspiration from himself, but objectively, as enveloped
by and depending on poetry external to himself. This is evidently the
case when the narrator details as bonâ fide matter of fact things which
are impossible and incredible, which are contrary not only to
experience, but to the established laws of nature. Narrations of this
description spring out of tradition. Tradition, says De Wette, is
uncritical and partial; its tendency is not historical, but rather
patriotic and poetical. And since the patriotic sentiment is gratified
by all that flatters national pride, the more splendid, the more
honourable, the more wonderful the narrative, the more acceptable it
is; and where tradition has left any blanks, imagination at once steps
in and fills them up. And since, he continues, a great part of the
historical books of the Old Testament bear this stamp, it has hitherto
been believed possible (on the part of the natural interpreters) to
separate the embellishments and transformations from the historical
substance, and still to consider them available as records of facts.
This might indeed be done, had we, besides the marvellous biblical
narratives, some other purely historical account of the events. But
this is not the case with regard to the Old Testament history; we are
solely dependent on those accounts which we cannot recognize as purely
historical. They contain no criterion by which to distinguish between
the true and the false; both are promiscuously blended, and set forth
as of equal dignity. According to De Wette, the whole natural mode of
explanation is set aside by the principle that the only means of
acquaintance with a history is the narrative which we possess
concerning it, and that beyond this narrative the historian cannot go.
In the present case, this reports to us only a supernatural course of
events, which we must either receive or reject: if we reject it, we
determine to know nothing at all about it, and are not justified in
allowing ourselves to invent a natural course of events, of which the
narrative is totally silent. It is moreover inconsistent and arbitrary
to refer the dress in which the events of the Old Testament are clothed
to poetry, and to preserve the events themselves as historical; much
rather do the particular details and the dress in which they appear,
constitute a whole belonging to the province of poetry and mythus. For
example, if God’s covenant with Abraham be denied in the form of fact,
whilst at the same time it is maintained that the narrative had an
historical basis,—that is to say, that though no objective divine
communication took place, the occurrence had a subjective reality in
Abraham’s mind in a dream or in a waking vision; in other words, that a
natural thought was awakened in Abraham which he, in the spirit of the
age, referred to God:—of the naturalist who thus reasons, De Wette
asks, how he knows that such thoughts arose in Abraham’s mind? The
narration refers them to God; and if we reject the narration, we know
nothing about these thoughts of Abraham, and consequently cannot know
that they had arisen naturally in him. According to general experience,
such hopes as are described in this covenant, that he should become the
father of a mighty nation which should possess the land of Canaan,
could not have sprung up naturally in Abraham’s mind; but it is quite
natural that the Israelites when they had become a numerous people in
possession of that land, should have invented the covenant in order to
render their ancestor illustrious. Thus the natural explanation, by its
own unnaturalness, ever brings us back to the mythical.
Even Eichhorn, who so extensively employed the natural explanation in
reference to the Old Testament, perceived its inadmissibility in
relation to the gospel histories. Whatever in these narratives has a
tendency to the supernatural, he remarks, [45] we ought not to attempt
to transform into a natural occurrence, because this is impossible
without violence. If once an event has acquired a miraculous colouring,
owing to the blending together of some popular notion with the
occurrence, the natural fact can be disentangled only when we possess a
second account which has not undergone the like transformation; as,
concerning the death of Herod Agrippa, we have not only the narrative
in the Acts, but also that of Josephus. [46] But since we have no such
controlling account concerning the history of Jesus, the critic who
pretends to discover the natural course of things from descriptions of
supernatural occurrences, will only weave a tissue of indemonstrable
hypotheses:—a consideration which, as Eichhorn observes, at once
annihilates many of the so-called psychological interpretations of the
Gospel histories.
It is this same difference between the natural and mythical modes of
interpretation which Krug intends to point out, referring particularly
to the histories of miracles, when he distinguishes the physical or
material, from the genetic or formal, mode of explaining them.
Following the former mode, according to him, the inquiry is: how can
the wonderful event here related have possibly taken place with all its
details by natural means and according to natural laws? Whereas,
following the latter, the question is: whence arose the narrative of
the marvellous event? The former explains the natural possibility of
the thing related (the substance of the narrative); the latter traces
the origin of the existing record (the form of the narrative). Krug
considers attempts of the former kind to be fruitless, because they
produce interpretations yet more wonderful than the fact itself; far
preferable is the other mode, since it leads to results which throw
light upon miraculous histories collectively. He gives the preference
to the exegetist, because in his explanation of the text he is not
obliged to do violence to it, but may accept it altogether literally as
the author intended, even though the thing related be impossible;
whereas the interpreter, who follows the material or physical
explanation, is driven to ingenious subtleties which make him lose
sight of the original meaning of the authors, and substitute something
quite different which they neither could nor would have said.
In like manner Gabler recommended the mythical view, as the best means
of escaping from the so called natural, but forced explanation, which
had become the fashion. The natural interpreter, he remarks, commonly
aims to make the whole narrative natural; and as this can but seldom
succeed, he allows himself the most violent measures, owing to which
modern exegesis has been brought into disrepute even amongst laymen.
The mythical view, on the contrary, needs no such subtleties; since the
greater part of a narrative frequently belongs to the mythical
representation merely, while the nucleus of fact, when divested of the
subsequently added miraculous envelopments, is often very small.
Neither could Horst reconcile himself to the atomistic mode of
proceeding, which selected from the marvellous narratives of the Bible,
as unhistorical, isolated incidents merely, and inserted natural ones
in their place, instead of recognizing in the whole of each narrative a
religious moral mythus in which a certain idea is embodied.
An anonymous writer in Bertholdt’s Journal has expressed himself very
decidedly against the natural mode of explaining the sacred history,
and in favour of the mythical. The essential defect of the natural
interpretation, as exhibited in its fullest development by Paulus’s
Commentary, is, according to that writer, its unhistorical mode of
procedure. He objects: that it allows conjecture to supply the
deficiencies of the record; adopts individual speculations as a
substitute for real history; seeks by vain endeavours to represent that
as natural which the narrative describes as supernatural; and lastly,
evaporates all sacredness and divinity from the Scriptures, reducing
them to collections of amusing tales no longer meriting the name of
history. According to our author, this insufficiency of the natural
mode of interpretation, whilst the supernatural also is felt to be
unsatisfactory, leads the mind to the mythical view, which leaves the
substance of the narrative unassailed; and instead of venturing to
explain the details, accepts the whole, not indeed as true history, but
as a sacred legend. This view is supported by the analogy of all
antiquity, political and religious, since the closest resemblance
exists between many of the narratives of the Old and New Testament, and
the mythi of profane antiquity. But the most convincing argument is
this: if the mythical view be once admitted, the innumerable, and never
otherwise to be harmonized, discrepancies and chronological
contradictions in the gospel histories disappear, as it were, at one
stroke. [47]
§ 9.
THE MYTHICAL MODE OF INTERPRETATION IN REFERENCE TO THE NEW TESTAMENT.
Thus the mythical mode of interpretation was adopted not only in
relation to the Old Testament, but also to the New; not, however,
without its being felt necessary to justify such a step. Gabler has
objected to the Commentary of Paulus, that it concedes too little to
the mythical point of view, which must be adopted for certain New
Testament narratives. For many of these narratives present not only
those mistaken views of things which might have been taken by
eye-witnesses, and by the rectification of which a natural course of
events may be made out; but frequently, also, false facts and
impossible consequences which no eye-witness could have related, and
which could only have been the product of tradition, and must therefore
be mythically understood. [48]
The chief difficulty which opposed the transference of the mythical
point of view from the Old Testament to the New, was this:—it was
customary to look for mythi in the fabulous primitive ages only, in
which no written records of events as yet existed; whereas, in the time
of Jesus, the mythical age had long since passed away, and writing had
become common among the Jews. Schelling had however conceded (at least
in a note) that the term mythi, in a more extended sense, was
appropriate to those narratives which, though originating in an age
when it was usual to preserve documentary records, were nevertheless
transmitted by the mouth of the people. Bauer [49] in like manner
asserted, that though a connected series of mythi,—a history which
should be altogether mythical,—was not to be sought in the New
Testament, yet there might occur in it single myths, either transferred
from the Old Testament to the New, or having originally sprung up in
the latter. Thus he found, in the details of the infancy of Jesus, much
which requires to be regarded from a mythical point of view. As after
the decease of celebrated personages, numerous anecdotes are circulated
concerning them, which fail not to receive many and wondrous
amplifications in the legends of a wonder-loving people; so, after
Jesus had become distinguished by his life, and yet more glorified by
his death, his early years, which had been passed in obscurity, became
adorned with miraculous embellishments. And, according to Bauer,
whenever in this history of the infancy we find celestial beings,
called by name and bearing the human shape, predicting future
occurrences, etc., we have a right to suppose a mythus; and to
conjecture as its origin, that the great actions of Jesus being
referred to superhuman causes, this explanation came to be blended with
the history. On the same subject, Gabler [50] remarked that the notion
of ancient is relative; compared with the Mosaic religion Christianity
is certainly young; but in itself it is old enough to allow us to refer
the original history of its founder to ancient times. That at that time
written documents on other subjects existed, proves nothing, whilst it
can be shown that for a long period there was no written account of the
life of Jesus, and particularly of his infancy. Oral narratives were
alone transmitted, and they would easily become tinged with the
marvellous, mixed with Jewish ideas, and thus grow into historical
mythi. On many other points there was no tradition, and here the mind
was left to its own surmises. The more scanty the historical data, the
greater was the scope for conjecture, and historical guesses and
inferences of this description, formed in harmony with the
Jewish-Christian tastes, may be called the philosophical, or rather,
the dogmatical mythi of the early christian Gospel. The notion of the
mythus, concludes Gabler, being thus shown to be applicable to many of
the narratives of the New Testament, why should we not dare to call
them by their right name; why—that is to say in learned
discussion—avoid an expression which can give offence only to the
prejudiced or the misinformed?
As in the Old Testament Eichhorn had been brought over by the force of
internal evidence from his earlier natural explanation, to the mythical
view of the history of the fall; so in the New Testament, the same
thing happened to Usteri in relation to the history of the temptation.
In an earlier work he had, following Schleiermacher, considered it as a
parable spoken by Jesus but misunderstood by his disciples. [51] Soon
however he perceived the difficulties of this interpretation; and since
both the natural and the supernatural views of the narrative appeared
to him yet more objectionable, he had no alternative but to adopt the
mythical. Once admit, he remarks, a state of excitement, particularly
of religious excitement, among a not unpoetical people, and a short
time is sufficient to give an appearance of the marvellous not only to
obscure and concealed, but even to public and well-known facts. It is
therefore by no means conceivable that the early Jewish Christians,
gifted with the spirit, that is, animated with religious enthusiasm, as
they were, and familiar with the Old Testament, should not have been in
a condition to invent symbolical scenes such as the temptation and
other New Testament mythi. It is not however to be imagined that any
one individual seated himself at his table to invent them out of his
own head, and write them down, as he would a poem: on the contrary,
these narratives like all other legends were fashioned by degrees, by
steps which can no longer be traced; gradually acquired consistency,
and at length received a fixed form in our written Gospels.
We have seen that in reference to the early histories of the Old
Testament, the mythical view could be embraced by those only who
doubted the composition of these Scriptures by eye-witnesses or
contemporaneous writers. This was equally the case in reference to the
New. It was not till Eichhorn [52] became convinced that only a slender
thread of that primitive Gospel believed by the Apostles ran through
the three first Gospels, and that even in Matthew this thread was
entangled in a mass of unapostolic additions, that he discarded as
unhistorical legends, the many narratives which he found perplexing,
from all share in the history of Jesus; for example, besides the Gospel
of Infancy, the details of the temptation; several of the miracles of
Jesus; the rising of the saints from their graves at his crucifixion;
the guard at the sepulchre, etc. [53] Particularly since the opinion,
that the three first Gospels originated from oral traditions, became
firmly established, [54] they have been found to contain a continually
increasing number of mythi and mythical embellishments. [55] On this
account the authenticity of the Gospel of John, and consequently its
historical credibility, is confidently maintained by most of the
theologians of the present day: he only who, with Bretschneider, [56]
questions its apostolic composition, may cede in this Gospel also a
considerable place to the mythical element.
§ 10.
THE NOTION OF THE MYTHUS IN ITS APPLICATION TO SACRED HISTORIES NOT
CLEARLY APPREHENDED BY THEOLOGIANS.
Thus, indeed, did the mythical view gain application to the biblical
history: still the notion of the mythus was for a long time neither
clearly apprehended nor applied to a due extent.
Not clearly apprehended. The characteristic which had been recognised
as constituting the distinction between historical and philosophical
mythi, however just that distinction might in itself be, was of a kind
which easily betrayed the critic back again into the scarcely abandoned
natural explanation. His task, with regard to historical mythi, was
still to separate the natural fact—the nucleus of historical
reality—from its unhistorical and miraculous embellishments. An
essential difference indeed existed: the natural explanation attributed
the embellishments to the opinion of the actors concerned, or of the
narrator; the mythical interpretation derived them from tradition; but
the mode of proceeding was left too little determined. If the
Rationalist could point out historical mythi in the Bible, without
materially changing his mode of explanation; so the Supernaturalist on
his part felt himself less offended by the admission of historical
mythi, which still preserved to the sacred narratives a basis of fact,
than by the supposition of philosophical mythi, which seemed completely
to annihilate every trace of historical foundation. It is not
surprising, therefore, that the interpreters who advocated the mythical
theory spoke almost exclusively of historical mythi; that Bauer,
amongst a considerable number of mythi which he cites from the New
Testament, finds but one philosophical mythus; and that a mixed mode of
interpretation, partly mythical and partly natural, (a medley far more
contradictory than the pure natural explanation, from the difficulties
of which these critics sought to escape,) should have been adopted.
Thus Bauer [57] thought that he was explaining Jehovah’s promise to
Abraham as an historical mythus, when he admitted as the fundamental
fact of the narrative, that Abraham’s hopes of a numerous posterity
were re-awakened by the contemplation of the star-sown heavens. Another
theologian [58] imagined he had seized the mythical point of view,
when, having divested the announcement of the birth of the Baptist of
the supernatural, he still retained the dumbness of Zachariah as the
historical groundwork. In like manner Krug, [59] immediately after
assuring us that his intention is not to explain the substance of the
history, (according to the natural mode,) but to explain the origin of
the narrative, (according to the mythical view,) constitutes an
accidental journey of oriental merchants the basis of the narrative of
the visit of the wise men from the east. But the contradiction is most
glaring when we meet with palpable misconceptions of the true nature of
a mythus in a work on the mythology of the New Testament, such as
Bauer’s; in which for instance he admits, in the case of the parents of
John the Baptist, a marriage which had actually been childless during
many years;—in which he explains the angelic appearance at the birth of
Jesus as a meteoric phenomenon; supposes the occurrence of thunder and
lightning and the accidental descent of a dove at his baptism;
constitutes a storm the groundwork of the transfiguration; and converts
the angels at the tomb of the risen Jesus into white grave-clothes.
Kaiser also, though he complains of the unnaturalness of many of the
natural explanations, accords to a very considerable proportion of
natural explanations a place by the side of the mythical; remarking—and
the remark is in itself just—that to attempt to explain all the
miracles of the New Testament in one and the same manner betrays a
limited and partial comprehension of the subject. Let it be primarily
admitted that the ancient author intended to narrate a miracle, and the
natural explanation is in many instances admissible. This may be either
a physical-historical explanation, as in the narrative of the leper
whose approaching recovery Jesus doubtless perceived; or it may be a
psychological explanation; since, in the case of many sick persons, the
fame of Jesus and faith in him were mainly instrumental in effecting
the cure; sometimes indeed good fortune must be taken into the account,
as where one apparently dead revived in the presence of Jesus, and he
became regarded as the author of the sudden re-animation. With respect
to other miracles Kaiser is of opinion that the mythical interpretation
is to be preferred; he, however, grants a much larger space to
historical, than to philosophical mythi. He considers most of the
miracles in the Old and New Testament real occurrences mythically
embellished: such as the narrative of the piece of money in the fish’s
mouth; and of the changing of water into wine: which latter history he
supposes to have originated from a friendly jest on the part of Jesus.
Few only of the miracles are recognised by this critic as pure poetry
embodying Jewish ideas; as the miraculous birth of Jesus, and the
murder of the innocents. [60]
Gabler in particular calls attention to the error of treating
philosophical mythi as if they were historical, and of thus converting
into facts things that never happened. [61] He is however as little
disposed to admit the exclusive existence of philosophical, as of
historical mythi in the New Testament, but adopting a middle course, he
decides in each case that the mythus is of this kind or of that
according to its intrinsic character. He maintains that it is as
necessary to guard against the arbitrary proceeding of handling as
philosophical a mythus through which a fact unquestionably glimmers, as
it is to avoid the opposite tendency to explain naturally or
historically that which belongs properly to the mythical clothing. In
other words: when the derivation of a mythus from a thought is easy and
natural, and when the attempt to educe from it a matter of fact and to
give the wonderful history a natural explanation, does violence to the
sense or appears ridiculous, we have, according to Gabler, certain
evidence that the mythus is philosophical and not historical. He
remarks in conclusion that the philosophical-mythical interpretation is
in many cases far less offensive than the historical-mythical
explanation. [62]
Yet, notwithstanding this predilection in favour of the philosophical
mythus in relation to biblical history, one is surprised to find that
Gabler himself was ignorant of the true nature both of the historical
and of the philosophical mythus. Speaking of the mythological
interpreters of the New Testament who had preceded him, he says that
some of them, such as Dr. Paulus, discover in the history of Jesus
historical mythi only; whilst others, the anonymous E. F. in Henke’s
Magazine for instance, find only philosophical mythi. From this we see
that he confounded not only the natural explanation with the
historical-mythical view, (for in Paulus’s “Commentar” the former only
is adopted,) but also historical with philosophical mythi; for the
author E. F. is so exclusively attached to the historical-mythical view
that his explanations might almost be considered as naturalistic.
De Wette has some very cogent observations directed equally against the
arbitrary adoption either of the historical-mythical or of the natural
explanation in relation to the Mosaic history. In reference to the New
Testament an anonymous writer in Bertholdt’s Critical Journal [63] is
the most decided in his condemnation of every attempt to discover an
historical groundwork even in the Gospel mythi. To him likewise the
midway path struck out by Gabler, between the exclusive adoption of
historical mythi on the one hand and of philosophical mythi on the
other, appears inapplicable; for though a real occurrence may in fact
constitute the basis of most of the New Testament narratives, it may
still be impossible at the present time to separate the element of fact
from the mythical adjuncts which have been blended with it, and to
determine how much may belong to the one and how much to the other.
Usteri likewise expressed the opinion that it is no longer possible to
discriminate between the historical and the symbolical in the gospel
mythi; no critical knife however sharp is now able to separate the one
element from the other. A certain measure of probability respecting the
preponderance of the historical in one legend, and of the symbolical in
another, is the ultimate point to which criticism can now attain.
Opposed however to the onesidedness of those critics who found it so
easy to disengage the historical contents from the mythical narratives
of the Scriptures, is the onesidedness of other critics, who, on
account of the difficulty of the proposed separation, despaired of the
possibility of success, and were consequently led to handle the whole
mass of gospel mythi as philosophical, at least in so far as to
relinquish the endeavour to extract from them a residuum of historical
fact. Now it is precisely this latter onesidedness which has been
attributed to my criticism of the life of Jesus; consequently, several
of the reviewers of this work have taken occasion repeatedly to call
attention to the varying proportions in which the historical and the
ideal in the pagan religion and primitive history, (the legitimate
province of the mythus,) alternate; an interchange with the historical
which in the christian primitive history, presupposing the notion of
the mythus to be admitted here, must unquestionably take place in a far
greater degree. Thus Ullmann distinguishes not only firstly the
philosophical, and secondly the historical mythus, but makes a further
distinction between the latter (that is the historical mythus, in which
there is always a preponderance of the fictitious,) and thirdly the
mythical history, in which the historical element, though wrought into
the ideal, forms the predominating constituent; whilst fourthly in
histories of which the legend is a component element we tread properly
speaking upon historical ground, since in these histories we meet only
with a few faint echoes of mythical fiction. Ullmann is moreover of
opinion, and Bretschneider and others agree with him, that
independently of the repulsion and confusion which must inevitably be
caused by the application of the term mythus to that which is
Christian—a term originally conceived in relation to a religion of a
totally different character—it were more suitable, in connexion with
the primitive Christian records, to speak only of Gospel legend, (Sage)
and the legendary element. [64]
George on the contrary has recently attempted not only more accurately
to define the notions of the mythus and of the legend, but likewise to
demonstrate that the gospel narratives are mythical rather than
legendary. Speaking generally, we should say, that he restricts the
term mythus to what had previously been distinguished as philosophical
mythi; and that he applies the name legend to what had hitherto been
denominated historical mythi. He handles the two notions as the
antipodes of each other; and grasps them with a precision by which the
notion of the mythus has unquestionably gained. According to George,
mythus is the creation of a fact out of an idea: legend the seeing of
an idea in a fact, or arising out of it. A people, a religious
community, finds itself in a certain condition or round of institutions
of which the spirit, the idea, lives and acts within it. But the mind,
following a natural impulse, desires to gain a complete representation
of that existing condition, and to know its origin. This origin however
is buried in oblivion, or is too indistinctly discernible to satisfy
present feelings and ideas. Consequently an image of that origin,
coloured by the light of existing ideas, is cast upon the dark wall of
the past, which image is however but a magnified reflex of existing
influences.
If such be the rise of the mythus, the legend, on the contrary,
proceeds from given facts: represented, indeed, sometimes in an
incomplete and abridged, sometimes in an amplified form, in order to
magnify the heroes of the history—but disjoined from their true
connexion; the points of view from which they should be contemplated,
and the ideas they originally contained, having in the course of
transmission wholly disappeared. The consequence is, that new ideas,
conceived in the spirit of the different ages through which the legend
has passed down, become substituted in the stead of the original ideas.
For example, the period of Jewish history subsequent to the time of
Moses, which was in point of fact pervaded by a gradual elevation of
ideas to monotheism and to a theocracy, is, in a later legend,
represented in the exactly opposite light, as a state of falling away
from the religious constitution of Moses. An idea so unhistorical will
infallibly here and there distort facts transmitted by tradition, fill
up blanks in the history, and subjoin new and significant features—and
then the mythus reappears in the legend. It is the same with the
mythus: propagated by tradition, it, in the process of transmission,
loses its distinctive character and completeness, or becomes
exaggerated in its details—as for example in the matter of numbers—and
then the mythus comes under the influence of the legend. In such wise
do these two formations, so essentially distinct in their origin, cross
each other and mingle together. Now, if the history of the life of
Jesus be of mythical formation, inasmuch as it embodies the vivid
impression of the original idea which the first christian community had
of their founder, this history, though unhistorical in its form, is
nevertheless a faithful representation of the idea of the Christ. If
instead of this, the history be legendary—if the actual external facts
are given in a distorted and often magnified form—are represented in a
false light and embody a false idea,—then, on the contrary, the real
tenour of the life of Jesus is lost to us. So that, according to
George, the recognition of the mythical element in the Gospels is far
less prejudicial to the true interests of the Christian faith than the
recognition of the legendary element. [65]
With respect to our own opinion, without troubling ourselves here with
the dogmatic signification, we need only remark in this introduction,
that we are prepared to meet with both legend and mythus in the gospel
history; and when we undertake to extract the historial contents which
may possibly exist in narratives recognized as mythical, we shall be
equally careful neither on the one part by a rude and mechanical
separation, to place ourselves on the same ground with the natural
interpreter; nor on the other by a hypercritical refusal to recognize
such contents where they actually exist, to lose sight of the history.
§ 11.
THE APPLICATION OF THE NOTION OF THE MYTHUS TOO CIRCUMSCRIBED.
The notion of the mythus, when first admitted by theologians, was not
only imperfectly apprehended, but also too much limited in its
application to biblical history.
As Eichhorn recognized a genuine mythus only on the very threshold of
the Old Testament history, and thought himself obliged to explain all
that followed in a natural manner; as, some time later, other portions
of the Old Testament were allowed to be mythical, whilst nothing of the
kind might be suspected in the New; so, when the mythus was once
admitted into the New Testament, it was here again long detained at the
threshold, namely, the history of the infancy of Jesus, every farther
advance being contested. Ammon, [66] the anonymous E. F. in Henke’s
Magazine, Usteri, and others maintained a marked distinction between
the historical worth of the narratives of the public life and those of
the infancy of Jesus. The records of the latter could not, they
contend, have been contemporaneous; for particular attention was not at
that time directed towards him; and it is equally manifest that they
could not have been written during the last three years of his life,
since they embody the idea of Jesus glorified, and not of Jesus in
conflict and suffering. Consequently their composition must be referred
to a period subsequent to his resurrection. But at this period accurate
data concerning his childhood were no longer to be obtained. The
apostles knew him first in manhood. Joseph was probably dead; and Mary,
supposing her to be living when the first and third gospels were
composed, had naturally imparted an imaginative lustre to every
incident treasured in her memory, whilst her embellishments were
doubtless still further magnified in accordance with the Messianic
ideas of those to whom her communications were made. Much also that is
narrated had no historical foundation, but originated entirely from the
notions of the age, and from the Old Testament predictions—that a
virgin should conceive—for example. But, say these critics, all this
does not in any degree impair the credibility of what follows. The
object and task of the Evangelists was merely to give an accurate
account of the three last years of the life of Jesus; and here they
merit implicit confidence, since they were either themselves spectators
of the details they record, or else had learned them from the mouth of
trustworthy eye-witnesses. This boundary line between the credibility
of the history of the public life, and the fabulousness of the history
of the infancy of Jesus, became yet more definitely marked, from the
circumstance that many theologians were disposed to reject the two
first chapters of Matthew and Luke as spurious and subsequent
additions. [67]
Soon, however, some of the theologians who had conceded the
commencement of the history to the province of mythi, perceived that
the conclusion, the history of the ascension, must likewise be regarded
as mythical. [68] Thus the two extremities were cut off by the pruning
knife of criticism, whilst the essential body of the history, the
period from the baptism to the resurrection, remained, as yet,
unassailed: or in the words of the reviewer of Greiling’s Life of
Jesus: [69] the entrance to the gospel history was through the
decorated portal of mythus, and the exit was similar to it, whilst the
intermediate space was still traversed by the crooked and toilsome
paths of natural interpretations.
In Gabler’s [70] writings we meet with a somewhat more extended
application of the mythical view. He distinguishes (and recently
Rosenkranz [71] has agreed with him) between the miracles wrought by
Jesus and those operated on him or in relation to him, interpreting the
latter mythically, but the former naturally. Subsequently however, we
find Gabler expressing himself as if with the above mentioned
theologians he restricted the mythical interpretation to the miraculous
narratives of the childhood of Jesus, but this restriction is in fact a
limitation merely of the admitted distinction: since though all the
miracles connected with the early history of Jesus were operated in
relation to him and not wrought by him, many miracles of the same
character occur in the history of his public life. Bauer appears to
have been guided by the same rule in his Hebrew mythology. He classes
as mythical the narratives of the conception and birth of Jesus, of the
Baptism, the transfiguration, the angelic apparitions in Gethsemane and
at the sepulchre: miracles selected from all periods of the life of
Jesus, but all operated in relation to him and not by him. This
enumeration, however, does not include all the miracles of this kind.
The often referred to author of the treatise “Upon the different views
with which and for which a Biographer of Jesus may work,” has
endeavoured to show that so limited an application of the notion of the
mythus to the history of the life of Jesus is insufficient and
inconsequent. This confused point of view from which the gospel
narrative is regarded as partly historical and partly mythical owes its
origin, according to him, to those theologians who neither give up the
history, nor are able to satisfy themselves with its clear results, but
who think to unite both parties by this middle course—a vain endeavour
which the rigid supranaturalist pronounces heretical, and the
rationalist derides. The attempt of these reconcilers, remarks our
author, to explain as intelligible everything which is not impossible,
lays them open to all the charges so justly brought against the natural
interpretation; whilst the admission of the existence of mythi in the
New Testament subjects them to the direct reproach of being
inconsequent: the severest censure which can be passed upon a scholar.
Besides, the proceeding of these Eclectics is most arbitrary, since
they decide respecting what belongs to the history and what to the
mythus almost entirely upon subjective grounds. Such distinctions are
equally foreign to the evangelists, to logical reasoning, and to
historical criticism. In consistency with these opinions, this writer
applies the notion of the mythus to the entire history of the life of
Jesus; recognizes mythi or mythical embellishments in every portion,
and ranges under the category of mythus not merely the miraculous
occurrences during the infancy of Jesus, but those also of his public
life; not merely miracles operated on Jesus, but those wrought by him.
The most extended application of the notion of the philosophical or
dogmatical mythus to the Gospel histories which has yet been made, was
published in 1799 in an anonymous work concerning Revelation and
Mythology. The writer contends that the whole life of Jesus, all that
he should and would do, had an ideal existence in the Jewish mind long
prior to his birth. Jesus as an individual was not actually such as
according to Jewish anticipations he should have been. Not even that,
in which all the records which recount his actions agree, is absolutely
matter of fact. A popular idea of the life of Jesus grew out of various
popular contributions, and from this source our written Gospels were
first derived. A reviewer objects that this author appears to suppose a
still smaller portion of the historical element in the gospels than
actually exists. It would, he remarks, have been wiser to have been
guided by a sober criticism of details, than by a sweeping scepticism.
[72]
§ 12.
OPPOSITION TO THE MYTHICAL VIEW OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY.
In adopting the mythical point of view as hitherto applied to Biblical
history, our theologians had again approximated to the ancient
allegorical interpretation. For as both the natural explanations of the
Rationalists, and the jesting expositions of the Deists, belong to that
form of opinion which, whilst it sacrifices all divine meaning in the
sacred record, still upholds its historical character; the mythical
mode of interpretation agrees with the allegorical, in relinquishing
the historical reality of the sacred narratives in order to preserve to
them an absolute inherent truth. The mythical and the allegorical view
(as also the moral) equally allow that the historian apparently relates
that which is historical, but they suppose him, under the influence of
a higher inspiration known or unknown to himself, to have made use of
this historical semblance merely as the shell of an idea—of a religious
conception. The only essential distinction therefore between these two
modes of explanation is, that according to the allegorical this higher
intelligence is the immediate divine agency; according to the mythical,
it is the spirit of a people or a community. (According to the moral
view it is generally the mind of the interpreter which suggests the
interpretation.) Thus the allegorical view attributes the narrative to
a supernatural source, whilst the mythical view ascribes it to that
natural process by which legends are originated and developed. To which
it should be added, that the allegorical interpreter (as well as the
moral) may with the most unrestrained arbitrariness separate from the
history every thought he deems to be worthy of God, as constituting its
inherent meaning; whilst the mythical interpreter, on the contrary, in
searching out the ideas which are embodied in the narrative, is
controlled by regard to conformity with the spirit and modes of thought
of the people and of the age.
This new view of the sacred Scriptures was opposed alike by the
orthodox and by the rationalistic party. From the first, whilst the
mythical interpretation was still restricted to the primitive history
of the Old Testament, Hess [73] on the orthodox side, protested against
it. The three following conclusions may be given as comprising, however
incredible this may appear, the substance of his book, a work of some
compass; upon which however it is unnecessary to remark further than
that Hess was by no means the last orthodox theologian who pretended to
combat the mythical view with such weapons. He contends, 1st, that
mythi are to be understood figuratively; now the sacred historians
intended their writings to be understood literally: consequently they
do not relate mythi. 2ndly, Mythology is something heathenish; the
Bible is a christian book; consequently it contains no mythology. The
third conclusion is more complex, and, as will appear below, has more
meaning. If, says Hess, the marvellous were confined to those earliest
biblical records of which the historical validity is less certain, and
did not appear in any subsequent writings, the miraculous might be
considered as a proof of the mythical character of the narrative; but
the marvellous is no less redundant in the latest and undeniably
historical records, than in the more ancient; consequently it cannot be
regarded as a criterion of the mythical. In short the most hollow
natural explanation, did it but retain the slightest vestige of the
historical—however completely it annihilated every higher meaning,—was
preferable, in the eyes of the orthodox, to the mythical
interpretation. Certainly nothing could be worse than Eichhorn’s
natural explanation of the fall. In considering the tree of knowledge
as a poisonous plant, he at once destroyed the intrinsic value and
inherent meaning of the history; of this he afterwards became fully
sensible, and in his subsequent mythical interpretation, he recognized
in the narrative the incorporation of a worthy and elevated conception.
Hess however declared himself more content with Eichhorn’s original
explanation, and defended it against his later mythical interpretation.
So true is it that supranaturalism clings with childlike fondness to
the empty husk of historical semblance, though void of divine
significance, and estimates it higher than the most valuable kernel
divested of its variegated covering.
Somewhat later De Wette’s bold and thorough application of the mythical
view to the Mosaic writings; his decided renunciation of the so-called
historical-mythical, or more properly speaking of the natural mode of
interpretation; and his strict opposition to the notion of the
possibility of arriving at any certainty respecting the residue of fact
preserved in these writings, gave rise to much controversy. Some agreed
with Steudel in totally rejecting the mythical view in relation to the
Bible, and in upholding the strictly historical and indeed supranatural
sense of the Scriptures: whilst Meyer and others were willing to follow
the guidance of De Wette, at least as far as the principles of Vater,
which permitted the attempt to extract some, if only probable,
historical data from the mythical investment. If, says Meyer [74], the
marvellousness and irrationality of many of the narratives contained in
the Pentateuch, (narratives which no one would have thought of
inventing,) together with the want of symmetry and connexion in the
narration, and other considerations, permit us not to mistake the
historical groundwork of the record; surely, allowing the existence of
an historical basis, a modest and cautious attempt to seek out or at
any rate to approximate towards a discovery of that historical
foundation is admissible. In the hope of preserving those who adopted
the historical-mythical view from relapsing into the inconsistencies of
the natural interpreters, Meyer laid down the following rules, which
however serve rather to exhibit afresh the difficulty of escaping this
danger. 1. To abstract every thing which is at once recognizable as
mythical representation as opposed to historical fact; that is the
extraordinary, the miraculous, accounts of immediate divine operation,
also the religious notions of the narrators in relation to final
causes. 2. To proceed from that which is simple to that which is more
complicated. Let a case be supposed where we have two accounts of the
same event, the one natural, the other supernatural, as, for instance,
the gathering of the elders by Moses, attributed, Numbers, xi. 16., to
the suggestion of Jehovah, and Exodus, xviii. 14., to the counsel of
Jethro. According to this rule all divine inspiration must be
subtracted from the known decisions of Noah, Abraham, Moses, and
others. (Precisely the proceeding which met with the censure of De
Wette quoted above.) 3. As far as possible to contemplate the fact
which forms the basis of a narrative, in its simple and common
character, apart from all collateral incidents. (This however, is going
too far where no basis of fact exists.) For example. The story of the
deluge may be reduced thus; a great inundation in Asia Minor, according
to the legend, destroyed many wicked. (Here the supposed final cause is
not abstracted.) Noah the father of Shem, a devout man, (the
teleological notion again!) saved himself by swimming. The exact
circumstances of this preservation, the character of the vessel, if
such there were, which saved him, are left undetermined in order to
avoid arbitrary explanations. Thus, in reference to the birth of Isaac,
Meyer is satisfied with saying, that the wish and hope of the wealthy
and pious Emir Abraham to possess an heir by his wife Sara was
fulfilled unusually late, and in the eyes of others very unexpectedly.
(Here again De Wette’s censure is quite applicable.)
In like manner Eichhorn, in his Introduction to the New Testament,
declared in yet stronger terms his opposition to the view advocated by
De Wette. If the orthodox were displeased at having their historical
faith disturbed by the progressive inroads of the mythical mode of
interpretation, the rationalists were no less disconcerted to find the
web of facts they had so ingeniously woven together torn asunder, and
all the art and labour expended on the natural explanation at once
declared useless. Unwillingly does Dr. Paulus admit to himself the
presentiment that the reader of his Commentary may possibly exclaim:
“Wherefore all this labour to give an historical explanation to such
legends? how singular thus to handle mythi as history, and to attempt
to render marvellous fictions intelligible according to the rules of
causality!” Contrasted with the toilsomeness of his natural
explanation, the mythical interpretation appears to this theologian
merely as the refuge of mental indolence, which, seeking the easiest
method of treating the gospel history, disposes of all that is
marvellous, and all that is difficult to comprehend, under the vague
term—mythus, and which, in order to escape the labour of disengaging
the natural from the supernatural, fact from opinion, carries back the
whole narration into the camera-obscura of ancient sacred legends. [75]
Still more decided was Greiling’s [76] expression of disapprobation,
elicited by Krug’s commendation of the genetic—that is to say, mythical
theory; but each stroke levelled by him at the mythical interpretation
may be turned with far greater force against his own natural
explanation. He is of opinion that among all the attempts to explain
obscure passages in the New Testament, scarcely any can be more
injurious to the genuine historical interpretation, to the ascertaining
of actual facts and their legitimate objects (that is, more prejudicial
to the pretensions of the natural expounder) than the endeavour to
supply, by aid of an inventive imagination, the deficiencies of the
historical narrative. (The inventive imagination is that of the natural
interpreter, which suggests to him collateral incidents of which there
is no trace in the text. The imagination of the mythical interpreter is
not inventive; his part is merely the recognizing and detecting of the
fictitious.) According to Greiling the genetic, or mythical mode of
explaining miracles, is a needless and arbitrary invention of the
imagination. (Let a groping spirit of inquiry be added, and the natural
explanation is accurately depicted.) Many facts, he continues, which
might be retained as such are thus consigned to the province of fable,
or replaced by fictions the production of the interpreter. (But it is
the historical mythical mode of interpretation alone which substitutes
such inventions, and this only in so far as it is mixed up with the
natural explanation.) Greiling thinks that the explanation of a miracle
ought not to change the fact, and by means of interpretation, as by
sleight of hand, substitute one thing for another; (which is done by
the natural explanation only,) for this is not to explain that which
shocks the reason, but merely to deny the fact, and leave the
difficulty unsolved. (It is false to say we have a fact to explain;
what immediately lies before us is a statement, respecting which we
have to discover whether it embody a fact or not.) According to this
learned critic the miracles wrought by Jesus should be naturally, or
rather psychologically, explained; by which means all occasion to
change, clip, and amplify by invention the recorded facts, till at
length they become metamorphosed into fiction, is obviated—(with how
much justice this censure may be applied to the natural mode of
explanation has been sufficiently demonstrated.)
Heydenreich has lately written a work expressly on the inadmissibility
of the mythical interpretation of the historical portions of the New
Testament. He reviews the external evidences concerning the origin of
the Gospels, and finds the recognition of a mythical element in these
writings quite incompatible with their substantiated derivation from
the Apostles, and the disciples of the Apostles. He also examines the
character of the gospel representations, and decides, in reference to
their form, that narratives at once so natural and simple, so complete
and exact, could be expected only from eye-witnesses, or those
connected with them; and, with respect to their contents, that those
representations which are in their nature miraculous are so worthy of
God, that nothing short of an abhorrence of miracles could occasion a
doubt as to their historical truth. The divine operations are indeed
generally mediate, but according to Heydenreich this by no means
precludes the possibility of occasional intermediate exertions of the
divine energy, when requisite to the accomplishment of some particular
object; and, referring to each of the divine attributes in succession,
he shows that such intervention in nowise contradicts any of them; and
that each individual miracle is a peculiarly appropriate exercise of
divine power.
These, and similar objections against the mythical interpretation of
the gospel histories, which occur in recent commentaries and in the
numerous writings in opposition to my work on the life of Jesus, will
find their place and refutation in the following pages.
§ 13.
THE POSSIBILITY OF THE EXISTENCE OF MYTHI IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
CONSIDERED IN REFERENCE TO THE EXTERNAL EVIDENCES.
The assertion that the Bible contains mythi is, it is true, directly
opposed to the convictions of the believing christian. For if his
religious view be circumscribed within the limits of his own community,
he knows no reason why the things recorded in the sacred books should
not literally have taken place; no doubt occurs to him, no reflection
disturbs him. But, let his horizon be so far widened as to allow him to
contemplate his own religion in relation to other religions, and to
draw a comparison between them, the conclusion to which he then comes
is that the histories related by the heathens of their deities, and by
the Mussulman of his prophet, are so many fictions, whilst the accounts
of God’s actions, of Christ and other Godlike men contained in the
Bible are, on the contrary, true. Such is the general notion expressed
in the theological position: that which distinguishes Christianity from
the heathen religions is this, they are mythical, it is historical.
But this position, thus stated without further definition and proof, is
merely the product of the limitation of the individual to that form of
belief in which he has been educated, which renders the mind incapable
of embracing any but the affirmative view in relation to its own creed,
any but the negative in reference to every other—a prejudice devoid of
real worth, and which cannot exist in conjunction with an extensive
knowledge of history. For let us transplant ourselves among other
religious communities; the believing Mohammedan is of opinion that
truth is contained in the Koran alone, and that the greater portion of
our Bible is fabulous; the Jew of the present day, whilst admitting the
truth and divine origin of the Old Testament, rejects the New; and, the
same exclusive belief in the truth of their own creed and the falsity
of every other was entertained by the professors of most of the heathen
religions before the period of the Syncretism. But which community is
right? Not all, for this is impossible, since the assertion of each
excludes the others. But which particular one? Each claims for itself
the true faith. The pretensions are equal; what shall decide? The
origin of the several religions? Each lays claim to a divine origin.
Not only does the Christian religion profess to be derived from the Son
of God, and the Jewish from God himself, through Moses; the Mohammedan
religion asserts itself to be founded by a prophet immediately inspired
by God; in like manner the Greeks attributed the institution of their
worship to the gods.
“But in no other religion” it is urged “are the vouchers of a divine
origin so unequivocal as in the Jewish and the Christian. The Greek and
Roman mythologies are the product of a collection of unauthenticated
legends, whilst the Bible history was written by eye-witnesses; or by
those whose connexion with eye-witnesses afforded them opportunities of
ascertaining the truth; and whose integrity is too apparent to admit of
a doubt as to the sincerity of their intentions.” It would most
unquestionably be an argument of decisive weight in favour of the
credibility of the biblical history, could it indeed be shown that it
was written by eye-witnesses, or even by persons nearly contemporaneous
with the events narrated. For though errors and false representations
may glide into the narrations even of an eye-witness, there is far less
probability of unintentional mistake (intentional deception may easily
be detected) than where the narrator is separated by a long interval
from the facts he records, and is obliged to derive his materials
through the medium of transmitted communications.
But this alleged ocular testimony, or proximity in point of time of the
sacred historians to the events recorded, is mere assumption, an
assumption originating from the titles which the biblical books bear in
our Canon. Those books which describe the departure of the Israelites
from Egypt, and their wanderings through the wilderness, bear the name
of Moses, who being their leader would undoubtedly give a faithful
history of these occurrences, unless he designed to deceive; and who,
if his intimate connexion with Deity described in these books be
historically true, was likewise eminently qualified, by virtue of such
connexion, to produce a credible history of the earlier periods. In
like manner, of the several accounts of the life and fate of Jesus, the
superscriptions assign one to Matthew and one to John: two men who
having been eye-witnesses of the public ministry of Jesus from its
commencement to its close were particularly capable of giving a report
of it; and who, from their confidential intercourse with Jesus and his
mother, together with that supernatural aid which, according to John,
Jesus promised to his disciples to teach them and bring all things to
their remembrance, were enabled to give information of the
circumstances of his earlier years; of which some details are recorded
by Matthew.
But that little reliance can be placed on the headings of ancient
manuscripts, and of sacred records more especially, is evident, and in
reference to biblical books has long since been proved. In the
so-called books of Moses mention is made of his death and burial: but
who now supposes that this was written beforehand by Moses in the form
of prophecy? Many of the Psalms bear the name of David which presuppose
an acquaintance with the miseries of the exile; and predictions are put
into the mouth of Daniel, a Jew living at the time of the Babylonish
captivity, which could not have been written before the reign of
Antiochus Epiphanes. It is an incontrovertible position of modern
criticism that the titles of the Biblical books represent nothing more
than the design of their author, or the opinion of Jewish or Christian
antiquity respecting their origin; points the first of which proves
nothing; and as to the second every thing depends upon the following
considerations: 1. the date of the opinion and the authority on which
it rests; 2. the degree of harmony existing between this opinion and
the internal character of the writings in question. The first
consideration includes an examination of the external, the second of
the internal grounds of evidence respecting the authenticity of the
biblical books. To investigate the internal grounds of credibility in
relation to each detail given in the Gospels, (for it is with them
alone we are here concerned) and to test the probability or
improbability of their being the production of eye-witnesses, or of
competently informed writers, is the sole object of the present work.
The external grounds of evidence may be examined in this introduction,
only so far however as is necessary in order to judge whether they
yield a definite result, which may perhaps be in opposition to the
internal grounds of evidence; or whether the external evidence,
insufficient of itself, leaves to the internal evidence the decision of
the question.
We learn from the works of Irenæus, of Clemens Alexandrinus, and of
Tertullian, that at the end of the second century after Christ our four
Gospels were recognized by the orthodox church as the writings of the
Apostles and the disciples of the Apostles; and were separated from
many other similar productions as authentic records of the life of
Jesus. The first Gospel according to our Canon is attributed to
Matthew, who is enumerated among the twelve Apostles; the fourth to
John the beloved disciple of our Lord; the second to Mark the
interpreter of Peter; and the third to Luke the companion of Paul. [77]
We have, besides, the authority of earlier authors, both in their own
works and in quotations cited by others.
It is usual, in reference to the first Gospel, to adduce the testimony
of Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis, said to have been an auditor ἀκουστὴς
of John, (probably the presbyter) and to have suffered martyrdom under
Marcus Aurelius. (161–180.) Papias asserts that Matthew the Apostle
wrote τὰ λόγια (τὰ κυριακὰ [78]). Schleiermacher, straining the meaning
of λόγια, has latterly understood it to signify merely a collection of
the sayings of Jesus. But when Papias speaks of Mark, he seems to use
σύνταξιν τῶν κυριακῶν λογίων ποιεῖσθαι, and τὰ ὑπὸ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἢ
λεχθέντα ἢ πραχθέντα γράφειν as equivalent expressions. Whence it
appears that the word λόγια designates a writing comprehending the acts
and fate of Jesus; and the fathers of the church were justified in
understanding the testimony of Papias as relating to an entire Gospel.
[79] They did indeed apply this testimony decidedly to our first
Gospel; but the words of the Apostolic father contain no such
indication, and the manuscript, of which he speaks, cannot be
absolutely identical with our Gospel; for, according to the statement
given by Papias, Matthew wrote in the Hebrew language; and it is a mere
assumption of the christian fathers that our Greek Matthew is a
translation of the original Hebrew Gospel [80]. Precepts of Jesus, and
narratives concerning him, corresponding more or less exactly with
passages in our Matthew, do indeed occur in the works of other of the
apostolic fathers; but then these works are not wholly genuine, and the
quotations themselves are either in a form which indicates that they
might have been derived from oral traditions; or where these authors
refer to written sources, they do not mention them as being directly
apostolic. Many citations in the writings of Justin Martyr (who died
166) agree with passages in our Matthew; but there are also, mixed up
with these, other elements which are not to be found in our Gospels;
and he refers to the writings from which he derives them generally as
ἀπομνημονεύματα τῶν αποστόλων, or εὐαγγέλια, without naming any author
in particular. Celsus, [81] the opponent of Christianity, (subsequent
to 150) mentions that the disciples of Jesus had written his history,
and he alludes to our present Gospels when he speaks of the divergence
of the accounts respecting the number of angels seen at the
resurrection; but we find no more precise reference to any one
Evangelist in his writings, so far as we know them through Origen.
We have the testimony of the same Papias who has the notice concerning
Matthew, a testimony from the mouth of John (πρεσβύτερος), that Mark,
who according to him was the interpreter of Peter (ἑρμηνευτὴς Πέτρου),
wrote down the discourses and actions of Jesus from his recollections
of the instructions of that Apostle. [82] Ecclesiastical writers have
likewise assumed that this passage from Papias refers to our second
Gospel, though it does not say any thing of the kind, and is besides
inapplicable to it. For our second Gospel cannot have originated from
recollections of Peter’s instructions, i.e., from a source peculiar to
itself, since it is evidently a compilation, whether made from memory
or otherwise, from the first and third Gospels. [83] As little will the
remark of Papias that Mark wrote without order (οὐ τάξει) apply to our
Gospel. For he cannot by this expression intend a false chronological
arrangement, since he ascribes to Mark the strictest love of truth,
which, united with the consciousness that he had not the means of
fixing dates, must have withheld him from making the attempt. But a
total renunciation of chronological connexion, which Papias can alone
have meant to attribute to him, is not to be found in the second
Gospel. This being the case, what do those echoes which our second
Gospel, in like manner as our first, seems to find in the most ancient
ecclesiastical writers, prove?
That Luke, the companion of Paul, wrote a Gospel, is not attested by
any authority of corresponding weight or antiquity with that of Papias
in relation to Matthew and to Mark. The third Gospel however possesses
a testimony of a particular kind in the “Acts of the Apostles;” not
indeed authenticating it as the composition of Luke, but attributing it
to an occasional companion of the Apostle Paul. According to the proëm
to the Acts and that to the Gospel of Luke, these two books proceeded
from the same author or compiler: an origin which these writings do
not, in other respects, contradict. In several chapters in the second
half of the Book of the Acts the author, speaking of himself together
with Paul, makes use of the first person plural, [84] and thus
identifies himself with the companion of that apostle. The fact is,
however, that many of the details concerning Paul, contained in other
parts of the book of the Acts, are so indefinite and marvellous, and
are moreover so completely at variance with Paul’s genuine epistles,
that it is extremely difficult to reconcile them with the notion that
they were written by a companion of that apostle. It is also not a
little remarkable that the author, neither in the introduction to the
Acts, nor in that to the Gospel, alludes to his connexion with one of
the most distinguished of the Apostles, so that it is impossible not to
suspect that the passages in which the writer speaks of himself as an
actor in the scenes described, belong to a distinct memorial by another
hand, which the author of the Acts has merely incorporated into his
history. But leaving this conjecture out of the question, it is indeed
possible that the companion of Paul may have composed his two works at
a time, and under circumstances, when he was no longer protected by
Apostolic influence against the tide of tradition; and that he saw no
reason why, because he had not heard them previously from this Apostle,
he should therefore reject the instructive, and (according to his
notions, which certainly would not lead him to shun the marvellous,)
credible narratives derived from that source. Now, it is asserted that
because the Book of the Acts terminates with the two years’
imprisonment of Paul at Rome, therefore this second work of the
disciple of that apostle, must have been written during that time,
(63–65, A.D.) before the decision of Paul’s trial, and that
consequently, the Gospel of Luke, the earlier work of the same author,
could not have been of later date. But, the breaking off of the Acts at
that particular point might have been the result of many other causes;
at all events such testimony, standing alone, is wholly insufficient to
decide the historical worth of the Gospel.
It were to be wished that Polycarp, (he died 167) who both heard and
saw the Apostle John, [85] had left us a testimony respecting him
similar to that of Papias concerning Matthew. Still his silence on this
subject, in the one short epistle which has come down to us, is no
evidence against the authenticity of that Gospel, any more than the
more or less ambiguous allusions in several of the Apostolic fathers to
the Epistles of John are proofs in its favour. But it is matter of
surprise that Irenæus the disciple of Polycarp, who was called upon to
defend this Gospel from the attacks of those who denied its composition
by John, should neither on this occasion, nor once in his diffuse work,
have brought forward the weighty authority of his Apostolic master, as
to this fact. Whether or not the fourth Gospel originally bore the name
of John remains uncertain. We meet with it first among the Valentinians
and the Montanists, about the middle of the second century. Its
Apostolic origin was however (immediately after) denied by the
so-called Alogi, who ascribed it to Cerinthus; partly because the
Montanists derived from it their idea of the Paraclete; partly also
because it did not harmonize with the other Gospels. [86] The earliest
quotation expressly stated to be from the Gospel of John is found in
Theophilus of Antioch, about the year 172. [87] How little reason the
numerous theologians of the present day have to boast of the evidences
in favour of the fourth Gospel, whilst they deny the not less well
attested Apocalypse, has been well remarked by Tholuck. Lastly, that
there were two Johns, the Apostle and the Presbyter, living
contemporaneously at Ephesus, is a circumstance which has not received
sufficient attention in connexion with the most ancient testimonies in
favour of the derivation from John, of the Apocalypse on the one hand,
and of the Gospels and Epistles on the other.
Thus these most ancient testimonies tell us, firstly, that an apostle,
or some other person who had been acquainted with an apostle, wrote a
Gospel history; but not whether it was identical with that which
afterwards came to be circulated in the church under his name;
secondly, that writings similar to our Gospels were in existence; but
not that they were ascribed with certainty to any one individual
apostle or companion of an apostle. Such is the uncertainty of these
accounts, which after all do not reach further back than the third or
fourth decade of the second century. According to all the rules of
probability, the Apostles were all dead before the close of the first
century; not excepting John, who is said to have lived till A.D. 100;
concerning whose age and death, however, many fables were early
invented. What an ample scope for attributing to the Apostles
manuscripts they never wrote! The Apostles, dispersed abroad, had died
in the latter half of the first century; the Gospel became more widely
preached throughout the Roman empire, and by degrees acquired a fixed
form in accordance with a particular type. It was doubtless from this
orally circulated Gospel that the many passages agreeing accurately
with passages in our Gospels, which occur without any indication of
their source in the earliest ecclesiastical writers, were actually
derived. Before long this oral traditionary Gospel became deposited in
different manuscripts: this person or that, possibly an apostle,
furnishing the principal features of the history. But these manuscripts
were not at first compiled according to a particular form and order,
and consequently had to undergo many revisions and re-arrangements, of
which we have an example in the Gospel of the Hebrews and the citations
of Justin. It appears that these manuscripts did not originally bear
the names of their compilers, but either that of the community by whom
they were first read, as the Gospel of Hebrews; or that of the Apostle
or disciple after whose oral discourses or notes some other person had
composed a connected history. The latter seems to have been the
original meaning attached to the word κατὰ; as in the title to our
first Gospel. [88] Nothing however was more natural than the
supposition which arose among the early christians, that the histories
concerning Jesus which were circulated and used by the churches had
been written by his immediate disciples. Hence the ascription of the
gospel writings generally to the apostles by Justin and by Celsus; and
also of particular gospels to those particular apostles and disciples,
whose oral discourses or written notes might possibly have formed the
groundwork of a gospel manuscript, or who had perhaps been particularly
connected with some certain district, or had been held in especial
esteem by some particular community. The Gospel of the Hebrews
successively received all three kinds of appellations; being first
called εὐαγγέλιον καθ’ Ἑβραίους, after the community by which it was
read; somewhat later, Evangelium juxta duodecim apostolos; and finally,
secundum Matthæum.
Admitting however that we do not possess the immediate record of an
eye-witness in any one of the four Gospels, it is still very
incomprehensible, replies the objector, how in Palestine itself, and at
a time when so many eye-witnesses yet lived, unhistorical legends and
even collections of them should have been formed. But, in the first
place, the fact that many such compilations of narratives concerning
the life of Jesus were already in general circulation during the
lifetime of the Apostles, and more especially that any one of our
gospels was known to an Apostle and acknowledged by him, can never be
proved. With respect to isolated anecdotes, it is only necessary to
form an accurate conception of Palestine and of the real position of
the eye-witnesses referred to, in order to understand that the
origination of legends, even at so early a period, is by no means
incomprehensible. Who informs us that they must necessarily have taken
root in that particular district of Palestine where Jesus tarried
longest, and where his actual history was well known? And with respect
to eye-witnesses, if by these we are to understand the Apostles, it is
to ascribe to them absolute ubiquity, to represent them as present here
and there, weeding out all the unhistorical legends concerning Jesus in
whatever places they had chanced to spring up and flourish.
Eye-witnesses in the more extended sense, who had only seen Jesus
occasionally and not been his constant companions, must, on the
contrary, have been strongly tempted to fill up their imperfect
knowledge of his history with mythical representations.
But it is inconceivable, they say, that such a mass of mythi should
have originated in an age so historical as that of the first Roman
emperors. We must not however be misled by too comprehensive a notion
of an historical age. The sun is not visible at the same instant to
every place on the same meridian at the same time of year; it gleams
upon the mountain summits and the high plains before it penetrates the
lower valleys and the deep ravines. No less true is it that the
historic age dawns not upon all people at the same period. The people
of highly civilized Greece, and of Rome the capital of the world, stood
on an eminence which had not been reached in Galilee and Judæa. Much
rather may we apply to this age an expression become trite among
historians, but which seems in the present instance willingly
forgotten: namely, that incredulity and superstition, scepticism and
fanaticism go hand in hand.
But the Jews, it is said, had long been accustomed to keep written
records; nay, the most flourishing period of their literature was
already past, they were no longer a progressing and consequently a
productive people, they were a nation verging to decay. But the fact
is, the pure historic idea was never developed among the Hebrews during
the whole of their political existence; their latest historical works,
such as the Books of the Maccabees, and even the writings of Josephus,
are not free from marvellous and extravagant tales. Indeed no just
notion of the true nature of history is possible, without a perception
of the inviolability of the chain of finite causes, and of the
impossibility of miracles. This perception which is wanting to so many
minds of our own day was still more deficient in Palestine, and indeed
throughout the Roman empire. And to a mind still open to the reception
of the marvellous, if it be once carried away by the tide of religious
enthusiasm, all things will appear credible, and should this enthusiasm
lay hold of a yet wider circle, it will awaken a new creative vigour,
even in a decayed people. To account for such an enthusiasm it is by no
means necessary to presuppose the gospel miracles as the existing
cause. This may be found in the known religious dearth of that period,
a dearth so great that the cravings of the mind after some religious
belief excited a relish for the most extravagant forms of worship;
secondly in the deep religious satisfaction which was afforded by the
belief in the resurrection of the deceased Messiah, and by the
essential principles of the doctrine of Jesus.
§ 14.
THE POSSIBILITY OF MYTHI IN THE NEW TESTAMENT CONSIDERED ON INTERNAL
GROUNDS.
Seeing from what has already been said that the external testimony
respecting the composition of our Gospels, far from forcing upon us the
conclusion that they proceeded from eye-witnesses or well-informed
contemporaries, leaves the decision to be determined wholly by internal
grounds of evidence, that is, by the nature of the Gospel narratives
themselves: we might immediately proceed from this introduction to the
peculiar object of the present work, which is an examination of those
narratives in detail. It may however appear useful, before entering
upon this special inquiry, to consider the general question, how far it
is consistent with the character of the Christian religion that mythi
should be found in it, and how far the general construction of the
Gospel narratives authorizes us to treat them as mythi. Although,
indeed, if the following critical examination of the details be
successful in proving the actual existence of mythi in the New
Testament, this preliminary demonstration of their possibility becomes
superfluous.
If with this view we compare the acknowledged mythical religions of
antiquity with the Hebrew and Christian, it is true that we are struck
by many differences between the sacred histories existing in these
religious forms and those in the former. Above all, it is commonly
alleged that the sacred histories of the Bible are distinguished from
the legends of the Indians, Greeks, Romans, etc., by their moral
character and excellence. “In the latter, the stories of the battles of
the gods, the loves of Krishna, Jupiter, etc., contain much which was
offensive to the moral feeling even of enlightened heathens, and which
is revolting to ours: whilst in the former, the whole course of the
narration, offers only what is worthy of God, instructive, and
ennobling.” To this it may be answered with regard to the heathens,
that the appearance of immorality in many of their narratives is merely
the consequence of a subsequent misconception of their original
meaning: and with regard to the Old Testament, that the perfect moral
purity of its history has been contested. Often indeed, it has been
contested without good grounds, because a due distinction is not made
between that which is ascribed to individual men, (who, as they are
represented, are by no means spotless examples of purity,) and that
which is ascribed to God: [89] nevertheless it is true that we have
commands called divine, which, like that to the Israelites on their
departure out of Egypt to purloin vessels of gold, are scarcely less
revolting to an enlightened moral feeling, than the thefts of the
Grecian Hermes. But even admitting this difference in the morality of
the religions to its full extent (and it must be admitted at least with
regard to the New Testament), still it furnishes no proof of the
historical character of the Bible; for though every story relating to
God which is immoral is necessarily fictitious, even the most moral is
not necessarily true.
“But that which is incredible and inconceivable forms the staple of the
heathen fables; whilst in the biblical history, if we only presuppose
the immediate intervention of the Deity, there is nothing of the kind.”
Exactly, if this be presupposed. Otherwise, we might very likely find
the miracles in the life of Moses, Elias, or Jesus, the Theophany and
Angelophany of the Old and New Testament, just as incredible as the
fables of Jupiter, Hercules, or Bacchus: presuppose the divinity or
divine descent of these individuals, and their actions and fate become
as credible as those of the biblical personages with the like
presupposition. Yet not quite so, it may be returned. Vishnu appearing
in his three first avatars as a fish, a tortoise, and a boar; Saturn
devouring his children; Jupiter turning himself into a bull, a swan,
etc.—these are incredibilities of quite another kind from Jehovah
appearing to Abraham in a human form under the terebinth tree, or to
Moses in the burning bush. This extravagant love of the marvellous is
the character of the heathen mythology. A similar accusation might
indeed be brought against many parts of the Bible, such as the tales of
Balaam, Joshua, and Samson; but still it is here less glaring, and does
not form as in the Indian religion and in certain parts of the Grecian,
the prevailing character. What however does this prove? Only that the
biblical history might be true, sooner than the Indian or Grecian
fables; not in the least that on this account it must be true, and can
contain nothing fictitious.
“But the subjects of the heathen mythology are for the most part such,
as to convince us beforehand that they are mere inventions: those of
the Bible such as at once to establish their own reality. A Brahma, an
Ormusd, a Jupiter, without doubt never existed; but there still is a
God, a Christ, and there have been an Adam, a Noah, an Abraham, a
Moses.” Whether an Adam or a Noah, however, were such as they are
represented, has already been doubted, and may still be doubted. Just
so, on the other side, there may have been something historical about
Hercules, Theseus, Achilles, and other heroes of Grecian story. Here,
again, we come to the decision that the biblical history might be true
sooner than the heathen mythology, but is not necessarily so. This
decision however, together with the two distinctions already made,
brings us to an important observation. How do the Grecian divinities
approve themselves immediately to us as non-existing beings, if not
because things are ascribed to them which we cannot reconcile with our
idea of the divine? whilst the God of the Bible is a reality to us just
in so far as he corresponds with the idea we have formed of him in our
own minds. Besides the contradiction to our notion of the divine
involved in the plurality of heathen gods, and the intimate description
of their motives and actions, we are at once revolted to find that the
gods themselves have a history; that they are born, grow up, marry,
have children, work out their purposes, suffer difficulties and
weariness, conquer and are conquered. It is irreconcileable with our
idea of the Absolute to suppose it subjected to time and change, to
opposition and suffering; and therefore where we meet with a narrative
in which these are attributed to a divine being, by this test we
recognize it as unhistorical or mythical.
It is in this sense that the Bible, and even the Old Testament, is said
to contain no mythi. The story of the creation with its succession of
each day’s labour ending in a rest after the completion of the task;
the expression often recurring in the farther course of the narrative,
God repented of having done so and so;—these and similar
representations cannot indeed be entirely vindicated from the charge of
making finite the nature of the Deity, and this is the ground which has
been taken by mythical interpreters of the history of the creation. And
in every other instance where God is said to reveal himself exclusively
at any definite place or time, by celestial apparition, or by miracle
wrought immediately by himself, it is to be presumed that the Deity has
become finite and descended to human modes of operation. It may however
be said in general, that in the Old Testament the divine nature does
not appear to be essentially affected by the temporal character of its
operation, but that the temporal shows itself rather as a mere form, an
unavoidable appearance, arising out of the necessary limitation of
human, and especially of uncultivated powers of representation. It is
obvious to every one, that there is something quite different in the
Old Testament declarations, that God made an alliance with Noah, and
Abraham, led his people out of Egypt, gave them laws, brought them into
the promised land, raised up for them judges, kings, and prophets, and
punished them at last for their disobedience by exile;—from the tales
concerning Jupiter, that he was born of Rhea in Crete, and hidden from
his father Saturn in a cave; that afterwards he made war upon his
father, freed the Uranides, and with their help and that of the
lightning with which they furnished him, overcame the rebellious
Titans, and at last divided the world amongst his brothers and
children. The essential difference between the two representations is,
that in the latter, the Deity himself is the subject of progression,
becomes another being at the end of the process from what he was at the
beginning, something being effected in himself and for his own sake:
whilst in the former, change takes place only on the side of the world;
God remains fixed in his own identity as the I AM, and the temporal is
only a superficial reflection cast back upon his acting energy by that
course of mundane events which he both originated and guides. In the
heathen mythology the gods have a history: in the Old Testament, God
himself has none, but only his people: and if the proper meaning of
mythology be the history of gods, then the Hebrew religion has no
mythology.
From the Hebrew religion, this recognition of the divine unity and
immutability was transmitted to the Christian. The birth, growth,
miracles, sufferings, death, and resurrection of Christ, are
circumstances belonging to the destiny of the Messiah, above which God
remains unaffected in his own changeless identity. The New Testament
therefore knows nothing of mythology in the above sense. The state of
the question is however somewhat changed from that which it assumed in
the Old Testament: for Jesus is called the Son of God, not merely in
the same sense as kings under the theocracy were so called, but as
actually begotten by the divine spirit, or from the incarnation in his
person of the divine λόγος. Inasmuch as he is one with the Father, and
in him the whole fullness of the godhead dwells bodily, he is more than
Moses. The actions and sufferings of such a being are not external to
the Deity: though we are not allowed to suppose a theopaschitic union
with the divine nature, yet still, even in the New Testament, and more
in the later doctrine of the Church, it is a divine being that here
lives and suffers, and what befals him has an absolute worth and
significance. Thus according to the above accepted notion of the
mythus, the New Testament has more of a mythical character than the
Old. But to call the history of Jesus mythical in this sense, is as
unimportant with regard to the historical question as it is
unexceptionable; for the idea of God is in no way opposed to such an
intervention in human affairs as does not affect his own immutability;
so that as far as regards this point, the gospel history,
notwithstanding its mythical designation, might be at the same time
throughout historically true.
Admitting that the biblical history does not equally with the heathen
mythology offend our idea of Deity, and that consequently it is not in
like manner characterized by this mark of the unhistorical, however far
it be from bearing any guarantee of being historical,—we are met by the
further question whether it be not less accordant with our idea of the
world, and whether such discordancy may not furnish a test of its
unhistorical nature.
In the ancient world, that is, in the east, the religious tendency was
so preponderating, and the knowledge of nature so limited, that the law
of connexion between earthly finite beings was very loosely regarded.
At every link there was a disposition to spring into the Infinite, and
to see God as the immediate cause of every change in nature or the
human mind. In this mental condition the biblical history was written.
Not that God is here represented as doing all and every thing
himself:—a notion which, from the manifold direct evidence of the
fundamental connexion between finite things, would be impossible to any
reasonable mind:—but there prevails in the biblical writers a ready
disposition to derive all things down to the minutest details, as soon
as they appear particularly important, immediately from God. He it is
who gives the rain and sunshine; he sends the east wind and the storm;
he dispenses war, famine, pestilence; he hardens hearts and softens
them, suggests thoughts and resolutions. And this is particularly the
case with regard to his chosen instruments and beloved people. In the
history of the Israelites we find traces of his immediate agency at
every step: through Moses, Elias, Jesus, he performs things which never
would have happened in the ordinary course of nature.
Our modern world, on the contrary, after many centuries of tedious
research, has attained a conviction, that all things are linked
together by a chain of causes and effects, which suffers no
interruption. It is true that single facts and groups of facts, with
their conditions and processes of change, are not so circumscribed as
to be unsusceptible of external influence; for the action of one
existence or kingdom in nature intrenches on that of another: human
freedom controls natural development, and material laws react on human
freedom. Nevertheless the totality of finite things forms a vast
circle, which, except that it owes its existence and laws to a superior
power, suffers no intrusion from without. This conviction is so much a
habit of thought with the modern world, that in actual life, the belief
in a supernatural manifestation, an immediate divine agency, is at once
attributed to ignorance or imposture. It has been carried to the
extreme in that modern explanation, which, in a spirit exactly opposed
to that of the Bible, has either totally removed the divine causation,
or has so far restricted it that it is immediate in the act of creation
alone, but mediate from that point onwards;—i.e., God operates on the
world only in so far as he gave to it this fixed direction at the
creation. From this point of view, at which nature and history appear
as a compact tissue of finite causes and effects, it was impossible to
regard the narratives of the Bible, in which this tissue is broken by
innumerable instances of divine interference, as historical.
It must be confessed on nearer investigation, that this modern
explanation, although it does not exactly deny the existence of God,
yet puts aside the idea of him, as the ancient view did the idea of the
world. For this is, as it has been often and well remarked, no longer a
God and Creator, but a mere finite Artist, who acts immediately upon
his work only during its first production, and then leaves it to
itself; who becomes excluded with his full energy from one particular
sphere of existence. It has therefore been attempted to unite the two
views so as to maintain for the world its law of sequence, and for God
his unlimited action, and by this means to preserve the truth of the
biblical history. According to this view, the world is supposed to move
in obedience to the law of consecutive causes and effects bound up with
its constitution, and God to act upon it only mediately: but in single
instances, where he finds it necessary for particular objects, he is
not held to be restricted from entering into the course of human
changes immediately. This is the view of modern Supranaturalism [90];
evidently a vain attempt to reconcile two opposite views, since it
contains the faults of both, and adds a new one in the contradiction
between the two ill-assorted principles. For here the consecutiveness
of nature and history is broken through as in the ancient biblical
view; and the action of God limited as in the contrary system. The
proposition that God works sometimes mediately, sometimes immediately,
upon the world, introduces a changeableness, and therefore a temporal
element, into the nature of his action, which brings it under the same
condemnation as both the other systems; that, namely, of distinguishing
the maintaining power, in the one case from individual instances of the
divine agency, and in the other from the act of creation. [91]
Since then our idea of God requires an immediate, and our idea of the
world a mediate divine operation; and since the idea of combination of
the two species of action is inadmissible:—nothing remains for us but
to regard them both as so permanently and immoveably united, that the
operation of God on the world continues for ever and every where
twofold, both immediate and mediate; which comes just to this, that it
is neither of the two, or this distinction loses its value. To explain
more closely: if we proceed from the idea of God, from which arose the
demand for his immediate operation, then the world is to be regarded in
relation to him as a Whole: on the contrary, if we proceed from the
idea of the finite, the world is a congeries of separate parts, and
hence has arisen the demand for a merely mediate agency of God:—so that
we must say—God acts upon the world as a Whole immediately, but on each
part only by means of his action on every other part, that is to say,
by the laws of nature. [92]
This view brings us to the same conclusion with regard to the
historical value of the Bible as the one above considered. The miracles
which God wrought for and by Moses and Jesus, do not proceed from his
immediate operation on the Whole, but presuppose an immediate action in
particular cases, which is a contradiction to the type of the divine
agency we have just given. The supranaturalists indeed claim an
exception from this type on behalf of the biblical history; a
presupposition which is inadmissible from our point of view [93],
according to which the same laws, although varied by various
circumstances, are supreme in every sphere of being and action, and
therefore every narrative which offends against these laws, is to be
recognized as so far unhistorical.
The result, then, however surprising, of a general examination of the
biblical history, is that the Hebrew and Christian religions, like all
others, have their mythi. And this result is confirmed, if we consider
the inherent nature of religion, what essentially belongs to it and
therefore must be common to all religions, and what on the other hand
is peculiar and may differ in each. If religion be defined as the
perception of truth, not in the form of an idea, which is the
philosophic perception, but invested with imagery; it is easy to see
that the mythical element can be wanting only when religion either
falls short of, or goes beyond, its peculiar province, and that in the
proper religious sphere it must necessarily exist.
It is only amongst the lowest and most barbarous people, such as the
Esquimaux, that we find religion not yet fashioned into an objective
form, but still confined to a subjective feeling. They know nothing of
gods, of superior spirits and powers, and their whole piety consists in
an undefined sentiment excited by the hurricane, the eclipse, or the
magician. As it progresses however, the religious principle loses more
and more of this indefiniteness, and ceasing to be subjective, becomes
objective. In the sun, moon, mountains, animals, and other objects of
the sensible world, higher powers are discovered and revered; and in
proportion as the significance given to these objects is remote from
their actual nature, a new world of mere imagination is created, a
sphere of divine existences whose relations to one another, actions,
and influences, can be represented only after human analogy, and
therefore as temporal and historical. Even when the mind has raised
itself to the conception of the Divine unity, still the energy and
activity of God are considered only under the form of a series of acts:
and on the other hand, natural events and human actions can be raised
to a religious significance only by the admission of divine
interpositions and miracles. It is only from the philosophic point of
view that the world of imagination is seen again to coincide with the
actual, because the thought of God is comprehended to be his essence,
and in the regular course itself of nature and of history, the
revelation of the divine idea is acknowledged.
It is certainly difficult to conceive, how narratives which thus speak
of imagination as reality can have been formed without intentional
deceit, and believed without unexampled credulity; and this difficulty
has been held an invincible objection to the mythical interpretation of
many of the narratives of the Old and New Testament. If this were the
case, it would apply equally to the Heathen legends; and on the other
hand, if profane Mythology have steered clear of the difficulty,
neither will that of the Bible founder upon it. I shall here quote at
length the words of an experienced inquirer into Grecian mythology and
primitive history, Otfried Müller, since it is evident that this
preliminary knowledge of the subject which must be derived from general
mythology, and which is necessary for the understanding of the
following examination of the evangelic mythus, is not yet familiar to
all theologians. “How,” says Müller [94], “shall we reconcile this
combination of the true and the false, the real and ideal, in mythi,
with the fact of their being believed and received as truth? The ideal,
it may be said, is nothing else than poetry and fiction clothed in the
form of a narration. But a fiction of this kind cannot be invented at
the same time by many different persons without a miracle, requiring,
as it does, a peculiar coincidence of intention, imagination, and
expression. It is therefore the work of one person:—but how did he
convince all the others that his fiction had an actual truth? Shall we
suppose him to have been one who contrived to delude by all kinds of
trickery and deception, and perhaps allied himself with similar
deceivers, whose part it was to afford attestation to the people of his
inventions as having been witnessed by themselves? Or shall we think of
him as a man of higher endowments than others, who believed him upon
his word; and received the mythical tales under whose veil he sought to
impart wholesome truths, as a sacred revelation? But it is impossible
to prove that such a caste of deceivers existed in ancient Greece (or
Palestine); on the contrary, this skilful system of deception, be it
gross or refined, selfish or philanthropic, if we are not misled by the
impression we have received from the earliest productions of the
Grecian (or Christian) mind, is little suited to the noble simplicity
of those times. Hence an inventer of the mythus in the proper sense of
the word is inconceivable. This reasoning brings us to the conclusion,
that the idea of a deliberate and intentional fabrication, in which the
author clothes that which he knows to be false in the appearance of
truth, must be entirely set aside as insufficient to account for the
origin of the mythus. Or in other words, that there is a certain
necessity in this connexion between the ideal and the real, which
constitutes the mythus; that the mythical images were formed by the
influence of sentiments common to all mankind; and that the different
elements grew together without the author’s being himself conscious of
their incongruity. It is this notion of a certain necessity and
unconsciousness in the formation of the ancient mythi, on which we
insist. If this be once understood, it will also be perceived that the
contention whether the mythus proceed from one person or many, from the
poet or the people, though it may be started on other grounds, does not
go to the root of the matter. For if the one who invents the mythus is
only obeying the impulse which acts also upon the minds of his hearers,
he is but the mouth through which all speak, the skilful interpreter
who has the address first to give form and expression to the thoughts
of all. It is however very possible that this notion of necessity and
unconsciousness, might appear itself obscure and mystical to our
antiquarians (and theologians), from no other reason than that this
mythicising tendency has no analogy in the present mode of thinking.
But is not history to acknowledge even what is strange, when led to it
by unprejudiced research?”
As an example to show that even very complicated mythi, in the
formation of which many apparently remote circumstances must have
combined, may yet have arisen in this unconscious manner, Müller then
refers to the Grecian mythus of Apollo and Marsyas. “It was customary
to celebrate the festivals of Apollo with playing on the lyre, and it
was necessary to piety, that the god himself should be regarded as its
author. In Phrygia, on the contrary, the national music was the flute,
which was similarly derived from a demon of their own, named Marsyas.
The ancient Grecians perceived that the tones of these two instruments
were essentially opposed: the harsh shrill piping of the flute must be
hateful to Apollo, and therefore Marsyas his enemy. This was not
enough: in order that the lyre-playing Grecian might flatter himself
that the invention of his god was the more excellent instrument, Apollo
must triumph over Marsyas. But why was it necessary in particular that
the unlucky Phrygian should be flayed? Here is the simple origin of the
mythus. Near the castle of Celœne in Phrygia, in a cavern whence flowed
a stream or torrent named Marsyas, was suspended a skin flask, called
by the Phrygians, the bottle of Marsyas; for Marsyas was, like the
Grecian Silenus, a demi-god symbolizing the exuberance of the juices of
nature. Now where a Grecian, or a Phrygian with Grecian prepossessions,
looked on the bottle, he plainly saw the catastrophe of Marsyas; here
was still suspended his skin, which had been torn off and made into a
bottle:—Apollo had flayed him. In all this there is no arbitrary
invention: the same ideas might have occurred to many, and if one first
gave expression to them, he knew well that his auditors, imbued with
the same prepossessions, would not for an instant doubt his accuracy.”
“The chief reason of the complicated character of mythi in general, is
their having been formed for the most part, not at once, but
successively and by degrees, under the influence of very different
circumstances and events both external and internal. The popular
traditions, being orally transmitted and not restricted by any written
document, were open to receive every new addition, and thus grew in the
course of long centuries to the form in which we now find them. (How
far this applies to a great part of the New Testament mythi, will be
shown hereafter.) This is an important and luminous fact, which however
is very frequently overlooked in the explanation of mythi; for they are
regarded as allegories invented by one person, at one stroke, with the
definite purpose of investing a thought in the form of a narration.”
The view thus expressed by Müller, that the mythus is founded not upon
any individual conception, but upon the more elevated and general
conception of a whole people (or religious community), is said by a
competent judge of Müller’s work to be the necessary condition for a
right understanding of the ancient mythus, the admission or rejection
of which henceforth ranges the opinions on mythology into two opposite
divisions. [95]
It is not however easy to draw a line of distinction between
intentional and unintentional fiction. In the case where a fact lay at
the foundation, which, being the subject of popular conversation and
admiration, in the course of time formed itself into a mythus, we
readily dismiss all notion of wilful fraud, at least in its origin. For
a mythus of this kind is not the work of one man, but of a whole body
of men, and of succeeding generations; the narrative passing from mouth
to mouth, and like a snowball growing by the involuntary addition of
one exaggerating feature from this, and another from that narrator. In
time however these legends are sure to fall into the way of some gifted
minds, which will be stimulated by them to the exercise of their own
poetical, religious, or didactic powers. Most of the mythical
narratives which have come down to us from antiquity, such as the
Trojan, and the Mosaic series of legends, are presented to us in this
elaborated form. Here then it would appear there must have been
intentional deception: this however is only the result of an erroneous
assumption. It is almost impossible, in a critical and enlightened age
like our own, to carry ourselves back to a period of civilization in
which the imagination worked so powerfully, that its illusions were
believed as realities by the very minds that created them. Yet the very
same miracles which are wrought in less civilized circles by the
imagination, are produced in the more cultivated by the understanding.
Let us take one of the best didactic historians of ancient or modern
times, Livy, as an example. “Numa,” he says, “gave to the Romans a
number of religious ceremonies, ne luxuriarentur otio animi, and
because he regarded religion as the best means of bridling multitudinem
imperitam et illis seculis rudem. Idem,” he continues, “nefastos dies
fastosque fecit, quia aliquando nihil cum populo agi utile futurum
erat.” [96] How did Livy know that these were the motives of Numa? In
point of fact they certainly were not. But Livy believed them to be so.
The inference of his own understanding appeared to him so necessary,
that he treated it with full conviction as an actual fact. The popular
legend, or some ancient poet, had explained this fertility of religious
invention in Numa otherwise; namely, that it arose from his
communication with the nymph Egeria, who revealed to him the forms of
worship that would be most acceptable to the gods. It is obvious, that
the case is pretty nearly the same with regard to both representations.
If the latter had an individual author, it was his opinion that the
historical statement could be accounted for only upon the supposition
of a communication with a superior being; as it was that of Livy, that
its explanation must lie in political views. The one mistook the
production of his imagination, the other the inference of his
understanding, for reality.
Perhaps it may be admitted that there is a possibility of unconscious
fiction, even when an individual author is assigned to it, provided
that the mythical consists only in the filling up and adorning some
historical event with imaginary circumstances: but that where the whole
story is invented, and not any historical nucleus is to be found, this
unconscious fiction is impossible. Whatever view may be taken of the
heathen mythology, it is easy to show with regard to the New Testament,
that there was the greatest antecedent probability of this very kind of
fiction having arisen respecting Jesus without any fraudulent
intention. The expectation of a Messiah had grown up amongst the
Israelitish people long before the time of Jesus, and just then had
ripened to full maturity. And from its beginning this expectation was
not indefinite, but determined, and characterized by many important
particulars. Moses was said to have promised his people a prophet like
unto himself (Deut. xviii. 15), and this passage was in the time of
Jesus applied to the Messiah (Acts iii. 22; vii. 37). Hence the
rabbinical principle: as the first redeemer (Goël), so shall be the
second; which principle was carried out into many particulars to be
expected in the Messiah after his prototype Moses. [97] Again, the
Messiah was to come of the race of David, and as a second David take
possession of his throne (Matt. xxii. 42; Luke i. 32; Acts ii. 30): and
therefore in the time of Jesus it was expected that he, like David,
should be born in the little village of Bethlehem (John vii. 42; Matt.
ii. 5 f.). In the above passage Moses describes the supposed Messiah as
a prophet; so in his own idea, Jesus was the greatest and last of the
prophetic race. But in the old national legends the prophets were made
illustrious by the most wonderful actions and destiny. How could less
be expected of the Messiah? Was it not necessary beforehand, that his
life should be adorned with that which was most glorious and important
in the lives of the prophets? Must not the popular expectation give him
a share in the bright portion of their history, as subsequently the
sufferings of himself and his disciples were attributed by Jesus, when
he appeared as the Messiah, to a participation in the dark side of the
fate of the prophets (Matt. xxiii. 29 ff.; Luke xiii. 33 ff.; comp.
Matt. v. 12)? Believing that Moses and all the prophets had prophesied
of the Messiah (John v. 46; Luke iv. 21; xxiv. 27), it was as natural
for the Jews, with their allegorizing tendency, to consider their
actions and destiny as types of the Messiah, as to take their sayings
for predictions. In general the whole Messianic era was expected to be
full of signs and wonders. The eyes of the blind should be opened, the
ears of the deaf should be unclosed, the lame should leap, and the
tongue of the dumb praise God (Isa. xxxv. 5 f.; xlii. 7; comp. xxxii.
3, 4). These merely figurative expressions soon came to be understood
literally (Matt. xi. 5; Luke vii. 21 f.), and thus the idea of the
Messiah was continually filled up with new details, even before the
appearance of Jesus. [98] Thus many of the legends respecting him had
not to be newly invented; they already existed in the popular hope of
the Messiah, having been mostly derived with various modifications [99]
from the Old Testament, and had merely to be transferred to Jesus,
[100] and accommodated to his character and doctrines. In no case could
it be easier for the person who first added any new feature to the
description of Jesus, to believe himself its genuineness, since his
argument would be: Such and such things must have happened to the
Messiah; Jesus was the Messiah; therefore such and such things happened
to him. [101]
Truly it may be said that the middle term of this argument, namely,
that Jesus was the Messiah, would have failed in proof to his
contemporaries all the more on account of the common expectation of
miraculous events, if that expectation had not been fulfilled by him.
But the following critique on the Life of Jesus does not divest it of
all those features to which the character of miraculous has been
appropriated: and besides we must take into account the overwhelming
impression which was made upon those around him by the personal
character and discourse of Jesus, as long as he was living amongst
them, which did not permit them deliberately to scrutinize and compare
him with their previous standard. The belief in him as the Messiah
extended to wider circles only by slow degrees; and even during his
lifetime the people may have reported many wonderful stories of him
(comp. Matt. xiv. 2). After his death, however, the belief in his
resurrection, however that belief may have arisen, afforded a more than
sufficient proof of his Messiahship; so that all the other miracles in
his history need not be considered as the foundation of the faith in
this, but may rather be adduced as the consequence of it.
It is however by no means necessary to attribute this same freedom from
all conscious intention of fiction, to the authors of all those
narratives in the Old and New Testament which must be considered as
unhistorical. In every series of legends, especially if any patriotic
or religious party interest is associated with them, as soon as they
become the subject of free poetry or any other literary composition,
some kind of fiction will be intentionally mixed up with them. The
authors of the Homeric songs could not have believed that every
particular which they related of their gods and heroes had really
happened; and just as little could the writer of the Chronicles have
been ignorant that in his deviation from the books of Samuel and of the
Kings, he was introducing many events of later occurrence into an
earlier period; or the author of the book of Daniel [102] that he was
modelling his history upon that of Joseph, and accommodating prophecies
to events already past; and exactly as little may this be said of all
the unhistorical narratives of the Gospels, as for example, of the
first chapter of the third, and many parts of the fourth Gospel. But a
fiction, although not undesigned, may still be without evil design. It
is true, the case is not the same with the supposed authors of many
fictions in the Bible, as with poets properly so called, since the
latter write without any expectation that their poems will be received
as history: but still it is to be considered that in ancient times, and
especially amongst the Hebrews, and yet more when this people was
stirred up by religious excitement, the line of distinction between
history and fiction, prose and poetry, was not drawn so clearly as with
us. It is a fact also deserving attention that amongst the Jews and
early Christians, the most reputable authors published their works with
the substitution of venerated names, without an idea that they were
guilty of any falsehood or deception by so doing.
The only question that can arise here is whether to such fictions, the
work of an individual, we can give the name of mythi? If we regard only
their own intrinsic nature, the name is not appropriate; but it is so
when these fictions, having met with faith, come to be received amongst
the legends of a people or religious party, for this is always a proof
that they were the fruit, not of any individual conception, but of an
accordance with the sentiments of a multitude. [103]
A frequently raised objection remains, for the refutation of which the
remarks above made, upon the date of the origin of many of the gospel
mythi, are mainly important: the objection, namely, that the space of
about thirty years, from the death of Jesus to the destruction of
Jerusalem, during which the greater part of the narratives must have
been formed; or even the interval extending to the beginning of the
second century, the most distant period which can be allowed for the
origin of even the latest of these gospel narratives, and for the
written composition of our gospels;—is much too short to admit of the
rise of so rich a collection of mythi. But, as we have shown, the
greater part of these mythi did not arise during that period, for their
first foundation was laid in the legends of the Old Testament, before
and after the Babylonish exile; and the transference of these legends
with suitable modifications to the expected Messiah, was made in the
course of the centuries which elapsed between that exile and the time
of Jesus. So that for the period between the formation of the first
Christian community and the writing of the Gospels, there remains to be
effected only the transference of Messianic legends, almost all ready
formed, to Jesus, with some alterations to adapt them to christian
opinions, and to the individual character and circumstances of Jesus:
only a very small proportion of mythi having to be formed entirely new.
§ 15.
DEFINITION OF THE EVANGELICAL MYTHUS AND ITS DISTINCTIVE
CHARACTERISTICS.
The precise sense in which we use the expression mythus, applied to
certain parts of the gospel history, is evident from all that has
already been said; at the same time the different kinds and gradations
of the mythi which we shall meet with in this history may here by way
of anticipation be pointed out.
We distinguish by the name evangelical mythus a narrative relating
directly or indirectly to Jesus, which may be considered not as the
expression of a fact, but as the product of an idea of his earliest
followers: such a narrative being mythical in proportion as it exhibits
this character. The mythus in this sense of the term meets us, in the
Gospel as elsewhere, sometimes in its pure form, constituting the
substance of the narrative, and sometimes as an accidental adjunct to
the actual history.
The pure mythus in the Gospel will be found to have two sources, which
in most cases contributed simultaneously, though in different
proportions, to form the mythus. The one source is, as already stated,
the Messianic ideas and expectations existing according to their
several forms in the Jewish mind before Jesus, and independently of
him; the other is that particular impression which was left by the
personal character, actions, and fate of Jesus, and which served to
modify the Messianic idea in the minds of his people. The account of
the Transfiguration, for example, is derived almost exclusively from
the former source; the only amplification taken from the latter source
being—that they who appeared with Jesus on the Mount spake of his
decease. On the other hand, the narrative of the rending of the veil of
the temple at the death of Jesus seems to have had its origin in the
hostile position which Jesus, and his church after him, sustained in
relation to the Jewish temple worship. Here already we have something
historical, though consisting merely of certain general features of
character, position, etc.; we are thus at once brought upon the ground
of the historical mythus.
The historical mythus has for its groundwork a definite individual fact
which has been seized upon by religious enthusiasm, and twined around
with mythical conceptions culled from the idea of the Christ. This fact
is perhaps a saying of Jesus such as that concerning “fishers of men”
or the barren fig-tree, which now appear in the Gospels transmuted into
marvellous histories: or, it is perhaps a real transaction or event
taken from his life; for instance, the mythical traits in the account
of the baptism were built upon such a reality. Certain of the
miraculous histories may likewise have had some foundation in natural
occurrences, which the narrative has either exhibited in a supernatural
light, or enriched with miraculous incidents.
All the species of imagery here enumerated may justly be designated as
mythi, even according to the modern and precise definition of George,
inasmuch as the unhistorical which they embody—whether formed gradually
by tradition, or created by an individual author—is in each case the
product of an idea. But for those parts of the history which are
characterized by indefiniteness and want of connexion, by
misconstruction and transformation, by strange combinations and
confusion,—the natural results of a long course of oral transmission;
or which, on the contrary, are distinguished by highly coloured and
pictorial representations, which also seem to point to a traditionary
origin;—for these parts the term legendary is certainly the more
appropriate.
Lastly. It is requisite to distinguish equally from the mythus and the
legend, that which, as it serves not to clothe an idea on the one hand,
and admits not of being referred to tradition on the other, must be
regarded as the addition of the author, as purely individual, and
designed merely to give clearness, connexion, and climax, to the
representation.
It is to the various forms of the unhistorical in the Gospels that this
enumeration exclusively refers: it does not involve the renunciation of
the historical which they may likewise contain.
§ 16.
CRITERIA BY WHICH TO DISTINGUISH THE UNHISTORICAL IN THE GOSPEL
NARRATIVE.
Having shown the possible existence of the mythical and the legendary
in the Gospels, both on extrinsic and intrinsic grounds, and defined
their distinctive characteristics, it remains in conclusion to inquire
how their actual presence may be recognised in individual cases?
The mythus presents two phases: in the first place it is not history;
in the second it is fiction, the product of the particular mental
tendency of a certain community. These two phases afford the one a
negative, the other a positive criterion, by which the mythus is to be
recognised.
I. Negative. That an account is not historical—that the matter related
could not have taken place in the manner described is evident,
First. When the narration is irreconcilable with the known and
universal laws which govern the course of events. Now according to
these laws, agreeing with all just philosophical conceptions and all
credible experience, the absolute cause never disturbs the chain of
secondary causes by single arbitrary acts of interposition, but rather
manifests itself in the production of the aggregate of finite
causalities, and of their reciprocal action. When therefore we meet
with an account of certain phenomena or events of which it is either
expressly stated or implied that they were produced immediately by God
himself (divine apparitions—voices from heaven and the like), or by
human beings possessed of supernatural powers (miracles, prophecies),
such an account is in so far to be considered as not historical. And
inasmuch as, in general, the intermingling of the spiritual world with
the human is found only in unauthentic records, and is irreconcilable
with all just conceptions; so narratives of angels and of devils, of
their appearing in human shape and interfering with human concerns,
cannot possibly be received as historical.
Another law which controls the course of events is the law of
succession, in accordance with which all occurrences, not excepting the
most violent convulsions and the most rapid changes, follow in a
certain order of sequence of increase and decrease. If therefore we are
told of a celebrated individual that he attracted already at his birth
and during his childhood that attention which he excited in his
manhood; that his followers at a single glance recognized him as being
all that he actually was; if the transition from the deepest
despondency to the most ardent enthusiasm after his death is
represented as the work of a single hour; we must feel more than
doubtful whether it is a real history which lies before us. Lastly, all
those psychological laws, which render it improbable that a human being
should feel, think, and act in a manner directly opposed to his own
habitual mode and that of men in general, must be taken into
consideration. As for example, when the Jewish Sanhedrim are
represented as believing the declaration of the watch at the grave that
Jesus was risen, and instead of accusing them of having suffered the
body to be stolen away whilst they were asleep, bribing them to give
currency to such a report. By the same rule it is contrary to all the
laws belonging to the human faculty of memory, that long discourses,
such as those of Jesus given in the fourth Gospel, could have been
faithfully recollected and reproduced.
It is however true that effects are often far more rapidly produced,
particularly in men of genius and by their agency, than might be
expected; and that human beings frequently act inconsequently, and in
opposition to their general modes and habits; the two last mentioned
tests of the mythical character must therefore be cautiously applied,
and in conjunction only with other tests.
Secondly. An account which shall be regarded as historically valid,
must neither be inconsistent with itself, nor in contradiction with
other accounts.
The most decided case falling under this rule, amounting to a positive
contradiction, is when one account affirms what another denies. Thus,
one gospel represents the first appearance of Jesus in Galilee as
subsequent to the imprisonment of John the Baptist, whilst another
Gospel remarks, long after Jesus had preached both in Galilee and in
Judea, that “John was not yet cast into prison.”
When on the contrary, the second account, without absolutely
contradicting the first, differs from it, the disagreement may be
merely between the incidental particulars of the narrative; such as
time, (the clearing of the Temple,) place, (the original residence of
the parents of Jesus;) number, (the Gadarenes, the angels at the
sepulchre;) names, (Matthew and Levi;) or it may concern the essential
substance of the history. In the latter case, sometimes the character
and circumstances in one account differ altogether from those in
another. Thus, according to one narrator, the Baptist recognizes Jesus
as the Messiah destined to suffer; according to the other, John takes
offence at his suffering condition. Sometimes an occurrence is
represented in two or more ways, of which one only can be consistent
with the reality; as when in one account Jesus calls his first
disciples from their nets whilst fishing on the sea of Galilee, and in
the other meets them in Judea on his way to Galilee. We may class under
the same head instances where events or discourses are represented as
having occurred on two distinct occasions, whilst they are so similar
that it is impossible to resist the conclusion that both the narratives
refer to the same event or discourse.
It may here be asked: is it to be regarded as a contradiction if one
account is wholly silent respecting a circumstance mentioned by
another? In itself, apart from all other considerations, the argumentum
ex silentio is of no weight; but it is certainly to be accounted of
moment when, at the same time, it may be shown that had the author
known the circumstance he could not have failed to mention it, and also
that he must have known it had it actually occurred.
II. Positive. The positive characters of legend and fiction are to be
recognized sometimes in the form, sometimes in the substance of a
narrative.
If the form be poetical, if the actors converse in hymns, and in a more
diffuse and elevated strain than might be expected from their training
and situations, such discourses, at all events, are not to be regarded
as historical. The absence of these marks of the unhistorical do not
however prove the historical validity of the narration, since the
mythus often wears the most simple and apparently historical form: in
which case the proof lies in the substance.
If the contents of a narrative strikingly accords with certain ideas
existing and prevailing within the circle from which the narrative
proceeded, which ideas themselves seem to be the product of
preconceived opinions rather than of practical experience, it is more
or less probable, according to circumstances, that such a narrative is
of mythical origin. The knowledge of the fact, that the Jews were fond
of representing their great men as the children of parents who had long
been childless, cannot but make us doubtful of the historical truth of
the statement that this was the case with John the Baptist; knowing
also that the Jews saw predictions everywhere in the writings of their
prophets and poets, and discovered types of the Messiah in all the
lives of holy men recorded in their Scriptures; when we find details in
the life of Jesus evidently sketched after the pattern of these
prophecies and prototypes, we cannot but suspect that they are rather
mythical than historical.
The more simple characteristics of the legend, and of additions by the
author, after the observations of the former section, need no further
elucidation.
Yet each of these tests, on the one hand, and each narrative on the
other, considered apart, will rarely prove more than the possible or
probable unhistorical character of the record. The concurrence of
several such indications, is necessary to bring about a more definite
result. The accounts of the visit of the Magi, and of the murder of the
innocents at Bethlehem, harmonize remarkably with the Jewish Messianic
notion, built upon the prophecy of Balaam, respecting the star which
should come out of Jacob; and with the history of the sanguinary
command of Pharaoh. Still this would not alone suffice to stamp the
narratives as mythical. But we have also the corroborative facts that
the described appearance of the star is contrary to the physical, the
alleged conduct of Herod to the psychological laws; that Josephus, who
gives in other respects so circumstantial an account of Herod, agrees
with all other historical authorities in being silent concerning the
Bethlehem massacre; and that the visit of the Magi together with the
flight into Egypt related in the one Gospel, and the presentation in
the temple related in another Gospel, mutually exclude one another.
Wherever, as in this instance, the several criteria of the mythical
character concur, the result is certain, and certain in proportion to
the accumulation of such grounds of evidence.
It may be that a narrative, standing alone, would discover but slight
indications, or perhaps, might present no one distinct feature of the
mythus; but it is connected with others, or proceeds from the author of
other narratives which exhibit unquestionable marks of a mythical or
legendary character; and consequently suspicion is reflected back from
the latter, on the former. Every narrative, however miraculous,
contains some details which might in themselves be historical, but
which, in consequence of their connexion with the other supernatural
incidents, necessarily become equally doubtful.
In these last remarks we are, to a certain extent, anticipating the
question which is, in conclusion, to be considered: viz., whether the
mythical character is restricted to those features of the narrative,
upon which such character is actually stamped; and whether a
contradiction between two accounts invalidate one account only, or
both? That is to say, what is the precise boundary line between the
historical and the unhistorical?—the most difficult question in the
whole province of criticism.
In the first place, when two narratives mutually exclude one another,
one only is thereby proved to be unhistorical. If one be true the other
must be false, but though the one be false the other may be true. Thus,
in reference to the original residence of the parents of Jesus, we are
justified in adopting the account of Luke which places it at Nazareth,
to the exclusion of that of Matthew, which plainly supposes it to have
been at Bethlehem; and, generally speaking, when we have to choose
between two irreconcilable accounts, in selecting as historical that
which is the least opposed to the laws of nature, and has the least
correspondence with certain national or party opinions. But upon a more
particular consideration it will appear that, since one account is
false, it is possible that the other may be so likewise: the existence
of a mythus respecting some certain point, shows that the imagination
has been active in reference to that particular subject; (we need only
refer to the genealogies;) and the historical accuracy of either of two
such accounts cannot be relied upon, unless substantiated by its
agreement with some other well authenticated testimony.
Concerning the different parts of one and the same narrative: it might
be thought for example, that though the appearance of an angel, and his
announcement to Mary that she should be the Mother of the Messiah, must
certainly be regarded as unhistorical, still, that Mary should have
indulged this hope before the birth of the child, is not in itself
incredible. But what should have excited this hope in Mary’s mind? It
is at once apparent that that which is credible in itself is
nevertheless unhistorical when it is so intimately connected with what
is incredible that, if you discard the latter, you at the same time
remove the basis on which the former rests. Again, any action of Jesus
represented as a miracle, when divested of the marvellous, might be
thought to exhibit a perfectly natural occurrence; with respect to some
of the miraculous histories, the expulsion of devils for instance, this
might with some limitation, be possible. But for this reason alone: in
these instances, a cure, so instantaneous, and effected by a few words
merely, as it is described in the Gospels, is not psychologically
incredible; so that, the essential in these narratives remains
untouched. It is different in the case of the healing of a man born
blind. A natural cure could not have been effected otherwise than by a
gradual process; the narrative states the cure to have been immediate;
if therefore the history be understood to record a natural occurrence,
the most essential particular is incorrectly represented, and
consequently all security for the truth of the otherwise natural
remainder is gone, and the real fact cannot be discovered without the
aid of arbitrary conjecture.
The following examples will serve to illustrate the mode of deciding in
such cases. According to the narrative, as Mary entered the house and
saluted her cousin Elizabeth, who was then pregnant, the babe leaped in
her womb, she was filled with the Holy Ghost, and she immediately
addressed Mary as the mother of the Messiah. This account bears
indubitable marks of an unhistorical character. Yet, it is not, in
itself, impossible that Mary should have paid a visit to her cousin,
during which everything went on quite naturally. The fact is however
that there are psychological difficulties connected with this journey
of the betrothed; and that the visit, and even the relationship of the
two women, seem to have originated entirely in the wish to exhibit a
connexion between the mother of John the Baptist, and the mother of the
Messiah. Or when in the history of the transfiguration it is stated,
that the men who appeared with Jesus on the Mount were Moses and Elias:
and that the brilliancy which illuminated Jesus was supernatural; it
might seem here also that, after deducting the marvellous, the presence
of two men and a bright morning beam might be retained as the
historical facts. But the legend was predisposed, by virtue of the
current idea concerning the relation of the Messiah to these two
prophets, not merely to make any two men (whose persons, object and
conduct, if they were not what the narrative represents them, remain in
the highest degree mysterious) into Moses and Elias, but to create the
whole occurrence; and in like manner not merely to conceive of some
certain illumination as a supernatural effulgence (which, if a natural
one, is much exaggerated and misrepresented), but to create it at once
after the pattern of the brightness which illumined the face of Moses
on Mount Sinai.
Hence is derived the following rule. Where not merely the particular
nature and manner of an occurrence is critically suspicious, its
external circumstances represented as miraculous and the like; but
where likewise the essential substance and groundwork is either
inconceivable in itself, or is in striking harmony with some Messianic
idea of the Jews of that age, then not the particular alleged course
and mode of the transaction only, but the entire occurrence must be
regarded as unhistorical. Where on the contrary, the form only, and not
the general contents of the narration, exhibits the characteristics of
the unhistorical, it is at least possible to suppose a kernel of
historical fact; although we can never confidently decide whether this
kernel of fact actually exists, or in what it consists; unless, indeed,
it be discoverable from other sources. In legendary narratives, or
narratives embellished by the writer, it is less difficult,—by
divesting them of all that betrays itself as fictitious imagery,
exaggeration, etc.—by endeavouring to abstract from them every
extraneous adjunct and to fill up every hiatus—to succeed, proximately
at least, in separating the historical groundwork.
The boundary line, however, between the historical and the
unhistorical, in records, in which as in our Gospels this latter
element is incorporated, will ever remain fluctuating and unsusceptible
of precise attainment. Least of all can it be expected that the first
comprehensive attempt to treat these records from a critical point of
view should be successful in drawing a sharply defined line of
demarcation. In the obscurity which criticism has produced, by the
extinction of all lights hitherto held historical, the eye must
accustom itself by degrees to discriminate objects with precision; and
at all events the author of this work, wishes especially to guard
himself in those places where he declares he knows not what happened,
from the imputation of asserting that he knows that nothing happened.
FIRST PART.
HISTORY OF THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF JESUS.
CHAPTER I.
ANNUNCIATION AND BIRTH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST.
§ 17.
ACCOUNT GIVEN BY LUKE. [104] IMMEDIATE, SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER OF THE
REPRESENTATION.
Each of the four Evangelists represents the public ministry of Jesus as
preceded by that of John the Baptist; but it is peculiar to Luke to
make the Baptist the precursor of the Messiah in reference also to the
event of his birth. This account finds a legitimate place in a work
devoted exclusively to the consideration of the life of Jesus: firstly,
on account of the intimate connexion which it exhibits as subsisting
from the very commencement between the life of John and the life of
Jesus; and secondly, because it constitutes a valuable contribution,
aiding essentially towards the formation of a correct estimate of the
general character of the gospel narratives. The opinion that the two
first chapters of Luke, of which this particular history forms a
portion, are a subsequent and unauthentic addition, is the uncritical
assumption of a class of theologians who felt that the history of the
childhood of Jesus seemed to require a mythical interpretation, but yet
demurred to apply the comparatively modern mythical view to the
remainder of the Gospel. [105]
A pious sacerdotal pair had lived and grown old in the cherished, but
unrealized hope, of becoming parents, when, on a certain day, as the
priest is offering incense in the sanctuary, the angel Gabriel appears
to him, and promises him a son, who shall live consecrated to God, and
who shall be the harbinger of the Messiah, to prepare his way when he
shall visit and redeem his people. Zacharias, however, is incredulous,
and doubts the prediction on account of his own advanced age and that
of his wife; whereupon the angel, both as a sign and as a punishment,
strikes him dumb until the time of its accomplishment; an infliction
which endures until the day of the circumcision of the actually born
son, when the father, being called upon to assign to the child the name
predetermined by the angel, suddenly recovers his speech, and with the
regained powers of utterance, breaks forth in a hymn of praise. (Luke
i. 5–25, 57–80.)
It is evidently the object of this gospel account to represent a series
of external and miraculous occurrences. The announcement of the birth
of the forerunner of the Messiah is divinely communicated by the
apparition of a celestial spirit; the conception takes place under the
particular and preternatural blessing of God; and the infliction and
removal of dumbness are effected by extraordinary means. But it is
quite another question, whether we can accede to the view of the
author, or can feel convinced that the birth of the Baptist was in fact
preceded by such a series of miraculous events.
The first offence against our modern notions in this narrative is the
appearance of the angel: the event contemplated in itself, as well as
the peculiar circumstances of the apparition. With respect to the
latter, the angel announces himself to be Gabriel that stands in the
presence of God. Now it is inconceivable that the constitution of the
celestial hierarchy should actually correspond with the notions
entertained by the Jews subsequent to the exile; and that the names
given to the angels should be in the language of this people. [106]
Here the supranaturalist finds himself in a dilemma, even upon his own
ground. Had the belief in celestial beings, occupying a particular
station in the court of heaven, and distinguished by particular names,
originated from the revealed religion of the Hebrews,—had such a belief
been established by Moses, or some later prophet,—then, according to
the views of the supranaturalist, they might, nay they must, be
admitted to be correct. But it is in the Maccabæan Daniel [107] and in
the apocryphal Tobit, [108] that this doctrine of angels, in its more
precise form, first appears; and it is evidently a product of the
influence of the Zend religion of the Persians on the Jewish mind. We
have the testimony of the Jews themselves, that they brought the names
of the angels with them from Babylon. [109] Hence arises a series of
questions extremely perplexing to the supranaturalist. Was the doctrine
false so long as it continued to be the exclusive possession of the
heathens, but true as soon as it became adopted by the Jews? or was it
at all times equally true, and was an important truth discovered by an
idolatrous nation sooner than by the people of God? If nations shut out
from a particular and divine revelation, arrived at truth by the light
of reason alone, sooner than the Jews who were guided by that
revelation, then either the revelation was superfluous, or its
influence was merely negative: that is, it operated as a check to the
premature acquisition of knowledge. If, in order to escape this
consequence, it be contended that truths were revealed by the divine
influence to other people besides the Israelites, the supranaturalistic
point of view is annihilated; and, since all things contained in
religions which contradict each other cannot have been revealed, we are
compelled to exercise a critical discrimination. Thus, we find it to be
by no means in harmony with an elevated conception of God to represent
him as an earthly monarch, surrounded by his court: and when an appeal
is made, in behalf of the reality of angels standing round the throne,
to the reasonable belief in a graduated scale of created intelligences,
[110] the Jewish representation is not thereby justified, but merely a
modern conception substituted for it. We should, thus, be driven to the
expedient of supposing an accommodation on the part of God: that he
sent a celestial spirit with the command to simulate a rank and title
which did not belong to him, in order that, by this conformity to
Jewish notions, he might insure the belief of the father of the
Baptist. Since however it appears that Zacharias did not believe the
angel, but was first convinced by the result, the accommodation proved
fruitless, and consequently could not have been a divine arrangement.
With regard to the name of the angel, and the improbability that a
celestial being should bear a Hebrew name, it has been remarked that
the word Gabriel, taken appellatively in the sense of Man of God, very
appropriately designates the nature of the heavenly visitant; and since
it may be rendered with this signification into every different
language, the name cannot be said to be restricted to the Hebrew. [111]
This explanation however leaves the difficulty quite unsolved, since it
converts into a simple appellative a name evidently employed as a
proper name. In this case likewise an accommodation must be supposed,
namely, that the angel, in order to indicate his real nature,
appropriated a name which he did not actually bear: an accommodation
already judged in the foregoing remarks.
But it is not only the name and the alleged station of the angel which
shock our modern ideas, we also feel his discourse and his conduct to
be unworthy. Paulus indeed suggests that none but a levitical priest,
and not an angel of Jehovah, could have conceived it necessary that the
boy should live in nazarite abstemiousness, [112] but to this it may be
answered that the angel also might have known that under this form John
would obtain greater influence with the people. But there is a more
important difficulty. When Zacharias, overcome by surprise, doubts the
promise and asks for a sign, this natural incredulity is regarded by
the angel as a crime, and immediately punished with dumbness. Though
some may not coincide with Paulus that a real angel would have lauded
the spirit of inquiry evinced by the priest, yet all will agree in the
remark, that conduct so imperious is less in character with a truly
celestial being than with the notions the Jews of that time entertained
of such. Moreover we do not find in the whole province of
supranaturalism a parallel severity.
The instance, cited by Paulus, of Jehovah’s far milder treatment of
Abraham, who asks precisely the same question unreproved, Gen. xv. 8,
is refuted by Olshausen, because he considers the words of Abraham,
chap. xv. 6, an evidence of his faith; but this observation does not
apply to chap. xviii. 12, where the greater incredulity of Sarah, in a
similar case, remains unpunished; nor to chap. xvii. 17, where Abraham
himself is not even blamed, though the divine promise appears to him so
incredible as to excite laughter. The example of Mary is yet closer,
who (Luke i. 34) in regard to a still greater improbability, but one
which was similarly declared by a special divine messenger to be no
impossibility, puts exactly the same question as Zacharias; so that we
must agree with Paulus that such inconsistency certainly cannot belong
to the conduct of God or of a celestial being, but merely to the Jewish
representation of them. Feeling the objectionableness of the
representation in its existing form, orthodox theologians have invented
various motives to justify this infliction of dumbness. Hess has
attempted to screen it from the reproach of an arbitrary procedure by
regarding it as the only means of keeping secret, even against the will
of the priest, an event, the premature proclamation of which might have
been followed by disastrous consequences, similar to those which
attended the announcement by the wise men of the birth of the child
Jesus. [113] But, in the first place, the angel says nothing of such an
object, he inflicts the dumbness but as a sign and punishment;
secondly, the loss of speech did not hinder Zacharias from
communicating, at any rate to his wife, the main features of the
apparition, since we see that she was acquainted with the destined name
of the child before appeal was made to the father. Thirdly, what end
did it serve thus to render difficult the communication of the
miraculous annunciation of the unborn babe, since no sooner was it born
than it was at once exposed to all the dreaded dangers?—for the
father’s sudden recovery of speech, and the extraordinary scene at the
circumcision excited attention and became noised abroad in all the
country. Olshausen’s view of the thing is more admissible. He regards
the whole proceeding, and especially the dumbness, as a moral training
destined to teach Zacharias to know and conquer his want of faith.
[114] But of this too we have no mention in the text; besides the
unexpected accomplishment of the prediction would have made Zacharias
sufficiently ashamed of his unbelief, if instead of inflicting dumbness
the angel had merely remonstrated with him.
But however worthy of God we might grant the conduct of his messenger
to have been, still many of the present day will find an angelic
apparition, as such, incredible. Bauer insists that wherever angels
appear, both in the New Testament and in the Old, the narrative is
mythical. [115] Even admitting the existence of angels, we cannot
suppose them capable of manifesting themselves to human beings, since
they belong to the invisible world, and spiritual existences are not
cognizable by the organs of sense; so that it is always advisable to
refer their pretended apparitions to the imagination. [116] It is not
probable, it is added, that God should make use of them according to
the popular notion, for these apparitions have no apparent adequate
object, they serve generally only to gratify curiosity, or to encourage
man’s disposition passively to leave his affairs in higher hands. [117]
It is also remarkable that in the old world these celestial beings show
themselves active upon the smallest occasions, whilst in modern times
they remain idle even during the most important occurrences. [118] But
to deny their appearance and agency among men is to call in question
their very being, because it is precisely this occupation which is a
main object of their existence (Heb. i. 14). According to
Schleiermacher [119] we cannot indeed actually disprove the existence
of angels, yet the conception is one which could not have originated in
our time, but belongs wholly to the ancient ideas of the world. The
belief in angels has a twofold root or source: the one the natural
desire of the mind to presuppose a larger amount of intelligence in the
universe than is realized in the human race. We who live in these days
find this desire satisfied in the conviction that other worlds exist
besides our own, and are peopled by intelligent beings; and thus the
first source of the belief in angels is destroyed. The other source,
namely, the representation of God as an earthly monarch surrounded by
his court, contradicts all enlightened conceptions of Deity; and
further, the phenomena in the natural world and the transitions in
human life, which were formerly thought to be wrought by God himself
through ministering angels, we are now able to explain by natural
causes; so that the belief in angels is without a link by which it can
attach itself to rightly apprehended modern ideas; and it exists only
as a lifeless tradition. The result is the same if, with one of the
latest writers on the doctrine of angels, [120] we consider as the
origin of this representation, man’s desire to separate the two sides
of his moral nature, and to contemplate, as beings existing external to
himself, angels and devils. For, the origin of both representations
remains merely subjective, the angel being simply the ideal of created
perfection: which, as it was formed from the subordinate point of view
of a fanciful imagination, disappears from the higher and more
comprehensive observation of the intellect. [121]
Olshausen, on the other hand, seeks to deduce a positive argument in
favour of the reality of the apparition in question, from those very
reasonings of the present day which, in fact, negative the existence of
angels; and he does so by viewing the subject on its speculative side.
He is of opinion that the gospel narrative does not contradict just
views of the world, since God is immanent in the universe and moves it
by his breath. [122] But if it be true that God is immanent in the
world, precisely on that account is the intervention of angels
superfluous. It is only a Deity who dwells apart, throned in heaven,
who requires to send down his angels to fulfil his purposes on earth.
It would excite surprise to find Olshausen arguing thus, did we not
perceive from the manner in which this interpreter constantly treats of
angelology and demonology, that he does not consider angels to be
independent personal entities; but regards them rather as divine
powers, transitory emanations and fulgurations of the Divine Being.
Thus Olshausen’s conception of angels, in their relation to God, seems
to correspond with the Sabellian doctrine of the Trinity; but as his is
not the representation of the Bible, as also the arguments in favour of
the former prove nothing in relation to the latter, it is useless to
enter into further explanation. The reasoning of this same theologian,
that we must not require the ordinariness of every-day life for the
most pregnant epochs in the life of the human race; that the
incarnation of the eternal word was accompanied by extraordinary
manifestations from the world of spirits, uncalled for in times less
rich in momentous results, [123] rests upon a misapprehension. For the
ordinary course of every-day life is interrupted in such moments, by
the very fact that exalted beings like the Baptist are born into the
world, and it would be puerile to designate as ordinary those times and
circumstances which gave birth and maturity to a John, because they
were unembellished by angelic apparitions. That which the spiritual
world does for ours at such periods is to send extraordinary human
intelligences, not to cause angels to ascend and descend.
Finally, if, in vindication of this narrative, it be stated that such
an exhibition by the angel, of the plan of education for the unborn
child, was necessary in order to make him the man he should become,
[124] the assumption includes too much; namely, that all great men, in
order by their education to become such, must have been introduced into
the world in like manner, or cause must be shown why that which was
unnecessary in the case of great men of other ages and countries was
indispensable for the Baptist. Again, the assumption attaches too much
importance to external training, too little to the internal development
of the mind. But in conclusion, many of the circumstances in the life
of the Baptist, instead of serving to confirm a belief in the truth of
the miraculous history, are on the contrary, as has been justly
maintained, altogether irreconcilable with the supposition, that his
birth was attended by these wonderful occurrences. If it were indeed
true, that John was from the first distinctly and miraculously
announced as the forerunner of the Messiah, it is inconceivable that he
should have had no acquaintance with Jesus prior to his baptism; and
that, even subsequent to that event, he should have felt perplexed
concerning his Messiahship (John i. 30; Matt. xi. 2). [125]
Consequently the negative conclusion of the rationalistic criticism and
controversy must, we think, be admitted, namely, that the birth of the
Baptist could not have been preceded and attended by these supernatural
occurrences. The question now arises, what positive view of the matter
is to replace the rejected literal orthodox explanation?
§ 18.
NATURAL EXPLANATION OF THE NARRATIVE.
In treating the narrative before us according to the rationalistic
method, which requires the separation of the pure fact from the opinion
of interested persons, the simplest alteration is this: to retain the
two leading facts, the apparition and the dumbness, as actual external
occurrences; but to account for them in a natural manner. This were
possible with respect to the apparition, by supposing that a man,
mistaken by Zacharias for a divine messenger, really appeared to him,
and addressed to him the words he believed he heard. But this
explanation, viewed in connexion with the attendant circumstances,
being too improbable, it became necessary to go a step further, and to
transform the event from an external to an internal one; to remove the
occurrence out of the physical into the psychological world. To this
view the opinion of Bahrdt, that a flash of lightning was perhaps
mistaken by Zacharias for an angel, [126] forms a transition; since he
attributes the greater part of the scene to Zacharias’s imagination.
But that any man, in an ordinary state of mind, could have created so
long and consecutive a dialogue out of a flash of lightning is
incredible. A peculiar mental state must be supposed; whether it be a
swoon, the effect of fright occasioned by the lightning, [127] but of
this there is no trace in the text (no falling down as in Acts ix. 4);
or, abandoning the notion of the lightning, a dream, which, however,
could scarcely occur whilst burning incense in the temple. Hence, it
has been found necessary, with Paulus, to call to mind that there are
waking visions or ecstasies, in which the imagination confounds
internal images with external occurrences. [128] Such ecstasies, it is
true, are not common; but, says Paulus, in Zacharias’s case many
circumstances combined to produce so unusual a state of mind. The
exciting causes were, firstly, the long-cherished desire to have a
posterity; secondly, the exalted vocation of administering in the Holy
of Holies, offering up with the incense the prayers of the people to
the throne of Jehovah, which seemed to Zacharias to foretoken the
acceptance of his own prayer; and thirdly, perhaps an exhortation from
his wife as he left his house, similar to that of Rachel to Jacob. Gen.
xxx. 1(!) In this highly excited state of mind, as he prays in the
dimly-lighted sanctuary, he thinks of his most ardent wish, and
expecting that now or never his prayer shall be heard, he is prepared
to discern a sign of its acceptance in the slightest occurrence. As the
glimmer of the lamps falls upon the ascending cloud of incense, and
shapes it into varying forms, the priest imagines he perceives the
figure of an angel. The apparition at first alarms him; but he soon
regards it as an assurance from God that his prayer is heard. No sooner
does a transient doubt cross his mind, than the sensitively pious
priest looks upon himself as sinful, believes himself reproved by the
angel, and—here two explanations are possible—either an apoplectic
seizure actually deprives him of speech, which he receives as the just
punishment of his incredulity, till the excessive joy he experiences at
the circumcision of his son restores the power of utterance: so that
the dumbness is retained as an external, physical, though not
miraculous, occurrence; [129] or the proceeding is psychologically
understood, namely, that Zacharias, in accordance with a Jewish
superstition, for a time denied himself the use of the offending
member. [130] Reanimated in other respects by the extraordinary event,
the priest returns home to his wife, and she becomes a second Sarah.
With regard to this account of the angelic apparition given by
Paulus,—and the other explanations are either of essentially similar
character, or are so manifestly untenable, as not to need refutation—it
may be observed that the object so laboriously striven after is not
attained. Paulus fails to free the narrative of the marvellous; for by
his own admission, the majority of men have no experience of the kind
of vision here supposed. [131] If such a state of ecstasy occur in
particular cases, it must result either from a predisposition in the
individual, of which we find no sign in Zacharias, and which his
advanced age must have rendered highly improbable; or it must have been
induced by some peculiar circumstances, which totally fail in the
present instance. [132] A hope which has been long indulged is
inadequate to the production of ecstatic vehemence, and the act of
burning incense is insufficient to cause so extraordinary an
excitement, in a priest who has grown old in the service of the temple.
Thus Paulus has in fact substituted a miracle of chance for a miracle
of God. Should it be said that to God nothing is impossible, or to
chance nothing is impossible, both explanations are equally precarious
and unscientific.
Indeed, the dumbness of Zacharias as explained from this point of view
is very unsatisfactory. For had it been, as according to one
explanation, the result of apoplexy; admitting Paulus’s reference to
Lev. xxi. 16, to be set aside by the contrary remark of Lightfoot,
[133] still, we must join with Schleiermacher in wondering how
Zacharias, notwithstanding this apoplectic seizure, returned home in
other respects healthy and vigorous; [134] and that in spite of partial
paralysis his general strength was unimpaired, and his long-cherished
hope fulfilled. It must also be regarded as a strange coincidence, that
the father’s tongue should have been loosed exactly at the time of the
circumcision; for if the recovery of speech is to be considered as the
effect of joy, [135] surely the father must have been far more elated
at the birth of the earnestly-desired son, than at the circumcision;
for by that time he would have become accustomed to the possession of
his child.
The other explanation: that Zacharias’s silence was not from any
physical impediment, but from a notion, to be psychologically
explained, that he ought not to speak, is in direct contradiction to
the words of Luke. What do all the passages, collected by Paulus to
show that οὐ δύναμαι may signify not only a positive non posse, but
likewise a mere non sustinere, [136] prove against the clear meaning of
the passage and its context? If perhaps the narrative phrase (v. 22),
οὐκ ἠδύνατο λαλῆσαι αὐτοῖς might be forced to bear this sense, yet
certainly in the supposed vision of Zacharias, had the angel only
forbidden him to speak, instead of depriving him of the power of
speech, he would not have said: καὶ ἔσῃ σιωπῶν, μὴ δυνάμενος λαλῆσαι,
but ἴσθι σιωπῶν, μηδ’ ἐπιχειρήσῃς λαλῆσαι. The words διέμενε κωφὸς (v.
21) also most naturally mean actual dumbness. This view assumes, and
indeed necessarily so, that the gospel history is a correct report of
the account given by Zacharias himself; if then it be denied that the
dumbness was actual, as Zacharias affirms that actual dumbness was
announced to him by the angel, it must be admitted that, though
perfectly able to speak, he believed himself to be dumb, which leads to
the conclusion that he was mad: an imputation not to be laid upon the
father of the Baptist without compulsory evidence in the text.
Again, the natural explanation makes too light of the incredibly
accurate fulfilment of a prediction originating, as it supposes, in an
unnatural, over-excited state of mind. In no other province of inquiry
would the realization of a prediction which owed its birth to a vision
be found credible, even by the Rationalist. If Dr. Paulus were to read
that a somnambulist, in a state of ecstasy, had foretold the birth of a
child, under circumstances in the highest degree improbable; and not
only of a child, but of a boy; and had moreover, with accurate
minuteness, predicted his future mode of life, character, and position
in history; and that each particular had been exactly verified by the
result: would he find such a coincidence credible? Most assuredly to no
human being, under any conditions whatsoever, would he concede the
power thus to penetrate the most mysterious workings of nature; on the
contrary he would complain of the outrage on human free-will, which is
annihilated by the admission that a man’s entire intellectual and moral
development may be predetermined like the movements of a clock. And he
would on this very ground complain of the inaccuracy of observation,
and untrustworthiness of the report which represented, as matters of
fact, things in their very nature impossible. Why does he not follow
the same rule with respect to the New Testament narrative? Why admit in
the one case what he rejects in the other? Is biblical history to be
judged by one set of laws, and profane history by another?—An
assumption which the Rationalist is compelled to make, if he admits as
credible in the Gospels that which he rejects as unworthy of credit in
every other history—which is in fact to fall back on the
supranaturalistic point of view, since the assumption, that the natural
laws which govern in every other province are not applicable to sacred
history, is the very essential of supranaturalism.
No other rescue from this self-annihilation remains to the
anti-supernatural mode of explanation, than to question the verbal
accuracy of the history. This is the simplest expedient, felt to be
such by Paulus himself, who remarks, that his efforts may be deemed
superfluous to give a natural explanation of a narrative, which is
nothing more than one of those stories invented either after the death
or even during the lifetime of every distinguished man to embellish his
early history. Paulus, however, after an impartial examination, is of
opinion that the analogy, in the present instance, is not applicable.
The principal ground for this opinion is the too short interval between
the birth of the Baptist, and the composition of the Gospel of Luke.
[137] We, on the contrary, in harmony with the observations in the
introduction, would reverse the question and inquire of this
interpreter, how he would render it credible, that the history of the
birth of a man so famed as the Baptist should have been transmitted, in
an age of great excitement, through a period of more than sixty years,
in all its primitive accuracy of detail? Paulus’s answer is ready: an
answer approved by others (Heidenreich, Olshausen):—the passage
inserted by Luke i. 5; ii. 39 was possibly a family record, which
circulated among the relatives of the Baptist and of Jesus; and of
which Zacharias was probably the author. [138]
K. Ch. L. Schmidt controverts this hypothesis with the remark, that it
is impossible that a narrative so disfigured (we should rather say, so
embellished) could have been a family record; and that, if it does not
belong altogether to the class of legends, its historical basis, if
such there be, is no longer to be distinguished. [139] It is further
maintained, that the narrative presents certain features which no poet
would have conceived, and which prove it to be a direct impression of
facts; for instance, the Messianic expectations expressed by the
different personages introduced by Luke (chap. i. and ii.) correspond
exactly with the situation and relation of each individual. [140] But
these distinctions are by no means so striking as Paulus represents;
they are only the characteristics of a history which goes into details,
making a transition from generalities to particulars, which is natural
alike to the poet and to the popular legend; besides, the peculiar
Judaical phraseology in which the Messianic expectations are expressed,
and which it is contended confirm the opinion that this narrative was
written, or received its fixed form, before the death of Jesus,
continued to be used after that event Acts i. 6 [141]. Moreover we must
agree with Schleiermacher when he says: [142] least of all is it
possible to regard these utterances as strictly historical; or to
maintain that Zacharias, in the moment that he recovered his speech,
employed it in a song of praise, uninterrupted by the exultation and
wonder of the company, sentiments which the narrator interrupts himself
to indulge. It must, at all events, be admitted that the author has
made additions of his own, and has enriched the history by the lyric
effusions of his muse. Kuinöl supposes that Zacharias composed and
wrote down the canticle subsequent to the occasion; but this strange
surmise contradicts the text. There are some other features which, it
is contended, belong not to the creations of the poet; such as, the
signs made to the father, the debate in the family, the position of the
angel on the right hand of the altar. [143] But this criticism is
merely a proof that these interpreters have, or determine to have, no
just conception of poetry or popular legend; for the genuine
characteristic of poetry and mythus is natural and pictorial
representation of details. [144]
§ 19.
MYTHICAL VIEW OF THE NARRATIVE IN ITS DIFFERENT STAGES.
The above exposition of the necessity, and lastly, of the possibility
of doubting the historical fidelity of the gospel narrative, has led
many theologians to explain the account of the birth of the Baptist as
a poetical composition; suggested by the importance attributed by the
Christians to the forerunner of Jesus, and by the recollection of some
of the Old Testament histories, in which the births of Ishmael, Isaac,
Samuel, and especially of Samson, are related to have been similarly
announced. Still the matter was not allowed to be altogether invented.
It may have been historically true that Zacharias and Elizabeth lived
long without offspring; that, on one occasion whilst in the temple, the
old man’s tongue was suddenly paralyzed; but that soon afterwards his
aged wife bore him a son, and he, in his joy at the event, recovered
the power of speech. At that time, but still more when John became a
remarkable man, the history excited attention, and out of it the
existing legend grew. [145]
It is surprising to find an explanation almost identical with the
natural one we have criticised above, again brought forward under a new
title; so that the admission of the possibility of an admixture of
subsequent legends in the narrative has little influence on the view of
the matter itself. As the mode of explanation we are now advocating
denies all confidence in the historical authenticity of the record, all
the details must be in themselves equally problematic; and whether
historical validity can be retained for this or that particular
incident, can be determined only by its being either less improbable
than the rest, or else less in harmony with the spirit, interest, and
design of the poetic legend, so as to make it probable that it had a
distinct origin. The barrenness of Elizabeth and the sudden dumbness of
Zacharias are here retained as incidents of this character: so that
only the appearing and prediction of the angel are given up. But by
taking away the angelic apparition, the sudden infliction and as sudden
removal of the dumbness loses its only adequate supernatural cause, so
that all difficulties which beset the natural interpretation remain in
full force: a dilemma into which these theologians are, most
unnecessarily, brought by their own inconsequence; for the moment we
enter upon mythical ground, all obligation to hold fast the assumed
historical fidelity of the account ceases to exist. Besides, that which
they propose to retain as historical fact, namely, the long barrenness
of the parents of the Baptist, is so strictly in harmony with the
spirit and character of Hebrew legendary poetry, that of this incident
the mythical origin is least to be mistaken. How confused has this
misapprehension made, for example, the reasoning of Bauer! It was a
prevailing opinion, says he, consonant with Jewish ideas, that all
children born of aged parents, who had previously been childless,
became distinguished personages. John was the child of aged parents,
and became a notable preacher of repentance; consequently it was
thought justifiable to infer that his birth was predicted by an angel.
What an illogical conclusion! for which he has no other ground than the
assumption that John was the son of aged parents. Let this be made a
settled point, and the conclusion follows without difficulty. It was
readily believed, he proceeds, of remarkable men that they were born of
aged parents, and that their birth, no longer in the ordinary course of
nature to be expected, was announced by a heavenly messenger [146];
John was a great man and a prophet; consequently, the legend
represented him to have been born of an aged couple, and his birth to
have been proclaimed by an angel.
Seeing that this explanation of the narrative before us, as a half (so
called historical) mythus, is encumbered with all the difficulties of a
half measure, Gabler has treated it as a pure philosophical, or
dogmatical mythus. [147] Horst likewise considers it, and indeed the
entire two first chapters of Luke, of which it forms a part, as an
ingenious fiction, in which the birth of the Messiah, together with
that of his precursor, and the predictions concerning the character and
ministry of the latter, framed after the event, are set forth; it being
precisely the loquacious circumstantiality of the narration which
betrays the poet. [148] Schleiermacher likewise explains the first
chapter as a little poem, similar in character to many of the Jewish
poems which we meet with in their apocrypha. He does not however
consider it altogether a fabrication. It might have had a foundation in
fact, and in a widespread tradition; but the poet has allowed himself
so full a license in arranging, and combining, in moulding and
embodying the vague and fluctuating representations of tradition, that
the attempt to detect the purely historical in such narratives, must
prove a fruitless and useless effort. [149] Horst goes so far as to
suppose the author of the piece to have been a Judaising Christian;
whilst Schleiermacher imagines it to have been composed by a Christian
of the famed Jewish school, at a period when it comprised some who
still continued strict disciples of John; and whom it was the object of
the narrative to bring over to Christianity, by exhibiting the
relationship of John to the Christ as his peculiar and highest destiny;
and also by holding out the expectation of a state of temporal
greatness for the Jewish people at the reappearance of Christ.
An attentive consideration of the Old Testament histories, to which, as
most interpreters admit, the narrative of the annunciation and birth of
the Baptist bears a striking affinity, will render it abundantly
evident that this is the only just view of the passage in question. But
it must not here be imagined, as is now so readily affirmed in the
confutation of the mythical view of this passage, that the author of
our narrative first made a collection from the Old Testament of its
individual traits; much rather had the scattered traits respecting the
late birth of different distinguished men, as recorded in the Old
Testament, blended themselves into a compound image in the mind of
their reader, whence he selected the features most appropriate to his
present subject. Of the children born of aged parents, Isaac is the
most ancient prototype. As it is said of Zacharias and Elizabeth, “they
both were advanced in their days” (v. 7) προβεβηκότες ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις
αὐτῶν, so Abraham and Sarah “were advanced in their days” בָּאִים בַּיָמִים
(Gen. xviii. 11; LXX: προβεβηκότες ἡμερῶν), when they were promised a
son. It is likewise from this history that the incredulity of the
father, on account of the advanced age of both parents, and the demand
of a sign, are borrowed in our narrative. As Abraham, when Jehovah
promises him he shall have a son and a numerous posterity who shall
inherit the land of Canaan, doubtingly inquires, “Whereby shall I know
that I shall inherit it?” κατὰ τί γνώσομαι, ὄτι κληρονομήσω αὐτήν; (sc.
τὴν γῆν. Gen. xv. 8. LXX.): so Zacharias—“Whereby shall I know this?”
κατὰ τί γνώσομαι τοῦτο; (v. 18.) The incredulity of Sarah is not made
use of for Elizabeth; but she is said to be of the daughters of Aaron,
and the name Elizabeth may perhaps have been suggested by that of
Aaron’s wife (Exod. vi. 23. LXX.). The incident of the angel announcing
the birth of the Baptist is taken from the history of another late-born
child, Samson. In our narrative, indeed, the angel appears first to the
father in the temple, whereas in the history of Samson he shows himself
first to the mother, and afterwards to the father in the field. This,
however, is an alteration arising naturally out of the different
situations of the respective parents (Judges xiii.). According to
popular Jewish notions, it was no unusual occurrence for the priest to
be visited by angels and divine apparitions whilst offering incense in
the temple. [150] The command which before his birth predestined the
Baptist—whose later ascetic mode of life was known—to be a Nazarite, is
taken from the same source. As, to Samson’s mother during her
pregnancy, wine, strong drink, and unclean food, were forbidden, so a
similar diet is prescribed for her son, [151] adding, as in the case of
John, that the child shall be consecrated to God from the womb. [152]
The blessings which it is predicted that these two men shall realize
for the people of Israel are similar (comp. Luke i. 16, 17, with Judges
xiii. 5), and each narrative concludes with the same expression
respecting the hopeful growth of the child. [153] It may be too bold to
derive the Levitical descent of the Baptist from a third Old Testament
history of a late-born son—from the history of Samuel (compare 1 Sam.
i. 1; Chron. vii. 27); but the lyric effusions in the first chapter of
Luke are imitations of this history. As Samuel’s mother, when
consigning him to the care of the high priest, breaks forth into a hymn
(1 Sam. ii. 1), so the father of John does the same at the
circumcision; though the particular expressions in the Canticle uttered
by Mary—of which we shall have to speak hereafter—have a closer
resemblance to Hannah’s song of praise than that of Zacharias. The
significant appellation John (יְהוֹחָנָן = Θεόχαρις), predetermined by
the angel, had its precedent in the announcements of the names of
Ishmael and Isaac [154]; but the ground of its selection was the
apparently providential coincidence between the signification of the
name and the historical destination of the man. The remark, that the
name of John was not in the family (v. 61), only brought its celestial
origin more fully into view. The tablet (πινακίδιον) upon which the
father wrote the name (v. 63), was necessary on account of his
incapacity to speak; but it also had its type in the Old Testament.
Isaiah was commanded to write the significant names of the child
Maher-shalal-hash-baz upon a tablet (Isaiah viii. 1 ff.). The only
supernatural incident of the narrative, of which the Old Testament may
seem to offer no precise analogy, is the dumbness; and this is the
point fixed upon by those who contest the mythical view. [155] But if
it be borne in mind that the asking and receiving a sign from heaven in
confirmation of a promise or prophecy was usual among the Hebrews
(comp. Isaiah vii. 11 ff.); that the temporary loss of one of the
senses was the peculiar punishment inflicted after a heavenly vision
(Acts ix. 8, 17 ff.); that Daniel became dumb whilst the angel was
talking with him, and did not recover his speech till the angel had
touched his lips and opened his mouth (Dan. x. 15 f.): the origin of
this incident also will be found in the legend, and not in historical
fact. Of two ordinary and subordinate features of the narrative, the
one, the righteousness of the parents of the Baptist (v. 6), is merely
a conclusion founded upon the belief that to a pious couple alone would
the blessing of such a son be vouchsafed, and consequently is void of
all historical worth; the other, the statement that John was born in
the reign of Herod (the Great) (v. 5), is without doubt a correct
calculation.
So that we stand here upon purely mythical-poetical ground; the only
historical reality which we can hold fast as positive matter of fact
being this:—the impression made by John the Baptist, by virtue of his
ministry and his relation to Jesus, was so powerful as to lead to the
subsequent glorification of his birth in connection with the birth of
the Messiah in the Christian legend. [156]
CHAPTER II.
DAVIDICAL DESCENT OF JESUS, ACCORDING TO THE GENEALOGICAL TABLES OF
MATTHEW AND LUKE.
§ 20.
THE TWO GENEALOGIES OF JESUS CONSIDERED SEPARATELY AND IRRESPECTIVELY
OF ONE ANOTHER.
In the history of the birth of the Baptist, we had the single account
of Luke; but regarding the genealogical descent of Jesus we have also
that of Matthew; so that in this case the mutual control of two
narrators in some respects multiplies, whilst in others it lightens,
our critical labour. It is indeed true that the authenticity of the two
first chapters of Matthew, which contain the history of the birth and
childhood of Jesus, as well as that of the parallel section of Luke,
has been questioned: but as in both cases the question has originated
merely in a prejudiced view of the subject, the doubt has been silenced
by a decisive refutation. [157]
Each of these two Gospels contains a genealogical table designed to
exhibit the Davidical descent of Jesus, the Messiah. That of Matthew
(i. 1–17) precedes, that of Luke (iii. 23–38) follows, the history of
the announcement and birth of Jesus. These two tables, considered each
in itself, or both compared together, afford so important a key to the
character of the evangelic records in this section, as to render a
close examination of them imperative. We shall first consider each
separately, and then each, but particularly that of Matthew, in
comparison with the passages in the Old Testament to which it is
parallel.
In the Genealogy given by the author of the first Gospel, there is a
comparison of the account with itself which is important, as it gives a
result, a sum at its conclusion, whose correctness may be proved by
comparing it with the previous statements. In the summing up it is
said, that from Abraham to Christ there are three divisions of fourteen
generations each, the first from Abraham to David, the second from
David to the Babylonish exile, the third from the exile to Christ. Now
if we compute the number of names for ourselves, we find the first
fourteen from Abraham to David, both included, complete (2–5); also
that from Solomon to Jechonias, after whom the Babylonish exile is
mentioned (6–11); but from Jechonias to Jesus, even reckoning the
latter as one, we can discover only thirteen (12–16). How shall we
explain this discrepancy? The supposition that one of the names has
escaped from the third division by an error of a transcriber, [158] is
in the highest degree improbable, since the deficiency is mentioned so
early as by Porphyry. [159] The insertion, in some manuscripts and
versions, of the name Jehoiakim [160] between Josias and Jechonias,
does not supply the deficiency of the third division; it only adds a
superfluous generation to the second division, which was already
complete. As also there is no doubt that this deficiency originated
with the author of the genealogy, the question arises: in what manner
did he reckon so as to count fourteen generations for his third series?
Truly it is possible to count in various ways, if an arbitrary
inclusion and exclusion of the first and last members of the several
series be permitted. It might indeed have been presupposed, that a
generation already included in one division was necessarily excluded
from another: but the compiler of the genealogy may perhaps have
thought otherwise; and since David is twice mentioned in the table, it
is possible that the author counted him twice: namely, at the end of
the first series, and again at the beginning of the second. This would
not indeed, any more than the insertion of Jehoiakim, fill up the
deficiency in the third division, but give too many to the second; so
that we must, with some commentators, [161] conclude the second series
not with Jechonias, as is usually done, but with his predecessor
Josias: and now, by means of the double enumeration of David,
Jechonias, who was superfluous in the second division, being available
for the third, the last series, including Jesus, has its fourteen
members complete. But it seems very arbitrary to reckon the concluding
member of the first series twice, and not also that of the second: to
avoid which inconsistency some interpreters have proposed to count
Josias twice, as well as David, and thus complete the fourteen members
of the third series without Jesus. But whilst this computation escapes
one blunder, it falls into another; namely, that whereas the expression
ἀπὸ Ἀβραὰμ ἕως Δαβὶδ κ.τ.λ. (v. 17) is supposed to include the latter,
in ἀπὸ μετοικεσίας Βαβυλῶνος ἕως τοῦ Χριστοῦ, the latter is excluded.
This difficulty may be avoided by counting Jechonias twice instead of
Josias, which gives us fourteen names for the third division, including
Jesus; but then, in order not to have too many in the second, we must
drop the double enumeration of David, and thus be liable to the same
charge of inconsistency as in the former case, since the double
enumeration is made between the second and third divisions, and not
between the first and second. Perhaps De Wette has found the right clue
when he remarks, that in v. 17, in both transitions some member of the
series is mentioned twice, but in the first case only that member is a
person (David), and therefore to be twice reckoned. In the second case
it is the Babylonish captivity occurring between Josias and Jechonias,
which latter, since he had reigned only three months in Jerusalem (the
greater part of his life having passed after the carrying away to
Babylon), was mentioned indeed at the conclusion of the second series
for the sake of connexion, but was to be reckoned only at the beginning
of the third. [162]
If we now compare the genealogy of Matthew (still without reference to
that of Luke) with the corresponding passages of the Old Testament, we
shall also find discrepancy, and in this case of a nature exactly the
reverse of the preceding: for as the table considered in itself
required the duplication of one member in order to complete its scheme,
so when compared with the Old Testament, we find that many of the names
there recorded have been omitted, in order that the number fourteen
might not be exceeded. That is to say, the Old Testament affords data
for comparison with this genealogical table as the famed pedigree of
the royal race of David, from Abraham to Zorobabel and his sons; after
whom, the Davidical line begins to retire into obscurity, and from the
silence of the Old Testament the genealogy of Matthew ceases to be
under any control. The series of generations from Abraham to Judah,
Pharez, and Hezron, is sufficiently well known from Genesis; from
Pharez to David we find it in the conclusion of the book of Ruth, and
in the 2nd chapter of the 1st Chronicles; that from David to Zerubbabel
in the 3rd chapter of the same book; besides passages that are parallel
with separate portions of the series.
To complete the comparison: we find the line from Abraham to David,
that is, the whole first division of fourteen in our genealogy, in
exact accordance with the names of men given in the Old Testament:
leaving out however the names of some women, one of which makes a
difficulty. It is said v. 5 that Rahab was the mother of Boaz. Not only
is this without confirmation in the Old Testament, but even if she be
made the great-grandmother of Jesse, the father of David, there are too
few generations between her time and that of David (from about 1450 to
1050 B.C.), that is, counting either Rahab or David as one, four for
400 years. Yet this error falls back upon the Old Testament genealogy
itself, in so far as Jesse’s great-grandfather Salmon, whom Matthew
calls the husband of Rahab, is said Ruth iv. 20, as well as by Matthew,
to be the son of Nahshon, who, according to Numbers i. 7, lived in the
time of the march through the wilderness: [163] from which circumstance
the idea was naturally suggested, to marry his son with that Rahab who
saved the Israelitish spies, and thus to introduce a woman for whom the
Israelites had an especial regard (compare James ii. 25, Heb. xi. 31)
into the lineage of David and the Messiah.
Many discrepancies are found in the second division from David to
Zorobabel and his son, as well as in the beginning of the third.
Firstly, it is said v. 8 Joram begat Ozias; whereas we know from 1
Chron. iii. 11, 12, that Uzziah was not the son, but the grandson of
the son of Joram, and that three kings occur between them, namely,
Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah, after whom comes Uzziah (2 Chron. xxvi. 1,
or as he is called 1 Chron. iii. 12, and 2 Kings xiv. 21, Azariah).
Secondly: our genealogy says v. 11, Josias begat Jechonias and his
brethren. But we find from 1 Chron. iii. 16, that the son and successor
of Josiah was called Jehoiakim, after whom came his son and successor
Jechoniah or Jehoiachin. Moreover brethren are ascribed to Jechoniah,
whereas the Old Testament mentions none. Jehoiakim, however, had
brothers: so that the mention of the brethren of Jechonias in Matthew
appears to have originated in an exchange of these two persons.—A third
discrepancy relates to Zorobabel. He is here called, v. 12, a son of
Salathiel; whilst in 1 Chron. iii. 19, he is descended from Jechoniah,
not through Shealtiel, but through his brother Pedaiah. In Ezra v. 2,
and Haggai i. 1, however, Zerubbabel is designated, as here, the son of
Shealtiel.—In the last place, Abiud, who is here called the son of
Zorobabel, is not to be found amongst the children of Zerubbabel
mentioned 1 Chron. iii. 19 f.: perhaps because Abiud was only a surname
derived from a son of one of those there mentioned. [164]
The second and third of these discrepancies may have crept in without
evil intention, and without any great degree of carelessness, for the
omission of Jehoiakim may have arisen from the similar sound of the
names (יְהוֹיָקִים and יְהוֹיָכִין), which accounts also for the
transposition of the brothers of Jechoniah; whilst respecting Zorobabel
the reference to the Old Testament is partly adverse, partly
favourable. But the first discrepancy we have adduced, namely, the
omission of three known kings, is not so easily to be set aside. It has
indeed been held that the similarity of names may here also have led
the author to pass unintentionally from Joram to Ozias, instead of to
the similar sounding Ahaziah (in the LXX. Ochozias). But this omission
falls in so happily with the author’s design of the threefold fourteen
(admitting the double enumeration of David), that we cannot avoid
believing, with Jerome, that the oversight was made on purpose with a
view to it. [165] From Abraham to David, where the first division
presented itself, having found fourteen members, he seems to have
wished that those of the following divisions should correspond in
number. In the whole remaining series the Babylonish exile offered
itself as the natural point of separation. But as the second division
from David to the exile gave him four supernumerary members, therefore
he omitted four of the names. For what reason these particular four
were chosen would be difficult to determine, at least for the three
last mentioned.
The cause of the compiler’s laying so much stress on the threefold
equal numbers, may have been simply, that by this adoption of the
Oriental custom of division into equal sections, the genealogy might be
more easily committed to memory: [166] but with this motive a mystical
idea was probably combined. The question arises whether this is to be
sought in the number which is thrice repeated, or whether it consists
in the threefold repetition? Fourteen is the double of the sacred
number seven; but it is improbable that it was selected for this
reason, [167] because otherwise the seven would scarcely have been so
completely lost sight of in the fourteen. Still more improbable is the
conjecture of Olshausen, that the number fourteen was specially chosen
as being the numeric value of the name of David; [168] for puerilities
of this kind, appropriate to the rabbinical gematria, are to be found
in no other part of the Gospels. It is more likely that the object of
the genealogists consisted merely in the repetition of an equal number
by retaining the fourteen which had first accidentally presented
itself: since it was a notion of the Jews that signal divine
visitations, whether of prosperity or adversity, recurred at regular
periodical intervals. Thus, as fourteen generations had intervened
between Abraham, the founder of the holy people, and David the king
after God’s own heart, so fourteen generations must intervene between
the re-establishment of the kingdom and the coming of the son of David,
the Messiah. [169] The most ancient genealogies in Genesis exhibit the
very same uniformity. As according to the βὶβλος γενέσεως ἀνθρώπων,
cap. v., from Adam the first, to Noah the second, father of men, were
ten generations: so from Noah, or rather from his son, the tenth is
Abraham the father of the faithful. [170]
This à priori treatment of his subject, this Procrustes-bed upon which
the author of our genealogy now stretches, now curtails it, almost like
a philosopher constructing a system,—can excite no predisposition in
his favour. It is in vain to appeal to the custom of Oriental
genealogists to indulge themselves in similar licence; for when an
author presents us with a pedigree expressly declaring that all the
generations during a space of time were fourteen, whereas, through
accident or intention, many members are wanting,—he betrays an
arbitrariness and want of critical accuracy, which must shake our
confidence in the certainty of his whole genealogy.
The genealogy of Luke, considered separately, does not present so many
defects as that of Matthew. It has no concluding statement of the
number of generations comprised in the genealogy, to act as a check
upon itself, neither can it be tested, to much extent, by a comparison
with the Old Testament. For, from David to Nathan, the line traced by
Luke has no correspondence with any Old Testament genealogy, excepting
in two of its members, Salathiel and Zorobabel; and even with respect
to these two, there is a contradiction between the statement of Luke
and that of 1 Chron. iii. 17, 19 f.: for the former calls Salathiel a
son of Neri, whilst, according to the latter, he was the son of
Jechoniah. Luke also mentions one Resa as the son of Zorobabel, a name
which does not appear amongst the children of Zerubbabel in 1 Chron.
iii. 17, 19. Also, in the series before Abraham, Luke inserts a Cainan,
who is not to be found in the Hebrew text, Gen. x. 24; xi. 12 ff., but
who was however already inserted by the LXX. In fact, the original text
has this name in its first series as the third from Adam, and thence
the translation appears to have transplanted him to the corresponding
place in the second series as the third from Noah.
§ 21.
COMPARISON OF THE TWO GENEALOGIES—ATTEMPT TO RECONCILE THEIR
CONTRADICTIONS.
If we compare the genealogies of Matthew and Luke together, we become
aware of still more striking discrepancies. Some of these differences
indeed are unimportant, as the opposite direction of the two tables,
the line of Matthew descending from Abraham to Jesus, that of Luke
ascending from Jesus to his ancestors. Also the greater extent of the
line of Luke; Matthew deriving it no further than from Abraham, while
Luke (perhaps lengthening some existing document in order to make it
more consonant with the universalism of the doctrines of Paul) [171]
carries it back to Adam and to God himself. More important is the
considerable difference in the number of generations for equal periods,
Luke having 41 between David and Jesus, whilst Matthew has only 26. The
main difficulty, however, lies in this: that in some parts of the
genealogy, in Luke totally different individuals are made the ancestors
of Jesus from those of Matthew. It is true, both writers agree in
deriving the lineage of Jesus through Joseph from David and Abraham,
and that the names of the individual members of the series correspond
from Abraham to David, as well as two of the names in the subsequent
portion; those of Salathiel and Zorobabel. But the difficulty becomes
desperate when we find that, with these two exceptions about midway,
the whole of the names from David to the foster-father of Jesus are
totally different in Matthew and in Luke. In Matthew, the father of
Joseph is called Jacob; in Luke, Heli. In Matthew, the son of David
through whom Joseph descended from that king is Solomon; in Luke,
Nathan: and so on, the line descends, in Matthew, through the race of
known kings; in Luke, through an unknown collateral branch, coinciding
only with respect to Salathiel and Zorobabel, whilst they still differ
in the names of the father of Salathiel and the son of Zorobabel. Since
this difference appears to offer a complete contradiction, the most
industrious efforts have been made at all times to reconcile the two.
Passing in silence explanations evidently unsatisfactory, such as a
mystical signification, [172] or an arbitrary change of names, [173] we
shall consider two pairs of hypotheses which have been most
conspicuous, and are mutually supported, or at least bear affinity to
one another.
The first pair is formed upon the presupposition of Augustine, that
Joseph was an adopted son, and that one evangelist gave the name of his
real, the other that of his adopted, father [174]; and the opinion of
the old chronologist Julius Africanus, that a Levirate marriage had
taken place between the parents of Joseph, and that the one genealogy
belonged to the natural, the other to the legal, father of Joseph, by
the one of whom he was descended from David through Solomon, by the
other through Nathan. [175] The farther question: to which father do
the respective genealogies belong? is open to two species of criticism,
the one founded upon literal expressions, the other upon the spirit and
character of each gospel: and which lead to opposite conclusions.
Augustine as well as Africanus, has observed, that Matthew makes use of
an expression in describing the relationship between Joseph and his
so-called father, which more definitely points out the natural filial
relationship than that of Luke: for the former says Ἰακὼβ ἐγέννησε τὸν
Ἰωσὴφ: whilst the expression of the latter, Ἰωσὴφ τοῦ Ἠλὶ, appears
equally applicable to a son by adoption, or by virtue of a Levirate
marriage. But since the very object of a Levirate marriage was to
maintain the name and race of a deceased childless brother, it was the
Jewish custom to inscribe the first-born son of such a marriage, not on
the family register of his natural father, as Matthew has done here,
but on that of his legal father, as Luke has done on the above
supposition. Now that a person so entirely imbued with Jewish opinions
as the author of the first Gospel, should have made a mistake of this
kind, cannot be held probable. Accordingly, Schleiermacher and others
conceive themselves bound by the spirit of the two Gospels to admit
that Matthew, in spite of his ἐγέννησε, must have given the lineage of
the legal father, according to Jewish custom: whilst Luke, who perhaps
was not born a Jew, and was less familiar with Jewish habits, might
have fallen upon the genealogy of the younger brothers of Joseph, who
were not, like the firstborn, inscribed amongst the family of the
deceased legal father, but with that of their natural father, and might
have taken this for the genealogical table of the first-born Joseph,
whilst it really belonged to him only by natural descent, to which
Jewish genealogists paid no regard. [176] But, besides the fact, which
we shall show hereafter, that the genealogy of Luke can with difficulty
be proved to be the work of the author of that Gospel:—in which case
the little acquaintance of Luke with Jewish customs ceases to afford
any clue to the meaning of this genealogy;—it is also to be objected,
that the genealogist of the first Gospel could not have written his
ἐγέννησε thus without any addition, if he was thinking of a mere legal
paternity. Wherefore these two views of the genealogical relationship
are equally difficult.
However, this hypothesis, which we have hitherto considered only in
general, requires a more detailed examination in order to judge of its
admissibility. In considering the proposition of a Levirate marriage,
the argument is essentially the same if, with Augustine and Africanus,
we ascribe the naming of the natural father to Matthew, or with
Schleiermacher, to Luke. As an example we shall adopt the former
statement: the rather because Eusebius, according to Africanus, has
left us a minute account of it. According to this representation, then,
the mother of Joseph was first married to that person whom Luke calls
the father of Joseph, namely Heli. But since Heli died without
children, by virtue of the Levirate law, his brother, called by Matthew
Jacob the father of Joseph, married the widow, and by her begot Joseph,
who was legally regarded as the son of the deceased Heli, and so
described by Luke, whilst naturally he was the son of his brother
Jacob, and thus described by Matthew.
But, merely thus far, the hypothesis is by no means adequate. For if
the two fathers of Joseph were real brothers, sons of the same father,
they had one and the same lineage, and the two genealogies would have
differed only in the father of Joseph, all the preceding portion being
in agreement. In order to explain how the discordancy extends so far
back as to David, we must have recourse to the second proposition of
Africanus, that the fathers of Joseph were only half-brothers, having
the same mother, but not the same father. We must also suppose that
this mother of the two fathers of Joseph, had twice married; once with
the Matthan of Matthew, who was descended from David through Solomon
and the line of kings, and to whom she bore Jacob; and also, either
before or after, with the Matthat of Luke, the offspring of which
marriage was Heli: which Heli, having married and died childless, his
half-brother Jacob married his widow, and begot for the deceased his
legal child Joseph.
This hypothesis of so complicated a marriage in two successive
generations, to which we are forced by the discrepancy of the two
genealogies, must be acknowledged to be in no way impossible, but still
highly improbable: and the difficulty is doubled by the untoward
agreement already noticed, which occurs midway in the discordant
series, in the two members Salathiel and Zorobabel. For to explain how
Neri in Luke, and Jechonias in Matthew, are both called the father of
Salathiel, who was the father of Zorobabel;—not only must the
supposition of the Levirate marriage be repeated, but also that the two
brothers who successively married the same wife, were brothers only on
the mother’s side. The difficulty is not diminished by the remark, that
any nearest blood-relation, not only a brother, might succeed in a
Levirate marriage,—that is to say, though not obligatory, it was at
least open to his choice (Ruth iii. 12. f., iv. 4 f. [177]). For since
even in the case of two cousins, the concurrence of the two branches
must take place much earlier than here for Jacob and Eli, and for
Jechonias and Neri, we are still obliged to have recourse to the
hypothesis of half-brothers; the only amelioration in this hypothesis
over the other being, that these two very peculiar marriages do not
take place in immediately consecutive generations. Now that this
extraordinary double incident should not only have been twice repeated,
but that the genealogists should twice have made the same selection in
their statements respecting the natural and the legal father, and
without any explanation,—is so improbable, that even the hypothesis of
an adoption, which is burdened with only one-half of these
difficulties, has still more than it can bear. For in the case of
adoption, since no fraternal or other relationship is required, between
the natural and adopting fathers, the recurrence to a twice-repeated
half-brotherhood is dispensed with; leaving only the necessity for
twice supposing a relationship by adoption, and twice the peculiar
circumstance, that the one genealogist from want of acquaintance with
Jewish customs was ignorant of the fact, and the other, although he
took account of it, was silent respecting it.
It has been thought by later critics that the knot may be loosed in a
much easier way, by supposing that in one Gospel we have the genealogy
of Joseph, in the other that of Mary, in which case there would be no
contradiction in the disagreement: [178] to which they are pleased to
add the assumption that Mary was an heiress. [179] The opinion that
Mary was of the race of David as well as Joseph has been long held.
Following indeed the idea, that the Messiah, as a second Melchizedec,
ought to unite in his person the priestly with the kingly dignity,
[180] and guided by the relationship of Mary with Elizabeth, who was a
daughter of Aaron (Luke i. 36); already in early times it was not only
held by many that the races of Judah and Levi were blended in the
family of Joseph; [181] but also the opinion was not rare that Jesus,
deriving his royal lineage from Joseph, descended also from the
priestly race through Mary. [182] The opinion of Mary’s descent from
David, soon however became the more prevailing. Many apocryphal writers
clearly state this opinion, [183] as well as Justin Martyr, whose
expression, that the virgin was of the race of David, Jacob, Isaac, and
Abraham, may be considered an indication that he applied to Mary one of
our genealogies, which are both traced back to Abraham through David.
[184]
On inquiring which of these two genealogies is to be held that of Mary?
we are stopped by an apparently insurmountable obstacle, since each is
distinctly announced as the genealogy of Joseph; the one in the words
Ἰακὼβ ἐγέννησε τὸν Ἰωσὴφ, the other by the phrase υἱὸς Ἰωσὴφ τοῦ Ἠλΐ.
Here also, however, the ἐγέννησε of Matthew is more definite than the
τοῦ of Luke, which according to those interpreters may mean just as
well a son-in-law or grandson; so that the genitive of Luke in iii. 23
was either intended to express that Jesus was in common estimation a
son of Joseph, who was the son-in-law of Heli, the father of Mary
[185]:—or else, that Jesus was, as was believed, a son of Joseph, and
through Mary a grandson of Heli. [186] As it may here be objected, that
the Jews in their genealogies were accustomed to take no account of the
female line, [187] a farther hypothesis is had recourse to, namely,
that Mary was an heiress, i.e. the daughter of a father without sons:
and that in this case, according to Numbers xxxvi. 6, and Nehemiah vii.
63, Jewish custom required that the person who married her should not
only be of the same race with herself, but that he should henceforth
sink his own family in hers, and take her ancestors as his own. But the
first point only is proved by the reference to Numbers; and the passage
in Nehemiah, compared with several similar ones (Ezra ii. 61; Numbers
xxxii. 41; comp. with 1 Chron. ii. 21 f.), shows only that sometimes,
by way of exception, a man took the name of his maternal ancestors.
This difficulty with regard to Jewish customs, however, is cast into
shade by one much more important. Although undeniably the genitive case
used by Luke, expressing simply derivation in a general sense, may
signify any degree of relationship, and consequently that of son-in-law
or grandson; yet this interpretation destroys the consistency of the
whole passage. In the thirty-four preceding members, which are well
known to us from the Old Testament, this genitive demonstrably
indicates throughout the precise relationship of a son; likewise when
it occurs between Salathiel and Zorobabel: how could it be intended in
the one instance of Joseph to indicate that of son-in-law? or,
according to the other interpretation, supposing the nominative υἱὸς to
govern the whole series, how can we suppose it to change its
signification from son to grandson, great-grandson, and so on to the
end? If it be said the phrase Ἀδὰμ τοῦ θεοῦ is a proof that the
genitive does not necessarily indicate a son in the proper sense of the
word, we may reply that it bears a signification with regard to the
immediate Author of existence equally inapplicable to either
father-in-law or grandfather.
A further difficulty is encountered by this explanation of the two
genealogies in common with the former one, in the concurrence of the
two names of Salathiel and Zorobabel. The supposition of a Levirate
marriage is as applicable to this explanation as the other, but the
interpreters we are now examining prefer for the most part to suppose,
that these similar names in the different genealogies belong to
different persons. When Luke however, in the twenty-first and
twenty-second generations from David, gives the very same names that
Matthew (including the four omitted generations), gives in the
nineteenth and twentieth, one of these names being of great notoriety,
it is certainly impossible to doubt that they refer to the same
persons.
Moreover, in no other part of the New Testament is there any trace to
be found of the Davidical descent of Mary: on the contrary, some
passages are directly opposed to it. In Luke i. 27, the expression ἐξ
οἴκου Δαβίδ refers only to the immediately preceding ἀνδρὶ ᾡ ὄνομα
Ἰωσὴφ, not to the more remote παρθένον μεμνηστευμένην. And more pointed
still is the turn of the sentence in Luke ii. 4, ἀνέβη δὲ καὶ Ἰωσὴφ—διὰ
τὸ ἐ͂ναι αὐτὸν ἐξ οἴκου καὶ πατριᾶς Δαβίδ, ἀπογράψασθαι σὺν Μαρία
κ.τ.λ., where αὐτοὺς might so easily have been written instead of
αὐτὸν, if the author had any thought of including Mary in the descent
from David. These expressions fill to overflowing the measure of proof
already adduced, that it is impossible to apply the genealogy of the
third Evangelist to Mary.
§ 22.
THE GENEALOGIES UNHISTORICAL.
A consideration of the insurmountable difficulties, which unavoidably
embarrass every attempt to bring these two genealogies into harmony
with one another, will lead us to despair of reconciling them, and will
incline us to acknowledge, with the more free-thinking class of
critics, that they are mutually contradictory. [188] Consequently they
cannot both be true: if, therefore, one is to be preferred before the
other, several circumstances would seem to decide in favour of the
genealogy of Luke, rather than that of Matthew. It does not exhibit an
arbitrary adherence to a fixed form and to equal periods: and whilst
the ascribing of twenty generations to the space of time from David to
Jechonias or Neri, in Luke, is at least not more offensive to
probability, than the omission of four generations in Matthew to
historical truth; Luke’s allotment of twenty-two generations from the
period from Jechonias (born 617 B.C.) to Jesus, i.e. about 600 years,
forming an average of twenty-seven years and a half to each generation,
is more consonant with natural events, particularly amongst eastern
nations, than the thirteen generations of Matthew, which make an
average of forty-two years for each. Besides the genealogy of Luke is
less liable than that of Matthew to the suspicion of having been
written with a design to glorify Jesus, since it contents itself with
ascribing to Jesus a descent from David, without tracing that descent
through the royal line. On the other hand, however, it is more
improbable that the genealogy of the comparatively insignificant family
of Nathan should have been preserved, than that of the royal branch.
Added to which, the frequent recurrence of the same names is, as justly
remarked by Hoffmann, an indication that the genealogy of Luke is
fictitious.
In fact then neither table has any advantage over the other. If the one
is unhistorical, so also is the other, since it is very improbable that
the genealogy of an obscure family like that of Joseph, extending
through so long a series of generations, should have been preserved
during all the confusion of the exile, and the disturbed period that
followed. Yet, it may be said, although we recognise in both, so far as
they are not copied from the Old Testament, and unrestrained play of
the imagination, or arbitrary applications of other genealogies to
Jesus,—we may still retain as an historical basis that Jesus descended
from David, and that only the intermediate members of the line of
descent were variously filled up by different writers. But the one
event on which this historical basis is mainly supported, namely, the
journey of the parents of Jesus to Bethlehem in order to be taxed, so
far from sufficing to prove them to be of the house and lineage of
David, is itself, as we shall presently show, by no means established
as matter of history. Of more weight is the other ground, namely, that
Jesus is universally represented in the New Testament, without any
contradiction from his adversaries, as the descendant of David. Yet
even the phrase ὑιὸς Δαβὶδ is a predicate that may naturally have been
applied to Jesus, not on historical, but on dogmatical grounds.
According to the prophecies, the Messiah could only spring from David.
When therefore a Galilean, whose lineage was utterly unknown, and of
whom consequently no one could prove that he was not descended from
David, had acquired the reputation of being the Messiah; what more
natural than that tradition should under different forms have early
ascribed to him a Davidical descent, and that genealogical tables,
corresponding with this tradition, should have been formed? which,
however, as they were constructed upon no certain data, would
necessarily exhibit such differences and contradictions as we find
actually existing between the genealogies in Matthew and in Luke. [189]
If, in conclusion, it be asked, what historical result is to be deduced
from these genealogies? we reply: a conviction (arrived at also from
other sources), that Jesus, either in his own person or through his
disciples, acting upon minds strongly imbued with Jewish notions and
expectations, left among his followers so firm a conviction of his
Messiahship, that they did not hesitate to attribute to him the
prophetical characteristic of Davidical descent, and more than one pen
was put in action, in order, by means of a genealogy which should
authenticate that descent, to justify his recognition as the Messiah.
[190]
CHAPTER III.
ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE CONCEPTION OF JESUS.—ITS SUPERNATURAL
CHARACTER.—VISIT OF MARY TO ELIZABETH.
§ 23.
SKETCH OF THE DIFFERENT CANONICAL AND APOCRYPHAL ACCOUNTS.
There is a striking gradation in the different representations of the
conception and birth of Jesus given in the canonical and in the
apocryphal Gospels. They exhibit the various steps, from a simple
statement of a natural occurrence, to a minute and miraculously
embellished history, in which the event is traced back to its very
earliest date. Mark and John presuppose the fact of the birth of Jesus,
and content themselves with the incidental mention of Mary as the
mother (Mark vi. 3), and of Joseph as the father of Jesus (John i. 46).
Matthew and Luke go further back, since they state the particular
circumstances attending the conception as well as the birth of the
Messiah. But of these two evangelists Luke mounts a step higher than
Matthew. According to the latter Mary, the betrothed of Joseph, being
found with child, Joseph is offended, and determines to put her away;
but the angel of the Lord visits him in a dream, and assures him of the
divine origin and exalted destiny of Mary’s offspring; the result of
which is that Joseph takes unto him his wife: but knows her not till
she has brought forth her first-born son. (Matt. i. 18–25.) Here the
pregnancy is discovered in the first place, and then afterwards
justified by the angel; but in Luke the pregnancy is prefaced and
announced by a celestial apparition. The same Gabriel, who had
predicted the birth of John to Zacharias, appears to Mary, the
betrothed of Joseph, and tells her that she shall conceive by the power
of the Holy Ghost; whereupon the destined mother of the Messiah pays a
visit full of holy import to the already pregnant mother of his
forerunner; upon which occasion both Mary and Elizabeth pour forth
their emotions to one another in the form of a hymn (Luke i. 26–56).
Matthew and Luke are content to presuppose the connexion between Mary
and Joseph; but the apocryphal Gospels, the Protevangelium Jacobi, and
the Evangelium de Nativitate Mariae, [191] (books with the contents of
which the Fathers partially agree,) seek to represent the origin of
this connexion; indeed they go back to the birth of Mary, and describe
it to have been preceded, equally with that of the Messiah and the
Baptist, by a divine annunciation. As the description of the birth of
John in Luke is principally borrowed from the Old Testament accounts of
Samuel and of Samson, so this history of the birth of Mary is an
imitation of the history in Luke, and of the Old Testament histories.
Joachim, so says the apocryphal narrative, and Anna (the name of
Samuel’s mother [192]) are unhappy on account of their long childless
marriage (as were the parents of the Baptist); when an angel appears to
them both (so in the history of Samson) at different places, and
promises them a child, who shall be the mother of God, and commands
that this child shall live the life of a Nazarite (like the Baptist).
In early childhood Mary is brought by her parents to the temple (like
Samuel); where she continues till her twelfth year, visited and fed by
angels and honoured by divine visions. Arrived at womanhood she is to
quit the temple, her future provision and destiny being revealed by the
oracle to the high priest. In conformity with the prophecy of Isaiah
xi. 1 f.: egredietur virga de radice Jesse, et flos de radice ejus
ascendet, et requiescet super eum spiritus Domini; this oracle
commanded, according to one Gospel, [193] that all the unmarried men of
the house of David,—according to the other, [194] that all the widowers
among the people,—should bring their rods, and that he on whose rod a
sign should appear (like the rod of Aaron, Numb. xvii.), namely the
sign predicted in the prophecy, should take Mary unto himself. This
sign was manifested upon Joseph’s rod; for, in exact accordance with
the oracle, it put forth a blossom and a dove lighted upon it. [195]
The apocryphal Gospels and the Fathers agree in representing Joseph as
an old man; [196] but the narrative is somewhat differently told in the
two apocryphal Gospels. According to the Evang. de nativ. Mariae,
notwithstanding Mary’s alleged vow of chastity, and the refusal of
Joseph on account of his great age, betrothment took place at the
command of the priest, and subsequently a marriage—(which marriage,
however, the author evidently means to represents also as chaste).
According to the Protevang. Jacobi, on the contrary, neither
betrothment nor marriage are mentioned, but Joseph is regarded merely
as the chosen protector of the young virgin, [197] and Joseph on the
journey to Bethlehem doubts whether he shall describe his charge as his
wife or as his daughter; fearing to bring ridicule upon himself, on
account of his age, if he called her his wife. Again, where in Matthew
Mary is called ἡ γυνὴ of Joseph, the apocryphal Gospel carefully
designates her merely as ἡ παῖς, and even avoids using the term
παραλαβεῖν or substitutes διαφυλάξαι with which many of the Fathers
concur. [198] In the Protevangelium it is further related that Mary,
having been received into Joseph’s house, was charged, together with
other young women, with the fabrication of the veil for the temple, and
that it fell to her lot to spin the true purple.—But whilst Joseph was
absent on business Mary was visited by an angel, and Joseph on his
return found her with child and called her to account, not as a
husband, but as the guardian of her honour. Mary, however, had
forgotten the words of the angel and protested her ignorance of the
cause of her pregnancy. Joseph was perplexed and determined to remove
her secretly from under his protection; but an angel appeared to him in
a dream and reassured him by his explanation. The matter was then
brought before the priest, and both Joseph and Mary being charged with
incontinence were condemned to drink the “bitter water,” [199] ὕδωρ τῆς
ἐλένξεως, but as they remained uninjured by it, they were declared
innocent. Then follows the account of the taxing and of the birth of
Jesus. [200]
Since these apocryphal narratives were for a long period held as
historical by the church, and were explained, equally with those of the
canonical accounts, from the supranaturalistic point of view as
miraculous, they were entitled in modern times to share with the New
Testament histories the benefit of the natural explanation. If, on the
one hand, the belief in the marvellous was so superabundantly strong in
the ancient church, that it reached beyond the limits of the New
Testament even to the embracing of the apocryphal narratives, blinding
the eye to the perception of their manifestly unhistorical character;
so, on the other hand, the positive rationalism of some of the heralds
of the modern modes of explanation was so overstrong that they believed
it adequate to explain even the apocryphal miracles. Of this we have an
example in the author of the natural history of the great prophet of
Nazareth; [201] who does not hesitate to include the stories of the
lineage and early years of Mary within the circle of his
representations, and to give them a natural explanation. If we in our
day, with a perception of the fabulous character of such narratives,
look down alike upon the Fathers of the church and upon these
naturalistic interpreters, we are certainly so far in the right, as it
is only by gross ignorance that this character of the apocryphal
accounts is here to be mistaken; more closely considered, however, the
difference between the apocryphal and the canonical narratives
concerning the early history of the Baptist and of Jesus, is seen to be
merely a difference of form: they have sprung, as we shall hereafter
find, from the same root, though the one is a fresh and healthy sprout,
and the other an artificially nurtured and weak aftergrowth. Still, the
Fathers of the church and these naturalistic interpreters had this
superiority over most of the theologians of our own time; that they did
not allow themselves to be deceived respecting the inherent similarity
by the difference of form, but interpreted the kindred narratives by
the same method; treating both as miraculous or both as natural; and
not, as is now usual, the one as fiction and the other as history.
§ 24.
DISAGREEMENTS OF THE CANONICAL GOSPELS IN RELATION TO THE FORM OF THE
ANNUNCIATION.
After the foregoing general sketch, we now proceed to examine the
external circumstances which, according to our Gospels, attended the
first communication of the future birth of Jesus to Mary and Joseph.
Leaving out of sight, for the present, the special import of the
annunciation, namely, that Jesus should be supernaturally begotten of
the Holy Ghost, we shall, in the first place, consider merely the form
of the announcement; by whom, when, and in what manner it was made.
As the birth of the Baptist was previously announced by an angel, so
the conception of Jesus was, according to the gospel histories,
proclaimed after the same fashion. But whilst, in the one case, we have
but one history of the apparition, that of Luke; in the other we have
two accounts, accounts however which do not correspond, and which we
must now compare. Apart from the essential signification the two
accounts exhibit the following differences. 1. The individual who
appears is called in Matthew by the indefinite appellation, angel of
the Lord, ἄγγελος Κυρίου: in Luke by name, the angel Gabriel, ὁ ἄγγελος
Γαβριὴλ. 2. The person to whom the angel appears is, according to
Matthew, Joseph, according to Luke, Mary. 3. In Matthew the apparition
is seen in a dream, in Luke whilst awake. 4. There is a disagreement in
relation to the time at which the apparition took place: according to
Matthew, Joseph receives the heavenly communication after Mary was
already pregnant: according to Luke it is made to Mary prior to her
pregnancy. 5. Lastly, both the purpose of the apparition and the effect
produced are different; it was designed, according to Matthew, to
comfort Joseph, who was troubled on account of the pregnancy of his
betrothed: according to Luke to prevent, by a previous announcement,
all possibility of offence.
Where the discrepancies are so great and so essential, it may, at first
sight, appear altogether superfluous to inquire whether the two
Evangelists record one and the same occurrence, though with
considerable disagreement; or whether they record distinct occurrences,
so that the two accounts can be blended together, and the one be made
to amplify the other? The first supposition cannot be admitted without
impeaching the historical validity of the narrative; for which reason
most of our theologians, indeed all who see in the narrative a true
history, whether miraculous or natural, have decided in favour of the
second supposition. Maintaining, and justly, that the silence of one
Evangelist concerning an event which is narrated by the other, is not a
negation of the event, [202] they blend the two accounts together in
the following manner: 1, First, the angel makes known to Mary her
approaching pregnancy (Luke); 2, she then journeys to Elizabeth (the
same Gospel); 3, after her return her situation being discovered,
Joseph takes offence (Matthew); whereupon, 4, he likewise is visited by
an angelic apparition (the same Gospel [203]).
But this arrangement of the incidents is, as Schleiermacher has already
remarked, full of difficulty [204]; and it seems that what is related
by one Evangelist is not only not presupposed, but excluded, by the
other. For, in the first place, the conduct of the angel who appears to
Joseph is not easily explained, if the same or another angel had
previously appeared to Mary. The angel (in Matthew) speaks altogether
as if his communication were the first in this affair: he neither
refers to the message previously received by Mary, nor reproaches
Joseph because he had not believed it; but more than all, the informing
Joseph of the name of the expected child, and the giving him a full
detail of the reasons why he should be so called, (Matt. i. 21) would
have been wholly superfluous had the angel (according to Luke i. 34)
already indicated this name to Mary.
Still more incomprehensible is the conduct of the betrothed parties
according to this arrangement of events. Had Mary been visited by an
angel, who had made known to her an approaching supernatural pregnancy,
would not the first impulse of a delicate woman have been, to hasten to
impart to her betrothed the import of the divine message, and by this
means to anticipate the humiliating discovery of her situation, and an
injurious suspicion on the part of her affianced husband. But exactly
this discovery Mary allows Joseph to make from others, and thus excites
suspicions; for it is evident that the expression εὑρέθη ἐν γαστρὶ
ἔχουσα (Matt. i. 18) signifies a discovery made independent of any
communication on Mary’s part, and it is equally clear that in this
manner only does Joseph obtain the knowledge of her situation, since
his conduct is represented as the result of that discovery
(εὑρίσκεσθαι). The apocryphal Protevangelium Jacobi felt how
enigmatical Mary’s conduct must appear, and sought to solve the
difficulty in a manner which, contemplated from the supranaturalistic
point of view, is perhaps the most consistent. Had Mary retained a
recollection of the import of the heavenly message—upon this point the
whole ingenious representation of the apocryphal Gospel rests—she ought
to have imparted it to Joseph; but since it is obvious from Joseph’s
demeanour that she did not acquaint him with it, the only remaining
alternative is, to admit that the mysterious communication made to Mary
had, owing to her excited state of mind, escaped her memory, and that
she was herself ignorant of the true cause of her pregnancy. [205] In
fact, nothing is left to supranaturalism in the present case but to
seek refuge in the miraculous and the incomprehensible. The attempts
which the modern theologians of this class have made to explain Mary’s
silence, and even to find in it an admirable trait in her character,
are so many rash and abortive efforts to make a virtue of necessity.
According to Hess [206] it must have cost Mary much self-denial to have
concealed the communication of the angel from Joseph; and this reserve,
in a matter known only to herself and to God, must be regarded as a
proof of her firm trust in God. Without doubt Mary communed thus with
herself: It is not without a purpose that this apparition has been made
to me alone; had it been intended that Joseph should have participated
in the communication, the angel would have appeared to him also (if
each individual favoured with a divine revelation were of this opinion,
how many special revelations would it not require?); besides it is an
affair of God alone, consequently it becomes me to leave it with him to
convince Joseph (the argument of indolence). Olshausen concurs, and
adds his favourite general remark, that in relation to events so
extraordinary the measure of the ordinary occurrences of the world is
not applicable: a category under which, in this instance, the highly
essential considerations of delicacy and propriety are included.
More in accordance with the views of the natural interpreters, the
Evangelium de nativitate Mariae, [207] and subsequently some later
writers, for example, the author of the Natural History of the Great
Prophet of Nazareth, have sought to explain Mary’s silence, by
supposing Joseph to have been at a distance from the abode of his
affianced bride at the time of the heavenly communication. According to
them Mary was of Nazareth, Joseph of Bethlehem; to which latter place
Joseph departed after the betrothing, and did not return to Mary until
the expiration of three months, when he discovered the pregnancy which
had taken place in the interim. But since the assumption that Mary and
Joseph resided in different localities has no foundation, as will
presently be seen, in the canonical Gospels, the whole explanation
falls to the ground. Without such an assumption, Mary’s silence towards
Joseph might, perhaps, have been accounted for from the point of view
of the naturalistic interpreters, by imagining her to have been held
back through modesty from confessing a situation so liable to excite
suspicion. But one who, like Mary, was so fully convinced of the divine
agency in the matter, and had shown so ready a comprehension of her
mysterious destination (Luke i. 38), could not possibly have been
tongue-tied by petty considerations of false shame.
Consequently, in order to rescue Mary’s character, without bringing
reproach upon Joseph’s, and at the same time to render his unbelief
intelligible, interpreters have been compelled to assume that a
communication, though a tardy one, was actually made by Mary to Joseph.
Like the last-named apocryphal Gospel, they introduce a journey, not of
Joseph, but of Mary—the visit to Elizabeth mentioned in Luke—to account
for the postponement of the communication. It is probable, says Paulus,
that Mary did not open her heart to Joseph before this journey, because
she wished first to consult with her older friend as to the mode of
making the disclosure to him, and whether she, as the mother of the
Messiah, ought to marry.
It was not till after her return, and then most likely through the
medium of others, that she made Joseph acquainted with her situation,
and with the promises she had received. But Joseph’s mind was not
properly attuned and prepared for such a disclosure; he became haunted
by all kinds of thoughts; and vacillated between suspicion and hope
till at length a dream decided him. [208] But in the first place a
motive is here given to Mary’s journey which is foreign to the account
in Luke. Mary sets off to Elizabeth, not to take counsel of her, but to
assure herself regarding the sign appointed by the angel. No uneasiness
which the friend is to dissipate, but a proud joy, unalloyed by the
smallest anxiety, is expressed in her salutation to the future mother
of the Baptist. But besides, a confession so tardily made can in nowise
justify Mary. What behaviour on the part of an affianced bride—after
having received a divine communication, so nearly concerning her future
husband, and in a matter so delicate—to travel miles away, to absent
herself for three months, and then to permit her betrothed to learn
through third persons that which could no longer be concealed!
Those, therefore, who do not impute to Mary a line of conduct which
certainly our Evangelists do not impute to her, must allow that she
imparted the message of the angel to her future husband as soon as it
had been revealed to her; but that he did not believe her. [209] But
now let us see how Joseph’s character is to be dealt with! Even Hess is
of opinion that, since Joseph was acquainted with Mary, he had no cause
to doubt her word, when she told him of the apparition she had had.
This scepticism presupposes a mistrust of his betrothed which is
incompatible with his character as a just man (Matt. i. 19), and an
incredulity respecting the marvellous which is difficult to reconcile
with a readiness on other occasions to believe in angelic apparitions;
nor, in any case, would this want of faith have escaped the censure of
the angel who subsequently appeared to himself.
Since then, to suppose that the two accounts are parallel, and complete
one another, leads unavoidably to results inconsistent with the sense
of the Gospels, in so far as they evidently meant to represent the
characters of Joseph and Mary as free from blemish; the supposition
cannot be admitted, but the accounts mutually exclude each other. An
angel did not appear, first to Mary, and also afterwards to Joseph; he
can only have appeared either to the one or to the other. Consequently,
it is only the one or the other relation which can be regarded as
historical. And here different considerations would conduct to opposite
decisions. The history in Matthew might appear the more probable from
the rationalistic point of view, because it is more easy to interpret
naturally an apparition in a dream; whilst that in Luke might be
preferred by the supranaturalist, because the manner in which the
suspicion cast upon the holy virgin is refuted is more worthy of God.
But in fact, a nearer examination proves, that neither has any
essential claim to be advanced before the other. Both contain an
angelic apparition, and both are therefore encumbered with all the
difficulties which, as was stated above in relation to the annunciation
of the birth of the Baptist, oppose the belief in angels and
apparitions. Again, in both narrations the import of the angelic
message is, as we shall presently see, an impossibility. Thus every
criterion which might determine the adoption of the one, and the
rejection of the other, disappears; and we find ourselves, in reference
to both accounts, driven back by necessity to the mythical view.
From this point of view, all the various explanations, which the
Rationalists have attempted to give of the two apparitions, vanish of
themselves. Paulus explains the apparition in Matthew as a natural
dream, occasioned by Mary’s previous communication of the announcement
which had been made to her; and with which Joseph must have been
acquainted, because this alone can account for his having heard the
same words in his dream, which the angel had beforehand addressed to
Mary: but much rather, is it precisely this similarity in the language
of the presumed second angel to that of the first, with the absence of
all reference by the latter to the former, which proves that the words
of the first angel were not presupposed by the second. Besides, the
natural explanation is annihilated the moment the narratives are shown
to be mythical. The same remark applies to the explanation, expressed
guardedly indeed by Paulus, but openly by the author of the Natural
History of the Great Prophet of Nazareth, namely, that the angel who
visited Mary (in Luke) was a human being; of which we must speak
hereafter.
According to all that has been said, the following is the only judgment
we can form of the origin of the two narratives of the angelic
apparitions. The conception of Jesus through the power of the Holy
Ghost ought not to be grounded upon a mere uncertain suspicion; it must
have been clearly and positively asserted; and to this end a messenger
from heaven was required, since theocratic decorum seemed to demand it
far more in relation to the birth of the Messiah, than of a Samson or a
John. Also the words which the angels use, correspond in part with the
Old Testament annunciations of extraordinary children. [210] The
appearing of the angel in the one narrative beforehand to Mary, but in
the other at a later period to Joseph, is to be regarded as a variation
in the legend or in the composition, which finds an explanatory
counterpart in the history of the annunciation of Isaac. Jehovah (Gen.
xvii. 15) promises Abraham a son by Sarah, upon which the Patriarch
cannot refrain from laughing; but he receives a repetition of the
assurance; Jehovah (Gen. xviii. 1 ff.) makes this promise under the
Terebinth tree at Mamre, and Sarah laughs as if it were something
altogether novel and unheard of by her; lastly, according to Genesis
xxi. 5 ff. it is first after Isaac’s birth that Sarah mentions the
laughing of the people, which is said to have been the occasion of his
name; whereby it appears that this last history does not presuppose the
existence of the two other accounts of the annunciation of the birth of
Isaac. [211] As in relation to the birth of Isaac, different legends or
poems were formed without reference to one another, some simpler, some
more embellished: so we have two discordant narratives concerning the
birth of Jesus. Of these the narrative in Matthew [212] is the simpler
and ruder style of composition, since it does not avoid, though it be
but by a transient suspicion on the part of Joseph, the throwing a
shade over the character of Mary which is only subsequently removed;
that in Luke, on the contrary, is a more refined and artistical
representation, exhibiting Mary from the first in the pure light of a
bride of heaven. [213]
§ 25.
IMPORT OF THE ANGEL’S MESSAGE.—FULFILMENT OF THE PROPHECY OF ISAIAH.
According to Luke, the angel who appears to Mary, in the first place
informs her only that she shall become pregnant, without specifying
after what manner: that she shall bring forth a son and call his name
Jesus; He shall be great, and shall he called the Son of the Highest
(υἱὸς ὑψίστου); and God shall give unto him the throne of his father
David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever. The
subject, the Messiah is here treated precisely in the language common
to the Jews, and even the term Son of the Highest, if nothing further
followed, must be taken in the same sense; as according to 2 Sam. vii.
14, Ps. ii. 7 an ordinary king of Israel might be so named; still more,
therefore, the greatest of these kings, the Messiah, even considered
merely as a man. This Jewish language reflects in addition a new light
upon the question of the historic validity of the angelic apparition;
for we must agree with Schleiermacher that the real angel Gabriel would
hardly have proclaimed the advent of the Messiah in a phraseology so
strictly Jewish: [214] for which reason we are inclined to coincide
with this theologian, and to ascribe this particular portion of the
history, as also that which precedes and relates to the Baptist, to one
and the same Jewish-christian author. It is not till Mary opposes the
fact of her virginity to the promises of a son, that the angel defines
the nature of the conception: that it shall be by the Holy Ghost, by
the power of the Highest; after which the appellation υἱὸς θεοῦ
receives a more precise metaphysical sense. As a confirmatory sign that
a matter of this kind is nowise impossible to God, Mary is referred to
that which had occurred to her relative Elizabeth; whereupon she
resigns herself in faith to the divine determination respecting her.
In Matthew, where the main point is to dissipate Joseph’s anxiety, the
angel begins at once with the communication, that the child conceived
by Mary is (as the Evangelist had already stated of his own accord,
chap. i. 18), of the Holy Ghost (πνεῦμα ἅγιον); and hereupon the
Messianic destination of Jesus is first pointed out by the expression,
He shall save his people from their sins. This language may seem to
sound less Jewish than that by which the Messianic station of the child
who should be born, is set forth in Luke; it is however to be observed,
that under the term sins (ἁμαρτίαις) is comprehended the punishment of
those sins, namely, the subjection of the people to a foreign yoke; so
that here also the Jewish element is not wanting; as neither in Luke,
on the other hand, is the higher destination of the Messiah left wholly
out of sight, since under the term to reign, βασιλεύειν, the rule over
an obedient and regenerated people is included. Next is subjoined by
the angel, or more probably by the narrator, an oracle from the Old
Testament, introduced by the often recurring phrase, all this was done,
that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet
[v. 22]. It is the prophecy from Isaiah (chap. vii. 14) which the
conception of Jesus after this manner should accomplish: namely, a
virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall
call His name Emmanuel—God-with-us.
The original sense of this passage in Isaiah is, according to modern
research, [215] this. The prophet is desirous of giving Ahaz, who,
through fear of the kings of Syria and Israel, was disposed to make a
treaty with Assyria, a lively assurance of the speedy destruction of
his much dreaded enemies; and he therefore says to him: suppose that an
unmarried woman now on the point of becoming a wife [216] shall
conceive; or categorically: a certain young woman is, or is about to be
with child (perhaps the prophet’s own wife); now, before this child is
born, the political aspect of affairs shall be so much improved, that a
name of good omen shall be given to the child; and before he shall be
old enough to use his reason, the power of these enemies shall be
completely annihilated. That is to say, prosaically expressed: before
nine months shall have passed away, the condition of the kingdom shall
be amended, and within about three years the danger shall have
disappeared. Thus much, at all events, is demonstrated by modern
criticism, that, under the circumstances stated by Isaiah in the
introduction to the oracle, it is only a sign having reference to the
actual moment and the near future, which could have any meaning. How
ill chosen, according to Hengstenberg’s [217] interpretation, is the
prophet’s language: As certainly as the day shall arrive when, in
fulfilment of the covenant, the Messiah shall be born, so impossible is
it that the people among whom he shall arise, or the family whence he
shall spring, shall pass away. How ill-judged, on the part of the
prophet, to endeavour to make the improbability of a speedy deliverance
appear less improbable, by an appeal to a yet greater improbability in
the far distant future!—And then the given limit of a few years! The
overthrow of the two kingdoms, such is Hengstenberg’s explanation,
shall take place—not in the immediately succeeding years, before the
child specified shall have acquired the use of his reason, but—within
such a space of time, as in the far future will elapse between the
birth of the Messiah and the first development of his mental powers;
therefore in about three years. What a monstrous confounding of times!
A child is to be born in the distant future, and that which shall
happen before this child shall know how to use his reason, is to take
place in the nearest present time.
Thus Paulus and his party are decidedly right in opposing to
Hengstenberg and his party, that the prophecy of Isaiah has relation,
in its original local signification, to the then existing
circumstances, and not to the future Messiah, still less to Jesus.
Hengstenberg, on the other hand, is equally in the right, when in
opposition to Paulus he maintains, that the passage from Isaiah is
adopted by Matthew as a prophecy of the birth of Jesus of a virgin.
Whilst the orthodox commentators explain the often recurring that it
might be fulfilled (ἵνα πληρωθη), and similar expressions as
signifying: this happened by divine arrangement, in order that the Old
Testament prophecy, which in its very origin had reference to the New
Testament occurrence, might be fulfilled;—the rationalistic
interpreters, on the contrary, understand merely: this took place after
such a manner, that it was so constituted, that the Old Testament
words, which, originally indeed, had relation to something different,
should admit of being so applied; and in such application alone do they
receive their full verification. In the first explanation, the relation
between the Old Testament passage and the New Testament occurrence is
objective, arranged by God himself: in the last it is only subjective,
a relation perceived by the later author; according to the former it is
a relationship at once precise and essential: according to the latter
both inexact and adventitious. But opposed to this latter
interpretation of New Testament passages, which point out an Old
Testament prophecy as fulfilled, is the language, and equally so the
spirit of the New Testament writers. The language: for neither can
πληροῦσθαι signify in such connexion anything than ratum fieri, eventu
comprobari, nor ἵνα ὅπως anything than eo consilio ut, whilst the
extensive adoption of ἵνα ἐκβατικὸν has arisen only from dogmatic
perplexity. [218] But such an interpretation is altogether at variance
with the Judaical spirit of the authors of the Gospels. Paulus
maintains that the Orientalist does not seriously believe that the
ancient prophecy was designedly spoken, or was accomplished by God,
precisely in order that it should prefigure a modern event, and vice
versa; but this is to carry over our sober European modes of thought
into the imaginative life of the Orientals. When however Paulus adds:
much rather did the coincidence of a later event with an earlier
prophecy assume only the form of a designed coincidence in the mind of
the Oriental: he thus, at once, annuls his previous assertion; for this
is to admit, that, what in our view is mere coincidence, appeared to
the oriental mind the result of design; and we must acknowledge this to
be the meaning of an oriental representation, if we would interpret it
according to its original signification. It is well known that the
later Jews found prophecies, of the time being and of the future,
everywhere in the Old Testament; and that they constructed a complete
image of the future Messiah, out of various, and in part falsely
interpreted Old Testament passages. [219] And the Jew believed he saw
in the application he gave to the Scripture, however perverted it might
be, an actual fulfilment of the prophecy. In the words of Olshausen: it
is a mere dogmatic prejudice to attribute to this formula, when used by
the New Testament writers, an altogether different sense from that
which it habitually bears among their countrymen; and this solely with
the view to acquit them of the sin of falsely interpreting the
Scripture.
Many theologians of the present day are sufficiently impartial to
admit, with regard to the Old Testament, in opposition to the ancient
orthodox interpretation, that many of the prophecies originally
referred to near events; but they are not sufficiently rash, with
regard to the New Testament, to side with the rationalistic
commentators, and to deny the decidedly Messianic application which the
New Testament writers make of these prophecies; they are still too
prejudiced to allow, that here and there the New Testament has falsely
interpreted the Old. Consequently, they have recourse to the expedient
of distinguishing a double sense in the prophecy; the one relating to a
near and minor occurrence, the other to a future and more important
event; and thus they neither offend against the plain grammatical and
historical sense of the Old Testament passage on the one hand, nor
distort or deny the signification of the New Testament passage on the
other. [220] Thus, in the prophecy of Isaiah under consideration, the
spirit of prophecy, they contend, had a double intention: to announce a
near occurrence, the delivery of the affianced bride of the prophet,
and also a distinct event in the far distant future, namely the birth
of the Messiah of a virgin. But a double sense so monstrous owes its
origin to dogmatic perplexity alone. It has been adopted, as Olshausen
himself remarks, in order to avoid the offensive admission that the New
Testament writers, and Jesus himself, did not interpret the Old
Testament rightly, or, more properly speaking, according to modern
principles of exegesis, but explained it after the manner of their own
age, which was not the most correct. But so little does this offence
exist for the unprejudiced, that the reverse would be the greater
difficulty, that is, if, contrary to all the laws of historical and
national development, the New Testament writers had elevated themselves
completely above the modes of interpretation common to their age and
nation. Consequently, with regard to the prophecies brought forward in
the New Testament, we may admit, according to circumstances, without
further argument, that they are frequently interpreted and applied by
the evangelists, in a sense which is totally different from that they
originally bore.
We have here in fact a complete table of all the four possible views on
this point: two extreme and two conciliatory; one false and one, it is
to be hoped, correct.
1. Orthodox view (Hengstenberg and others): Such Old Testament passages
had in their very origin an exclusive prophetic reference to Christ,
for the New Testament writers so understand them; and they must be in
the right even should human reason be confounded.
2. Rationalistic view (Paulus and others): The New Testament writers do
not assign a strictly Messianic sense to the Old Testament prophecies,
for this reference to Christ is foreign to the original signification
of these prophecies viewed by the light of reason; and the New
Testament writings must accord with reason, whatever ancient beliefs
may say to the contrary.
3. Mystical conciliatory view (Olshausen and others): The Old Testament
passages originally embody both the deeper signification ascribed to
them by the New Testament writers, and that more proximate meaning
which common sense obliges us to recognize: thus sound reason and the
ancient faith are reconcilable.
4. Decision of criticism: Very many of the Old Testament prophecies
had, originally, only an immediate reference to events belonging to the
time: but they came to be regarded by the men of the New Testament as
actual predictions of Jesus as the Messiah, because the intelligence of
these men was limited by the manner of thinking of their nation, a fact
recognized neither by Rationalism nor the ancient faith. [221]
Accordingly we shall not hesitate for a moment to allow, in relation to
the prophecy in question, that the reference to Jesus is obtruded upon
it by the Evangelists. Whether the actual birth of Jesus of a virgin
gave rise to this application of the prophecy, or whether this
prophecy, interpreted beforehand as referring to the Messiah,
originated the belief that Jesus was born of a virgin, remains to be
determined.
§ 26.
JESUS BEGOTTEN OF THE HOLY GHOST. CRITICISM OF THE ORTHODOX OPINION.
The statement of Matthew and of Luke concerning the mode of Jesus’s
conception has, in every age, received the following interpretation by
the church; that Jesus was conceived in Mary not by a human father, but
by the Holy Ghost. And truly the gospel expressions seem, at first
sight, to justify this interpretation; since the words πρὶν ἢ συνελθεῖν
αὐτοὺς (Matt. i. 18) and ἐπεὶ ἄνδρα οὐ γινώσκω (Luke i. 34) preclude
the participation of Joseph or any other man in the conception of the
child in question. Nevertheless the terms πνεῦμα ἅγιον and δύναμις
ὑψίστου do not represent the Holy Ghost in the sense of the church, as
the third person in the Godhead, but rather the רוּחַ אֱלֹהִים, Spiritus
Dei as used in the Old Testament: God in his agency upon the world, and
especially upon man. In short the words ἐν γαστρὶ ἔχουσα ἐκ πνεύματος
ἁγίου in Matthew, and πνεῦμα ἅγιον ἐπελεύσεται ἐπὶ σὲ κ.τ.λ. in Luke,
express with sufficient clearness that the absence of human agency was
supplied—not physically after the manner of heathen representations—but
by the divine creative energy.
Though this seems to be the representation intended by the evangelists
in the passages referred to concerning the origin of the life of Jesus,
still it cannot be completed without considerable difficulties. We may
separate what we may term the physico-theological from the
historical-exegetical difficulties.
The physiological difficulties amount to this, that such a conception
would be a most remarkable deviation from all natural laws. However
obscure the physiology of the fact, it is proved by an exceptionless
experience that only by the concurrence of the two sexes is a new human
being generated; on which account Plutarch’s remark, “παιδίον οὐδεμία
ποτὲ γυνὴ λέγεται ποιῆσαι δίχα κοινωνίας ἀνδρὸς,” [222] and Cerinthus’s
“impossible” become applicable. [223] It is only among the lowest
species of the animal kingdom that generation takes place without the
union of sexes; [224] so that, regarding the matter purely
physiologically, what Origen says, in the supranaturalistic sense,
would indeed be true of a man of the like origin; namely, that the
words in Psalm xxii. 7, I am a worm and no man is a prophecy of Jesus
in the above respect. [225] But to the merely physical consideration a
theological one is subjoined by the angel (Luke i. 37), when he appeals
to the divine omnipotence to which nothing is impossible. But since the
divine omnipotence, by virtue of its unity with divine wisdom, is never
exerted in the absence of an adequate motive, the existence of such, in
the present instance, must be demonstrated. But nothing less than an
object worthy of the Deity, and at the same time necessarily
unattainable except by a deviation from the ordinary course of nature,
could constitute a sufficient cause for the suspension by God of a
natural law which he had established. Only here, it is said, the end,
the redemption of mankind, required impeccability on the part of Jesus;
and in order to render him exempt from sin, a divinely wrought
conception, which excluded the participation of a sinful father, and
severed Jesus from all connexion with original sin, was necessary.
[226] To which it has been answered by others, [227] (and
Schleiermacher has recently most decisively argued this side of the
question, [228]) that the exclusion of the paternal participation is
insufficient, unless, indeed, the inheritance of original sin, on the
maternal side, be obviated by the adoption of the Valentinian
assertion, that Jesus only passed through the body of Mary. But that
the gospel histories represent an actual maternal participation is
undeniable; consequently a divine intervention which should sanctify
the participation of the sinful human mother in the conception of Jesus
must be supposed in order to maintain his assumed necessary
impeccability. But if God determined on such a purification of the
maternal participation, it had been easier to do the same with respect
to that of the father, than by his total exclusion, to violate the
natural law in so unprecedented a manner; and consequently, a
fatherless conception cannot be insisted upon as the necessary means of
compassing the impeccability of Jesus.
Even he who thinks to escape the difficulties already specified, by
enveloping himself in a supranaturalism, inaccessible to arguments
based on reason or the laws of nature, must nevertheless admit the
force of the exegetical-historical difficulties meeting him upon his
own ground, which likewise beset the view of the supernatural
conception of Jesus. Nowhere in the New Testament is such an origin
ascribed to Jesus, or even distinctly alluded to, except in these two
accounts of his infancy in Matthew and in Luke. [229] The history of
the conception is omitted not only by Mark, but also by John, the
supposed author of the fourth Gospel and an alleged inmate with the
mother of Jesus subsequent to his death, who therefore would have been
the most accurately informed concerning these occurrences. It is said
that John sought rather to record the heavenly than the earthly origin
of Jesus; but the question arises, whether the doctrine which he sets
forth in his prologue, of a divine hypostasis actually becoming flesh
and remaining immanent in Jesus, is reconcilable with the view given in
the passages before us, of a simple divine operation determining the
conception of Jesus; whether therefore John could have presupposed the
history of the conception contained in Matthew and Luke? This
objection, however, loses its conclusive force if in the progress of
our investigation the apostolic origin of the fourth Gospel is not
established. The most important consideration therefore is, that no
retrospective allusion to this mode of conception occurs throughout the
four Gospels; not only neither in John nor in Mark, but also neither in
Matthew nor in Luke. Not only does Mary herself designate Joseph simply
as the father of Jesus (Luke ii. 48), and the Evangelist speak of both
as his parents, γονεῖς (Luke ii. 41),—an appellation which could only
have been used in an ulterior sense by one who had just related the
miraculous conception,—but all his contemporaries in general, according
to our Evangelists, regarded him as a son of Joseph, a fact which was
not unfrequently alluded to contemptuously and by way of reproach in
his presence (Matt. xiii. 55; Luke iv. 22; John vi. 42), thus affording
him an opportunity of making a decisive appeal to his miraculous
conception, of which, however, he says not a single word. Should it be
answered, that he did not desire to convince respecting the divinity of
his person by this external evidence, and that he could have no hope of
making an impression by such means on those who were in heart his
opponents,—it must also be remembered, that, according to the testimony
of the fourth Gospel, his own disciples, though they admitted him to be
the son of God, still regarded him as the actual son of Joseph. Philip
introduces Jesus to Nathanael as the son of Joseph, Ἰησοῦν τὸν υἱὸν
Ἰωσὴφ (John i. 46), manifestly in the same sense of real paternity
which the Jews attached to the designation; and nowhere is this
represented as an erroneous or imperfect notion which these Apostles
had subsequently to relinquish; much rather does the whole sense of the
narrative, which is not to be mistaken, exhibit the Apostles as having
a right belief on this point. The enigmatical presupposition, with
which, at the marriage in Cana, Mary addressed herself to Jesus, [230]
is far too vague to prove a recollection of his miraculous conception
on the part of the mother; at all events this feature is
counterbalanced by the opposing one that the family of Jesus, and, as
appears from Matt. xii. 46 ff. compared with Mark iii. 21 ff., his
mother also were, at a later time, in error respecting his aims; which
is scarcely explicable, even of his brothers, supposing them to have
had such recollections.
Just as little as in the Gospels, is anything in confirmation of the
view of the supernatural conception of Jesus, to be found in the
remaining New Testament writings. For when the Apostle Paul speaks of
Jesus as made of a woman, γενόμενον ἐκ γυναικὸς (Gal. iv. 4), this
expression is not to be understood as an exclusion of paternal
participation; since the addition made under the law, γενόμενον ὑπὸ
νόμον, clearly shows that he would here indicate (in the form which is
frequent in the Old and New Testament, for example Job xiv. 1; Matt.
xi. 11) human nature with all its conditions. When Paul (Rom. i. 3, 4
compared with ix. 5) makes Christ according to the flesh, κατὰ σάρκα,
descend from David, but declares him to be the son of God according to
the Spirit of Holiness, κατὰ πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης; no one will here
identify the antithesis flesh and spirit with the maternal human
participation, and the divine energy superseding the paternal
participation in the conception of Jesus. Finally when in the Epistle
to the Hebrews (vii. 3) Melchisedec is compared with the son of God,
υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ, because without father, ἀπάτωρ, the application of the
literally interpreted ἀπάτωρ to Jesus, as he appeared upon earth, is
forbidden by the addition without mother, ἀμήτωρ, which agrees as
little with him as the immediately following without descent,
ἀγενεαλόγητος.
§ 27.
RETROSPECT OF THE GENEALOGIES.
The most conclusive exegetical ground of decision against the
supernatural conception of Jesus, which bears more closely on the point
than all the hitherto adduced passages, is found in the two genealogies
previously considered. Even the Manichæan Faustus asserted that it is
impossible without contradiction to trace the descent of Jesus from
David through Joseph, as is done by our two genealogists, and yet
assume that Joseph was not the father of Jesus; and Augustine had
nothing convincing to answer when he remarked that it was necessary, on
account of the superior dignity of the masculine gender, to carry the
genealogy of Jesus through Joseph, who was Mary’s husband if not by a
natural by a spiritual alliance. [231] In modern times also the
construction of the genealogical tables in Matthew and in Luke has led
many theologians to observe, that these authors considered Jesus as the
actual son of Joseph. [232] The very design of these tables is to prove
Jesus to be of the lineage of David through Joseph; but what do they
prove, if indeed Joseph was not the father of Jesus? The assertion that
Jesus was the son of David, ὑὸς Δαβὶδ, which in Matthew (i. 1) prefaces
the genealogy and announces its object, is altogether annulled by the
subsequent denial of his conception by means of the Davidical Joseph.
It is impossible, therefore, to think it probable that the genealogy
and the history of the birth of Jesus emanate from the same author
[233]; and we must concur with the theologians previously cited, that
the genealogies are taken from a different source. Scarcely could it
satisfy to oppose the remark, that as Joseph doubtlessly adopted Jesus,
the genealogical table of the former became fully valid for the latter.
For adoption might indeed suffice to secure to the adopted son the
reversion of certain external family rights and inheritances; but such
a relationship could in no wise lend a claim to the Messianic dignity,
which was attached to the true blood and lineage of David. He,
therefore, who had regarded Joseph as nothing more than the adopted
father of Jesus, would hardly have given himself the trouble to seek
out the Davidical descent of Joseph; but if indeed, besides the
established belief that Jesus was the son of God, it still remained
important to represent him as the son of David, the pedigree of Mary
would have been preferred for this purpose; for, however contrary to
custom, the maternal genealogy must have been admitted in a case where
a human father did not exist. Least of all is it to be believed, that
several authors would have engaged in the compilation of a genealogical
table for Jesus which traced his descent through Joseph, so that two
different genealogies of this kind are still preserved to us, if a
closer relationship between Jesus and Joseph had not been admitted at
the time of their composition.
Consequently, the decision of the learned theologians who agree that
these genealogies were composed in the belief that Jesus was the actual
son of Joseph and Mary, can hardly be disputed; but the authors or
compilers of our Gospels, notwithstanding their own conviction of the
divine origin of Jesus, received them among their materials; only that
Matthew (i. 16) changed the original Joseph begat Jesus of Mary—Ἰωσὴφ
δὲ ἐγέννησε τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἐκ της Μαρίας (comp. verses 3. 5. 6) according
to his own view; and so likewise Luke (iii. 23) instead of commencing
his genealogy simply with, Jesus—the son of Joseph—Ἰησοῦς υἱὸς Ἰωσὴφ,
inserts being as was supposed, ὢν, ὡς ἐνομίζετο κ.τ.λ.
Let it not be objected that the view for which we contend, namely, that
the genealogies could not have been composed under the notion that
Joseph was not the father of Jesus, leaves no conceivable motive for
incorporating them into our present Gospels. The original construction
of a genealogy of Jesus, even though in the case before us it consisted
simply in the adapting of foreign already existing genealogical tables
to Jesus, required a powerful and direct inducement; this was the hope
thereby to gain—the corporeal descent of Jesus from Joseph being
presupposed—a main support to the belief in his Messiahship; whilst, on
the other hand, a less powerful inducement was sufficient to incite to
the admission of the previously constructed genealogies: the
expectation that, notwithstanding the non-existence of any real
relationship between Joseph and Jesus, they might nevertheless serve to
link Jesus to David. Thus we find, that in the histories of the birth
both in Matthew and in Luke, though they each decidedly exclude Joseph
from the conception, great stress is laid upon the Davidical descent of
Joseph (Matt. i. 20, Luke i. 27, ii. 4); that which in fact had no real
significance, except in connexion with the earlier opinion, is retained
even after the point of view is changed.
Since, in this way, we discover both the genealogies to be memorials
belonging to the time and circle of the primitive church, in which
Jesus was still regarded as a naturally begotten man, the sect of the
Ebionites cannot fail to occur to us; as we are told concerning them,
that they held this view of the person of Christ at this early period.
[234] We should therefore have expected, more especially, to have found
these genealogies in the old Ebionitish Gospels, of which we have still
knowledge, and are not a little surprised to learn that precisely in
these Gospels the genealogies were wanting. It is true Epiphanius
states that the Gospel of the Ebionites commenced with the public
appearance of the Baptist [235]; accordingly, by the genealogies,
γενεαλογίαις, which they are said to have cut away, might have been
meant, those histories of the birth and infancy comprised in the two
first chapters of Matthew; which they could not have adopted in their
present form, since they contained the fatherless conception of Jesus,
which was denied by the Ebionites: and it might also have been
conjectured that this section which was in opposition to their system
had alone perhaps been wanting in their Gospel; and that the genealogy
which was in harmony with their view might nevertheless have been
somewhere inserted. But this supposition vanishes as soon as we find
that Epiphanius, in reference to the Nazarenes, defines the
genealogies, (of which he is ignorant whether they possessed them or
not,) as reaching from Abraham to Christ, τὰς ἀπὸ τοῦ Ἀβραὰμ ἕως
Χριστοῦ [236]; consequently, by the genealogies which were wanting to
some heretics, he evidently understood the genealogical tables, though,
in relation to the Ebionites, he might likewise have included under
this expression the history of the birth.
How is the strange phenomenon, that these genealogies are not found
among that very sect of Christians who retained the particular opinion
upon which they were constructed, to be explained? A modern
investigator has advanced the supposition, that the Jewish-christians
omitted the genealogical tables from prudential motives, in order not
to facilitate or augment the persecution which, under Domitian, and
perhaps even earlier, threatened the family of David. [237] But
explanations, having no inherent connexion with the subject, derived
from circumstances in themselves of doubtful historical validity, are
admissible only as a last refuge, when no possible solution of the
questionable phenomenon is to be found in the thing itself, as here in
the principles of the Ebionitish system.
But in this case the matter is by no means so difficult. It is known
that the Fathers speak of two classes of Ebionites, of which the one,
besides strenuously maintaining the obligation of the Mosaic law, held
Jesus to be the naturally begotten Son of Joseph and Mary; the other,
from that time called also Nazarenes, admitted with the orthodox church
the conception by the Holy Ghost. [238] But besides this distinction
there existed yet another. The most ancient ecclesiastic writers,
Justin Martyr and Irenæus for example, are acquainted with those
Ebionites only, who regarded Jesus as a naturally born man first
endowed with divine powers at his baptism. [239] In Epiphanius and the
Clementine Homilies, on the other hand, we meet with Ebionites who had
imbibed an element of speculative Gnosticism. This tendency, which
according to Epiphanius is to be dated from one Elxai, has been
ascribed to Essenic influence, [240] and traces of the same have been
discovered in the heresies referred to in the Epistle to the
Colossians; whereas the first class of Ebionites evidently proceeded
from common Judaism. Which form of opinion was the earlier and which
the later developed is not so easily determined; with reference to the
last detailed difference, it might seem, since the speculative
Ebionites are mentioned first by the Clementines and Epiphanius, whilst
Ebionites holding a simpler view are spoken of by Justin and by
Irenæus, that the latter were the earlier; nevertheless as Tertullian
already notices in his time the Gnosticising tendency of the opinions
of the Ebionites respecting Christ [241], and as the germ of such views
existed among the Essenes in the time of Jesus, the more probable
assumption is, that both opinions arose side by side about the same
period. [242] As little can it be proved with regard to the other
difference, that the views concerning Christ held by the Nazarenes
became first, at a later period, lowered to those of the Ebionites
[243]; since the notices, partly confused and partly of late date, of
the ecclesiastical writers, may be naturally explained as arising out
of what may be called an optical delusion of the church, which,—whilst
she in fact made continual advances in the glorification of Christ, but
a part of the Jewish Christians remained stationary,—made it appear to
her as if she herself remained stationary, whilst the others fell back
into heresy.
By thus distinguishing the simple and the speculative Ebionites, so
much is gained, that the failure of the genealogies among the latter
class, mentioned by Epiphanius, does not prove them to have been also
wanting among the former. And the less if we should be able to make it
appear probable, that the grounds of their aversion to the genealogical
table, and the grounds of distinction between them and the other class
of Ebionites, were identical. One of these grounds was evidently the
unfavourable opinion, which the Ebionites of Epiphanius and of the
Clementine Homilies had of David, from whom the genealogy traces the
descent of Jesus. It is well known that they distinguished in the Old
Testament a twofold prophecy, male and female, pure and impure, of
which the former only promised things heavenly and true, the latter
things earthly and delusive; that proceeding from Adam and Abel, this
from Eve and Cain; and both constituted an under current through the
whole history of the revelation. [244] It was only the pious men from
Adam to Joshua whom they acknowledged as true prophets: the later
prophets and men of God, among whom David and Solomon are named, were
not only not recognized, but abhorred. [245] We even find positive
indications that David was an object of their particular aversion.
There were many things which created in them a detestation of David
(and Solomon). David was a bloody warrior; but to shed blood was,
according to the doctrines of these Ebionites, one of the greatest of
sins; David was known to have committed adultery, (Solomon to have been
a voluptuary); and adultery was even more detested by this sect than
murder. David was a performer on stringed instruments; this art, the
invention of the Canaanites (Gen. iv. 21), was held by these Ebionites
to be a sign of false prophecy; finally, the prophecies announced by
David and those connected with him, (and Solomon,) had reference to the
kingdoms of this world, of which the Gnosticising Ebionites desired to
know nothing. [246] Now the Ebionites who had sprung from common
Judaism could not have shared this ground of aversion to the
genealogies; since to the orthodox Jew David was an object of the
highest veneration.
Concerning a second point the notices are not so lucid and accordant as
they should be; namely, whether it was a further development of the
general Ebionitish doctrine concerning the person of the Christ, which
led these Ebionites to reject the genealogies. According to Epiphanius,
they fully recognized the Gnostic distinction between Jesus the son of
Joseph and Mary, and the Christ who descended upon him [247]; and
consequently might have been withheld from referring the genealogy to
Jesus only perhaps by their abhorrence of David. On the other hand,
from the whole tenor of the Clementines, and from one passage in
particular, [248] it has recently been inferred, and not without
apparent reason, that the author of these writings had himself
abandoned the view of a natural conception, and even birth of Jesus
[249]; whereby it is yet more manifest that the ground of the rejection
of the genealogies by this sect was peculiar to it, and not common to
the other Ebionites.
Moreover positive indications, that the Ebionites who proceeded from
Judaism possessed the genealogies, do not entirely fail. Whilst the
Ebionites of Epiphanius and of the Clementines called Jesus only Son of
God, but rejected the appellation Son of David, as belonging to the
common opinion of the Jews [250]; other Ebionites were censured by the
Fathers for recognizing Jesus only as the Son of David, to whom he is
traced in the genealogies, and not likewise as the Son of God. [251]
Further, Epiphanius relates of the earliest Judaising Gnostics,
Cerinthus and Carpocrates, that they used a Gospel the same in other
respects indeed as the Ebionites, but that they adduced the
genealogies, which they therefore read in the same, in attestation of
the human conception of Jesus by Joseph. [252] Also the ἀπομνημονεύματα
cited by Justin, and which originated upon Judæo-christian ground,
appear to have contained a genealogy similar to that in our Matthew;
since Justin as well as Matthew speaks, in relation to Jesus, of a
γένος τοῦ Δαβὶδ καὶ Ἀβραὰμ, of a σπέρμα ἐξ Ἰακὼβ, διὰ Ἰούδα, καὶ Φαρὲς
καὶ Ἰεσσαὶ καὶ Δαβὶδ κατερχόμενον [253]; only that at the time, and in
the circle of Justin, the opinion of a supernatural conception of Jesus
had already suggested the reference of the genealogy to Mary, instead
of to Joseph.
Hence it appears that we have in the genealogies a memorial, agreeing
with indications from other sources, of the fact that in the very
earliest Christian age, in Palestine, a body of Christians, numerous
enough to establish upon distinct fundamental opinions two different
Messianic tables of descent, considered Jesus to have been a naturally
conceived human being. And no proof is furnished to us in the apostolic
writings, that the Apostles would have declared this doctrine to be
unchristian; it appeared so first from the point of view adopted by the
authors of the histories of the birth in the first and third Gospels:
notwithstanding which, however, it is treated with surprising lenity by
the Fathers of the church.
§ 28.
NATURAL EXPLANATION OF THE HISTORY OF THE CONCEPTION.
If, as appears from the foregoing statements, so many weighty
difficulties, philosophical as well as exegetical, beset the
supranaturalistic explanation, it is well worth while to examine
whether it be not possible to give an interpretation of the gospel
history which shall obviate these objections. Recourse has been had to
the natural explanation, and the two narratives singly and conjointly
have been successively subjected to the rationalistic mode of
interpretation.
In the first place, the account in Matthew seemed susceptible of such
an interpretation. Numerous rabbinical passages were cited to
demonstrate, that it was consonant with Jewish notions to consider a
son of pious parents to be conceived by the divine co-operation, and
that he should be called the son of the Holy Spirit, without its being
ever imagined that paternal participation was thereby excluded. It was
consequently contended, that the section in Matthew represented merely
the intention of the angel to inform Joseph, not indeed that Mary had
become pregnant in the absence of all human intercourse, but that
notwithstanding her pregnancy she was to be regarded as pure, not as
one fallen from virtue. It was maintained that the exclusion of
paternal participation—which is an embellishment of the original
representation—occurs first in Luke in the words ἄνδρα οὐ γινώσκω (i.
34). [254] When however this view was justly opposed by the remark,
that the expression πρὶν ἢ συνελθεῖν αὐτοὺς in Matthew (i. 18)
decidedly excludes the participation of the only individual in
question, namely Joseph; it was then thought possible to prove that
even in Luke the paternal exclusion was not so positive: but truly this
could be done only by an unexegetical subversion of the clear sense of
the words, or else by uncritically throwing suspicion on a part of a
well-connected narrative. The first expedient is to interpret Mary’s
inquiry of the angel i. 34, thus: Can I who am already betrothed and
married give birth to the Messiah, for as the mother of the Messiah I
must have no husband? whereupon the angel replies, that God, through
his power, could make something distinguished even of the child
conceived of her and Joseph. [255] The other proceeding is no less
arbitrary. Mary’s inquiry of the angel is explained as an unnatural
interruption of his communication, which being abstracted, the passage
is found to contain no decided intimation of the supernatural
conception. [256]
If consequently, the difficulty of the natural explanation of the two
accounts be equally great, still, with respect to both it must be alike
attempted or rejected; and for the consistent Rationalist, a Paulus for
example, the latter is the only course. This commentator considers the
participation of Joseph, indeed excluded by Matt. i. 18, but by no
means that of every other man; neither can he find a supernatural
divine intervention in the expression of Luke i. 35. The Holy
Ghost—πνεῦμα ἅγιον—is not with him objective, an external influence
operating upon Mary, but her own pious imagination. The power of the
Highest—δύναμις ὑψίστου—is not the immediate divine omnipotence, but
every natural power employed in a manner pleasing to God may be so
called. Consequently, according to Paulus, the meaning of the angelic
announcement is simply this: prior to her union with Joseph, Mary,
under the influence of a pure enthusiasm in sacred things on the one
hand, and by an human co-operation pleasing to God on the other, became
the mother of a child who on account of this holy origin was to be
called a son of God.
Let us examine rather more accurately the view which this
representative of rationalistic interpretation takes of the particulars
of the conception of Jesus. He begins with Elizabeth, the patriotic and
wise daughter of Aaron, as he styles her. She, having conceived the
hope that she might give birth to one of God’s prophets, naturally
desired moreover that he might be the first of prophets, the forerunner
of the Messiah; and that the latter also might speedily be born. Now
there was among her own kinsfolk a person suited in every respect for
the mother of the Messiah, Mary, a young virgin, a descendant of David;
nothing more was needful than to inspire her likewise with such a
special hope. Whilst these intimations prepare us to anticipate a
cleverly concerted plan on the part of Elizabeth in reference to her
young relative, in the which we hope to become initiated; Paulus here
suddenly lets fall the curtain, and remarks, that the exact manner in
which Mary was convinced that she should become the mother of the
Messiah must be left historically undetermined; thus much only is
certain, that Mary remained pure, for she could not with a clear
conscience have stationed herself, as she afterwards did, under the
Cross of her Son, had she felt that a reproach rested on her concerning
the origin of the hopes she had entertained of him. The following is
the only hint subsequently given of the particular view held by Paulus.
It is probable, he thinks, that the angelic messenger visited Mary in
the evening or even at night; indeed according to the correct reading
of Luke i. 28, which has not the word angel, καὶ εἰσελθὼν πρὸς αὐτὴν
εἰπε, without ὁ ἄγγελος, the evangelist here speaks only of some one
who had come in. (As if in this case, the participle εἰσελθὼν must not
necessarily be accompanied by τὶς; or, in the absence of the pronoun be
referred to the subject, the angel Gabriel—ὁ ἄγγελος Γαβριὴλ, v. 26!)
Paulus adds: that this visitant was the angel Gabriel was the
subsequent suggestion of Mary’s own mind, after she had heard of the
vision of Zacharias.
Gabler, in a review of Paulus’s Commentary [257] has fully exposed,
with commensurate plainness of speech, the transaction which lies
concealed under this explanation. It is impossible, says he, to imagine
any other interpretation of Paulus’s view than that some one passed
himself off for the angel Gabriel, and as the pretended Messenger of
God remained with Mary in order that she might become the mother of the
Messiah. What! asks Gabler, is Mary, at the very time she is betrothed,
to become pregnant by another, and is this to be called an innocent
holy action, pleasing to God and irreproachable? Mary is here
pourtrayed as a pious visionary, and the pretended messenger of heaven
as a deceiver, or he too is a gross fanatic. The reviewer most justly
considers such an assertion as revolting, if contemplated from the
christian point of view; if from the scientific, as at variance both
with the principles of interpretation and of criticism.
The author of the Natural History of the Great Prophet of Nazareth is,
in this instance, to be considered as the most worthy interpreter of
Paulus; for though the former could not, in this part of his work, have
made use of Paulus’s Commentary, yet, in exactly the same spirit, he
unreservedly avows what the latter carefully veils. He brings into
comparison a story in Josephus, [258] according to which, in the very
time of Jesus, a Roman knight won the chaste wife of a Roman noble to
his wishes, by causing her to be invited by a priest of Isis into the
temple of the goddess, under the pretext that the god Anubis desired to
embrace her. In innocence and faith, the woman resigned herself, and
would perhaps afterwards have believed she had given birth to the child
of a god, had not the intriguer, with bitter scorn, soon after
discovered to her the true state of the case. It is the opinion of the
author that Mary, the betrothed bride of the aged Joseph, was in like
manner deceived by some amorous and fanatic young man (in the sequel to
the history he represents him to be Joseph of Arimathea), and that she
on her part, in perfect innocence, continued to deceive others. [259]
It is evident that this interpretation does not differ from the ancient
Jewish blasphemy, which we find in Celsus and in the Talmud; that Jesus
falsely represented himself as born of a pure virgin, whereas, in fact,
he was the offspring of the adultery of Mary with a certain Panthera.
[260]
This whole view, of which the culminating point is in the calumny of
the Jews, cannot be better judged than in the words of Origen. If, says
this author, they wished to substitute something else in the place of
the history of the supernatural conception of Jesus, they should at any
rate have made it happen in a more probable manner; they ought not, as
it were against their will, to admit that Mary knew not Joseph, but
they might have denied this feature, and yet have allowed Jesus to have
been born of an ordinary human marriage; whereas the forced and
extravagant character of their hypothesis betrays its falsehood. [261]
Is not this as much as to say, that if once some particular features of
a marvellous narrative are doubted, it is inconsequent to allow others
to remain unquestioned? each part of such an account ought to be
subjected to critical examination. The correct view of the narrative
before us is to be found, that is indirectly, in Origen. For when at
one time he places together, as of the same kind, the miraculous
conception of Jesus and the story of Plato’s conception by Apollo
(though here, indeed, the meaning is that only ill-disposed persons
could doubt such things [262]), and when at another time he says of the
story concerning Plato, that it belongs to those mythi by which it was
sought to exhibit the distinguished wisdom and power of great men (but
here he does not include the narrative of Jesus’s conception), he in
fact states the two premises, namely, the similarity of the two
narratives and the mythical character of the one [263]; from which the
inference of the merely mythical worth of the narrative of the
conception of Jesus follows; a conclusion which can never indeed have
occurred to his own mind.
§ 29.
HISTORY OF THE CONCEPTION OF JESUS VIEWED AS A MYTHUS.
If, says Gabler in his review of the Commentary of Paulus, we must
relinquish the supernatural origin of Jesus, in order to escape the
ridicule of our contemporaries, and if, on the other hand, the natural
explanation leads to conclusions not only extravagant, but revolting;
the adoption of the mythus, by which all these difficulties are
obviated, is to be preferred. In the world of mythology many great men
had extraordinary births, and were sons of the gods. Jesus himself
spoke of his heavenly origin, and called God his father; besides, his
title as Messiah was—Son of God. From Matthew i. 22, it is further
evident that the passage of Isaiah, vii. 14, was referred to Jesus by
the early Christian Church. In conformity with this passage the belief
prevailed that Jesus, as the Messiah, should be born of a virgin by
means of divine agency; it was therefore taken for granted that what
was to be actually did occur; and thus originated a philosophical
(dogmatical) mythus concerning the birth of Jesus. But according to
historical truth, Jesus was the offspring of an ordinary marriage,
between Joseph and Mary; an explanation which, it has been justly
remarked, maintains at once the dignity of Jesus and the respect due to
his mother. [264]
The proneness of the ancient world to represent the great men and
benefactors of their race as the sons of the gods, has therefore been
referred to, in order to explain the origin of such a mythus. Our
theologians have accumulated examples from the Greco-Roman mythology
and history. They have cited Hercules, and the Dioscuri; Romulus, and
Alexander; but above all Pythagoras, [265] and Plato. Of the latter
philosopher Jerome speaks in a manner quite applicable to Jesus:
sapientiæ principem non aliter arbitrantur, nisi de partu virginis
editum. [266]
From these examples it might have been inferred that the narratives of
the supernatural conception had possibly originated in a similar
tendency, and had no foundation in history. Here however the orthodox
and the rationalists are unanimous in denying, though indeed upon
different grounds, the validity of the analogy. Origen, from a
perception of the identical character of the two classes of narratives,
is not far from regarding the heathen legends of the sons of the gods
as true supernatural histories. Paulus on his side is more decided, and
is so logical as to explain both classes of narratives in the same
manner, as natural, but still as true histories. At least he says of
the narrative concerning Plato: it cannot be affirmed that the
groundwork of the history was a subsequent creation; it is far more
probable that Perictione believed herself to be pregnant by one of her
gods. The fact that her son became a Plato might indeed have served to
confirm that belief, but not to have originated it. Tholuck invites
attention to the important distinction that the mythi concerning
Romulus and others were formed many centuries after the lifetime of
these men: the mythi concerning Jesus, on the contrary, must have
existed shortly after his death. [267] He cleverly fails to remember
the narrative of Plato’s birth, since he is well aware that precisely
in that particular, it is a dangerous point. Osiander however
approaches the subject with much pathos, and affirms that Plato’s
apotheosis as son of Apollo did not exist till several centuries after
him [268]; whereas in fact Plato’s sister’s son speaks of it as a
prevailing legend in Athens. [269] Olshausen, with whom Neander
coincides, refuses to draw any detrimental inference from this analogy
of the mythical sons of the gods; remarking that though these
narratives are unhistorical, they evince a general anticipation and
desire of such a fact, and therefore guarantee its reality, at least in
one historical manifestation. Certainly, a general anticipation and
representation must have truth for its basis; but the truth does not
consist in any one individual fact, presenting an accurate
correspondence with that notion, but in an idea which realizes itself
in a series of facts, which often bear no resemblance to the general
notion. The widely spread notion of a golden age does not prove the
existence of a golden age: so the notion of divine conceptions does not
prove that some one individual was thus produced. The truth which is
the basis of this notion is something quite different.
A more essential objection [270] to the analogy is, that the
representations of the heathen world prove nothing with respect to the
isolated Jews; and that the idea of sons of the gods, belonging to
polytheism, could not have exerted an influence on the rigidly
monotheistic notion of the Messiah. At all events such an inference
must not be too hastily drawn from the expression “sons of God,” found
likewise among the Jews, which as applied in the Old Testament to
magistrates, (Ps. lxxxii. 6, or to theocratic kings, 2 Sam. vii. 14,
Ps. ii. 7,) indicates only a theocratic, and not a physical or
metaphysical relation. Still less is importance to be attached to the
language of flattery used by a Roman, in Josephus, who calls beautiful
children of the Jewish princes children of God. [271] It was, however,
a notion among the Jews, as was remarked in a former section, that the
Holy Spirit co-operated in the conception of pious individuals;
moreover, that God’s choicest instruments were conceived by divine
assistance of parents, who could not have had a child according to the
natural course of things. And if, according to the believed
representation, the extinct capability on both sides was renewed by
divine intervention (Rom. iv. 19), it was only one step further to the
belief that in the case of the conception of the most distinguished of
all God’s agents, the Messiah, the total absence of participation on
the one side was compensated by a more complete superadded capability
on the other. The latter is scarcely a degree more marvellous than the
former. And thus must it have appeared to the author of Luke i., since
he dissipates Mary’s doubts by the same reply with which Jehovah
repelled Sara’s incredulity. [272] Neither the Jewish reverence for
marriage, nor the prevalent representation of the Messiah as a human
being, could prevent the advance to this climax; to which, on the other
hand, the ascetic estimation of celibacy, and the idea, derived from
Daniel, of the Christ as a superhuman being, contributed. But decided
impulse to the development of the representations embodied in our
histories of the birth, consisted partly in the title, Son of God, at
one time usually given to the Messiah. For it is the nature of such
originally figurative expressions, after a while to come to be
interpreted according to their more precise and literal signification;
and it was a daily occurrence, especially among the later Jews, to
attach a sensible signification to that which originally had merely a
spiritual or figurative meaning. This natural disposition to understand
the Messianic title Son of God more and more literally, was fostered by
the expression in the Psalms (ii. 7), interpreted of the Messiah: Thou
art my Son; this day have I begotten thee: words which can scarcely
fail to suggest a physical relation; it was also nurtured by the
prophecy of Isaiah respecting the virgin who should be with child,
which it appears was applied to the Messiah; as were so many other
prophecies of which the immediate signification had become obscure.
This application may be seen in the Greek word chosen by the
Septuagint, παρθένος, a pure unspotted virgin, whereas by Aquila and
other Greek translators the word νεᾶνις is used. [273] Thus did the
notions of a son of God and a son of a virgin complete one another,
till at last the divine agency was substituted for human paternal
participation. Wetstein indeed affirms that no Jew ever applied the
prophecy of Isaiah to the Messiah; and it was with extreme labour that
Schoettgen collected traces of the notion that the Messiah should be
the son of a virgin from the Rabbinical writings. This however,
considering the paucity of records of the Messianic ideas of that age,
[274] proves nothing in opposition to the presumption that a notion
then prevailed, of which we have the groundwork in the Old Testament,
and an inference hardly to be mistaken in the New.
One objection yet remains, which I can no longer designate as peculiar
to Olshausen, since other theologians have shown themselves solicitous
of sharing the fame. The objection is, that the mythical interpretation
of the gospel narrative is especially dangerous, it being only too well
fitted to engender, obscurely indeed, profane and blasphemous notions
concerning the origin of Jesus; since it cannot fail to favour an
opinion destructive of the belief in a Redeemer, namely, that Jesus
came into being through unholy means; since, in fact, at the time of
her pregnancy Mary was not married. [275] In Olshausen’s first edition
of his work, he adds that he willingly allows that these interpreters
know not what they do: it is therefore but just to give him the
advantage of the same concession, since he certainly appears not to
know what mythical interpretation means. How otherwise would he say,
that the mythical interpretation is fitted only to favour a blasphemous
opinion; therefore that all who understand the narrative mythically,
are disposed to commit the absurdity with which Origen reproaches the
Jewish calumniators; the retaining one solitary incident, namely, that
Mary was not married, whilst the remainder of the narrative is held to
be unhistorical; a particular incident which evidently serves only as a
support to the other, that Jesus was conceived without human paternal
participation, and with it, therefore, stands or falls. No one among
the interpreters who, in this narrative, recognise a mythus, in the
full signification of that term, has been thus blind and inconsequent;
all have supposed a legitimate marriage between Joseph and Mary; and
Olshausen merely paints the mythical mode of interpretation in
caricature, in order the more easily to set it aside; for he confesses
that in relation to this portion of the Gospel in particular, it has
much that is dazzling.
§ 30.
RELATION OF JOSEPH TO MARY—BROTHERS OF JESUS.
Our Gospels, in the true spirit of the ancient legend, find it
unbecoming to allow the mother of Jesus, so long as she bore the
heavenly germ, to be approached or profaned by an earthly husband.
Consequently Luke (ii. 5) represents the connexion between Joseph and
Mary, prior to the birth of Jesus, as a betrothment merely. And, as it
is stated respecting the father of Plato, after his wife had become
pregnant by Apollo: ὅθεν καθαρὰν γάμου φυλάξαι ἕως τῆς ἀποκυήσεως,
[276] so likewise it is remarked of Joseph in Matthew (i. 25): καὶ οὐκ
ἐγίνωσκεν αὐτὴν (τὴν γυναῖκα αὑτοῦ) ἕως οὖ ἔτεκε τὸν υἱὸν αὑτῆς τὸν
πρωτότοκον. In each of these kindred passages the Greek word ἕως (till)
must evidently receive the same interpretation. Now in the first
quotation the meaning is incontestably this:—that till the time of
Plato’s birth his father abstained from intercourse with his wife, but
subsequently assumed his conjugal rights, since we hear of Plato’s
brothers. In reference, therefore, to the parents of Jesus, the ἕως
cannot have a different signification; in each case it indicates
precisely the same limitation. So again the expression πρωτότοκος
(firstborn) used in reference to Jesus in both the Gospels (Matt. i.
25, Luke ii. 7) supposes that Mary had other children, for as Lucian
says: εἰ μὲν πρῶτος, οὐ μόνος· εἰ δὲ μόνος, οὐ πρῶτος. [277] Even in
the same Gospels (Matt. xiii. 55, Luke viii. 19) mention is made of
ἀδελφοῖς Ἰησοῦ (the brothers of Jesus). In the words of Fritzsche:
Lubentissime post Jesu natales Mariam concessit Matthæus (Luke does the
same) uxorem Josepho, in hoc uno occupatus, ne quis ante Jesu primordia
mutuâ venere usos suspicaretur. But this did not continue to satisfy
the orthodox; as the veneration for Mary rose even higher, she who had
once become fruitful by divine agency was not subsequently to be
profaned by the common relations of life. [278] The opinion that Mary
after the birth of Jesus became the wife of Joseph, was early ranked
among the heresies, [279] and the orthodox Fathers sought every means
to escape from it and to combat it. They contended that according to
the exegetical interpretation of ἕως οὗ, it sometimes affirmed or
denied a thing, not merely up to a certain limit, but beyond that
limitation and for ever; and that the words of Matthew οὐκ ἐγίνωσκεν
αὐτὴν ἕως οὗ ἔτεκε κ.τ.λ. excluded a matrimonial connexion between
Joseph and Mary for all time. [280] In like manner it was asserted of
the term πρωτότοκος, that it did not necessarily include the subsequent
birth of other children, but that it merely excluded any previous
birth. [281] But in order to banish the thought of a matrimonial
connexion between Mary and Joseph, not only grammatically but
physiologically, they represented Joseph as a very old man, under whom
Mary was placed for control and protection only; and the brothers of
Jesus mentioned in the New Testament they regarded as the children of
Joseph by a former marriage. [282] But this was not all; soon it was
insisted not only that Mary never became the wife of Joseph, but that
in giving birth to Jesus she did not lose her virginity. [283] But even
the conservation of Mary’s virginity did not long continue to satisfy:
perpetual virginity was likewise required on the part of Joseph. It was
not enough that he had no connexion with Mary; it was also necessary
that his entire life should be one of celibacy. Accordingly, though
Epiphanius allows that Joseph had sons by a former marriage, Jerome
rejects the supposition as an impious and audacious invention; and from
that time the brothers of Jesus were degraded to the rank of cousins.
[284]
Some modern theologians agree with the Fathers of the Church in
maintaining that no matrimonial connexion subsisted at any time between
Joseph and Mary, and believe themselves able to explain the gospel
expressions which appear to assert the contrary. In reference to the
term firstborn, Olshausen contends that it signifies an only son: no
less than the eldest of several. Paulus allows that here he is right,
and Clemen [285] and Fritzsche seek in vain to demonstrate the
impossibility of this signification. For when it is said in Ex. xiii.
2, קַדֶּשׁ־לִי כָל־בְּכוֹל פֶּטֶר כָּל־רֶחֶם (πρωτότοκον πρωτογενὲς LXX.) it was not
merely a firstborn followed by others subsequently born, who was
sanctified to Jehovah, but the fruit of the body of that mother of whom
no other child had previously been born. Therefore the term πρωτότοκος
must of necessity bear also this signification. Truly however we must
confess with Winer [286] and others, on the other side, that if a
narrator who was acquainted with the whole sequel of the history used
that expression, we should be tempted to understand it in its primitive
sense; since had the author intended to exclude other children, he
would rather have employed the word μονογενὴς, or would have connected
it with πρωτότοκος. If this be not quite decisive, the reasoning of
Fritzsche in reference to the ἕως οὗ, κ.τ.λ., is more convincing. He
rejects the citations adduced in support of the interpretation of the
Fathers of the Church, proving that this expression according to its
primitive signification affirms only to a given limit, and beyond that
limit supposes the logical opposite of the affirmation to take place; a
signification which it loses only when the context shows clearly that
the opposite is impossible in the nature of things. [287] For example,
when it is said οὐκ ἐγίνωσκεν αὐτὴν, ἕως οὗ ἀπέθανεν, it is
self-evident that the negation, during the time elapsed till
death—cannot be transformed after death into an affirmation; but when
it is said, as in Matthew, οὐκ ἐ. ἀ. ἕως οὗ ἔτεκεν, the giving birth to
the divine fruit opposes no impossibility to the establishment of the
conjugal relations; on the contrary it renders it possible, i.e.
suitable [288] for them now to take place.
Olshausen, impelled by the same doctrinal motives which influenced the
Fathers, is led in this instance to contradict both the evidence of
grammar and of logic. He thinks that Joseph, without wishing to impair
the sanctity of marriage, must have concluded after the experiences he
had had (?) that his marriage with Mary had another object than the
production of children; besides it was but natural (?) in the last
descendant of the house of David, and of that particular branch from
which the Messiah should come forth, to terminate her race in this last
and eternal offshoot.
A curious ladder may be formed of these different beliefs and
superstitions in relation to the connexion between Mary and Joseph.
1. Contemporaries of Jesus and composers of the genealogies: Joseph and
Mary man and wife—Jesus the offspring of their marriage.
2. The age and authors of our histories of the birth of Jesus: Mary and
Joseph betrothed only; Joseph having no participation in the conception
of the child, and previous to his birth no conjugal connexion with
Mary.
3. Olshausen and others: subsequent to the birth of Jesus, Joseph,
though then the husband of Mary, relinquishes his matrimonial rights.
4. Epiphanius, Protevangelium Jacobi and others: Joseph a decrepit old
man, no longer to be thought of as a husband: the children attributed
to him are of a former marriage. More especially it is not as a bride
and wife that he receives Mary; he takes her merely under his
guardianship.
5. Protevang., Chrysostom and others: Mary’s virginity was not only not
destroyed by any subsequent births of children by Joseph, it was not in
the slightest degree impaired by the birth of Jesus.
6. Jerome: not Mary only but Joseph also observed an absolute
virginity, and the pretended brothers of Jesus were not his sons but
merely cousins to Jesus.
The opinion that the ἀδελφοὶ (brothers) and ἀδελφαὶ Ἰησοῦ (sisters of
Jesus) mentioned in the New Testament, were merely half brothers or
indeed cousins, appears in its origin, as shown above, together with
the notion that no matrimonial connexion ever subsisted between Joseph
and Mary, as the mere invention of superstition, a circumstance highly
prejudicial to such an opinion. It is however no less true that purely
exegetical grounds exist, in virtue of which theologians who were free
from prejudice have decided, that the opinion that Jesus actually had
brothers is untenable. [289] Had we merely the following passages—Matt.
xiii. 55, Mark vi. 3, where the people of Nazareth, astonished at the
wisdom of their countryman, in order to mark his well known origin,
immediately after having spoken of τέκτων (the carpenter) his father,
and his mother Mary, mention by name his ἀδελφοὺς (brothers) James,
Joses, Simon, and Judas, together with his sisters whose names are not
given [290]; again Matt. xii. 46, Luke viii. 19, when his mother and
his brethren come to Jesus; John ii. 12, where Jesus journeys with his
mother and his brethren to Capernaum; Acts i. 14, where they are
mentioned in immediate connexion with his mother—if we had these
passages only, we could not for a moment hesitate to recognize here
real brothers of Jesus at least on the mother’s side, children of
Joseph and Mary; not only on account of the proper signification of the
word ἀδελφὸς, but also in consequence of its continual conjunction with
Mary and Joseph. Even the passages—John vii. 5, in which it is remarked
that his brethren did not believe on Jesus, and Mark iii. 21, compared
with 31, where, according to the most probable explanation, the
brothers of Jesus with his mother went out to lay hold of him as one
beside himself—furnish no adequate grounds for relinquishing the proper
signification of ἀδελφὸς. Many theologians have interpreted ἀδελφοὺς
Ἰησοῦ in the last cited passage half brothers, sons of Joseph by a
former marriage, alleging that the real brothers of Jesus must have
believed on him, but this is a mere assumption. The difficulty seems
greater when we read in John xix. 26 f. that Jesus, on the cross,
enjoined John to be a son to his mother; an injunction it is not easy
to regard as suitable under the supposition that Mary had other
children, except indeed these were half-brothers and unfriendly to
Jesus. Nevertheless we can imagine the existence both of external
circumstances and of individual feelings which might have influenced
Jesus to confide his mother to John rather than to his brothers. That
these brothers appeared in company with his apostles after the
ascension (Acts i. 14) is no proof that they must have believed on
Jesus at the time of his death.
The real perplexity in the matter, however, originates in this: that
besides the James and Joses spoken of as the brothers of Jesus, two men
of the same name are mentioned as the sons of another Mary (Mark xv.
40, 47, xvi. 1, Matt. xxvii. 56), without doubt that Mary who is
designated, John xix. 25, as the sister of the mother of Jesus, and the
wife of Cleophas; so that we have a James and a Joses not only among
the children of Mary the mother of Jesus, but again among her sister’s
children. We meet with several others among those immediately connected
with Jesus, whose names are identical. In the lists of the apostles
(Matt. x. 2 ff., Luke vi. 14 ff.) we have two more of the name of
James: that is four, the brother and cousin of Jesus included; two more
of the name of Judas: that is three, the brother of Jesus included; two
of the name of Simon, also making three with the brother of Jesus of
the same name. The question naturally arises, whether the same
individual is not here taken as distinct persons? The suspicion is
almost unavoidable in reference to James. As James the son of Alpheus
is, in the list of the apostles, introduced after the son of Zebedee,
as the second, perhaps the younger; and as James the cousin of Jesus is
called ὁ μικρὸς (“the less”) Mark xv. 40; and since by comparing John
xix. 25, we find that the latter is called the son of Cleophas, it is
possible that the name Κλωπᾶς (Cleophas) given to the husband of Mary’s
sister, and the name Ἀλφαῖος (Alpheus) given to the father of the
apostle, may be only different forms of the Hebrew חלפי. Thus would
the second James enumerated among the apostles and the cousin of Jesus
of that name be identical, and there would remain besides him only the
son of Zebedee and the brother of Jesus. Now in the Acts (xv. 13) a
James appears who takes a prominent part in the so-called apostolic
council, and as, according to Acts xii. 2, the son of Zebedee had
previously been put to death, and as in the foregoing portion of the
book of the Acts no mention is made of any other James besides the son
of Alpheus (i. 13), so this James, of whom (Acts xv. 13) no more
precise description is given, can be no other than the son of Alpheus.
But Paul speaks of a James (Gal. i. 19) the Lord’s brother, whom he saw
at Jerusalem, and it is doubtless he of whom he speaks in connexion
with Cephas and John as the στύλοι (pillars) of the church—for this is
precisely in character with the (Apostle) James as he appeared at the
apostolic council—so that this James may be considered as identical
with the Lord’s brother, and the rather as the expression ἔτερον δὲ τῶν
ἀποστόλων οὐκ εἶδον, εἰ μὴ Ἰάκωβον τὸν ἀδελφὸν τοῦ Κυρίου (but other of
the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord’s brother. Gal. i. 19),
makes it appear as if the Lord’s brother were reckoned among the
apostles; with which also the ancient tradition which represents James
the Just, a brother of Jesus, as the first head of the church at
Jerusalem, agrees. [291] But admitting the James of the Acts to be
identical with the distinguished apostle of that name, then is he the
son of Alpheus, and not the son of Joseph; consequently if he be at the
same time ἀδελφὸς τοῦ Κυρίου, then ἀδελφὸς cannot signify a brother.
Now if Alpheus and Cleophas are admitted to be the same individual, the
husband of the sister of Mary the mother of Jesus, it is obvious that
ἀδελφὸς, used to denote the relationship of his son to Jesus, must be
taken in the signification, cousin. If, after this manner, James the
Apostle the son of Alpheus be identified with the cousin, and the
cousin be identified with the brother of Jesus of the same name, it is
obvious that Ἰούδας Ἰακώβου in the catalogue of the Apostles in Luke
(Luke vi. 16, Acts i. 13), must be translated brother of James (son of
Alpheus); and this Apostle Jude must be held as identical with the Jude
ἀδελφὸς Ἰησοῦ, that is, with the cousin of the Lord and son of Mary
Cleophas (though the name of Jude is never mentioned in connexion with
this Mary). If the Epistle of Jude in our canon be authentic, it is
confirmatory of the above deduction, that the author (verse 1)
designates himself as the ἀδελφὸς Ἰακώβου (brother of James). Some
moreover have identified the Apostle Simon ὁ ζηλωτὴς or Κανανίτης
(Zelotes or the Canaanite) with the Simon enumerated among the brothers
of Jesus (Mark vi. 3), and who according to a tradition of the church
succeeded James as head of the church at Jerusalem [292]; so that Joses
alone appears without further designation or appellative.
If, accordingly, those spoken of as ἀδελφοὶ Ἰησοῦ were merely cousins,
and three of these were apostles, it must excite surprise that not only
in the Acts (i. 14), after an enumeration of the apostles, the brothers
of Jesus are separately particularized, but that also (1 Cor. ix. 5)
they appear to be a class distinct from the apostles. Perhaps, also,
the passage Gal. i. 19 ought to be understood as indicating that James,
the Lord’s brother, was not an apostle. [293] If, therefore, the
ἀδελφοὶ Ἰησοῦ seem thus to be extruded from the number of the apostles,
it is yet more difficult to regard them merely as the cousins of Jesus,
since they appear in so many places immediately associated with the
mother of Jesus, and in two or three passages only are two men bearing
the same names mentioned in connexion with the other Mary, who
accordingly would be their real mother. The Greek word ἀδελφὸς may
indeed signify, in language which pretends not to precision, as well as
the Hebrew אה, a more distant relative; but as it is repeatedly used
to express the relationship of these persons to Jesus, and is in no
instance replaced by ἀνεψιὸς—a word which is not foreign to the New
Testament language when the relationship of cousin is to be denoted
(Col. iv. 10), it cannot well be taken in any other than its proper
signification. Further, it need only be pointed out that the highest
degree of uncertainty exists respecting not only the identity of the
names Alpheus and Cleophas, upon which the identity of James the cousin
of Jesus and of the Apostle James the Less rests, but also regarding
the translation of Ἰούδας Ἰακώβου by the brother of James; and likewise
respecting the assumed identity of the author of the last Catholic
Epistle with the Apostle Jude.
Thus the web of this identification gives way at all points, and we are
forced back to the position whence we set out; so that we have again
real brothers of Jesus, also two cousins distinct from these brothers,
though bearing the same names with two of them, besides some apostles
of the same names with both brothers and cousins. To find two pairs of
sons of the same names in a family is, indeed, not so uncommon as to
become a source of objection. It is, however, remarkable that the same
James who in the Epistle to the Galatians is designated ἀδελφὸς Κυρίου
(the Lord’s brother), must unquestionably, according to the Acts of the
Apostles, be regarded as the son of Alpheus; which he could not be if
this expression signified a brother. So that there is perplexity on
every side, which can be solved only (and then, indeed, but negatively
and without historical result) by admitting the existence of obscurity
and error on this point in the New Testament writers, and even in the
very earliest Christian traditions; error which, in matters of involved
relationships and family names, is far more easily fallen into than
avoided. [294]
We have consequently no ground for denying that the mother of Jesus
bore her husband several other children besides Jesus, younger, and
perhaps also older; the latter, because the representation in the New
Testament that Jesus was the first-born may belong no less to the
mythus than the representation of the Fathers that he was an only son.
§ 31.
VISIT OF MARY TO ELIZABETH.
The angel who announced to Mary her own approaching pregnancy, at the
same time informed her (Luke i. 36) of that of her relative Elizabeth,
with whom it was already the sixth month. Hereupon Mary immediately set
out on a journey to her cousin, a visit which was attended by
extraordinary occurrences; for when Elizabeth heard the salutation of
Mary, the babe leaped in her womb for joy; she also became inspired,
and in her exultation poured forth an address to Mary as the future
mother of the Messiah, to which Mary responded by a hymn of praise
(Luke i. 39–56).
The rationalistic interpreter believes it to be an easy matter to give
a natural explanation of this narrative of the Gospel of Luke. He is of
opinion [295] that the unknown individual who excited such peculiar
anticipations, in Mary, had at the same time acquainted her with the
similar situation of her cousin Elizabeth. This it was which impelled
Mary the more strongly to confer on the subject with her older
relative. Arrived at her cousin’s dwelling, she first of all made known
what had happened to herself; but upon this the narrator is silent, not
wishing to repeat what he had just before described. And here the
Rationalist not only supposes the address of Elizabeth to have been
preceded by some communication from Mary, but imagines Mary to have
related her history piecemeal, so as to allow Elizabeth to throw in
sentences during the intervals. The excitement of Elizabeth—such is the
continuation of the rationalistic explanation—communicated itself,
according to natural laws, to the child, who, as is usual with an
embryo of six months, made a movement, which was first regarded by the
mother as significant, and as the consequence of the salutation, after
Mary’s farther communications. Just as natural does it appear to the
Rationalist that Mary should have given utterance to her Messianic
expectations, confirmed as they were by Elizabeth, in a kind of
psalmodic recitative, composed of reminiscences borrowed from various
parts of the Old Testament.
But there is much in this explanation which positively contradicts the
text. In the first place, that Elizabeth should have learned the
heavenly message imparted to Mary from Mary herself. There is no trace
in the narrative either of any communication preceding Elizabeth’s
address, or of interruptions occasioned by farther explanations on the
part of Mary. On the contrary, as it is a supernatural revelation which
acquaints Mary with the pregnancy of Elizabeth, so also it is to a
revelation that Elizabeth’s immediate recognition of Mary, as the
chosen mother of the Messiah, is attributed. [296] As little will the
other feature of this narrative—that the entrance of the mother of the
Messiah occasioned a responsive movement in his mother’s womb on the
part of his forerunner—bear a natural explanation. In modern times,
indeed, even orthodox interpreters have inclined to this explanation,
but with the modification, that Elizabeth in the first place received a
revelation, in which however the child, owing to the mother’s
excitement, a matter to be physiologically explained, likewise took
part. [297] But the record does not represent the thing as if the
excitement of the mother were the determining cause of the movement of
the child; on the contrary (v. 41), the emotion of the mother follows
the movement of the child, and Elizabeth’s own account states, that it
was the salutation of Mary (v. 44), not indeed from its particular
signification, but merely as the voice of the mother of the Messiah,
which produced the movement of the unborn babe: undeniably assuming
something supernatural. And indeed the supranaturalistic view of this
miracle is not free from objection, even on its own ground; and hence
the anxiety of the above-mentioned modern orthodox interpreters to
evade it. It may be possible to conceive the human mind immediately
acted upon by the divine mind, to which it is related, but how solve
the difficulty of an immediate communication of the divine mind to an
unintelligent embryo? And if we inquire the object of so strange a
miracle, none which is worthy presents itself. Should it be referred to
the necessity that the Baptist should receive the earliest possible
intimation of the work to which he was destined; still we know not how
such an impression could have been made upon an embryo. Should the
purpose be supposed to centre in the other individuals, in Mary or
Elizabeth; they had been the recipients of far higher revelations, and
were consequently already possessed of an adequate measure of insight
and faith.
No fewer difficulties oppose the rationalistic than the
supranaturalistic explanation of the hymn pronounced by Mary. For
though it is not, like the Canticle of Zacharias (v. 67) and the
address of Elizabeth (v. 41), introduced by the formula ἐπλήσθη
πνεύματος ἁγίου, she was filled with the Holy Ghost, still the
similarity of these utterances is so great, that the omission cannot be
adduced as a proof that the narrator did not intend to represent this,
equally with the other two, as the operation of the πνεῦμα (spirit).
But apart from the intention of the narrator, can it be thought natural
that two friends visiting one another should, even in the midst of the
most extraordinary occurrences, break forth into long hymns, and that
their conversation should entirely lose the character of dialogue, the
natural form on such occasions? By a supernatural influence alone could
the minds of the two friends be attuned to a state of elevation, so
foreign to their every-day life. But if, indeed, Mary’s hymn is to be
understood as the work of the Holy Spirit, it is surprising that a
speech emanating immediately from the divine source of inspiration
should not be more striking for its originality, but should be so
interlarded with reminiscences from the Old Testament, borrowed from
the song of praise spoken by the mother of Samuel (1 Sam. ii.) under
analogous circumstances. [298] Accordingly we must admit that the
compilation of this hymn, consisting of recollections from the Old
Testament, was put together in a natural way; but allowing its
composition to have been perfectly natural, it cannot be ascribed to
the artless Mary, but to him who poetically wrought out the tradition
in circulation respecting the scene in question.
Since then we find all the principal incidents of this visit
inconceivable according to the supernatural interpretation; also that
they will not bear a natural explanation; we are led to seek a mythical
exposition of this as well as the preceding portions of the gospel
history. This path has already been entered upon by others. The view of
this narrative given by the anonymous E. F. in Henke’s Magazine [299]
is, that it does not pourtray events as they actually did occur, but as
they might have occurred; that much which the sequel taught of the
destiny of their sons was carried back into the speeches of these
women, which were also enriched by other features gleaned from
tradition; that a true fact however lies at the bottom, namely an
actual visit of Mary to Elizabeth, a joyous conversation, and the
expression of gratitude to God; all which might have happened solely in
virtue of the high importance attached by Orientals to the joys of
maternity, even though the two mothers had been at that time ignorant
of the destination of their children. This author is of opinion that
Mary, when pondering over at a later period the remarkable life of her
son, may often have related the happy meeting with her cousin and their
mutual expressions of thankfulness to God, and that thus the history
gained currency. Horst also, who has a just conception of the
fictitious nature of this section in Luke, and ably refutes the natural
mode of explanation, yet himself slides unawares half-way back into it.
He thinks it not improbable that Mary during her pregnancy, which was
in many respects a painful one, should have visited her older and more
experienced cousin, and that Elizabeth should during this visit have
felt the first movement of her child: an occurrence which as it was
afterwards regarded as ominous, was preserved by the oral tradition.
[300]
These are farther examples of the uncritical proceeding which pretends
to disengage the mythical and poetical from the narrative, by plucking
away a few twigs and blossoms of that growth, whilst it leaves the very
root of the mythus undisturbed as purely historical. In our narrative
the principal mythical feature (the remainder forms only its adjuncts)
is precisely that which the above-mentioned authors, in their pretended
mythical explanations, retain as historical: namely, the visit of Mary
to the pregnant Elizabeth. For, as we have already seen, the main
tendency of the first chapter of Luke is to magnify Jesus by connecting
the Baptist with him from the earliest possible point in a relation of
inferiority. Now this object could not be better attained than by
bringing about a meeting, not in the first instance of the sons, but of
the mothers in reference to their sons, during their pregnancy, at
which meeting some occurrence which should prefigure the future
relative positions of these two men should take place. Now the more
apparent the existence of a dogmatical motive as the origin of this
visit, the less probability is there that it had an historical
foundation. With this principal feature the other details are connected
in the following order:—The visit of the two women must be represented
as possible and probable by the feature of family relationship between
Mary and Elizabeth (v. 36), which would also give a greater suitability
to the subsequent connexion of the sons. Further, a visit, so full of
import, made precisely at that time, must have taken place by special
divine appointment; therefore it is an angel who refers Mary to her
cousin. At the visit the subservient position of the Baptist to Jesus
is to be particularly exhibited;—this could have been effected by the
mother, as indeed it is, in her address to Mary, but it were better if
possible that the future Baptist himself should give a sign. The mutual
relation of Esau and Jacob had been prefigured by their struggles and
position in their mother’s womb (Gen. xxv. 22 ff.). But, without too
violent an offence against the laws of probability, an ominous movement
would not be attributed to the child prior to that period of her
pregnancy at which the motion of the fœtus is felt; hence the necessity
that Elizabeth should be in the sixth month of her pregnancy when Mary,
in consequence of the communication of the angel, set out to visit her
cousin (v. 36). Thus, as Schleiermacher remarks, [301] the whole
arrangement of times had reference to the particular circumstance the
author desired to contrive—the joyous responsive movement of the child
in his mother’s womb at the moment of Mary’s entrance. To this end only
must Mary’s visit be delayed till after the fifth month; and the angel
not appear to her before that period.
Thus not only does the visit of Mary to Elizabeth with all the
attendant circumstances disappear from the page of history, but the
historical validity of the further details—that John was only half a
year older than Jesus; that the two mothers were related; that an
intimacy subsisted between the families;—cannot be affirmed on the
testimony of Luke, unsupported by other authorities: indeed, the
contrary rather will be found substantiated in the course of our
critical investigations.
CHAPTER IV.
BIRTH AND EARLIEST EVENTS OF THE LIFE OF JESUS.
§ 32.
THE CENSUS.
With respect to the birth of Jesus, Matthew and Luke agree in
representing it as taking place at Bethlehem; but whilst the latter
enters into a minute detail of all the attendant circumstances, the
former merely mentions the event as it were incidentally, referring to
it once in an appended sentence as the sequel to what had gone before
(i. 25), and again as a presupposed occurrence (ii. 1). The one
Evangelist seems to assume that Bethlehem was the habitual residence of
the parents; but according to the other they are led thither by very
particular circumstances. This point of difference between the
Evangelists however can only be discussed after we shall have collected
more data; we will therefore leave it for the present, and turn our
attention to an error into which Luke, when compared with himself and
with dates otherwise ascertained, seems to have fallen. This is the
statement, that the census, decreed by Augustus at the time when
Cyrenius (Quirinus) was governor of Syria, was the occasion of the
journey of the parents of Jesus, who usually resided at Nazareth, to
Bethlehem where Jesus was born (Luke ii. 1 ff.).
The first difficulty is that the ἀπογραφὴ (namely, the inscription of
the name and amount of property in order to facilitate the taxation)
commanded by Augustus, is extended to all the world, πᾶσαν τὴν
οἰκουμένην. This expression, in its common acceptation at that time,
would denote the orbis Romanus. But ancient authors mention no such
general census decreed by Augustus; they speak only of the assessment
of single provinces decreed at different times. Consequently, it was
said Luke meant to indicate by οἰκουμένη merely the land of Judea, and
not the Roman world according to its ordinary signification. Examples
were forthwith collected in proof of the possibility of such an
interpretation, [302] but they in fact prove nothing. For supposing it
could not be shown that in all these citations from the Septuagint,
Josephus, and the New Testament, the expression really does signify, in
the extravagant sense of these writers, the whole known world; still in
the instance in question, where the subject is a decree of the Roman
emperor, πᾶσα ἡ οἰκουμένη must necessarily be understood of the regions
which he governed, and therefore of the orbis Romanus. This is the
reason that latterly the opposite side has been taken up, and it has
been maintained, upon the authority of Savigny, that in the time of
Augustus a census of the whole empire was actually undertaken. [303]
This is positively affirmed by late Christian writers [304]: but the
statement is rendered suspicious by the absence of all more ancient
testimony [305]; and it is even contradicted by the fact, that for a
considerable lapse of time an equal assessment throughout the empire
was not effected. Finally, the very expressions of these writers show
that their testimony rests upon that of Luke. [306] But, it is said,
Augustus at all events attempted an equal assessment of the empire by
means of an universal census; and he began the carrying out his project
by an assessment of individual provinces, but he left the further
execution and completion to his successors. [307] Admit that the gospel
term δόγμα (decree) may be interpreted as a mere design, or, as
Hoffmann thinks, an undetermined project expressed in an imperial
decree; still the fulfilment of this project in Judea at the time of
the birth of Jesus was impossible.
Matthew places the birth of Jesus shortly before the death of Herod the
Great, whom he represents (ii. 19) as dying during the abode of Jesus
in Egypt. Luke says the same indirectly, for when speaking of the
announcement of the birth of the Baptist, he refers it to the days of
Herod the Great, and he places the birth of Jesus precisely six months
later; so that according to Luke, also, Jesus was born, if not, like
John, previous to the death of Herod I., shortly after that event. Now,
after the death of Herod the country of Judea fell to his son Archelaus
(Matt. ii. 22), who, after a reign of something less than ten years,
was deposed and banished by Augustus, [308] at which time Judea was
first constituted a Roman province, and began to be ruled by Roman
functionaries. [309] Thus the Roman census in question must have been
made either under Herod the Great, or at the commencement of the reign
of Archelaus. This is in the highest degree improbable, for in those
countries which were not reduced in formam provinciæ, but were governed
by regibus sociis, the taxes were levied by these princes, who paid a
tribute to the Romans [310]; and this was the state of things in Judea
prior to the deposition of Archelaus. It has been the object of much
research to make it appear probable that Augustus decreed a census, as
an extraordinary measure, in Palestine under Herod. Attention has been
directed to the circumstance that the breviarium imperii, which
Augustus left behind him, contained the financial state of the whole
empire, and it has been suggested that, in order to ascertain the
financial condition of Palestine, he caused a statement to be prepared
by Herod. [311] Reference has been made first to the record of
Josephus, that on account of some disturbance of the relations between
Herod and Augustus, the latter threatened for the future to make him
feel his subjection [312]; secondly, also to the oath of allegiance to
Augustus which, according to Josephus, the Jews were forced to take
even during the lifetime of Herod. [313] From which it is inferred that
Augustus, since he had it in contemplation after the death of Herod to
restrict the power of his sons, was very likely to have commanded a
census in the last years of that prince. [314] But it seems more
probable that it took place shortly after the death of Herod, from the
circumstance that Archelaus went to Rome concerning the matter of
succession, and that during his absence the Roman procurator Sabinus
occupied Jerusalem, and oppressed the Jews by every possible means.
[315]
The Evangelist relieves us from a farther inquiry into this more or
less historical or arbitrary combination by adding, that this taxing
was first made when Cyrenius (Quirinus) was governor of Syria,
ἡγεμονεύοντος τῆς Συρίας Κυρηνίου; for it is an authenticated point
that the assessment of Quirinus did not take place either under Herod
or early in the reign of Archelaus, the period at which, according to
Luke, Jesus was born. Quirinus was not at that time governor of Syria,
a situation held during the last years of Herod by Sentius Saturninus,
and after him by Quintilius Varus; and it was not till long after the
death of Herod that Quirinus was appointed governor of Syria. That
Quirinus undertook a census of Judea we know certainly from Josephus,
[316] who, however, remarks that he was sent to execute this measure,
τῆς Ἀρχελάου χώρας εἰς ἐπαρχίαν περίγραφείσης, or, ὑποτελοῦς
προσνεμηθείσης τῇ Σύρων [317]; thus about ten years after the time at
which, according to Matthew and Luke, Jesus must have been born.
Yet commentators have supposed it possible to reconcile this apparently
undeniable contradiction between Luke and history. The most dauntless
explain the whole of the second verse as a gloss, which was early
incorporated into the text. [318] Some change the reading of the verse;
either of the nomen proprium, by substituting the name of Saturninus or
Quintilius, [319] according to the example of Tertullian, who ascribed
the census to the former [320]; or of the other words, by various
additions and modifications. Paulus’s alteration is the most simple. He
reads, instead of αὕτη, αὐτὴ, and concludes, from the reasons stated
above, that Augustus actually gave orders for a census during the reign
of Herod I., and that the order was so far carried out as to occasion
the journey of Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem; but that Augustus being
afterwards conciliated, the measure was abandoned, and αὐτὴ ἡ ἀπογραφὴ
was only carried into effect a considerable time later, by Quirinus.
Trifling as this alteration, which leaves the letters unchanged, may
appear, in order to render it admissible it must be supported by the
context. The reverse, however, is the fact. For if one sentence
narrates a command issued by a prince, and the very next sentence its
execution, it is not probable that a space of ten years intervened. But
chiefly, according to this view the Evangelist speaks, verse 1, of the
decree of the emperor; verse 2, of the census made ten years later; but
verse 3, without any remark, again of a journey performed at the time
the command was issued; which, in a rational narrative, is impossible.
Opposed to such arbitrary conjectures, and always to be ranked above
them, are the attempts to solve a difficulty by legitimate methods of
interpretation. Truly, however, to take πρώτη in this connexion for
προτέρα, and ἡγεμονεύοντος Κ. not for a genitive absolute, but for a
genitive governed by a comparative, and thus to understand an enrolment
before that of Quirinus, [321] is to do violence to grammatical
construction; and to insert πρὸ τῆς after πρώτη [322] is is no less
uncritical. As little is it to be admitted that some preliminary
measure, in which Quirinus was not employed, perhaps the already
mentioned oath of allegiance, took place during the lifetime of Herod,
in reference to the census subsequently made by Quirinus; and that this
preliminary step and the census were afterwards comprised under the
same name. In order in some degree to account for this appellation,
Quirinus is said to have been sent into Judea, in Herod’s time, as an
extraordinary tax-commissioner [323]; but this interpretation of the
word ἡγεμονεύοντος is rendered impossible by the addition of the word
Συρίας, in combination with which the expression can denote only the
Præses Syriæ.
Thus at the time at which Jesus, according to Matt. ii. 1, and Luke i.
5, 26, was born, the census of which Luke ii. 1 f. speaks could not
have taken place; so that if the former statements are correct, the
latter must be false. But may not the reverse be the fact, and Jesus
have been born after the banishment of Archelaus, and at the time of
the census of Quirinus? Apart from the difficulties in which this
hypothesis would involve us in relation to the chronology of the future
life of Jesus, a Roman census, subsequent to the banishment of
Archelaus, would not have taken the parents of Jesus from Nazareth in
Galilee to Bethlehem in Judea. For Judea only, and what otherwise
belonged to the portion of Archelaus, became a Roman province and
subjected to the census. In Galilee Herod Antipas continued to reign as
an allied prince, and none of his subjects dwelling at Nazareth could
have been called to Bethlehem by the census. The Evangelist therefore,
in order to get a census, must have conceived the condition of things
such as they were after the deposition of Archelaus; but in order to
get a census extending to Galilee, he must have imagined the kingdom to
have continued undivided, as in the time of Herod the Great. Thus he
deals in manifest contradictions; or rather he has an exceedingly sorry
acquaintance with the political relations of that period; for he
extends the census not only to the whole of Palestine, but also (which
we must not forget) to the whole Roman world.
Still these chronological incongruities do not exhaust the difficulties
which beset this statement of Luke. His representation of the manner in
which the census was made is subject to objection. In the first place,
it is said, the taxing took Joseph to Bethlehem, because he was of the
house and lineage of David, διὰ τὸ εἶναι αὐτὸν ἐξ οἴκου καὶ πατριᾶς
Δαβὶδ, and likewise every one into his own city, εἰς τὴν ἰδίαν πόλιν,
i.e. according to the context, to the place whence his family had
originally sprung. Now, that every individual should be registered in
his own city was required in all Jewish inscriptions, because among the
Jews the organization of families and tribes constituted the very basis
of the state. The Romans, on the contrary, were in the habit of taking
the census at the residences, and at the principal cities in the
district. [324] They conformed to the usages of the conquered countries
only in so far as they did not interfere with their own objects. In the
present instance it would have been directly contrary to their design,
had they removed individuals—Joseph for example—to a great distance,
where the amount of their property was not known, and their statement
concerning it could not be checked. [325] The view of Schleiermacher is
the more admissible, that the real occasion which took the parents to
Bethlehem was a sacerdotal inscription, which the Evangelist confounded
with the better known census of Quirinus. But this concession does not
obviate the contradiction in this dubious statement of Luke. He allows
Mary to be inscribed with Joseph, but according to Jewish customs
inscriptions had relation to men only. Thus, at all events, it is an
inaccuracy to represent Mary as undertaking the journey, in order to be
inscribed with her betrothed in his own city. Or, if with Paulus we
remove this inaccuracy by a forced construction of the sentence, we can
no longer perceive what inducement could have instigated Mary, in her
particular situation, to make so long a journey, since, unless we adopt
the airy hypothesis of Olshausen and others, that Mary was the heiress
of property in Bethlehem, she had nothing to do there.
The Evangelist, however, knew perfectly well what she had to do there;
namely, to fulfil the prophecy of Micah (v. 1), by giving birth, in the
city of David, to the Messiah. Now as he set out with the supposition
that the habitual abode of the parents of Jesus was Nazareth, so he
sought after a lever which should set them in motion towards Bethlehem,
at the time of the birth of Jesus. Far and wide nothing presented
itself but the celebrated census; he seized it the more unhesitatingly
because the obscurity of his own view of the historical relations of
that time, veiled from him the many difficulties connected with such a
combination. If this be the true history of the statement in Luke, we
must agree with K. Ch. L. Schmidt when he says, that to attempt to
reconcile the statement of Luke concerning the ἀπογραφὴ with
chronology, would be to do the narrator too much honour; he wished to
place Mary in Bethlehem, and therefore times and circumstances were to
accommodate themselves to his pleasure. [326]
Thus we have here neither a fixed point for the date of the birth of
Jesus, nor an explanation of the occasion which led to his being born
precisely at Bethlehem. If then—it may justly be said—no other reason
why Jesus should have been born at Bethlehem can be adduced than that
given by Luke, we have absolutely no guarantee that Bethlehem was his
birth-place.
§ 33.
PARTICULAR CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE BIRTH OF JESUS. THE CIRCUMCISION.
The basis of the narrative, the arrival of Joseph and Mary as strangers
in Bethlehem on account of the census, being once chosen by Luke, the
farther details are consistently built upon it. In consequence of the
influx of strangers brought to Bethlehem by the census, there is no
room for the travellers in the inn, and they are compelled to put up
with the accommodation of a stable where Mary is forthwith delivered of
her first-born. But the child, who upon earth comes into being in so
humble an abode, is highly regarded in heaven. A celestial messenger
announces the birth of the Messiah to shepherds who are guarding their
flocks in the fields by night, and directs them to the child in the
manger. A choir of the heavenly host singing hymns of praise next
appears to them, after which they seek and find the child. (Luke ii.
6–20.)
The apocryphal gospels and the traditions of the Fathers still further
embellished the birth of Jesus. According to the Protevangelium Jacobi,
[327] Joseph conducts Mary on an ass to Bethlehem to be taxed. As they
approach the city she begins to make now mournful, now joyous gestures,
and upon inquiry explains that—(as once in Rebecca’s womb the two
hostile nations struggled, Gen. xxv. 23)—she sees two people before
her, the one weeping, the other laughing: i.e. according to one
explanation, the two portions of Israel, to one of whom the advent of
Jesus was set (Luke ii. 34) εἰς πτῶσιν, for the fall, to the other εἰς
ἀνάστασιν, for the rising again. According to another interpretation,
the two people were the Jews who should reject Jesus, and the heathens
who should accept him. [328] Soon, however, whilst still without the
city—as appears from the context and the reading of several MSS.—Mary
is seized with the pains of child-bearing, and Joseph brings her into a
cave situated by the road side, where, veiled by a cloud of light, all
nature pausing in celebration of the event, she brings her child into
the world, and after her delivery is found, by women called to her
assistance, still a virgin. [329] The legend of the birth of Jesus in a
cave was known to Justin [330] and to Origen, [331] who, in order to
reconcile it with the account in Luke that he was laid in a manger,
suppose a manger situated within the cave. Many modern commentators
agree with them [332]; whilst others prefer to consider the cave itself
as φάτνη, in the sense of foddering-stall. [333] For the birth of Jesus
in a cave, Justin appeals to the prophecy in Isaiah xxviii. 16: οὗτος
(the righteous) οἰκήσει ἐν ὑψηλῷ σπηλαίῳ πέτρας ἱσχυρᾶς. In like
manner, for the statement that on the third day the child Jesus, when
brought from the cave into the stable, was worshipped by the oxen and
the asses, the Historia de Nativitate Mariae, [334] etc. refers to
Isaiah i. 3: cognovit bos possessorem suum, et asinus praesepe domini
sui. In several apocryphas, between the Magi and the women who assist
at the birth, the shepherds are forgotten; but they are mentioned in
the Evangelium infantiae arabicum, [335] where it says, that when they
arrived at the cave, and had kindled a fire of rejoicing, the heavenly
host appeared to them.
If we take the circumstances attending the birth of Jesus, narrated by
Luke, in a supranaturalistic sense, many difficulties occur. First, it
may reasonably be asked, to what end the angelic apparition? The most
obvious answer is, to make known the birth of Jesus; but so little did
it make it known that, in the neighbouring city of Jerusalem, it is the
Magi who give the first information of the new-born king of the Jews;
and in the future history of Jesus, no trace of any such occurrence at
his birth is to be found. Consequently, the object of that
extraordinary phenomenon was not to give a wide-spreading intimation of
the fact; for if so, God failed in his object. Must we then agree with
Schleiermacher, that the aim was limited to an immediate operation upon
the shepherds? Then we must also suppose with him, that the shepherds,
equally with Simeon, were filled with Messianic expectations, and that
God designed by this apparition to reward and confirm their pious
belief. The narrative however says nothing of this heavenly frame of
mind, neither does it mention any abiding effects produced upon these
men. According to the whole tenor of the representation, the apparition
seems to have had reference, not to the shepherds, but exclusively to
the glorification and the proclaiming of the birth of Jesus, as the
Messiah. But as before observed, the latter aim was not accomplished,
and the former, by itself, like every mere empty display, is an object
unworthy of God. So that this circumstance in itself presents no
inconsiderable obstacle to the supranaturalistic conception of the
history. If, to the above considerations, we add those already stated
which oppose the belief in apparitions and the existence of angels in
general, it is easy to understand that with respect to this narrative
also refuge has been sought in a natural explanation.
The results of the first attempts at a natural explanation were
certainly sufficiently rude. Thus Eck regarded the angel as a messenger
from Bethlehem, who carried a light which caught the eye of the
shepherds, and the song of the heavenly host as the merry tones of a
party accompanying the messenger. [336] Paulus has woven together a
more refined and matter of fact explanation. Mary, who had met with a
hospitable reception in a herdsman’s family, and who was naturally
elated with the hope of giving birth to the Messiah, told her
expectations to the members of this family; to whom as inhabitants of a
city of David the communication could not have been indifferent. These
shepherds therefore on perceiving, whilst in the fields by night, a
luminous appearance in the air—a phenomenon which travellers say is not
uncommon in those regions—they interpret it as a divine intimation that
the stranger in their foddering-stall is delivered of the Messiah; and
as the meteoric light extends and moves to and fro, they take it for a
choir of angels chaunting hymns of praise. Returning home they find
their anticipations confirmed by the event, and that which at first
they merely conjectured to be the sense and interpretation of the
phenomenon, they now, after the manner of the East, represent as words
actually spoken. [337]
This explanation rests altogether on the assumption, that the shepherds
were previously acquainted with Mary’s expectation that she should give
birth to the Messiah. How otherwise should they have been led to
consider the sign as referring particularly to the birth of the Messiah
in their manger? Yet this very assumption is the most direct
contradiction of the gospel account. For, in the first place, the
Evangelist evidently does not suppose the manger to belong to the
shepherds: since after he has narrated the delivery of Mary in the
manger, he then goes on to speak of the shepherds as a new and distinct
subject, not at all connected with the manger. His words are: and there
were in the same country shepherds, καὶ ποιμένες ἦσαν ἐν τῇ χώρᾳ τῇ
αὐτῇ. If this explanation were correct he would, at all events, have
said, the shepherds etc. οἱ δὲ ποιμένες κ.τ.λ.; besides he would not
have been wholly silent respecting the comings and goings of these
shepherds during the day, and their departure to guard the flock at the
approach of night. But, grant these presupposed circumstances, is it
consistent in Paulus to represent Mary, at first so reserved concerning
her pregnancy as to conceal it even from Joseph, and then so
communicative that, just arrived among strangers, she parades the whole
history of her expectations? Again the sequel of the narrative
contradicts the assumption that the shepherds were informed of the
matter by Mary herself, before her delivery. For, according to the
gospel history, the shepherds receive the first intelligence of the
birth of the Saviour σωτὴρ from the angel who appears to them, and who
tells them, as a sign of the truth of his communication, that they
shall find the babe lying in a manger. Had they already heard from Mary
of the approaching birth of the Messiah, the meteoric appearance would
have been a confirmation to them of Mary’s words, and not the finding
of the child a proof of the truth of the apparition. Finally, may we so
far confide in the investigations already made as to inquire, whence,
if neither a miraculous announcement nor a supernatural conception
actually occurred, could Mary have derived the confident anticipation
that she should give birth to the Messiah?
In opposition to this natural explanation, so full of difficulties on
every side, Bauer announced his adoption of the mythical view [338]; in
fact, however, he did not advance one step beyond the interpretation of
the Rationalists, but actually repeated Paulus’s exposition point for
point. To this mixed mythical explanation Gabler justly objected that
it, equally with the natural interpretation, multiplies
improbabilities: by the adoption of the pure, dogmatic mythus,
everything appears simpler; thereby, at the same time, greater harmony
is introduced into the early christian history, all the preceding
narratives of which ought equally to be interpreted as pure mythi.
[339] Gabler, accordingly, explained the narrative as the product of
the ideas of the age, which demanded the assistance of angels at the
birth of the Messiah. Now had it been known that Mary was delivered in
a dwelling belonging to shepherds, it would also have been concluded
that angels must have brought the tidings to these good shepherds that
the Messiah was born in their manger; and the angels who cease not
praising God, must have sung a hymn of praise on the occasion. Gabler
thinks it impossible, that a Jewish christian who should have known
some of the data of the birth of Jesus, could have thought of it
otherwise than as here depicted. [340]
This explanation of Gabler shows, in a remarkable manner, how difficult
it is entirely to extricate oneself from the natural explanation, and
to rise completely to the mythical; for whilst this theologian believes
he treads on pure mythical ground, he still stands with one foot upon
that of the natural interpretation. He selects from the account of Luke
one incident as historical which, by its connexion with other
unhistorical statements and its conformity to the spirit of the
primitive christian legend, is proved to be merely mythical; namely,
that Jesus was really born in a shepherd’s dwelling. He also borrows an
assumption from the natural explanation, which the mythical needs not
to obtrude on the text: that the shepherds, to whom it is alleged the
angels appeared, were the possessors of the manger in which Mary was
delivered. The first detail, upon which the second is built, belongs to
the same machinery by which Luke, with the help of the census,
transported the parents of Jesus from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Now we
know what is the fact respecting the census; it crumbles away
inevitably before criticism, and with it the datum built entirely upon
it, that Jesus was born in a manger. For had not the parents of Jesus
been strangers, and had they not come to Bethlehem in company with so
large a concourse of strangers as the census might have occasioned, the
cause which obliged Mary to accept a stable for her place of delivery
would no longer have existed. But, on the other hand, the incident,
that Jesus was born in a stable and saluted in the first instance by
shepherds, is so completely in accordance with the spirit of the
ancient legend, that it is evident the narrative may have been derived
purely from this source. Theophylact, in his time, pointed out its true
character, when he says: the angels did not appear to the scribes and
pharisees of Jerusalem who were full of all malice, but to the
shepherds, in the fields, on account of their simplicity and innocence,
and because they by their mode of life were the successors of the
patriarchs. [341] It was in the field by the flocks that Moses was
visited by a heavenly apparition (Exod. iii. 1 ff.); and God took
David, the forefather of the Messiah, from his sheepfolds (at
Bethlehem), to be the shepherd of his people. Psalm lxxviii. 70 (comp.
1 Sam. xvi. 11). The mythi of the ancient world more generally ascribed
divine apparitions to countrymen [342] and shepherds [343]; the sons of
the gods, and of great men were frequently brought up among shepherds.
[344] In the same spirit of the ancient legend is the apocryphal
invention that Jesus was born in a cave, and we are at once reminded of
the cave of Jupiter and of the other gods; even though the
misunderstood passage of Isaiah xxxiii. 16 may have been the immediate
occasion of this incident. [345] Moreover the night, in which the scene
is laid,—(unless one refers here to the rabbinical representations,
according to which, the deliverance by means of the Messiah, like the
deliverance from Egypt, should take place by night [346])—forms the
obscure background against which the manifested glory of the Lord shone
so much the more brilliantly, which, as it is said to have glorified
the birth of Moses, [347] could not have been absent from that of the
Messiah, his exalted antitype.
The mythical interpretation of this section of the gospel history has
found an opponent in Schleiermacher. [348] He thinks it improbable that
this commencement of the second chapter of Luke is a continuation of
the first, written by the same author; because the frequent
opportunities of introducing lyrical effusions—as for example, when the
shepherds returned glorifying and praising God, v. 20—are not taken
advantage of as in the first chapter; and here indeed we can in some
measure agree with him. But when he adds that a decidedly poetical
character cannot be ascribed to this narrative, since a poetical
composition would of necessity have contained more of the lyrical, this
only proves that Schleiermacher has not justly apprehended the notion
of that kind of poetry of which he here treats, namely, the poetry of
the mythus. In a word, mythical poetry is objective: the poetical
exists in the substance of the narrative, and may therefore appear in
the plainest form, free from all the adornments of lyrical effusions;
which latter are rather only the subsequent additions of a more
intelligent and artificially elaborated subjective poetry. [349]
Undoubtedly this section seems to have been preserved to us more nearly
in its original legendary form, whilst the narratives of the first
chapter in Luke bear rather the stamp of having been re-wrought by some
poetical individual; but historical truth is not on that account to be
sought here any more than there. Consequently the obligation which
Schleiermacher further imposes upon himself, to trace out the source of
this narrative in the Gospel of Luke, can only be regarded as an
exercise of ingenuity. He refuses to recognize that source in Mary,
though a reference to her might have been found in the observation, v.
19, she kept all these sayings in her heart; wherein indeed he is the
more right, since that observation (a fact to which Schleiermacher does
not advert) is merely a phrase borrowed from the history of Jacob and
his son Joseph. [350] For as the narrative in Genesis relates of Jacob,
the father of Joseph, that child of miracle, that when the latter told
his significant dreams, and his brethren envied him, his father
observed the saying: so the narrative in Luke, both here and at verse
51, relates of Mary, that she, whilst others gave utterance aloud to
their admiration at the extraordinary occurrences which happened to her
child, kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. But the
above-named theologian points out the shepherds instead of Mary as the
source of our narrative, alleging that all the details are given, not
from Mary’s point of view, but from that of the shepherds. More truly
however is the point of view that of the legend which supersedes both.
If Schleiermacher finds it impossible to believe that this narrative is
an air-bubble conglomerated out of nothing, he must include under the
word nothing the Jewish and early christian ideas—concerning Bethlehem,
as the necessary birthplace of the Messiah; concerning the condition of
the shepherds, as being peculiarly favoured by communications from
heaven; concerning angels, as the intermediate agents in such
communications—notions we on our side cannot possibly hold in so little
estimation, but we find it easy to conceive that something similar to
our narrative might have formed itself out out of them. Finally, when
he finds an adventitious or designed invention impossible, because the
Christians of that district might easily have inquired of Mary or of
the disciples concerning the truth of the matter: he speaks too nearly
the language of the ancient apologists, and presupposes the ubiquity of
these persons, [351] already alluded to in the Introduction, who
however could not possibly have been in all places rectifying the
tendency to form christian legends, wherever it manifested itself.
The notice of the circumcision of Jesus (Luke ii. 21), evidently
proceeds from a narrator who had no real advice of the fact, but who
assumed as a certainty that, according to Jewish custom, the ceremony
took place on the eighth day, and who was desirous of commemorating
this important event in the life of an Israelitish boy; [352] in like
manner as Paul (Phil. iii. 5) records his circumcision on the eighth
day. The contrast however between the fulness of detail with which this
point is elaborated and coloured in the life of the Baptist, and the
barrenness and brevity with which it is stated in reference to Jesus,
is striking, and may justify an agreement with the remark of
Schleiermacher, that here, at least the author of the first chapter is
no longer the originator. Such being the state of the case, this
statement furnishes nothing for our object, which we might not already
have known; only we have till now had no opportunity of observing,
distinctly, that the pretended appointment of the name of Jesus before
his birth likewise belongs merely to the mythical dress of the
narrative. When it is said his name was called Jesus, which was so
named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb, the importance
attached to the circumstance is a clear sign, that a dogmatic interest
lies at the bottom of this feature in the narrative; which interest can
be no other than that which gave rise to the statement—in the Old
Testament concerning an Isaac and an Ishmael, and in the New Testament
concerning a John—that the names of these children were, respectively,
revealed to their parents prior to their birth, and on account of which
interest the rabbins, in particular, expected that the same thing
should occur in relation to the name of the Messiah. [353] Without
doubt there were likewise other far more natural reasons which induced
the parents of Jesus to give him this name (יֵשׁוּעַ an abbreviation of
יְהוֹשֻׁעַ, ὁ Κύριος σωτηρία); a name which was very common among his
countrymen; but because this name agreed in a remarkable manner with
the path of life subsequently chosen by him as Messiah and σωτὴρ, it
was not thought possible that this coincidence could have been
accidental. Besides it seemed more appropriate that the name of the
Messiah should have been determined by divine command than by human
arbitration, and consequently the appointment of the name was ascribed
to the same angel who had announced the conception of Jesus.
§ 34.
THE MAGI AND THEIR STAR. THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT AND THE MURDER OF THE
CHILDREN IN BETHLEHEM. CRITICISM OF THE SUPRANATURALISTIC VIEW.
In the Gospel of Matthew also we have a narrative of the Messiah’s
entrance into the world; it differs considerably in detail from that of
Luke, which we have just examined, but in the former part of the two
accounts there is a general similarity (Matt. ii. 1 ff.). The object of
both narratives is to describe the solemn introduction of the Messianic
infant, the heralding of his birth undertaken by heaven itself, and his
first reception among men. [354] In both, attention is called to the
new-born Messiah by a celestial phenomenon; according to Luke, it is an
angel clothed in brightness, according to Matthew, it is a star. As the
apparitions are different, so accordingly are the recipients; the angel
addresses simple shepherds; the star is discovered by eastern magi, who
are able to interpret for themselves the voiceless sign. Both parties
are directed to Bethlehem; the shepherds by the words of the angel, the
magi by the instructions they obtain in Jerusalem; and both do homage
to the infant; the poor shepherds by singing hymns of praise, the magi
by costly presents from their native country. But from this point the
two narratives begin to diverge widely. In Luke all proceeds happily;
the shepherds return with gladness in their hearts, the child
experiences no molestation, he is presented in the temple on the
appointed day, thrives and grows up in tranquillity. In Matthew, on the
contrary, affairs take a tragical turn. The inquiry of the wise men in
Jerusalem concerning the new-born King of the Jews, is the occasion of
a murderous decree on the part of Herod against the children of
Bethlehem, a danger from which the infant Jesus is rescued only by a
sudden flight into Egypt, whence he and his parents do not return to
the Holy Land till after the death of Herod.
Thus we have here a double proclamation of the Messianic child: we
might, however, suppose that the one by the angel, in Luke, would
announce the birth of the Messiah to the immediate neighbourhood; the
other, by means of the star, to distant lands. But as, according to
Matthew, the birth of Jesus became known at Jerusalem, which was in the
immediate vicinity, by means of the star; if this representation be
historical, that of Luke, according to which the shepherds were the
first to spread abroad with praises to God (v. 17, 20), that which had
been communicated to them as glad tidings for all people (v. 10),
cannot possibly be correct. So, on the other hand, if it be true that
the birth of Jesus was made known in the neighbourhood of Bethlehem as
Luke states, by an angelic communication to the shepherds, Matthew must
be in error when he represents the first intelligence of the event as
subsequently brought to Jerusalem (which is only from two to three
hours distant from Bethlehem) by the magi. But as we have recognized
many indications of the unhistorical character of the announcement by
the shepherds given in Luke, the ground is left clear for that of
Matthew, which must be judged of according to its inherent credibility.
Our narrative commences as if it were an admitted fact, that
astrologers possessed the power of recognizing a star announcing the
birth of the Messiah. That eastern magi should have knowledge of a King
of the Jews to whom they owed religious homage might indeed excite our
surprise; but contenting ourselves here with remarking, that seventy
years later an expectation did prevail in the east that a ruler of the
world would arise from among the Jewish people, [355] we pass on to a
yet more weighty difficulty. According to this narrative it appears,
that astrology is right when it asserts that the birth of great men and
important revolutions in human affairs are indicated by astral
phenomena; an opinion long since consigned to the region of
superstition. It is therefore to be explained, how this deceptive
science could in this solitary instance prove true, though in no other
case are its inferences to be relied on. The most obvious explanation,
from the orthodox point of view, is an appeal to the supernatural
intervention of God; who, in this particular instance, in order to
bring the distant magi unto Jesus, accommodated himself to their
astrological notions, and caused the anticipated star to appear. But
the adoption of this expedient involves very serious consequences. For
the coincidence of the remarkable sequel with the astrological
prognostic could not fail to strengthen the belief, not only of the
magi and their fellow-countrymen, but also of the Jews and Christians
who were acquainted with the circumstances, in the spurious science of
astrology, thereby creating incalculable error and mischief. If
therefore it be unadvisable to admit an extraordinary divine
intervention, [356] and if the position that in the ordinary course of
nature, important occurrences on this earth are attended by changes in
the heavenly bodies, be abandoned, the only remaining explanation lies
in the supposition of an accidental coincidence. But to appeal to
chance is in fact either to say nothing, or to renounce the
supranaturalistic point of view.
But the orthodox view of this account not only sanctions the false
science of astrology, but also confirms the false interpretation of a
passage in the prophets. For as the magi, following their star, proceed
in the right direction, so the chief priests and scribes of Jerusalem
whom Herod, on learning the arrival and object of the magi, summons
before him and questions concerning the birth-place of the King of the
Jews, interpret the passage in Micah v. 1 as signifying that the
Messiah should be born in Bethlehem; and to this signification the
event corresponds. Now such an application of the above passage can
only be made by forcing the words from their true meaning and from all
relation with the context, according to the well-known practice of the
rabbins. For independently of the question whether or not under the
word מוֹשֵׁל, in the passage cited, the Messiah be intended, the entire
context shows the meaning to be, not that the expected governor who was
to come forth out of Bethlehem would actually be born in that city, but
only that he would be a descendant of David, whose family sprang from
Bethlehem. [357] Thus allowing the magi to have been lightly directed
by means of the rabbinical exegesis of the oracle, a false
interpretation must have hit on the truth, either by means of divine
intervention and accommodation, or by accident. The judgment pronounced
in the case of the star is applicable here also.
After receiving the above answer from the Sanhedrim, Herod summons the
magi before him, and his first question concerns the time at which the
star appeared (v. 7). Why did he wish to know this [358]? The 16th
verse tells us, that he might thereby calculate the age of the
Messianic child, and thus ascertain up to what age it would be
necessary for him to put to death the children of Bethlehem, so as not
to miss the one announced by the star. But this plan of murdering all
the children of Bethlehem up to a certain age, that he might destroy
the one likely to prove fatal to the interests of his family, was not
conceived by Herod until after the magi had disappointed his
expectation that they would return to Jerusalem; a deception which, if
we may judge from his violent anger on account of it (v. 16), Herod had
by no means anticipated. Prior to this, according to v. 8, it had been
his intention to obtain from the magi, on their return, so close a
description of the child, his dwelling and circumstances, that it would
be easy for him to remove his infantine rival without sacrificing any
other life. It was not until he had discovered the stratagem of the
magi, that he was obliged to have recourse to the more violent measure
for the execution of which it was necessary for him to know the time of
the star’s appearance. [359] How fortunate for him, then, that he had
ascertained this time before he had decided on the plan that made the
information important; but how inconceivable that he should make a
point which was only indirectly connected with his original project,
the subject of his first and most eager interrogation (v. 7)!
Herod, in the second place, commissions the magi to acquaint themselves
accurately with all that concerns the royal infant, and to impart their
knowledge to him on their return, that he also may go and tender his
homage to the child, that is, according to his real meaning, take sure
measures for putting him to death (v. 8). Such a proceeding on the part
of an astute monarch like Herod has long been held improbable. [360]
Even if he hoped to deceive the magi, while in conference with them, by
adopting this friendly mask, he must necessarily foresee that others
would presently awaken them to the probability that he harboured evil
designs against the child, and thus prevent them from returning
according to his injunction. He might conjecture that the parents of
the child on hearing of the ominous interest taken in him by the king,
would seek his safety by flight, and finally, that those inhabitants of
Bethlehem and its environs who cherished Messianic expectations, would
not be a little confirmed in them by the arrival of the magi. On all
these grounds, Herod’s only prudent measure would have been either to
detain the magi in Jerusalem, [361] and in the meantime by means of
secret emissaries to dispatch the child to whom such peculiar hopes
were attached, and who must have been easy of discovery in the little
village of Bethlehem; or to have given the magi companions who, so soon
as the child was found, might at once have put an end to his existence.
Even Olshausen thinks that these strictures are not groundless, and his
best defence against them is the observation that the histories of all
ages present unaccountable instances of forgetfulness—a proof that the
course of human events is guided by a supreme hand. When the
supernaturalist invokes the supreme hand in the case before us, he must
suppose that God himself blinded Herod to the surest means of attaining
his object, in order to save the Messianic child from a premature
death. But the other side of this divine contrivance is, that instead
of the one child, many others must die. There would be nothing to
object against such a substitution in this particular case, if it could
be proved that there was no other possible mode of rescuing Jesus from
a fate inconsistent with the scheme of human redemption. But if it be
once admitted, that God interposed supernaturally to blind the mind of
Herod and to suggest to the magi that they should not return to
Jerusalem, we are constrained to ask, why did not God in the first
instance inspire the magi to shun Jerusalem and proceed directly to
Bethlehem, whither Herod’s attention would not then have been so
immediately attracted, and thus the disastrous sequel perhaps have been
altogether avoided? [362] The supranaturalist has no answer to this
question but the old-fashioned argument that it was good for the
infants to die, because they were thus freed by transient suffering
from much misery, and more especially from the danger of sinning
against Jesus with the unbelieving Jews; whereas now they had the
honour of losing their lives for the sake of Jesus, and thus of ranking
as martyrs, and so forth. [363]
The magi leave Jerusalem by night, the favourite time for travelling in
the east. The star, which they seem to have lost sight of since their
departure from home, again appears and goes before them on the road to
Bethlehem, until at length it remains stationary over the house that
contains the wondrous child and its parents. The way from Jerusalem to
Bethlehem lies southward; now the true path of erratic stars is either
from west to east, as that of the planets and of some comets, or from
east to west, as that of other comets; the orbits of many comets do
indeed tend from north to south, but the true motion of all these
bodies is so greatly surpassed by their apparent motion from east to
west produced by the rotation of the earth on its axis, that it is
imperceptible except at considerable intervals. Even the diurnal
movement of the heavenly bodies, however, is less obvious on a short
journey than the merely optical one, arising from the observer’s own
change of place, in consequence of which a star that he sees before him
seems, as long as he moves forward, to pass on in the same direction
through infinite space; it cannot therefore stand still over a
particular house and thus induce a traveller to halt there also; on the
contrary, the traveller himself must halt before the star will appear
stationary. The star of the magi could not then be an ordinary, natural
star, but must have been one created by God for that particular
exigency, and impressed by him with a peculiar law of motion and rest.
[364] Again, this could not have been a true star, moving among the
systems of our firmament, for such an one, however impelled and
arrested, could never, according to optical laws, appear to pause over
a particular house. It must therefore have been something lower,
hovering over the earth’s surface; hence some of the Fathers and
apocryphal writers [365] supposed it to have been an angel, which,
doubtless, might fly before the magi in the form of a star, and take
its station at a moderate height above the house of Mary in Bethlehem;
more modern theologians have conjectured that the phenomenon was a
meteor. [366] Both these explanations are opposed to the text of
Matthew: the former, because it is out of keeping with the style of our
Gospels to designate anything purely supernatural, such as an angelic
appearance, by an expression that implies a merely natural object, as
ἀστὴρ (a star); the latter, because a mere meteor would not last for so
long a time as must have elapsed between the departure of the magi from
their remote home and their arrival in Bethlehem. Perhaps, however, it
will be contended that God created one meteor for the first monition,
and another for the second.
Many, even of the orthodox expositors, have found these difficulties in
relation to the star so pressing, that they have striven to escape at
any cost from the admission that it preceded the magi in their way
towards Bethlehem, and took its station directly over a particular
house. According to Süskind, whose explanation has been much approved,
the verb προῆγεν (went before) (v. 9), which is in the imperfect tense,
does not signify that the star visibly led the magi on their way, but
is equivalent to the pluperfect, which would imply that the star had
been invisibly transferred to the destination of the magi before their
arrival, so that the Evangelist intends to say: the star which the magi
had seen in the east and subsequently lost sight of, suddenly made its
appearance to them in Bethlehem above the house they were seeking; it
had therefore preceded them. [367] But this is a transplantation of
rationalistic artifice into the soil of orthodox exegesis. Not only the
word προῆγεν, but the less flexible expression ἕως ἐλθὼν κ.τ.λ. (till
it came, etc.) denotes that the transit of the star was not an already
completed phenomenon, but one brought to pass under the observation of
the magi. Expositors who persist in denying this must, to be
consistent, go still farther, and reduce the entire narrative to the
standard of merely natural events. So when Olshausen admits that the
position of a star could not possibly indicate a single house, that
hence the magi must have inquired for the infant’s dwelling, and only
with child-like simplicity referred the issue as well as the
commencement of their journey to a heavenly guide [368]; he deserts his
own point of view for that of the rationalists, and interlines the text
with explanatory particulars, an expedient which he elsewhere justly
condemns in Paulus and others.
The magi then enter the house, offer their adoration to the infant, and
present to him gifts, the productions of their native country. One
might wonder that there is no notice of the astonishment which it must
have excited in these men to find, instead of the expected prince, a
child in quite ordinary, perhaps indigent circumstances. [369] It is
not fair, however, to heighten the contrast by supposing, according to
the common notion, that the magi discovered the child in a stable lying
in the manger; for this representation is peculiar to Luke, and is
altogether unknown to Matthew, who merely speaks of a house, οἰκία, in
which the child was found. Then follows (v. 10) the warning given to
the magi in a dream, concerning which, as before remarked, it were only
to be wished that it had been vouchsafed earlier, so as to avert the
steps of the magi from Jerusalem, and thus perchance prevent the whole
subsequent massacre.
While Herod awaits the return of the magi, Joseph is admonished by an
angelic apparition in a dream to flee with the Messianic child and its
mother into Egypt for security (v. 13–15). Adopting the evangelist’s
point of view, this is not attended with any difficulty; it is
otherwise, however, with the prophecy which the above event is said to
fulfil, Hosea xi. 1. In this passage the prophet, speaking in the name
of Jehovah, says: When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called
my son out of Egypt. We may venture to attribute, even to the most
orthodox expositor, enough clear-sightedness to perceive that the
subject of the first half of the sentence is also the object of the
second, namely the people of Israel, who here, as elsewhere, (e.g.
Exod. iv. 22, Sirach xxxvi. 14), are collectively called the Son of
God, and whose past deliverance under Moses out of their Egyptian
bondage is the fact referred to: that consequently, the prophet was not
contemplating either the Messiah or his sojourn in Egypt. Nevertheless,
as our evangelist says, v. 15, that the flight of Jesus into Egypt took
place expressly that the above words of Hosea might be fulfilled, he
must have understood them as a prophecy relating to Christ—must,
therefore, have misunderstood them. It has been pretended that the
passage has a twofold application, and, though referring primarily to
the Israelitish people, is not the less a prophecy relative to Christ,
because the destiny of Israel “after the flesh” was a type of the
destiny of Jesus. But this convenient method of interpretation is not
applicable here, for the analogy would, in the present case, be
altogether external and inane, since the only parallel consists in the
bare fact in both instances of a sojourn in Egypt, the circumstances
under which the Israelitish people and the child Jesus sojourned there
being altogether diverse. [370]
When the return of the magi has been delayed long enough for Herod to
become aware that they have no intention to keep faith with him, he
decrees the death of all the male children in Bethlehem and its
environs up to the age of two years, that being, according to the
statements of the magi as to the time of the star’s appearance, the
utmost interval that could have elapsed since the birth of the
Messianic child (16–18). This was, beyond all question, an act of the
blindest fury, for Herod might easily have informed himself whether a
child who had received rare and costly presents was yet to be found in
Bethlehem: but even granting it not inconsistent with the disposition
of the aged tyrant to the extent that Schleiermacher supposed, it were
in any case to be expected that so unprecedented and revolting a
massacre would be noticed by other historians than Matthew. [371] But
neither Josephus, who is very minute in his account of Herod, nor the
rabbins, who were assiduous in blackening his memory, give the
slightest hint of this decree. The latter do, indeed, connect the
flight of Jesus into Egypt with a murderous scene, the author of which,
however, is not Herod, but King Jannæus, and the victims not children,
but rabbins. [372] Their story is evidently founded on a confusion of
the occurrence gathered from the christian history, with an earlier
event; for Alexander Jannæus died 40 years before the birth of Christ.
Macrobius, who lived in the fourth century, is the only author who
notices the slaughter of the infants, and he introduces it obliquely in
a passage which loses all credit by confounding the execution of
Antipater, who was so far from a child that he complained of his grey
hairs, [373] with the murder of the infants, renowned among the
Christians. [374] Commentators have attempted to diminish our surprise
at the remarkable silence in question, by reminding us that the number
of children of the given age in the petty village of Bethlehem, must
have been small, and by remarking that among the numerous deeds of
cruelty by which the life of Herod was stained, this one would be lost
sight of as a drop in the ocean. [375] But in these observations the
specific atrocity of murdering innocent children, however few, is
overlooked; and it is this that must have prevented the deed, if really
perpetrated, from being forgotten. [376] Here also the evangelist cites
(v. 17, 18) a prophetic passage (Jerem. xxxi. 15), as having been
fulfilled by the murder of the infants; whereas it originally referred
to something quite different, namely the transportation of the Jews to
Babylon, and had no kind of reference to an event lying in remote
futurity.
While Jesus and his parents are in Egypt, Herod the Great dies, and
Joseph is instructed by an angel, who appears to him in a dream, to
return to his native country; but as Archelaus, Herod’s successor in
Judæa, was to be feared, he has more precise directions in a second
oracular dream, in obedience to which he fixes his abode at Nazareth in
Galilee, under the milder government of Herod Antipas (19–23). Thus in
the compass of this single chapter, we have five extraordinary
interpositions of God; an anomalous star, and four visions. For the
star and the first vision, we have already remarked, one miracle might
have been substituted, not only without detriment, but with advantage;
either the star or the vision might from the beginning have deterred
the magi from going to Jerusalem, and by this means perhaps have
averted the massacre ordained by Herod. But that the two last visions
are not united in one is a mere superfluity; for the direction to
Joseph to proceed to Nazareth instead of Bethlehem, which is made the
object of a special vision, might just as well have been included in
the first. Such a disregard, even to prodigality, of the lex parsimoniæ
in relation to the miraculous, one is tempted to refer to human
imagination rather than to divine providence.
The false interpretations of Old Testament passages in this chapter are
crowned by the last verse, where it is said that by the settlement of
the parents of Jesus at Nazareth was fulfilled the saying of the
prophets: He shall be called a Nazarene. Now this passage is not to be
found in the Old Testament, and unless expositors, losing courage, take
refuge in darkness by supposing that it is extracted from a canonical
[377] or apocryphal [378] book now lost, they must admit the
conditional validity of one or other of the following charges against
the evangelist. If, as it has been alleged, he intended to compress the
Old Testament prophecies that the Messiah would be despised, into the
oracular sentence, He shall be called a Nazarene, i.e. the citizen of a
despised city, [379] we must accuse him of the most arbitrary mode of
expression; or, if he be supposed to give a modification of נזיר
(nasir) we must tax him with the most violent transformation of the
word and the grossest perversion of its meaning, for even if, contrary
to the fact, this epithet were applied to the Messiah in the Old
Testament, it could only mean either that he would be a Nazarite, [380]
which Jesus never was, or that he would be crowned, [381] as Joseph,
Gen. xlix. 26, in no case that he would be brought up in the petty town
of Nazareth. The most probable interpretation of this passage, and that
which has the sanction of the Jewish Christians questioned on the
subject by Jerome, is, that the evangelist here alludes to Isa. xi. 1,
where the Messiah is called נֵעֶר יִשַׁי (surculus Jesse) as elsewhere
צֶמַח. [382] But in every case there is the same violence done to the
word by attaching to a mere appellative of the Messiah, an entirely
fictitious relation to the name of the city of Nazareth.
§ 35.
ATTEMPTS AT A NATURAL EXPLANATION OF THE HISTORY OF THE MAGI.
TRANSITION TO THE MYTHICAL EXPLANATION.
To avoid the many difficulties which beset us at every step in
interpreting this chapter after the manner of the supranaturalists, it
is quite worth our while to seek for another exposition which may
suffice to explain the whole according to physical and psychological
laws, without any admixture of supernaturalism. Such an exposition has
been the most successfully attempted by Paulus.
How could heathen magi, in a remote country of the east, know anything
of a Jewish king about to be born? This is the first difficulty, and it
is removed on the above system of interpretation by supposing that the
magi were expatriated Jews. But this, apparently, is not the idea of
the evangelist.
For the question which he puts into the mouth of the magi, “Where is he
that is born King of the Jews?” distinguishes them from that people,
and as regards the tendency of the entire narrative, the church seems
to have apprehended it more correctly than Paulus thinks, in
representing the visit of the magi as the first manifestation of Christ
to the Gentiles. Nevertheless, as we have above remarked, this
difficulty may be cleared away without having recourse to the
supposition of Paulus.
Further, according to the natural explanation, the real object of the
journey of these men was not to see the new-born king, nor was its
cause the star which they had observed in the east; but they happened
to be travelling to Jerusalem perhaps with mercantile views, and
hearing far and wide in the land of a new-born king, a celestial
phenomenon which they had recently observed occurred to their
remembrance, and they earnestly desired to see the child in question.
By this means, it is true, the difficulty arising from the sanction
given to astrology by the usual conception of the story is diminished,
but only at the expense of unprejudiced interpretation. For even if it
were admissible unceremoniously to transform magi μάγους into
merchants, their purpose in this journey cannot have been a commercial
one, for their first inquiry on arriving at Jerusalem is after the
new-born king, and they forthwith mention a star, seen by them in the
east, as the cause not only of their question, but also of their
present journey, the object of which they aver to be the presentation
of their homage to the new-born child (v. 2).
The ἀστὴρ (star) becomes, on this method of interpretation, a natural
meteor, or a comet, [383] or finally, a constellation, that is, a
conjunction of planets. [384] The last idea was put forth by Kepler,
and has been approved by several astronomers and theologians. Is it
more easy, on any one of these suppositions, to conceive that the star
could precede the magi on their way, and remain stationary over a
particular house, according to the representation of the text? We have
already examined the two first hypotheses; if we adopt the third, we
must either suppose the verb προάγειν (v. 9) to signify the disjunction
of the planets, previously in apparent union, [385] though the text
does not imply a partition but a forward movement of the entire
phenomenon; or we must call Süskind’s pluperfect to our aid, and
imagine that the constellation, which the magi could no longer see in
the valley between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, again burst on their view
over the place where the child dwelt. [386] For the expression, ἐπάνω
οὗ ἦν τὸ παιδίον (v. 9), denotes merely the place of abode, not the
particular dwelling of the child and his parents. This we grant; but
when the evangelist proceeds thus: καὶ εἰσελθόντες εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν, (v.
9), he gives the more general expression the precise meaning of
dwelling-house, so that this explanation is clearly a vain effort to
abate the marvellousness of the evangelical narrative.
The most remarkable supposition adopted by those who regard ἀστὴρ as a
conjunction of planets, is that they hereby obtain a fixed point in
accredited history, to which the narrative of Matthew may be attached.
According to Kepler’s calculation, corrected by Ideler, there occurred,
three years before the death of Herod, in the year of Rome 747, a
conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the sign Pisces. The conjunction
of these planets is repeated in the above sign, to which astrologers
attribute a special relation to Palestine, about every 800 years, and
according to the computation of the Jew Abarbanel (1463) it took place
three years before the birth of Moses; hence it is probable enough that
the hope of the second great deliverer of the nation would be
associated with the recurrence of this conjunction in the time of
Herod, and that when the phenomenon was actually observed, it would
occasion inquiry on the part of Babylonian Jews. But that the star
mentioned by Matthew was this particular planetary conjunction, is,
from our uncertainty as to the year of Christ’s birth, and also as to
the period of the above astrological calculation, an extremely
precarious conjecture; and as, besides, there are certain particulars
in the evangelical text, for instance, the words προῆγεν and ἔστη,
which do not accord with such an explanation,—so soon as another, more
congruous with Matthew’s narrative, presents itself, we are justified
in giving it the preference.
The difficulties connected with the erroneous interpretations of
passages from the Old Testament are, from the natural point of view,
eluded by denying that the writers of the New Testament are responsible
for the falsity of these interpretations. It is said that the prophecy
of Micah is applied to the Messiah and his birth in Bethlehem by the
Sanhedrim alone, and that Matthew has not committed himself to their
interpretation by one word of approval. But when the evangelist
proceeds to narrate how the issue corresponded with the interpretation,
he sanctions it by the authoritative seal of fact. In relation to the
passage from Hosea, Paulus and Steudel [387] concur in resorting to a
singular expedient. Matthew, say they, wished to guard against the
offence which it might possibly give to the Jews of Palestine to learn
that the Messiah had once left the Holy Land; he therefore called
attention to the fact that Israel, in one sense the first-born of God,
had been called out of Egypt, for which reason, he would imply, no one
ought to be astonished that the Messiah, the son of God in a higher
sense, had also visited a profane land. But throughout the passage
there is no trace [388] of such a negative, precautionary intention on
the part of the evangelist in adducing this prophecy: on the contrary,
all his quotations seem to have the positive object to confirm the
Messiahship of Jesus by showing that in him the Old Testament
prophecies had their fulfilment. It has been attempted with reference
to the two other prophecies cited in this chapter, to reduce the
signification of the verb πληρωθῆναι (to be fulfilled) to that of mere
similitude or applicability; but the futility of the effort needs no
exposure.
The various directions conveyed to the persons of our narrative by
means of visions are, from the same point of view, all explained
psychologically, as effects of waking inquiries and reflections. This
appears, indeed, to be indicated by the text itself, v. 22, according
to which Joseph, hearing that Archelaus was master of Judea, feared to
go thither, and not until then did he receive an intimation from a
higher source in a dream. Nevertheless, on a closer examination we find
that the communication given in the dream was something new, not a mere
repetition of intelligence received in waking moments. Only the
negative conclusion, that on account of Archelaus it was not advisable
to settle at Bethlehem, was attained by Joseph when awake; the positive
injunction to proceed to Nazareth was superadded in his dream. To
explain the other visions in the above way is a direct interpolation of
the text, for this represents both the hostility and death of Herod as
being first made known to Joseph by dreams; in like manner, the magi
have no distrust of Herod until a dream warns them against his
treachery.
Thus, on the one hand, the sense of the narrative in Matt. ii. is
opposed to the conception of its occurrence as natural; on the other
hand, this narrative, taken in its original sense, carries the
supernatural into the extravagant, the improbable into the impossible.
We are therefore led to doubt the historical character of the
narrative, and to conjecture that we have before us something mythical.
The first propounders of this opinion were so unsuccessful in its
illustration, that they never liberated themselves from the sphere of
the natural interpretation, which they sought to transcend. Arabian
merchants (thinks Krug, for example) coming by chance to Bethlehem, met
with the parents of Jesus, and learning that they were strangers in
distress (according to Matthew, the parents of Jesus were not strangers
in Bethlehem), made them presents, uttered many good wishes for their
child, and pursued their journey. When subsequently, Jesus was reputed
to be the Messiah, the incident was remembered and embellished with a
star, visions, and believing homage. To these were added the flight
into Egypt and the infanticide; the latter, because the above incident
was supposed to have had some effect on Herod, who, on other grounds
than those alleged in the text, had caused some families in Bethlehem
to be put to death; the former, probably because Jesus had, with some
unknown object, actually visited Egypt at a later period. [389]
In this, as in the purely naturalistic interpretation, there remain as
so many garb, the arrival of some oriental travellers, the flight into
Egypt, and the massacre in Bethlehem; divested, however, of the
marvellous garb with which they are enveloped in the evangelical
narrative. In this unadorned form, these occurrences are held to be
intelligible and such as might very probably happen, but in point of
fact they are more incomprehensible even than when viewed through the
medium of orthodoxy, for with their supernatural embellishments
vanishes the entire basis on which they rest. Matthew’s narrative
adequately accounts for the relations between the men of the east and
the parents of Jesus; this attempt at mythical exposition reduces them
to a wonderful chance. The massacre at Bethlehem has, in the
evangelical narrative, a definite cause; here, we are at a loss to
understand how Herod came to ordain such an enormity; so, the journey
into Egypt, which had so urgent a motive according to Matthew, is on
this scheme of interpretation totally inexplicable. It may indeed be
said: these events had their adequate causes in accordance with the
regular course of things, but Matthew has withheld this natural
sequence and given a miraculous one in its stead. But if the writer or
legend be capable of environing occurrences with fictitious motives and
accessory circumstances, either the one or the other is also capable of
fabricating the occurrences themselves, and this fabrication is the
more probable, the more clearly we can show that the legend had an
interest in depicting such occurrences, though they had never actually
taken place.
This argument is equally valid against the attempt, lately made from
the supranaturalistic point of view, to separate the true from the
false in the evangelical narrative. In a narrative like this, says
Neander, we must carefully distinguish the kernel from the shell, the
main fact from immaterial circumstances, and not demand the same degree
of certitude for all its particulars. That the magi by their
astrological researches were led to anticipate the birth of a Saviour
in Judea, and hence journeyed to Jerusalem that they might offer him
their homage is, according to him, the only essential and certain part
of the narrative. But how, when arrived in Jerusalem, did they learn
that the child was to be born in Bethlehem? From Herod, or by some
other means? On this point Neander is not equally willing to guarantee
the veracity of Matthew’s statements, and he regards it as unessential.
The magi, he continues, in so inconsiderable a place as Bethlehem,
might be guided to the child’s dwelling by many providential
arrangements in the ordinary course of events; for example, by meeting
with the shepherds or other devout persons who had participated in the
great event. When however they had once entered the house, they might
represent the circumstances in the astrological guise with which their
minds were the most familiar. Neander awards an historical character to
the flight into Egypt and the infanticide. [390] By this explanation of
the narrative, only its heaviest difficulty, namely, that the star
preceded the magi on their way and paused above a single house, is in
reality thrown overboard; the other difficulties remain. But Neander
has renounced unlimited confidence in the veracity of the evangelist,
and admitted that a part of his narrative is unhistorical. If it be
asked how far this unhistorical portion extends, and what is its
kind—whether the nucleus around which legend has deposited its
crystallizations be historical or ideal—it is easy to show that the few
and vague data which a less lenient criticism than that of Neander can
admit as historical, are far less adapted to give birth to our
narrative, than the very precise circle of ideas and types which we are
about to exhibit.
§ 36.
THE PURELY MYTHICAL EXPLANATION OF THE NARRATIVE CONCERNING THE MAGI,
AND OF THE EVENTS WITH WHICH IT IS CONNECTED.
Several Fathers of the Church indicated the true key to the narrative
concerning the magi when, in order to explain from what source those
heathen astrologers could gather any knowledge of a Messianic star,
they put forth the conjecture that this knowledge might have been drawn
from the prophecies of the heathen Balaam, recorded in the Book of
Numbers. [391] K. Ch. L. Schmidt justly considers it a deficiency in
the exposition of Paulus, that it takes no notice of the Jewish
expectation that a star would become visible at the appearance of the
Messiah; and yet, he adds, this is the only thread to guide us to the
true origin of this narrative. [392] The prophecy of Balaam (Num. xxiv.
17), A star shall come out of Jacob, was the cause—not indeed, as the
Fathers supposed, that magi actually recognized a newly-kindled star as
that of the Messiah, and hence journeyed to Jerusalem—but that legend
represented a star to have appeared at the birth of Jesus, and to have
been recognized by astrologers as the star of the Messiah. The prophecy
attributed to Balaam originally referred to some fortunate and
victorious ruler of Israel; but it seems to have early received a
Messianic interpretation. Even if the translation in the Targum of
Onkelos, surget rex ex Jacobo et Messias (unctus) ungetur ex Israele,
prove nothing, because here the word unctus is synonymous with rex, and
might signify an ordinary king—it is yet worthy of notice that,
according to the testimony of Aben Ezra, [393] and the passages cited
by Wetstein and Schöttgen, many rabbins applied the prophecy to the
Messiah. The name Bar-Cocheba (son of a star), assumed by a noted
pseudo-Messiah under Hadrian, was chosen with reference to the
Messianic interpretation of Balaam’s prophecy.
It is true that the passage in question, taken in its original sense,
does not speak of a real star, but merely compares to a star the future
prince of Israel, and this is the interpretation given to it in the
Targum above quoted. But the growing belief in astrology, according to
which every important event was signalized by sidereal changes, soon
caused the prophecy of Balaam to be understood no longer figuratively,
but literally, as referring to a star which was to appear
contemporaneously with the Messiah. We have various proofs that a
belief in astrology was prevalent in the time of Jesus. The future
greatness of Mithridates was thought to be prognosticated by the
appearance of a comet in the year of his birth, and in that of his
accession to the throne [394]; and a comet observed shortly after the
death of Julius Cæsar, was supposed to have a close relation to that
event. [395] These ideas were not without influence on the Jews; at
least we find traces of them in Jewish writings of a later period, in
which it is said that a remarkable star appeared at the birth of
Abraham. [396] When such ideas were afloat, it was easy to imagine that
the birth of the Messiah must be announced by a star, especially as,
according to the common interpretation of Balaam’s prophecy, a star was
there made the symbol of the Messiah. It is certain that the Jewish
mind effected this combination; for it is a rabbinical idea that at the
time of the Messiah’s birth, a star will appear in the east and remain
for a long time visible. [397] The narrative of Matthew is allied to
this simpler Jewish idea; the apocryphal descriptions of the star that
announced the birth of Jesus, to the extravagant fictions about the
star said to have appeared in the time of Abraham. [398] We may
therefore state the opinion of K. Ch. L. Schmidt, [399] recently
approved by Fritzsche and De Wette, as the nearest approach to truth on
the subject of Matthew’s star in the east. In the time of Jesus it was
the general belief that stars were always the forerunners of great
events; hence the Jews of that period thought that the birth of the
Messiah would necessarily be announced by a star, and this supposition
had a specific sanction in Num. xxiv. 17. The early converted Jewish
Christians could confirm their faith in Jesus, and justify it in the
eyes of others, only by labouring to prove that in him were realized
all the attributes lent to the Messiah by the Jewish notions of their
age—a proposition that might be urged the more inoffensively and with
the less chance of refutation, the more remote lay the age of Jesus,
and the more completely the history of his childhood was shrouded in
darkness. Hence it soon ceased to be matter of doubt that the
anticipated appearance of a star was really coincident with the birth
of Jesus. [400] This being once presupposed, it followed as a matter of
course that the observers of this appearance were eastern magi; first,
because none could better interpret the sign than astrologers, and the
east was supposed to be the native region of their science; and
secondly, because it must have seemed fitting that the Messianic star
which had been seen by the spiritual eye of the ancient magus Balaam,
should, on its actual appearance be first recognized by the bodily eyes
of later magi.
This particular, however, as well as the journey of the magi into
Judea, and their costly presents to the child, bear a relation to other
passages in the Old Testament. In the description of the happier
future, given in Isaiah, chap. lx., the prophet foretells that, at that
time, the most remote people and kings will come to Jerusalem to
worship Jehovah, with offerings of gold and incense and all acceptable
gifts. [401] If in this passage the messianic times alone are spoken
of, while the Messiah himself is wanting, in Psalm lxxii. we read of a
king who is to be feared as long as the sun and moon endure, in whose
times the righteous shall flourish, and whom all nations shall call
blessed; this king might easily be regarded as the Messiah, and the
Psalm says of him nearly in the words of Isa. lx., that foreign kings
shall bring him gold and other presents. To this it may be added, that
the pilgrimage of foreign people to Jerusalem is connected with a risen
light, [402] which might suggest the star of Balaam. What was more
natural, when on the one hand was presented Balaam’s messianic star out
of Jacob (for the observation of which magian astrologers were the best
adapted); on the other, a light which was to arise on Jerusalem, and to
which distant nations would come, bringing gifts—than to combine the
two images and to say: In consequence of the star which had risen over
Jerusalem, astrologers came from a distant land with presents for the
Messiah whom the star announced? But when the imagination once had
possession of the star, and of travellers attracted by it from a
distance, there was an inducement to make the star the immediate guide
of their course, and the torch to light them on their way. This was a
favourite idea of antiquity: according to Virgil, a star, stella facem
ducens, marked out the way of Æneas from the shores of Troy to the west
[403]; Thrasybulus and Timoleon were led by celestial fires; and a star
was said to have guided Abraham on his way to Moriah. [404] Besides, in
the prophetic passage itself, the heavenly light seems to be associated
with the pilgrimage of the offerers as the guide of their course; at
all events the originally figurative language of the prophet would
probably, at a later period, be understood literally, in accordance
with the rabbinical spirit of interpretation. The magi are not
conducted by the star directly to Bethlehem where Jesus was; they first
proceed to Jerusalem. One reason for this might be, that the prophetic
passage connects the risen light and the offerers with Jerusalem; but
the chief reason lies in the fact, that in Jerusalem Herod was to be
found; for what was better adapted to instigate Herod to his murderous
decree, than the alarming tidings of the magi, that they had seen the
star of the great Jewish king?
To represent a murderous decree as having been directed by Herod
against Jesus, was the interest of the primitive christian legend. In
all times legend has glorified the infancy of great men by persecutions
and attempts on their life; the greater the danger that hovered over
them, the higher seems their value; the more unexpectedly their
deliverance is wrought, the more evident is the esteem in which they
are held by heaven. Hence in the history of the childhood of Cyrus in
Herodotus, of Romulus in Livy, [405] and even later of Augustus in
Suetonius, [406] we find this trait; neither has the Hebrew legend
neglected to assign such a distinction to Moses. [407] One point of
analogy between the narrative in Exod. i., ii., and that in Matthew, is
that in both cases the murderous decree does not refer specially to the
one dangerous child, but generally to a certain class of children; in
the former, to all new-born males, in the latter to all of and under
the age of two years. It is true that, according to the narrative in
Exodus, the murderous decree is determined on without any reference to
Moses, of whose birth Pharaoh is not supposed to have had any
presentiment, and who is therefore only by accident implicated in its
consequences. But this representation did not sufficiently mark out
Moses as the object of hostile design to satisfy the spirit of Hebrew
tradition, and by the time of Josephus it had been so modified as to
resemble more nearly the legends concerning Cyrus and Augustus, and
above all the narrative of Matthew. According to the later legend,
Pharaoh was incited to issue his murderous decree by a communication
from his interpreters of the sacred writings, who announced to him the
birth of an infant destined to succour the Israelites and humble the
Egyptians. [408] The interpreters of the sacred writings here play the
same part as the interpreters of dreams in Herodotus, and the
astrologers in Matthew. Legend was not content with thus signalizing
the infancy of the lawgiver alone—it soon extended the same distinction
to the great progenitor of the Israelitish nation, Abraham, whom it
represented as being in peril of his life from the murderous attempt of
a jealous tyrant, immediately after his birth. Moses was opposed to
Pharaoh as an enemy and oppressor; Abraham held the same position with
respect to Nimrod. This monarch was forewarned by his sages, whose
attention had been excited by a remarkable star, that Tharah would have
a son from whom a powerful nation would descend. Apprehensive of
rivalry, Nimrod immediately issues a murderous command, which, however,
Abraham happily escapes. [409] What wonder then, that, as the great
progenitor and the lawgiver of the nation had their Nimrod and Pharaoh,
a corresponding persecutor was found for the restorer of the nation,
the Messiah, in the person of Herod;—that this tyrant was said to have
been apprised of the Messiah’s birth by wise men, and to have laid
snares against his life, from which, however, he happily escapes? The
apocryphal legend, indeed, has introduced an imitation of this trait,
after its own style, into the history of the Forerunner; he, too, is
endangered by Herod’s decree, a mountain is miraculously cleft asunder
to receive him and his mother, but his father refusing to point out the
boy’s hiding place, is put to death. [410]
Jesus escapes from the hostile attempts of Herod by other means than
those by which Moses, according to the mosaic history, and Abraham,
according to the Jewish legend, elude the decree issued against them;
namely, by a flight out of his native land into Egypt. In the life of
Moses also there occurs a flight into a foreign land; not, however,
during his childhood, but after he had slain the Egyptian, when,
fearing the vengeance of Pharaoh, he takes refuge in Midian (Exod. ii.
15). That reference was made to this flight of the first Goël in that
of the second, our text expressly shows, for the words, which it
attributes to the angel, who encourages Joseph to return out of Egypt
into Palestine, are those by which Moses is induced to return out of
Midian into Egypt. [411] The choice of Egypt as a place of refuge for
Jesus, may be explained in the simplest manner: the young Messiah could
not, like Moses, flee out of Egypt; hence, that his history might not
be destitute of so significant a feature as a connexion with Egypt,
that ancient retreat of the patriarchs, the relation was reversed, and
he was made to flee into Egypt, which, besides, from its vicinity, was
the most appropriate asylum for a fugitive from Judea. The prophetic
passage which the evangelist cites from Hosea xi. 1, Out of Egypt have
I called my son—is less available for the elucidation of this
particular in our narrative. For the immediate proofs that the Jews
referred this passage to the Messiah are very uncertain; [412] though,
if we compare such passages as Ps. ii. 7, in which the words בְּנִי אַתָּה
(thou art my son) are interpreted of the Messiah, it cannot appear
incredible that the expression לִבְנִי (my son) in Hosea was supposed to
have a messianic signification.
Against this mythical derivation of the narrative, two objections have
been recently urged. First, if the history of the star originated in
Balaam’s prophecy, why, it is asked, does not Matthew, fond as he is of
showing the fulfilment of Old Testament predictions in the life of
Jesus, make the slightest allusion to that prophecy? [413] Because it
was not he who wove this history out of the materials furnished in the
Old Testament; he received it, already fashioned, from others, who did
not communicate to him its real origin. For the very reason that many
narratives were transmitted to him without their appropriate keys, he
sometimes tries false ones; as in our narrative, in relation to the
Bethlehem massacre, he quotes, under a total misconception of the
passage, Jeremiah’s image of Rachel weeping for her children. [414] The
other objection is this: how could the communities of Jewish
Christians, whence this pretended mythus must have sprung, ascribe so
high an importance to the heathen as is implied in the star of the
magi? [415] As if the prophets had not, in such passages as we have
quoted, already ascribed to them this importance, which, in fact,
consists but in their rendering homage and submission to the Messiah, a
relation that must be allowed to correspond with the ideas of the
Jewish Christians, not to speak of the particular conditions on which
the heathen were to be admitted into the kingdom of the Messiah.
We must therefore abide by the mythical interpretation of our
narrative, and content ourselves with gathering from it no particular
fact in the life of Jesus, but only a new proof how strong was the
impression of his messiahship left by Jesus on the minds of his
contemporaries, since even the history of his childhood received a
messianic form. [416]
Let us now revert to the narrative of Luke, chap. ii., so far as it
runs parallel with that of Matthew. We have seen that the narrative of
Matthew does not allow us to presuppose that of Luke as a series of
prior incidents: still less can the converse be true, namely, that the
magi arrived before the shepherds: it remains then to be asked, whether
the two narratives do not aim to represent the same fact, though they
have given it a different garb? From the older orthodox opinion that
the star in Matthew was an angel, it was an easy step to identify that
apparition with the angel in Luke, and to suppose that the angels, who
appeared to the shepherds of Bethlehem on the night of the birth of
Jesus, were taken by the distant magi for a star vertical to Judea,
[417] so that both the accounts might be essentially correct. Of late,
only one of the Evangelists has been supposed to give the true
circumstances, and Luke has had the preference, Matthew’s narrative
being regarded as an embellished edition.
According to this opinion, the angel clothed in heavenly brightness, in
Luke, became a star in the tradition recorded by Matthew, the ideas of
angels and stars being confounded in the higher Jewish theology; the
shepherds were exalted into royal magi, kings being in antiquity called
the shepherds of their people. [418] This derivation is too elaborate
to be probable, even were it true, as it is here assumed, that Luke’s
narrative bears the stamp of historical credibility. As, however, we
conceive that we have proved the contrary, and as, consequently, we
have before us two equally unhistorical narratives, there is no reason
for preferring a forced and unnatural derivation of Matthew’s narrative
from that of Luke, to the very simple derivation which may be traced
through Old Testament passages and Jewish notions. These two
descriptions of the introduction of Jesus into the world, are,
therefore, two variations on the same theme, composed, however, quite
independently of each other.
§ 37.
CHRONOLOGICAL RELATION BETWEEN THE VISIT OF THE MAGI, TOGETHER WITH THE
FLIGHT INTO EGYPT, AND THE PRESENTATION IN THE TEMPLE RECORDED BY LUKE.
It has been already remarked, that the narratives of Matthew and Luke
above considered at first run tolerably parallel, but afterwards widely
diverge; for instead of the tragical catastrophe of the massacre and
flight, Luke has preserved to us the peaceful scene of the presentation
of the child Jesus in the temple. Let us for the present shut our eyes
to the result of the preceding inquiry—the purely mythical character of
Matthew’s narrative—and ask: In what chronological relation could the
presentation in the temple stand to the visit of the magi and the
flight into Egypt?
Of these occurrences the only one that has a precise date is the
presentation in the temple, of which it is said that it took place at
the expiration of the period appointed by the law for the purification
of a mother, that is, according to Lev. xii. 2–4, forty days after the
birth of the child (Luke ii. 22). The time of the other incidents is
not fixed with the same exactness; it is merely said that the magi came
to Jerusalem, τοῦ Ἰησοῦ γεννηθέντος ἐν Βηθλεὲμ (Matt. ii. 1)—how long
after the birth the Evangelist does not decide. As, however, the
participle connects the visit of the magi with the birth of the child,
if not immediately, at least so closely that nothing of importance can
be supposed to have intervened, some expositors have been led to the
opinion that the visit ought to be regarded as prior to the
presentation in the temple. [419] Admitting this arrangement, we have
to reconcile it with one of two alternatives; either the flight into
Egypt also preceded the presentation in the temple; or, while the visit
of the magi preceded, the flight followed that event. If we adopt the
latter alternative, and thrust the presentation in the temple between
the visit of the magi and the flight, we come into collision at once
with the text of Matthew and the mutual relation of the facts. The
Evangelist connects the command to flee into Egypt with the return of
the magi, by a participial construction (v. 13) similar to that by
which he connects the arrival of the oriental sages with the birth of
Jesus; hence those, who in the one instance hold such a construction to
be a reason for placing the events which it associates in close
succession, must in the other instance be withheld by it from inserting
a third occurrence between the visit and the flight. As regards the
mutual relation of the facts, it can hardly be considered probable,
that at the very point of time in which Joseph received a divine
intimation, that he was no longer safe in Bethlehem from the designs of
Herod, he should be permitted to take a journey to Jerusalem, and thus
to rush directly into the lion’s mouth. At all events, the strictest
precautions must have been enjoined on all who were privy to the
presence of the messianic child in Jerusalem, lest a rumour of the fact
should get abroad. But there is no trace of this solicitous incognito
in Luke’s narrative; on the contrary, not only does Simeon call
attention to Jesus in the temple, unchecked either by the Holy Spirit
or by the parents, but Anna also thinks she is serving the good cause,
by publishing as widely as possible the tidings of the Messiah’s birth
(Luke ii. 28 ff., 38). It is true that she is said to have confined her
communications to those who were like-minded with herself (ἐλάλει περὶ
αὐτοῦ πᾶσι τοῖς προσδεχομένοις λύτρωσιν ἐν Ἰερουσαλὴμ), but this could
not hinder them from reaching the ears of the Herodian party, for the
greater the excitement produced by such news on the minds of those who
looked for redemption, the more would the vigilance of the government
be aroused, so that Jesus would inevitably fall into the hands of the
tyrant who was lying in wait.
Thus in any case, they who place the presentation in the temple after
the visit of the magi, must also determine to postpone it until after
the return from Egypt. But even this arrangement clashes with the
evangelical statement; for it requires us to insert, between the birth
of Jesus and his presentation in the temple, the following events: the
arrival of the magi, the flight into Egypt, the Bethlehem massacre, the
death of Herod, and the return of the parents of Jesus out of
Egypt—obviously too much to be included in the space of forty days. It
must therefore be supposed that the presentation of the child, and the
first appearance of the mother in the temple, were procrastinated
beyond the time appointed by the law. This expedient, however, runs
counter to the narrative of Luke, who expressly says, that the visit to
the temple took place at the legal time. But in either case the
difficulty is the same; the parents of Jesus could, according to
Matthew’s account, as little think of a journey to Jerusalem after
their return from Egypt, as immediately previous to their departure
thither. For if Joseph, on his return from Egypt, was warned not to
enter Judea, because Archelaus was Herod’s successor in that province,
he would least of all venture to Jerusalem, the very seat of the
redoubted government.
On neither of the above plans, therefore, will the presentation in the
temple bear to be placed after the visit of the magi, and the only
remaining alternative, which is embraced by the majority of
commentators, [420] is to make the incident noticed by Luke, precede
both those narrated by Matthew. This is so far the most natural, that
in Matthew there is at least an indirect intimation of a considerable
interval between the birth of Jesus and the arrival of the magi. For we
are told that Herod’s decree included all the children in Bethlehem up
to the age of two years; we must therefore necessarily infer, that even
if Herod, to make sure of his object, exceeded the term fixed by the
magi, the star had been visible to these astrologers for more than a
year. Now the narrator seems to suppose the appearance of the star to
have been cotemporary with the birth of Jesus. Viewing the narratives
in this order, the parents of Jesus first journeyed from Bethlehem,
where the child was born, to Jerusalem, there to present the legal
offerings; they next returned to Bethlehem, where (according to Matt.
ii. 1 and 5) they were found by the magi; then followed the flight into
Egypt, and after the return from thence, the settlement at Nazareth.
The first and most urgent question that here suggests itself is this:
What had the parents of Jesus to do a second time in Bethlehem, which
was not their home, and where their original business connected with
the census must surely have been despatched in the space of forty days?
The discussion of this question must be deferred, but we can find an
ample substitute for this argument, drawn from the nature of the fact,
in one which rests on the words of the evangelical narrative. Luke (v.
39) says, in the most definite manner, that after the completion of the
legal observance, the parents of Jesus returned to Nazareth, as to
their proper home, not to Bethlehem, which, according to him, was
merely a temporary residence. [421] If, then, the magi arrived after
the presentation in the temple, they must have met with the parents of
Jesus in Nazareth, and not in Bethlehem, as Matthew states. Moreover,
had the arrival of the magi really been preceded by the presentation in
the temple, together with the attention which must have been excited by
the language of Simeon and Anna; it is impossible that at the period of
that arrival the birth of the messianic child could have been so much a
secret in Jerusalem, that the announcement of it by the magi should be,
as Matthew relates, a source of general astonishment. [422]
If, then, the presentation of Jesus in the temple can have taken place
neither earlier nor later than the visit of the magi and the flight
into Egypt; and if the flight into Egypt can have taken place neither
earlier nor later than the presentation in the temple; it is impossible
that both these occurrences really happened, and, at the very utmost,
only one can be historical. [423]
To escape from this dangerous dilemma, supranaturalism has lately been
induced to take a freer position, that by the surrender of what is no
longer tenable, the residue may be saved. Neander finds himself
constrained to admit, that neither did Luke know anything of what
Matthew communicates concerning the childhood of Jesus, nor did the
Greek editor of Matthew (to be distinguished from the apostle) know
anything of the events detailed by Luke. But, he contends, it does not
therefore follow that both the different series of incidents cannot
have happened. [424] By giving this turn to the matter, the
difficulties arising from the words of the Evangelist are certainly
avoided; not so, the difficulties arising from the nature of the facts.
The first Evangelist ranges in close succession the visit of the magi
and the flight into Egypt, as though no change of place had intervened;
the author of the third Gospel represents the parents of Jesus as
returning with the child, after the presentation in the temple,
directly to Nazareth. We cannot, on this ground, argue from one
evangelist against the other; for it is inadmissible to maintain that
certain events never happened, because they were unknown to a remote
narrator. But viewing the two narratives in another light, we perceive
how improbable it is that, after the scene in the temple, the birth of
the messianic child should be so entirely unknown in Jerusalem as the
conduct of Herod on the arrival of the magi implies; how incredible
(reversing the order of the events) that Joseph should be permitted to
go to Jerusalem, with the child which Herod had just sought to kill;
how inconceivable, finally, that the parents of Jesus should have
returned to Bethlehem after the presentation in the temple (of which
more hereafter). All these difficulties, lying in the nature of the
facts, difficulties not less weighty than those connected with the
words of the Evangelists, still subsist in Neander’s explanation, and
prove its inadequacy.
Thus the dilemma above stated remains, and were we compelled to choose
under it, we should, in the present stage of our inquiry, on no account
decide in favour of Matthew’s narrative, and against that of Luke; on
the contrary, as we have recognized the mythical character of the
former, we should have no resource but to adhere, with our modern
critics, [425] to the narrative of Luke, and surrender that of Matthew.
But is not Luke’s narrative of the same nature as that of Matthew, and
instead of having to choose between the two, must we not deny to both
an historical character? The answer to this question will be found in
the succeeding examination.
§ 38.
THE PRESENTATION OF JESUS IN THE TEMPLE.
The narrative of the presentation of Jesus in the temple (Luke ii. 22)
seems, at the first glance, to bear a thoroughly historical stamp. A
double law, on the one hand, prescribing to the mother an offering of
purification, on the other, requiring the redemption of the first-born
son, leads the parents of Jesus to Jerusalem and to the temple. Here
they meet with a devout man, absorbed in the expectation of the
Messiah, named Simeon. Many expositors hold this Simeon to be the same
with the Rabbi Simeon, the son of Hillel, his successor as president of
the Sanhedrim, and the father of Gamaliel; some even identify him with
the Sameas of Josephus, [426] and attach importance to his pretended
descent from David, because this descent makes him a relative of Jesus,
and helps to explain the following scene naturally; but this hypothesis
is improbable, for Luke would hardly have introduced so celebrated a
personage by the meagre designation, ἄνθρωπός τις, (a certain man).
[427] Without this hypothesis, however, the scene between the parents
of Jesus and Simeon, as also the part played by Anna the prophetess,
seems to admit of a very natural explanation. There is no necessity for
supposing, with the author of the Natural History, [428] that Simeon
was previously aware of the hope cherished by Mary that she was about
to give birth to the Messiah; we need only, with Paulus and others,
conceive the facts in the following manner. Animated, like many of that
period, with the hope of the speedy advent of the Messiah, Simeon
receives, probably in a dream, the assurance that before his death he
will be permitted to see the expected deliverer of his nation. One day,
in obedience to an irresistible impulse, he visited the temple, and on
this very day Mary brought thither her child, whose beauty at once
attracted his notice; on learning the child’s descent from David, the
attention and interest of Simeon were excited to a degree that induced
Mary to disclose to him the hopes which were reposed on this scion of
ancient royalty, with the extraordinary occurrences by which they had
been called into existence. These hopes Simeon embraced with
confidence, and in enthusiastic language gave utterance to his
messianic expectations and forebodings, under the conviction that they
would be fulfilled in this child. Still less do we need the supposition
of the author of the Natural History with respect to Anna, namely, that
she was one of the women who assisted at the birth of the infant Jesus,
and was thus acquainted beforehand with the marvels and the hopes that
had clustered round his cradle; she had heard the words of Simeon, and
being animated by the same sentiments, she gave them her approval.
Simple as this explanation appears, it is not less arbitrary than we
have already found other specimens of natural interpretation. The
evangelist nowhere says, that the parents of Jesus had communicated
anything concerning their extraordinary hopes to Simeon, before he
poured forth his inspired words; on the contrary, the point of his
entire narrative consists in the idea that the aged saint had, by
virtue of the spirit with which he was filled, instantaneously
discerned in Jesus the messianic child, and the reason why the
co-operation of the Holy Spirit is insisted on, is to make it evident
how Simeon was enabled, without any previous information, to recognise
in Jesus the promised child, and at the same time to foretell the
course of his destiny. Our canonical Gospel refers Simeon’s recognition
of Jesus to a supernatural principle resident in Simeon himself; the
Evangelium infantiæ arabicum refers it to something objective in the
appearance of Jesus [429]—far more in the spirit of the original
narrative than the natural interpretation, for it retains the
miraculous element. But, apart from the general reasons against the
credibility of miracles, the admission of a miracle in this instance is
attended with a special difficulty, because no worthy object for an
extraordinary manifestation of divine power is discoverable. For, that
the above occurrence during the infancy of Jesus served to disseminate
and establish in more distant circles the persuasion of his
Messiahship, there is no indication; we must therefore, with the
Evangelist, limit the object of these supernatural communications to
Simeon and Anna, to whose devout hopes was vouchsafed the special
reward of having their eyes enlightened to discern the messianic child.
But that miracles should be ordained for such occasional and isolated
objects, is not reconcileable with just ideas of divine providence.
Thus here again we find reason to doubt the historical character of the
narrative, especially as we have found by a previous investigation that
it is annexed to narratives purely mythical. Simeon’s real expressions,
say some commentators, were probably these: Would that I might yet
behold the new-born Messiah, even as I now bear this child in my
arms!—a simple wish which was transformed ex eventu by tradition, into
the positive enunciations now read in Luke [430]. But this explanation
is incomplete, for the reason why such stories became current
concerning Jesus, must be shown in the relative position of this
portion of the evangelical narrative, and in the interest of the
primitive Christian legend. As to the former, this scene at the
presentation of Jesus in the temple is obviously parallel with that at
the circumcision of the Baptist, narrated by the same evangelist; for
on both occasions, at the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, God is
praised for the birth of a national deliverer, and the future destiny
of the child is prophetically announced, in the one case by the father,
in the other by a devout stranger. That this scene is in the former
instance connected with the circumcision, in the latter with the
presentation in the temple, seems to be accidental; when however the
legend had once, in relation to Jesus, so profusely adorned the
presentation in the temple, the circumcision must be left, as we have
above found it, without embellishment.
As to the second spring in the formation of our narrative, namely, the
interest of the Christian legend, it is easy to conceive how this would
act. He who, as a man, so clearly proved himself to be the Messiah,
must also, it was thought, even as a child have been recognisable in
his true character to an eye rendered acute by the Holy Spirit; he who
at a later period, by his powerful words and deeds, manifested himself
to be the Son of God, must surely, even before he could speak or move
with freedom, have borne the stamp of divinity. Moreover if men, moved
by the Spirit of God, so early pressed Jesus with love and reverence in
their arms, then was the spirit that animated him not an impious one,
as his enemies alleged; and if a holy seer had predicted, along with
the high destiny of Jesus, the conflict which he had to undergo, and
the anguish which his fate would cause his mother, [431] then it was
assuredly no chance, but a divine plan, that led him into the depths of
abasement on the way to his ultimate exaltation.
This view of the narrative is thus countenanced positively by the
nature of the fact,—and negatively by the difficulties attending any
other explanation. One cannot but wonder, therefore, how Schleiermacher
can be influenced against it by an observation which did not prevent
him from taking a similar view of the history of the Baptist’s birth,
namely, that the narrative is too natural to have been fabricated
[432]; and how Neander can argue against it, from exaggerated ideas of
the more imposing traits which the mythus would have substituted for
our narrative. Far from allowing a purification for the mother of
Jesus, and a redemption for himself, to take place in the ordinary
manner, Neander thinks the mythus would have depicted an angelic
appearance, intended to deter Mary or the priest from an observance
inconsistent with the dignity of Jesus. [433] As though even the
Christianity of Paul did not maintain that Christ was born under the
law γενόμενος ὑπὸ νόμον (Gal. iv. 4); how much more then the Judaic
Christianity whence these narratives are derived! As though Jesus
himself had not, agreeably to this view of his position, submitted to
baptism, and according to the Evangelist whose narrative is in
question, without any previous expostulation on the part of the
Baptist! Of more weight is Schleiermacher’s other observation, that
supposing this narrative to be merely a poetical creation, its author
would scarcely have placed by the side of Simeon Anna, of whom he makes
no poetical use, still less would he have characterized her with
minuteness, after designating his principal personage with comparative
negligence. But to represent the dignity of the child Jesus as being
proclaimed by the mouth of two witnesses, and especially to associate a
prophetess with a prophet—this is just the symmetrical grouping that
the legend loves. The detailed description of Anna may have been taken
from a real person who, at the time when our narrative originated, was
yet held in remembrance for her distinguished piety. As to the
Evangelist’s omission to assign her any particular speech, it is to be
observed that her office is to spread abroad the glad news, while that
of Simeon is to welcome Jesus into the temple: hence as the part of the
prophetess was to be performed behind the scenes, her precise words
could not be given. As in a former instance Schleiermacher supposes the
Evangelist to have received his history from the lips of the shepherds,
so here he conceives him to have been indebted to Anna, of whose person
he has so vivid a recollection; Neander approves this opinion—not the
only straw thrown out by Schleiermacher, to which this theologian has
clung in the emergencies of modern criticism.
At this point also, where Luke’s narrative leaves Jesus for a series of
years, there is a concluding sentence on the prosperous growth of the
child (v. 40); a similar sentence occurs at the corresponding period in
the life of the Baptist, and both recall the analogous form of
expression found in the history of Samson (Judg. xiii. 24 f.).
§ 39.
RETROSPECT. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MATTHEW AND LUKE AS TO THE ORIGINAL
RESIDENCE OF THE PARENTS OF JESUS.
In the foregoing examinations we have called in question the historical
credibility of the Gospel narratives concerning the genealogy, birth,
and childhood of Jesus, on two grounds: first, because the narratives
taken separately contain much that will not bear an historical
interpretation; and secondly, because the parallel narratives of
Matthew and Luke exclude each other, so that it is impossible for both
to be true, and one must necessarily be false; this imputation however
may attach to either, and consequently to both. One of the
contradictions between the two narratives extends from the commencement
of the history of the childhood to the point we have now reached; it
has therefore often come in our way, but we have been unable hitherto
to give it our consideration, because only now that we have completely
reviewed the scenes in which it figures, have we materials enough on
which to found a just estimate of its consequences. We refer to the
divergency that exists between Matthew and Luke, in relation to the
original dwelling-place of the parents of Jesus.
Luke, from the very beginning of his history, gives Nazareth as the
abode of Joseph and Mary; here the angel seeks Mary (i. 26); here we
must suppose Mary’s house οἶκος?, to be situated (i. 56); from hence
the parents of Jesus journey to Bethlehem on account of the census (ii.
4): and hither, when circumstances permit, they return as to their own
city πόλις αὐτῶν (v. 39). Thus in Luke, Nazareth is evidently the
proper residence of the parents of Jesus, and they only visit Bethlehem
for a short time, owing to a casual circumstance.
In Matthew, it is not stated in the first instance where Joseph and
Mary resided. According to ii. 1, Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and
since no extraordinary circumstances are said to have led his parents
thither, it appears as if Matthew supposed them to have been originally
resident in Bethlehem. Here he makes the parents with the child receive
the visit of the magi; then follows the flight into Egypt, on returning
from which Joseph is only deterred from again seeking Judea by a
special divine admonition, which directs him to Nazareth in Galilee
(ii. 22). This last particular renders certain what had before seemed
probable, namely, that Matthew did not with Luke suppose Nazareth, but
Bethlehem, to have been the original dwelling-place of the parents of
Jesus, and that he conceived their final settlement at Nazareth to have
been the result of unforeseen circumstances.
This contradiction is generally glided over without suspicion. The
reason of this lies in the peculiar character of Matthew’s Gospel, a
character on which a modern writer has built the assertion that this
Evangelist does not contradict Luke concerning the original residence
of the parents of Jesus, for he says nothing at all on the subject,
troubling himself as little about topographical as chronological
accuracy. He mentions the later abode of Joseph and Mary, and the
birth-place of Jesus, solely because it was possible to connect with
them Old Testament prophecies; as the abode of the parent of Jesus
prior to his birth furnished no opportunity for a similar quotation,
Matthew has left it entirely unnoticed, an omission which however, in
his style of narration, is no proof that he was ignorant of their
abode, or that he supposed it to have been Bethlehem. [434] But even
admitting that the silence of Matthew on the earlier residence of the
parents of Jesus in Nazareth, and on the peculiar circumstances that
caused Bethlehem to be his birth-place, proves nothing; yet the above
supposition requires that the exchange of Bethlehem for Nazareth should
be so represented as to give some intimation, or at least to leave a
possibility, that we should understand the former to be a merely
temporary abode, and the journey to the latter a return homeward. Such
an intimation would have been given, had Matthew attributed to the
angelic vision, that determined Joseph’s settlement in Nazareth after
his return from Egypt, such communications as the following: Return now
into the land of Israel and into your native city Nazareth, for there
is no further need of your presence in Bethlehem, since the prophecy
that your messianic child should be born in that place is already
fulfilled. But as Matthew is alleged to be generally indifferent about
localities, we will be moderate, and demand no positive intimation from
him, but simply make the negative requisition, that he should not
absolutely exclude the idea, that Nazareth was the original
dwelling-place of the parents of Jesus. This requisition would be met
if, instead of a special cause being assigned for the choice of
Nazareth as a residence, it had been merely said that the parents of
Jesus returned by divine direction into the land of Israel and betook
themselves to Nazareth. It would certainly seem abrupt enough, if
without any preamble Nazareth were all at once named instead of
Bethlehem: of this our narrator was conscious, and for this reason he
has detailed the causes that led to the change (ii. 22). But instead of
doing this, as we have shown that he must have done if had he, with
Luke, known Nazareth to be the original dwelling-place of the parents
of Jesus, his account has precisely the opposite bearing, which
undeniably proves that his supposition was the reverse of Luke’s. For
when Matthew represents Joseph on his return from Egypt as being
prevented from going to Judea solely by his fear of Archelaus, he
ascribes to him an inclination to proceed to that province—an
inclination which is unaccountable if the affair of the census alone
had taken him to Bethlehem, and which is only to be explained by the
supposition that he had formerly dwelt there. On the other hand as
Matthew makes the danger from Archelaus (together with the fulfilment
of a prophecy) the sole cause of the settlement of Joseph and Mary at
Nazareth, he cannot have supposed that this was their original home,
for in that case there would have been an independently decisive cause
which would have rendered any other superfluous.
Thus the difficulty of reconciling Matthew with Luke, in the present
instance, turns upon the impossibility of conceiving how the parents of
Jesus could, on their return from Egypt, have it in contemplation to
proceed a second time to Bethlehem unless this place had formerly been
their home. The efforts of commentators have accordingly been chiefly
applied to the task of finding other reasons for the existence of such
an inclination in Joseph and Mary. Such efforts are of a very early
date. Justin Martyr, holding by Luke, who, while he decidedly states
Nazareth to be the dwelling-place of the parents of Jesus, yet does not
represent Joseph as a complete stranger in Bethlehem (for he makes it
the place from which he lineally sprang), seems to suppose that
Nazareth was the dwelling-place and Bethlehem the birth-place of
Joseph, [435] and Credner thinks that this passage of Justin points out
the source, and presents the reconciliation of the divergent statements
of our two Evangelists. [436] But it is far from presenting a
reconciliation. For as Nazareth is still supposed to be the place which
Joseph had chosen as his home, no reason appears why, on his return
from Egypt, he should all at once desire to exchange his former
residence for his birth-place, especially as, according to Justin
himself, the cause of his former journey to Bethlehem had not been a
plan of settling there, but simply the census—a cause which, after the
flight, no longer existed. Thus the statement of Justin leans to the
side of Luke and does not suffice to bring him into harmony with
Matthew. That it was the source of our two evangelical accounts is
still less credible; for how could the narrative of Matthew, which
mentions neither Nazareth as a dwelling-place, nor the census as the
cause of a journey to Bethlehem, originate in the statement of Justin,
to which these facts are essential? Arguing generally, where on the one
hand, there are two diverging statements, on the other, an insufficient
attempt to combine them, it is certain that the latter is not the
parent and the two former its offspring, but vice versâ. Moreover, in
this department of attempting reconciliations, we have already, in
connection with the genealogies, learned to estimate Justin or his
authorities.
A more thorough attempt at reconciliation is made in the Evangelium de
nativitate Mariæ, and has met with much approval from modern
theologians. According to this apocryphal book, the house of Mary’s
parents was at Nazareth, and although she was brought up in the temple
at Jerusalem and there espoused to Joseph, she returned after this
occurrence to her parents in Galilee. Joseph, on the contrary, was not
only born at Bethlehem, as Justin seems to intimate, but also lived
there, and thither brought home his betrothed. [437] But this mode of
conciliation, unlike the other, is favourable to Matthew and
disadvantageous to Luke. For the census with its attendant
circumstances is left out, and necessarily so, because if Joseph were
at home in Bethlehem, and only went to Nazareth to fetch his bride, the
census could not be represented as the reason why he returned to
Bethlehem, for he would have done so in the ordinary course of things,
after a few days’ absence. Above all, had Bethlehem been his home, he
would not on his arrival have sought an inn where there was no room for
him, but would have taken Mary under his own roof. Hence modern
expositors who wish to avail themselves of the outlet presented by the
apocryphal book, and yet to save the census of Luke from rejection,
maintain that Joseph did indeed dwell, and carry on his trade, in
Bethlehem, but that he possessed no house of his own in that place, and
the census recalling him thither sooner than he had anticipated, he had
not yet provided one. [438] But Luke makes it appear, not only that the
parents of Jesus were not yet settled in Bethlehem, but that they were
not even desirous of settling there; that, on the contrary, it was
their intention to depart after the shortest possible stay. This
opinion supposes great poverty on the part of Joseph and Mary;
Olshausen, on the other hand, prefers enriching them, for the sake of
conciliating the difference in question. He supposes that they had
property both in Bethlehem and Nazareth, and could therefore have
settled in either place, but unknown circumstances inclined them, on
their return from Egypt, to fix upon Bethlehem until the divine warning
came as a preventive. Thus Olshausen declines particularizing the
reason why it appeared desirable to the parents of Jesus to settle in
Bethlehem; but Heydenreich [439] and others have supplied his omission,
by assuming that it must have seemed to them most fitting for him, who
was pre-eminently the Son of David, to be brought up in David’s own
city.
Here, however, theologians would do well to take for their model the
honesty of Neander, and to confess with him that of this intention on
the part of Joseph and Mary to settle at Bethlehem, and of the motives
which induced them to give up the plan, Luke knows nothing, and that
they rest on the authority of Matthew alone. But what reason does
Matthew present for this alleged change of place? The visit of the
magi, the massacre of the infants, visions in dreams—events whose
evidently unhistorical character quite disqualifies them from serving
as proofs of a change of residence on the part of the parents of Jesus.
On the other hand Neander, while confessing that the author of the
first Gospel was probably ignorant of the particular circumstances
which, according to Luke, led to the journey to Bethlehem, and hence
took Bethlehem to be the original residence of the parents of Jesus,
maintains that there may be an essential agreement between the two
accounts though that agreement did not exist in the consciousness of
the writers. [440] But, once more, what cause does Luke assign for the
journey to Bethlehem? The census, which our previous investigations
have shown to be as frail a support for this statement, as the
infanticide and its consequences for that of Matthew. Hence here again
it is not possible by admitting the inacquaintance of the one narrator
with what the other presents to vindicate the statements of both; since
each has against him, not only the ignorance of the other, but the
improbability of his own narrative.
But we must distinguish more exactly the respective aspects and
elements of the two accounts. As, according to the above observations,
the change of residence on the part of the parents of Jesus, is in
Matthew so linked with the unhistorical data of the infanticide and the
flight into Egypt, that without these every cause for the migration
disappears, we turn to Luke’s account, which makes the parents of Jesus
resident in the same place, both after and before the birth of Jesus.
But in Luke, the circumstance of Jesus being born in another place than
where his parents dwelt, is made to depend on an event as unhistorical
as the marvels of Matthew, namely the census. If this be surrendered,
no motive remains that could induce the parents of Jesus to take a
formidable journey at so critical a period for Mary, and in this view
of the case Matthew’s representation seems the more probable one, that
Jesus was born in the home of his parents and not in a strange place.
Hitherto, however, we have only obtained the negative result, that the
evangelical statements, according to which the parents of Jesus lived
at first in another place than that in which they subsequently settled,
and Jesus was born elsewhere than in the home of his parents, are
destitute of any guarantee; we have yet to seek for a positive
conclusion by inquiring what was really the place of his birth.
On this point we are drawn in two opposite directions. In both Gospels
we find Bethlehem stated to be the birth-place of Jesus, and there is,
as we have seen, no impediment to our supposing that it was the
habitual residence of his parents; on the other hand, the two Gospels
again concur in representing Nazareth as the ultimate dwelling-place of
Joseph and his family, and it is only an unsupported statement that
forbids us to regard it as their original residence, and consequently
as the birth-place of Jesus. It would be impossible to decide between
these contradictory probabilities were both equally strong, but as soon
as the slightest inequality between them is discovered, we are
warranted to form a conclusion. Let us first test the opinion, that the
Galilean city Nazareth was the final residence of Jesus. This is not
supported barely by the passages immediately under consideration, in
the 2nd chapters of Matthew and Luke;—it rests on an uninterrupted
series of data drawn from the Gospels and from the earliest church
history. The Galilean, the Nazarene—were the epithets constantly
applied to Jesus. As Jesus of Nazareth he was introduced by Philip to
Nathanael, whose responsive question was, Can any good thing come out
of Nazareth? Nazareth is described, not only as the place where he was
brought up, οὗ ἦν τεθραμμένος (Luke iv. 16 f.), but also as his
country; πατρὶς (Matt. xiii. 34, Mark vi. 1). He was known among the
populace as Jesus of Nazareth (Luke xviii. 37), and invoked under this
name by the demons (Mark i. 24). The inscription on the cross styles
him a Nazarene (John xix. 19), and after his resurrection his apostles
everywhere proclaimed him as Jesus of Nazareth (Acts ii. 22), and
worked miracles in his name (Acts iii. 6). His disciples too were long
called Nazarenes, and it was not until a late period that this name was
exclusively applied to a heretical sect. [441] This appellation proves,
if not that Jesus was born in Nazareth, at least that he resided in
that place for a considerable time; and as, according to a probable
tradition (Luke iv. 16 f. parall.), Jesus, during his public life, paid
but transient visits to Nazareth, this prolonged residence must be
referred to the earlier part of his life, which he passed in the bosom
of his family. Thus his family, at least his parents, must have lived
in Nazareth during his childhood; and if it be admitted that they once
dwelt there, it follows that they dwelt there always, for we have no
historical grounds for supposing a change of residence: so that this
one of the two contradictory propositions has as much certainty as we
can expect, in a fact belonging to so remote and obscure a period.
Neither does the other proposition, however, that Jesus was born in
Bethlehem, rest solely on the statement of our Gospels; it is
sanctioned by an expectation, originating in a prophetic passage, that
the Messiah would be born at Bethlehem (comp. with Matt. ii. 5 f., John
vii. 42). But this is a dangerous support, which they who wish to
retain as historical the Gospel statement, that Jesus was born in
Bethlehem, will do well to renounce. For wherever we find a narrative
which recounts the accomplishment of a long-expected event, a strong
suspicion must arise, that the narrative owes its origin solely to the
pre-existent belief that that event would be accomplished. But our
suspicion is converted into certainty when we find this belief to be
groundless; and this is the case here, for the alleged issue must have
confirmed a false interpretation of a prophetic passage. Thus this
prophetic evidence of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, deprives the
historical evidence, which lies in the 2nd chapters of Matthew and
Luke, of its value, since the latter seems to be built on the former,
and consequently shares its fall. Any other voucher for this fact is
however sought in vain. Nowhere else in the New Testament is the birth
of Jesus at Bethlehem mentioned; nowhere does he appear in any relation
with his alleged birth-place, or pay it the honour of a visit, which he
yet does not deny to the unworthy Nazareth; nowhere does he appeal to
the fact as a concomitant proof of his messiahship, although he had the
most direct inducements to do so, for many were repelled from him by
his Galilean origin, and defended their prejudice by referring to the
necessity, that the Messiah should come out of Bethlehem, the city of
David (John vii. 42). [442] John does not, it is true, say that these
objections were uttered in the presence of Jesus; [443] but as,
immediately before, he had annexed to a discourse of Jesus a comment of
his own, to the effect that the Holy Ghost was not yet given, so here
he might very suitably have added, in explanation of the doubts
expressed by the people, that they did not yet know that Jesus was born
in Bethlehem. Such an observation will be thought too superficial and
trivial for an apostle like John: thus much however must be admitted;
he had occasion repeatedly to mention the popular notion that Jesus was
a native of Nazareth, and the consequent prejudice against him; had he
then known otherwise, he must have added a corrective remark, if he
wished to avoid leaving the false impression, that he also believed
Jesus to be a Nazarene. As it is, we find Nathanael, John i. 46,
alleging this objection, without having his opinion rectified either
mediately or immediately, for he nowhere learns that the good thing did
not really come out of Nazareth, and the conclusion he is left to draw
is, that even out of Nazareth something good can come. In general, if
Jesus were really born in Bethlehem, though but fortuitously (according
to Luke’s representation), it is incomprehensible, considering the
importance of this fact to the article of his messiahship, that even
his own adherents should always call him the Nazarene, instead of
opposing to this epithet, pronounced by his opponents with polemical
emphasis, the honourable title of the Bethlehemite.
Thus the evangelical statement that Jesus was born at Bethlehem is
destitute of all valid historical evidence; nay, it is contravened by
positive historical facts. We have seen reason to conclude that the
parents of Jesus lived at Nazareth, not only after the birth of Jesus,
but also, as we have no counter evidence, prior to that event, and
that, no credible testimony to the contrary existing, Jesus was
probably not born at any other place than the home of his parents. With
this twofold conclusion, the supposition that Jesus was born at
Bethlehem is irreconcileable: it can therefore cost us no further
effort to decide that Jesus was born, not in Bethlehem, but, as we have
no trustworthy indications that point elsewhere, in all probability at
Nazareth.
The relative position of the two evangelists on this point may be thus
stated. Each of their accounts is partly correct, and partly incorrect:
Luke is right in maintaining the identity of the earlier with the later
residence of the parents of Jesus, and herein Matthew is wrong; again,
Matthew is right in maintaining the identity of the birth-place of
Jesus with the dwelling-place of his parents, and here the error is on
the side of Luke. Further, Luke is entirely correct in making the
parents of Jesus reside in Nazareth before, as well as after, the birth
of Jesus, while Matthew has only half the truth, namely, that they were
established there after his birth; but in the statement that Jesus was
born at Bethlehem both are decidedly wrong. The source of all the error
of their narratives, is the Jewish opinion with which they fell in,
that the Messiah must be born at Bethlehem; the source of all their
truth, is the fact which lay before them, that he always passed for a
Nazarene; finally, the cause of the various admixture of the true and
the false in both, and the preponderance of the latter in Matthew, is
the different position held by the two writers in relation to the above
data. Two particulars were to be reconciled—the historical fact that
Jesus was universally reputed to be a Nazarene, and the prophetic
requisition that, as Messiah, he should be born at Bethlehem. Matthew,
or the legend which he followed, influenced by the ruling tendency to
apply the prophecies, observable in his Gospel, effected the desired
reconciliation in such a manner, that the greatest prominence was given
to Bethlehem, the locality pointed out by the prophet; this was
represented as the original home of the parents of Jesus, and Nazareth
merely as a place of refuge, recommended by a subsequent turn of
events. Luke, on the contrary, more bent on historic detail, either
adopted or created that form of the legend, which attaches the greatest
important to Nazareth, making it the original dwelling-place of the
parents of Jesus, and regarding the sojourn in Bethlehem as a temporary
one, the consequence of a casual occurrence.
Such being the state of the case, no one, we imagine, will be inclined
either with Schleiermacher, [444] to leave the question concerning the
relation of the two narratives to the real facts undecided, or with
Sieffert, [445] to pronounce exclusively in favour of Luke. [446]
CHAPTER V.
THE FIRST VISIT TO THE TEMPLE, AND THE EDUCATION OF JESUS.
§ 40.
JESUS, WHEN TWELVE YEARS OLD, IN THE TEMPLE.
The Gospel of Matthew passes in silence over the entire period from the
return of the parents of Jesus out of Egypt, to the baptism of Jesus by
John: and even Luke has nothing to tell us of the long interval between
the early childhood of Jesus and his maturity, beyond a single
incident—his demeanour on a visit to the temple in his twelfth year
(ii. 41–52). This anecdote, out of the early youth of Jesus is, as Hess
has truly remarked, [447] distinguished from the narratives hitherto
considered, belonging to his childhood, by the circumstance that Jesus
no longer, as in the latter, holds a merely passive position, but
presents an active proof of his high destination; a proof which has
always been especially valued, as indicating the moment in which the
consciousness of that destination was kindled in Jesus. [448]
In his twelfth year, the period at which, according to Jewish usage,
the boy became capable of an independent participation in the sacred
rites, the parents of Jesus, as this narrative informs us, took him for
the first time to the Passover. At the expiration of the feast, the
parents bent their way homewards; that their son was missing gave them
no immediate anxiety, because they supposed him to be among their
travelling companions, and it was not until after they had accomplished
a day’s journey, and in vain sought their son among their kinsfolk and
acquaintance, that they turned back to Jerusalem to look for him there.
This conduct on the part of the parents of Jesus may with reason excite
surprise. It seems inconsistent with the carefulness which it has been
thought incumbent on us to attribute to them, that they should have
allowed the divine child entrusted to their keeping, to remain so long
out of their sight; and hence they have on many sides been accused of
neglect and a dereliction of duty, in the instance before us. [449] It
has been urged, as a general consideration in vindication of Joseph and
Mary, that the greater freedom permitted to the boy is easily
conceivable as part of a liberal method of education; [450] but even
according to our modern ideas, it would seem more than liberal for
parents to let a boy of twelve years remain out of their sight during
so long an interval as our narrative supposes; how far less
reconcileable must it then be with the more rigid views of education
held by the ancients, not excepting the Jews? It is remarked however,
that viewing the case as an extraordinary one, the parents of Jesus
knew their child, and they could therefore very well confide in his
understanding and character, so far as to be in no fear that any danger
would accrue to him from his unusual freedom; [451] but we can perceive
from their subsequent anxiety, that they were not so entirely at ease
on that head. Thus their conduct must be admitted to be such as we
should not have anticipated; but it is not consequently incredible nor
does it suffice to render the entire narrative improbable, for the
parents of Jesus are no saints to us, that we should not impute to them
any fault.
Returned to Jerusalem, they find their son on the third day in the
temple, doubtless in one of the outer halls, in the midst of an
assembly of doctors, engaged in a conversation with them, and exciting
universal astonishment (v. 45 f.). From some indications it would seem
that Jesus held a higher position in the presence of the doctors, than
could belong to a boy of twelve years. The word καθεζόμενον (sitting)
has excited scruples, for according to Jewish records, it was not until
after the death of the Rabbi Gamaliel, an event long subsequent to the
one described in our narrative, that the pupils of the rabbins sat,
they having previously been required to stand [452] when in the school;
but this Jewish tradition is of doubtful authority. [453] It has also
been thought a difficulty, that Jesus does not merely hear the doctors,
but also asks them questions, thus appearing to assume the position of
their teacher. Such is indeed the representation of the apocryphal
Gospels, for in them Jesus, before he is twelve years old, perplexes
all the doctors by his questions, [454] and reveals to his instructor
in the alphabet the mystical significance of the characters; [455]
while at the above visit to the temple he proposes controversial
questions, [456] such as that touching the Messiah’s being at once
David’s Son and Lord (Matt. xxii. 41), and proceeds to throw light on
all departments of knowledge. [457] If the expressions ἐρωτᾷν and
ἀποκρίνεσθαι implied that Jesus played the part of a teacher in this
scene, so unnatural a feature in the evangelical narrative would render
the whole suspicious. [458] But there is nothing to render this
interpretation of the words necessary, for according to Jewish custom,
rabbinical teaching was of such a kind that not only did the masters
interrogate the pupils, but the pupils interrogated the masters, when
they wished for explanations on any point. [459] We may with the more
probability suppose that the writer intended to attribute to Jesus such
questions as suited a boy, because he, apparently not without design,
refers the astonishment of the doctors, not to his questions, but to
that in which he could best show himself in the light of an intelligent
pupil—namely, to his answers. A more formidable difficulty is the
statement, that the boy Jesus sat in the midst of the doctors, ἐν μέσῳ
τῶν διδασκάλων. For we learn from Paul (Acts xxii. 3) the position that
became a pupil, when he says that he was brought up at the feet (παρὰ
τοὺς πόδας) of Gamaliel: it being the custom for the rabbins to be
placed on chairs, while their pupils sat on the ground, [460] and did
not take their places among their masters. It has indeed been thought
that ἐν μέσῳ might be so explained as to signify, either that Jesus sat
between the doctors, who are supposed to have been elevated on chairs,
while Jesus and the other pupils are pictured as sitting on the ground
between them, [461] or merely that he was in the company of doctors,
that is, in the synagogue; [462] but according to the strict sense of
the words, the expression καθέζεσθαι ἐν μέσῳ τινῶν appears to signify,
if not as Schöttgen believes, [463] in majorem Jesu gloriam, a place of
pre-eminent honour, at least a position of equal dignity with that
occupied by the rest. It need only be asked, would it harmonize with
the spirit of our narrative to substitute καθεζόμενον παρὰ τοῦς πόδας
τῶν διδασκάλων for καθ. ἐν μέσω τ. δ.? the answer will certainly be in
the negative, and it will then be inevitable to admit, that our
narrative places Jesus in another relation to the doctors than that of
a learner, though the latter is the only natural one for a boy of
twelve, however highly gifted. For Olshausen’s position, [464]—that in
Jesus nothing was formed from without, by the instrumentality of
another’s wisdom, because this would be inconsistent with the character
of the Messiah, as absolutely self-determined,—contradicts a dogma of
the church which he himself advances, namely, that Jesus in his
manifestation as man, followed the regular course of human development.
For not only is it in the nature of this development to be gradual, but
also, and still more essentially, to be dependent, whether it be mental
or physical, on the interchange of reception and influence. To deny
this in relation to the physical life of Jesus—to say, for example,
that the food which he took did not serve for the nourishment and
growth of his body by real assimilation, but merely furnished occasion
for him to reproduce himself from within, would strike every one as
Docetism; and is the analogous proposition in relation to his spiritual
development, namely, that he appropriated nothing from without, and
used what he heard from others merely as a voice to evoke one truth
after another from the recesses of his own mind—is this anything else
than a more refined Docetism? Truly, if we attempt to form a conception
of the conversation of Jesus with the doctors in the temple according
to this theory, we make anything but a natural scene of it. It is not
to be supposed that he taught, nor properly speaking that he was
taught, but that the discourse of the doctors merely gave an impetus to
his power of teaching himself, and was the occasion for an
ever-brightening light to rise upon him, especially on the subject of
his own destination. But in that case he would certainly have given
utterance to his newly acquired knowledge; so that the position of a
teacher on the part of the boy would return upon us, a position which
Olshausen himself pronounces to be preposterous. At least such an
indirect mode of teaching is involved as Ness subscribes to, when he
supposes that Jesus, even thus early, made the first attempt to combat
the prejudices which swayed in the synagogue, exposing to the doctors,
by means of good-humoured questions and requests for explanation, such
as are willingly permitted to a boy, the weakness of many of their
dogmas. [465] But even such a position on the part of a boy of twelve,
is inconsistent with the true process of human development, through
which it behoved the God-Man himself to pass. Discourse of this kind
from a boy must, we grant, have excited the astonishment of all the
hearers; nevertheless the expression ἐξίσταντο πάντες οἱ ἀκούοντες
αὐτοῦ (v. 47), looks too much like a panegyrical formula. [466]
The narrative proceeds to tell us how the mother of Jesus reproached
her son when she had found him thus, asking him why he had not spared
his parents the anguish of their sorrowful search? To this Jesus
returns an answer which forms the point of the entire narrative; he
asks whether they might not have known that he was to be sought nowhere
else than in the house of his Father, in the temple? (v. 48 f.) One
might be inclined to understand this designation of God as τοῦ πατρὸς
generally, as implying that God was the Father of all men, and only in
this sense the Father of Jesus. But this interpretation is forbidden,
not only by the addition of the pronoun μοῦ, the above sense requiring
ἡμῶν (as in Matt. vi. 9), but still more absolutely by the circumstance
that the parents of Jesus did not understand these words (v. 50), a
decided indication that they must have a special meaning, which can
here be no other than the mystery of the Messiahship of Jesus, who as
Messiah, was υἱὸς θεοῦ in a peculiar sense. But that Jesus in his
twelfth year had already the consciousness of his Messiahship, is a
position which, although it may be consistently adopted from the
orthodox point of view, and although it is not opposed to the regular
human form of the development of Jesus, which even orthodoxy maintains,
we are not here bound to examine. So also the natural explanation,
which retains the above narrative as a history, though void of the
miraculous, and which accordingly supposes the parents of Jesus, owing
to a particular combination of circumstances, to have come even before
his birth to a conviction of his Messiahship, and to have instilled
this conviction into their son from his earliest childhood,—this too
may make it plain how Jesus could be so clear as to his messianic
relation to God; but it can only do so by the hypothesis of an
unprecedented coincidence of extraordinary accidents. We, on the
contrary, who have renounced the previous incidents as historical,
either in the supernatural or the natural sense, are unable to
comprehend how the consciousness of his messianic destination could be
so early developed in Jesus. For though the consciousness of a more
subjective vocation, as that of a poet or an artist, which is dependent
solely on the internal gifts of the individual (gifts which cannot long
remain latent), may possibly be awakened very early; an objective
vocation, in which the conditions of external reality are a chief
co-operator, as the vocation of the statesman, the general, the
reformer of a religion, can hardly be so early evident to the most
highly endowed individual, because for this a knowledge of cotemporary
circumstances would be requisite, which only long observation and
mature experience can confer. Of the latter kind is the vocation of the
Messiah, and if this is implied in the words by which Jesus in his
twelfth year justified his lingering in the temple, he cannot have
uttered the words at that period.
In another point of view also, it is worthy of notice that the parents
of Jesus are said (v. 50) not to have understood the words which he
addressed to them. What did these words signify? That God was his
Father, in whose house it behoved him to be. But that her son would in
a specific sense be called a υἱὸς θεοῦ had been already made known to
Mary by the annunciating angel (Luke i. 32, 35), and that he would have
a peculiar relation to the temple she might infer, both from the above
title, and from the striking reception which he had met with at his
first presentation in the temple, when yet an infant. The parents of
Jesus, or at least Mary, of whom it is repeatedly noticed that she
carefully kept in her heart the extraordinary communications concerning
her son, ought not to have been in the dark a single moment as to the
meaning of his language on this occasion. But even at the presentation
in the temple, we are told that the parents of Jesus marvelled at the
discourse of Simeon (v. 33), which is merely saying in other words that
they did not understand him. And their wonder is not referred to the
declaration of Simeon that their boy would be a cause, not only of the
rising again, but of the fall of many in Israel, and that a sword would
pierce through the heart of his mother (an aspect of his vocation and
destiny on which nothing had previously been communicated to the
parents of Jesus, and at which therefore they might naturally wonder);
for these disclosures are not made by Simeon until after the wonder of
the parents, which is caused only by Simeon’s expressions of joy at the
sight of the Saviour, who would be the glory of Israel, and a light
even to the Gentiles. And here again there is no intimation that the
wonder was excited by the idea that Jesus would bear this relation to
the heathens, which indeed it could not well be, since this more
extended destination of the Messiah had been predicted in the Old
Testament. There remains therefore as a reason for the wonder in
question, merely the fact of the child’s Messiahship, declared by
Simeon; a fact which had been long ago announced to them by angels, and
which was acknowledged by Mary in her song of praise. We have just a
parallel difficulty in the present case, it being as inconceivable that
the parents of Jesus should not understand his allusion to his
messianic character, as that they should wonder at the declaration of
it by Simeon. We must therefore draw this conclusion: if the parents of
Jesus did not understand these expressions of their son when twelve
years old, those earlier communications cannot have happened; or, if
the earlier communications really occurred, the subsequent expressions
of Jesus cannot have remained incomprehensible to them. Having done
away with those earlier incidents as historical, we might content
ourselves with this later want of comprehension, were it not fair to
mistrust the whole of a narrative whose later portions agree so ill
with the preceding. For it is the character, not of an historical
record, but of a marvellous legend, to represent its personages as so
permanently in a state of wonder, that they not only at the first
appearance of the extraordinary, but even at the second, third, tenth
repetition, when one would expect them to be familiarized with it,
continually are astonished and do not understand—obviously with the
view of exalting the more highly the divine impartation by this lasting
incomprehensibleness. So, to draw an example from the later history of
Jesus, the divine decree of his suffering and death is set forth in all
its loftiness in the evangelical narratives by the circumstance, that
even the repeated, explicit disclosures of Jesus on this subject,
remain throughout incomprehensible to the disciples; as here the
mystery of the Messiahship of Jesus is exalted by the circumstance,
that his parents, often as it had been announced to them, at every
fresh word on the subject are anew astonished and do not understand.
The twofold form of conclusion, that the mother of Jesus kept all these
sayings in her heart (v. 51), and that the boy grew in wisdom and
stature, and so forth, we have already recognised as a favourite form
of conclusion and transition in the heroic legend of the Hebrews; in
particular, that which relates to the growth of the boy is almost
verbally parallel with a passage relating to Samuel, as in two former
instances similar expressions appeared to have been borrowed from the
history of Samson. [467]
§ 41
THIS NARRATIVE ALSO MYTHICAL.
Thus here again we must acknowledge the influence of the legend; but as
the main part of the incident is thoroughly natural, we might in this
instance prefer the middle course, and after disengaging the mythical,
seek to preserve a residue of history. We might suppose that the
parents of Jesus really took their son to Jerusalem in his early youth,
and that after having lost sight of him (probably before their
departure), they found him in the temple, where, eager for instruction,
he sat at the feet of the rabbins. When called to account, he declared
that his favourite abode was in the house of God; [468] a sentiment
which rejoiced his parents, and won the approbation of the bystanders.
The rest of the story we might suppose to have been added by the
aggrandizing legend, after Jesus was acknowledged as the Messiah. Here
all the difficulties in our narrative,—the idea of the boy sitting in
the midst of the doctors, his claiming God as his father in a special
sense, and the departure of the parents without their son, would be
rejected; but the journey of Jesus when twelve years old, the eagerness
for knowledge then manifested by him, and his attachment to the temple,
are retained. To these particulars there is nothing to object
negatively, for they contain nothing improbable in itself; but their
historical truth must become doubtful if we can show, positively, a
strong interest of the legend, out of which the entire narrative, and
especially these intrinsically not improbable particulars, might have
arisen.
That in the case of great men who in their riper age have been
distinguished by mental superiority, the very first presaging movements
of their mind are eagerly gleaned, and if they are not to be
ascertained historically, are invented under the guidance of
probability, is well known. In the Hebrew history and legend
especially, we find manifold proofs of this tendency. Thus of Samuel it
is said in the old Testament itself, that even as a boy he received a
divine revelation and the gift of prophecy (1 Sam. iii.), and with
respect to Moses, on whose boyish years the Old Testament narrative is
silent, a subsequent tradition, followed by Josephus and Philo, had
striking proofs to relate of his early development. As in the narrative
before us Jesus shows himself wise beyond his years, so this tradition
attributes a like precocity to Moses; [469] as Jesus, turning away from
the idle tumult of the city in all the excitement of festival time,
finds his favourite entertainment in the temple among the doctors; so
the boy Moses was not attracted by childish sports, but by serious
occupation, and very early it was necessary to give him tutors, whom,
however, like Jesus in his twelfth year, he quickly surpassed. [470]
According to Jewish custom and opinion, the twelfth year formed an
epoch in development to which especial proofs of awakening genius were
the rather attached, because in the twelfth year, as with us in the
fourteenth, the boy was regarded as having outgrown the period of
childhood. [471] Accordingly it was believed of Moses that in his
twelfth year he left the house of his father, to become an independent
organ of the divine revelations. [472] The Old Testament leaves it
uncertain how early the gift of prophecy was imparted to Samuel, but he
was said by a later tradition to have prophesied from his twelfth year;
[473] and in like manner the wise judgments of Solomon and Daniel (1
Kings iii. 23 ff., Susann. 45 ff.) were supposed to have been given
when they were only twelve. [474] If in the case of these Old Testament
heroes, the spirit that impelled them manifested itself according to
common opinion so early as in their twelfth year, it was argued that it
could not have remained longer concealed in Jesus; and if Samuel and
Daniel showed themselves at that age in their later capacity of
divinely inspired seers, Solomon in that of a wise ruler, so Jesus at
the corresponding period in his life must have shown himself in the
character to which he subsequently established his claim, that namely,
of the Son of God and Teacher of Mankind. It is, in fact, the obvious
aim of Luke to pass over no epoch in the early life of Jesus without
surrounding him with divine radiance, with significant prognostics of
the future; in this style he treats his birth, mentions the
circumcision at least emphatically, but above all avails himself of the
presentation in the temple. There yet remained according to Jewish
manners one epoch, the twelfth year, with the first journey to the
passover; how could he do otherwise than, following the legend, adorn
this point in the development of Jesus as we find that he has done in
his narrative? and how could we do otherwise than regard his narrative
as a legendary embellishment of this period in the life of Jesus, [475]
from which we learn nothing of his real development, [476] but merely
something of the exalted notions which were entertained in the
primitive church of the early ripened mind of Jesus?
But how this anecdote can be numbered among mythi is found by some
altogether inconceivable. It bears, thinks Heydenreich, [477] a
thoroughly historical character (this is the very point to be proved),
and the stamp of the highest simplicity (like every popular legend in
its original form); it contains no tincture of the miraculous, wherein
the primary characteristic of a mythus (but not of every mythus) is
held to consist; it is so remote from all embellishment that there is
not the slightest detail of the conversation of Jesus with the doctors
(the legend was satisfied with the dramatic trait, sitting in the midst
of the doctors: as a dictum, v. 49 was alone important, and towards
this the narrator hastens without delay); nay, even the conversation
between Jesus and his mother is only given in a fragmentary aphoristic
manner (there is no trace of an omission); finally, the inventor of a
legend would have made Jesus speak differently to his mother, instead
of putting into his mouth words which might be construed into
irreverence and indifference. In this last observation Heydenreich
agrees with Schleiermacher, who finds in the behaviour of Jesus to his
mother, liable as it is to be misinterpreted, a sure guarantee that the
whole history was not invented to supply something remarkable
concerning Jesus, in connexion with the period at which the holy things
of the temple and the law were first opened to him. [478]
In combating the assertion, that an inventor would scarcely have
attributed to Jesus so much apparent harshness towards his mother, we
need not appeal to the apocryphal Evangelium Thomæ, which makes the boy
Jesus say to his foster-father Joseph: insipientissime fecisti; [479]
for even in the legend or history of the canonical gospels
corresponding traits are to be found. In the narrative of the wedding
at Cana, we find this rough address to his mother: τί ἐμοὶ καὶ σοὶ
γύναι (John ii. 4); and in the account of the visit paid to Jesus by
his mother and brethren, the striking circumstance that he apparently
wishes to take no notice of his relatives (Matt. xii. 46). If these are
real incidents, then the legend had an historical precedent to warrant
the introduction of a similar feature, even into the early youth of
Jesus; if, on the other hand, they are only legends, they are the most
vivid proofs that an inducement as not wanting for the invention of
such features. Where this inducement lay, it is easy to see. The figure
of Jesus would stand in the higher relief from the obscure background
of his contracted family relations, if it were often seen that his
parents were unable to comprehend his elevated mind, and if even he
himself sometimes made them feel his superiority—so far as this could
happen without detriment to his filial obedience, which, it should be
observed, our narrative expressly preserves.
§ 42.
ON THE EXTERNAL LIFE OF JESUS UP TO THE TIME OF HIS PUBLIC APPEARANCE.
What were the external conditions under which Jesus lived, from the
scene just considered up to the time of his public appearance? On this
subject our canonical gospels give scarcely an indication.
First, as to his place of residence, all that we learn explicitly is
this: that both at the beginning and at the end of this obscure period
he dwelt at Nazareth. According to Luke ii. 51, Jesus when twelve years
old returned thither with his parents, and according to Matthew iii.
13, Mark i. 9, he, when thirty years old (comp. Luke iii. 23), came
from thence to be baptized by John. Thus our evangelists appear to
suppose, that Jesus had in the interim resided in Galilee, and, more
particularly, in Nazareth. This supposition, however, does not exclude
journeys, such as those to the feasts in Jerusalem.
The employment of Jesus during the years of his boyhood and youth
seems, from an intimation in our gospels, to have been determined by
the trade of his father, who is there called a τέκτων (Matt. xiii. 55).
This Greek word, used to designate the trade of Joseph, is generally
understood in the sense of faber lignarius (carpenter); [480] a few
only, on mystical grounds, discover in it a faber ferrarius
(blacksmith), aurarius (goldsmith), or cæmentarius (mason). [481] The
works in wood which he executed are held of different magnitude by
different authors: according to Justin and the Evangelium Thomæ, [482]
they were ploughs and yokes, ἄροτρα καὶ ζυγὰ, and in that case he would
be what we call a wheel-wright; according to the Evangelium infantiæ
arabicum, [483] they were doors, milk-vessels, sieves and coffers, and
once Joseph makes a throne for the king; so that here he is represented
partly as a cabinet-maker and partly as a cooper. The Protevangelium
Jacobi, on the other hand, makes him work at buildings, οἰκοδομαῖς,
[484] without doubt as a carpenter. In these labours of the father
Jesus appears to have shared, according to an expression of Mark, who
makes the Nazarenes ask concerning Jesus, not merely as in the parallel
passage of Matthew: Is not this the carpenter’s son? οὐκ οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ
τοῦ τέκτονος υἱός; but Is not this the carpenter? οὐκ οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ
τέκτων (vi. 3). It is true that in replying to the taunt of Celsus that
the teacher of the Christians was a carpenter by trade, τέκτον ἦν τὴν
τέχνην, Origen says, he must have forgotten that in none of the Gospels
received by the churches is Jesus himself called a carpenter, ὅτι
οὐδαμοῦ τῶν ἐν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις φερομένων εὐαγγελίων τεκτων αὐτὸς ὁ
Ἰησοῦς ἀναγέγραπται. [485] The above passage in Mark has, in fact, the
various reading, ὁ τοῦ τέκτονος υἱός, which Origen must have taken,
unless he be supposed altogether to have overlooked the passage, and
which is preferred by some modern critics. [486] But here Beza has
justly remarked that fortasse mutavit aliquis, existimans, hanc artem
Christi majestati parum convenire; whereas there could hardly be an
interest which would render the contrary alteration desirable. [487]
Moreover Fathers of the Church and apocryphal writings represent Jesus,
in accordance with the more generally accepted reading, as following
the trade of his father. Justin attaches especial importance to the
fact that Jesus made ploughs and yokes or scales, as symbols of active
life and of justice. [488] In the Evangelium infantiæ Arabicum, Jesus
goes about with Joseph to the places where the latter has work, to help
him in such a manner that if Joseph made anything too long or too
short, Jesus, by a touch or by merely stretching out his hand, gave to
the object its right size, an assistance which was very useful to his
foster-father, because, as the apocryphal text naively remarks: nec
admodum peritus erat artis fabrilis. [489]
Apart from these apocryphal descriptions, there are many reasons for
believing that the above intimation as to the youthful employment of
Jesus is correct. In the first place, it accords with the Jewish custom
which prescribed even to one destined to a learned career, or in
general to any spiritual occupation, the acquisition of some
handicraft; thus Paul, the pupil of the rabbins, was also a tent-maker,
σκηνοποιὸς τὴν τέχνην (Acts xviii. 3). Next, as our previous
examinations have shown that we know nothing historical of
extraordinary expectations and plans on the part of the parents of
Jesus in relation to their son, so nothing is more natural than the
supposition that Jesus early practised the trade of his father.
Further, the Christians must have had an interest in denying, rather
than inventing, this opinion as to their Messiah’s youthful occupation,
since it often drew down upon them the ridicule of their opponents.
Thus Celsus, as we have already mentioned, could not abstain from a
reflection on this subject, for which reason Origen will know nothing
of any designation of Jesus as a τέκτων in the New Testament; and every
one knows the scoffing question of Libanius about the carpenter’s son,
a question which seems to have been provided with so striking an
answer, only ex eventu. [490] It may certainly be said in opposition to
this, that the notion of Jesus having been a carpenter, seems to be
founded on a mere inference from the trade of the father as to the
occupation of the son, whereas the latter was just as likely to apply
himself to some other branch of industry; nay, that perhaps the whole
tradition of the carpentry of Joseph and Jesus owes its origin to the
symbolical significance exhibited by Justin. As however the allusion in
our Gospels to the trade of Joseph is very brief and bare, and is
nowhere used allegorically in the New Testament, nor entered into more
minutely; it is not to be contested that he was really a carpenter; but
it must remain uncertain whether Jesus shared in this occupation.
What were the circumstances of Jesus and his parents as to fortune? The
answer to this question has been the object of many dissertations. It
is evident that the ascription of pressing poverty to Jesus, on the
part of orthodox theologians, rested on dogmatical and æsthetic
grounds. On the one hand, they wished to maintain even in this point
the status exinanitionis, and on the other, they wished to depict as
strikingly as possible the contrast between the μορφὴ θεοῦ (form of
God) and the μορφὴ δούλου (form of a servant). That this contrast as
set forth by Paul (Phil. ii. 6, ff.), as well as the expression
ἐπτώχευσε, which this apostle applies to Christ (2 Cor. viii. 9) merely
characterizes the obscure and laborious life to which he submitted
after his heavenly pre-existence, and instead of playing the part of
king which the Jewish imagination attributed to the Messiah, is also to
be regarded as established. [491] The expression of Jesus himself, The
Son of man hath not where to lay his head, ποῦ τὴν κεφαλὴν κλίνῃ (Matt.
viii. 20), may possibly import merely his voluntary renunciation of the
peaceful enjoyment of fortune, for the sake of devoting himself to the
wandering life of the Messiah. There is only one other particular
bearing on the point in question, namely, that Mary presented, as an
offering of purification, doves (Luke ii. 24),—according to Lev. xii.
8, the offering of the poor: which certainly proves that the author of
this information conceived the parents of Jesus to have been in by no
means brilliant circumstances; [492] but what shall assure us that he
also was not induced to make this representation by unhistorical
motives? Meanwhile we are just as far from having tenable ground for
maintaining the contrary proposition, namely, that Jesus possessed
property: at least it is inadmissible to adduce the coat without seam
[493] (John xix. 23), until we shall have inquired more closely what
kind of relation it has to the subject.
§ 43.
THE INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT OF JESUS.
Our information concerning the external life of Jesus during his youth
is very scanty: but we are almost destitute of any concerning his
intellectual development. For the indeterminate phrase, twice occurring
in Luke’s history of the childhood, concerning the increase of his
spiritual strength and his growth in wisdom, tells us no more than we
must necessarily have presupposed without it; while on the expectations
which his parents cherished with respect to him before his birth, and
on the sentiment which his mother especially then expressed, no
conclusion is to be founded, since those expectations and declarations
are themselves unhistorical. The narrative just considered, of the
appearance of Jesus in the temple at twelve years of age, rather gives
us a result—the early and peculiar development of his religious
consciousness,—than an explanation of the causes and conditions by
which this development was favoured. But we at least learn from Luke
ii. 41 (what however is to be of course supposed of pious Israelites),
that the parents of Jesus used to go to Jerusalem every year at the
Passover. We may conjecture, then, that Jesus from his twelfth year
generally accompanied them, and availed himself of this excellent
opportunity, amid the concourse of Jews and Jewish proselytes of all
countries and all opinions, to form his mind, to become acquainted with
the condition of his people and the false principles of the Pharisaic
leaders, and to extend his survey beyond the narrow limits of
Palestine. [494]
Whether or in what degree Jesus received the learned education of a
rabbin, is also left untold in our canonical Gospels. From such
passages as Matt. vii. 29, where it is said that Jesus taught not as
the scribes, οὐχ ὡς οἱ γραμματεῖς, we can only infer that he did not
adopt the method of the doctors of the law, and it does not follow that
he had never enjoyed the education of a scribe (γραμματεὺς). On the
other hand, not only was Jesus called ῥαββὶ and ῥαββουνὶ by his
disciples (Matt. xxvi. 25, 49; Mark ix. 5, xi. 21, xiv. 45; John iv.
31, ix. 2, xi. 8, xx. 16: comp. i. 38, 40, 50), and by supplicating
sufferers (Mark x. 5), but even the pharisaic ἄρχων Nicodemus (John
iii. 2) did not refuse him this title. We cannot, however, conclude
from hence that Jesus had received the scholastic instruction of a
rabbin; [495] for the salutation Rabbi, as also the privilege of
reading in the synagogue (Luke iv. 16 ff.), a particular which has
likewise been appealed to, belonged not only to graduated rabbins, but
to every teacher who had given actual proof of his qualifications.
[496] The enemies of Jesus explicitly assert, and he does not
contradict them, that he had never learned letters: πῶς οὗτος γράμματα
οἶδε μὴ μεμαθηκὼς (John vii. 15); and the Nazarenes are astonished to
find so much wisdom in him, whence we infer that he had not to their
knowledge been a student. These facts cannot be neutralized by the
discourse of Jesus in which he represents himself as the model of a
scribe well instructed unto the kingdom of heaven [497] (Matt. xiii.
52), for the word γραμματεὺς here means a doctor of the law in general,
and not directly a doctor qualified in the schools. Lastly, the
intimate acquaintance with the doctrinal traditions, and the abuses of
the rabbins, which Jesus exhibits, [498] especially in the sermon on
the mount and the anti-pharisaic discourse Matt. xxiii. he might
acquire from the numerous discourses of the Pharisees to the people,
without going through a course of study under them. Thus the data on
our present subject to be found in the Gospels, collectively yield the
result that Jesus did not pass formally through a rabbinical school; on
the other hand, the consideration that it must have been the interest
of the Christian legend to represent Jesus as independent of human
teachers, may induce a doubt with respect to these statements in the
New Testament, and a conjecture that Jesus may not have been so
entirely a stranger to the learned culture of his nation. But from the
absence of authentic information we can arrive at no decision on this
point.
Various hypotheses, more or less independent of the intimations given
in the New Testament, have been advanced both in ancient and modern
times concerning the intellectual development of Jesus: they may be
divided into two principal classes, according to their agreement with
the natural or the supernatural view. The supernatural view of the
person of Jesus requires that he should be the only one of his kind,
independent of all external, human influences, self-taught or rather
taught of God; hence, not only must its advocates determinedly reject
every supposition implying that he borrowed or learned anything, and
consequently place in the most glaring light the difficulties which lay
in the way of the natural development of Jesus; [499] but, the more
surely to exclude every kind of reception, they must also be disposed
to assign as early an appearance as possible to that spontaneity which
we find in Jesus in his mature age. This spontaneous activity is
twofold: it is theoretical and practical. As regards the theoretical
side, comprising judgment and knowledge, the effort to give as early a
date as possible to its manifestation in Jesus, displays itself in the
apocryphal passages which have been already partly cited, and which
describe Jesus as surpassing his teachers long before his twelfth year,
for according to one of them he spoke in his cradle and declared
himself to be the Son of God. [500] The practical side, too, of that
superior order of spontaneity attributed to Jesus in his later years,
namely, the power of working miracles, is attached by the apocryphal
gospels to his earliest childhood and youth. The Evangelium Thomæ opens
with the fifth year of Jesus the story of his miracles, [501] and the
Arabian Evangelium Infantiæ fills the journey into Egypt with miracles
which the mother of Jesus performed by means of the swaddling bands of
her infant, and the water in which he was washed. [502] Some of the
miracles which according to these apocryphal gospels were wrought by
Jesus when in his infancy and boyhood, are analogous to those in the
New Testament—cures and resuscitations of the dead; others are totally
diverse from the ruling type in the canonical Gospels—extremely
revolting retributive miracles, by which every one who opposes the boy
Jesus in any matter whatever is smitten with lameness, or even with
death, or else mere extravagancies, such as the giving of life to
sparrows formed out of mud. [503]
The natural view of the person of Jesus had an opposite interest, which
was also very early manifested both among Jewish and heathen opponents
of Christianity, and which consisted in explaining his appearance
conformably to the laws of causality, by comparing it with prior and
contemporaneous facts to which it had a relation, and thus exhibiting
the conditions on which Jesus depended, and the sources from which he
drew. It is true that in the first centuries of the Christian era, the
whole region of spirituality being a supernatural one for heathens as
well as Jews, the reproach that Jesus owed his wisdom and seemingly
miraculous powers, not to himself or to God, but to a communication
from without, could not usually take the form of an assertion that he
had acquired natural skill and wisdom in the ordinary way of
instruction from others. [504] Instead of the natural and the human,
the unnatural and the demoniacal were opposed to the divine and the
supernatural (comp. Matt xii. 24), and Jesus was accused of working his
miracles by the aid of magic acquired in his youth. This charge was the
most easily attached to the journey of his parents with him into Egypt,
that native land of magic and secret wisdom, and thus we find it both
in Celsus and in the Talmud. The former makes a Jew allege against
Jesus, amongst other things, that he had entered into service for wages
in Egypt, that he had there possessed himself of some magic arts, and
on the strength of these had on his return vaunted himself for a God.
[505] The Talmud gives him a member of the Jewish Sanhedrim as a
teacher, makes him journey to Egypt with this companion, and bring
magic charms from thence into Palestine. [506]
The purely natural explanation of the intellectual development of Jesus
could only become prevalent amid the enlightened culture of modern
times. In working out this explanation, the chief points of difference
are the following: either the character of Jesus is regarded in too
circumscribed a view, as the result of only one among the means of
culture which his times afforded, or more comprehensively, as the
result of all these combined; again, in tracing this external
influence, either the internal gifts and self-determination of Jesus
are adequately considered, or they are not.
In any case, the basis of the intellectual development of Jesus was
furnished by the sacred writings of his people, of which the discourses
preserved to us in the Gospels attest his zealous and profound study.
His Messianic ideas seem to have been formed chiefly on Isaiah and
Daniel: spiritual religiousness and elevation above the prejudices of
Jewish nationality were impressively shadowed forth in the prophetic
writings generally, together with the Psalms.
Next among the influences affecting mental cultivation in the native
country of Jesus, must be reckoned the three sects under which the
spiritual life of his fellow-countrymen may be classified. Among these,
the Pharisees, whom Jesus at a later period so strenuously combated,
can apparently have had only a negative influence over him; yet along
with their fondness for tradition and legal pedantry, their
sanctimoniousness and hypocrisy, by which Jesus was repelled from them,
we must remember their belief in angels and in immortality, and their
constant admission of a progressive development of the Jewish religion
after Moses, which were so many points of union between them and Jesus.
Still as these tenets were only peculiar to the Pharisees in
contradistinction to the Sadducees, and, for the rest, were common to
all orthodox Jews, we abide by the opinion that the influence of the
Pharisaic sect on the development of Jesus was essentially negative.
In the discourses of Jesus Sadduceeism is less controverted, nay, he
agrees with it in rejecting the Pharisaic traditions and hypocrisy;
hence a few of the learned have wished to find him a school in this
sect. [507] But the merely negative agreement against the errors of the
Pharisees,—an agreement which, moreover, proceeded from quite another
principle in Jesus than in the Sadducees,—is more than counterbalanced
by the contrast which their religious indifference, their unbelief in
immortality and in spiritual existences, formed with the disposition of
Jesus, and his manner of viewing the world. That the controversy with
the Sadducees is not prominent in the Gospels, may be very simply
explained by the fact that their sect had very slight influence on the
circle with which Jesus was immediately connected, the adherents of
Sadduceeism belonging to the higher ranks alone. [508]
Concerning one only of the then existing Jewish sects can the question
seriously arise, whether we ought not to ascribe to it a positive
influence on the development and appearance of Jesus—the sect, namely,
of the Essenes. [509] In the last century the derivation of
Christianity from Essenism was very much in vogue; not only English
deists, and among the Germans, Bahrdt and Venturini, but even
theologians, such as Stäudlin, embraced the idea. [510] In the days of
freemasonry and secret orders, there was a disposition to transfer
their character to primitive Christianity. The concealment of an Essene
lodge appeared especially adapted to explain the sudden disappearance
of Jesus after the brilliant scenes of his infancy and boyhood, and
again after his restoration to life. Besides the forerunner John, the
two men on the Mount of Transfiguration, and the angels clothed in
white at the grave, and on the Mount of Ascension, were regarded as
members of the Essene brotherhood, and many cures of Jesus and the
Apostles were referred to the medical traditions of the Essenes. Apart,
however, from these fancies of a bygone age, there are really some
essential characteristics which seem to speak in favour of an intimate
relation between Essenism and Christianity. The most conspicuous as
such are the prohibition of oaths, and the community of goods: with the
former was connected fidelity, peaceableness, obedience to every
constituted authority; with the latter, contempt of riches, and the
custom of travelling without provisions. These and other features, such
as the sacred meal partaken in common, the rejection of sanguinary
sacrifices and of slavery, constitute so strong a resemblance between
Essenism and Christianity, that even so early a writer as Eusebius
mistook the Therapeutæ, a sect allied to the Essenes, for Christians.
[511] But there are very essential dissimilarities which must not be
overlooked. Leaving out of consideration the contempt of marriage,
ὑπεροψία γάμου, since Josephus ascribes it to a part only of the
Essenes; the asceticism, the punctilious observance of the Sabbath, the
purifications, and other superstitious usages of this sect, their
retention of the names of the angels, the mystery which they affected,
and their contracted, exclusive devotion to their order, are so
foreign, nay so directly opposed to the spirit of Jesus, that,
especially as the Essenes are nowhere mentioned in the New Testament,
the aid which this sect also contributed to the development of Jesus,
must be limited to the uncertain influence which might be exercised
over him by occasional intercourse with Essenes. [512]
Did other elements than such as were merely Jewish, or at least
confined to Palestine, operate upon Jesus? Of the heathens settled in
Galilee of the Gentiles, Γαλιλαία τῶν ἐθνῶν, there was hardly much to
be learned beyond patience under frequent intercourse with them. On the
other hand, at the feasts in Jerusalem, not only foreign Jews, some of
whom, as for example the Alexandrian and Cyrenian Jews, had synagogues
there (Acts vi. 9), but also devout heathens were to be met with (John
xii. 20); and that intercourse with these had some influence in
extending the intellectual horizon of Jesus, and spiritualizing his
opinions, has, as we have already intimated, all historical
probability. [513]
But why do we, in the absence of certain information, laboriously seek
after uncertain traces of an influence which cotemporary means of
development may have exercised on Jesus? and yet more, why, on the
other side, are these labours so anxiously repudiated? Whatever amount
of intellectual material may be collected, the spark by which genius
kindles it, and fuses its various elements into a consistent whole, is
neither easier to explain nor reduced in value. Thus it is with Jesus.
Allow him to have exhausted the means of development which his age
afforded: a comprehensive faculty of reception is with great men ever
the reverse side of their powerful originality; allow him to have owed
far more to Essenism and Alexandrianism, and whatever other schools and
tendencies existed, than we, in our uncertainty, are in a condition to
prove:—still, for the reformation of a world these elements were all
too little; the leaven necessary for this he must obtain from the depth
of his own mind. [514]
But we have not yet spoken of an appearance to which our Gospels assign
a most important influence in developing the activity of Jesus—that of
John the Baptist. As his ministry is first noticed in the Gospels in
connexion with the baptism and public appearance of Jesus, our inquiry
concerning him, and his relation to Jesus, must open the second part.
SECOND PART.
HISTORY OF THE PUBLIC LIFE OF JESUS.
CHAPTER I.
RELATIONS BETWEEN JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST.
§ 44.
CHRONOLOGICAL RELATIONS BETWEEN JOHN AND JESUS.
For the ministry of John the Baptist, mentioned in all the Gospels, the
second and fourth evangelists fix no epoch; the first gives us an
inexact one; the third, one apparently precise. According to Matt. iii.
1, John appeared as a preacher of repentance, in those days, ἐν ταῖς
ἡμέραις ἐκείναις, that is, if we interpret strictly this reference to
the previous narrative, about the time when the parents of Jesus
settled at Nazareth, and when Jesus was yet a child. We are told,
however, in the context, that Jesus came to John for baptism; hence
between the first appearance of the Baptist, which was cotemporary with
the childhood of Jesus, and the period at which the latter was
baptized, we must intercalate a number of years, during which Jesus
might have become sufficiently matured to partake of John’s baptism.
But Matthew’s description of the person and work of the Baptist is so
concise, the office attributed to him is so little independent, so
entirely subservient to that of Jesus, that it was certainly not the
intention of the evangelist to assign a long series of years to his
single ministry. His meaning incontestably is, that John’s short career
early attained its goal in the baptism of Jesus.
It being thus inadmissible to suppose between the appearance of John
and the baptism of Jesus, that is, between verses 12 and 13 of the 3rd
chapter of Matthew, the long interval which is in every case
indispensable, nothing remains but to insert it between the close of
the second and the beginning of the third chapter, namely, between the
settlement of the parents of Jesus at Nazareth and the appearance of
the Baptist. To this end we may presume, with Paulus, that Matthew has
here introduced a fragment from a history of the Baptist, narrating
many particulars of his life immediately preceding his public agency,
and very properly proceeding with the words, in those days, ἐν ταῖς
ἡμέραις ἐκείναις, which connecting phrase Matthew, although he omitted
that to which it referred, has nevertheless retained [515]; or we may,
with Süskind, apply the words, not to the settlement, but to the
subsequent residence of Jesus at Nazareth; [516] or better still, ἐν
ταῖς ἡμέραις ἐκείναις, like the corresponding Hebrew expression, בַּיָמִים
הַהֵם e.g., Exod. ii. 11, is probably to be interpreted as relating
indeed to the establishment at Nazareth, but so that an event happening
thirty years afterwards may yet be said, speaking indefinitely, to
occur in those days. [517] In neither case do we learn from Matthew
concerning the time of John’s appearance more than the very vague
information, that it took place in the interval between the infancy and
manhood of Jesus.
Luke determines the date of John’s appearance by various synchronisms,
placing it in the time of Pilate’s government in Judea; in the
sovereignty of Herod (Antipas), of Philip and of Lysanias over the
other divisions of Palestine; in the high priesthood of Annas and
Caiaphas; and, moreover, precisely in the 15th year of the reign of
Tiberius, which, reckoning from the death of Augustus, corresponds with
the year 28–29 of our era [518] (iii. 1, 2). With this last and closest
demarcation of time all the foregoing less precise ones agree. Even
that which makes Annas high priest together with Caiaphas appears
correct, if we consider the peculiar influence which, according to John
xviii. 13, Acts iv. 6, that ex-high priest retained, even when deposed,
especially after the assumption of office by his son-in-law, Caiaphas.
A single exception occurs in the statement about Lysanias, whom Luke
makes cotemporary with Antipas and Philip as tetrarch of Abilene.
Josephus, it is true, speaks of an Ἀβίλα ἡ Λυσανίου, and mentions a
Lysanias as governor of Chalcis in Lebanon, near to which lay the
territory of Abila; so that the same Lysanias was probably master of
the latter. But this Lysanias was, at the instigation of Cleopatra, put
to death 34 years before the birth of Christ, and a second Lysanias is
not mentioned either by Josephus or by any other writer on the period
in question. [519] Thus, not only is the time of his government earlier
by 60 years than the 15th year of Tiberius, but it is also at issue
with the other dates associated with it by Luke. Hence it has been
conjectured that Luke here speaks of a younger Lysanias, the descendant
of the earlier one, who possessed Abilene under Tiberius, but who,
being less famous, is not noticed by Josephus. [520] We cannot indeed
prove what Süskind demands for the refutation of this hypothesis,
namely, that had such a younger Lysanias existed, Josephus must have
mentioned him; yet that he had more than one inducement to do so,
Paulus has satisfactorily shown. Especially, when in relation to the
times of the first and second Agrippa he designates Abila, ἡ Λυσανίου,
he must have been reminded that he had only treated of the elder
Lysanias, and not at all of the younger, from whom, as the later ruler,
the country must at that time have derived its second appellation.
[521] If, according to this, the younger Lysanias is but an historic
fiction, the proposed alternative is but a philological one. [522] For
when it is said in the first place: Φιλίππου — τετραρχοῦντος τῆς
Ἰτουραίας, κ.τ.λ., and when it follows: καὶ Λυσανίου τῆς Ἀβιληνῆς
τετραρχοῦντος: we cannot possibly understand from this, that Philip
reigned also over the Abilene of Lysanias. For in that case the word
τετραρχοῦντος ought not to have been repeated, [523] and τῆς ought to
have been placed before Lysanias, if the author wished to avoid
misconstruction. The conclusion is therefore inevitable that the writer
himself erred, and, from the circumstance that Abilene, even in recent
times, was called, after the last ruler of the former dynasty, ἡ
Λυσανίου, drew the inference that a monarch of that name was still
existing; while, in fact, Abilene either belonged to Philip, or was
immediately subject to the Romans. [524]
The above chronological notation relates directly to John the Baptist
alone; a similar one is wanting when Luke begins farther on (v. 21 ff.)
to speak of Jesus. Of him it is merely said that he was about thirty
years of age, ὡσεὶ ἐτῶν τριάκοντα, on his public appearance
(ἀρχόμενος), but no date is given; while, in the case of John, there is
a contrary omission. Thus even if John commenced his ministry in the
15th year of Tiberius, we cannot thence gather anything as to the time
when Jesus commenced his, as it is nowhere said how long John had been
baptizing when Jesus came to him on the Jordan; while, on the other
hand, although we know that Jesus, at his baptism, was about 30 years
old, this does not help us to ascertain the age of John when he entered
on his ministry as Baptist. Remembering, however, Luke i. 26, according
to which John was just half a year older than Jesus, and calling to our
aid the fact that Jewish usage would scarcely permit the exercise of
public functions before the thirtieth year, we might infer that the
Baptist could only have appeared half a year before the arrival of
Jesus on the banks of the Jordan, since he would only so much earlier
have attained the requisite age. But no express law forbade a public
appearance previous to the thirtieth year; and it has been justly
questioned whether we can apply to the freer office of a Prophet a
restriction which concerned the Priests and Levites, for whom the
thirtieth year was fixed for their entrance on regular service [525]
(Num. iv. 3, 47. Compare besides 2 Chron. xxxi. 17, where the 20th year
is named). This then would not hinder us from placing the appearance of
John considerably prior to that of Jesus, even presupposing the averred
relation between their ages. Hardly, however, could this be the
intention of the Evangelist. For to ascertain so carefully the date of
the Forerunner’s appearance, and leave that of the Messiah himself
undetermined, would be too great an oversight, [526] and we cannot but
suppose that his design, in the particulars he gives concerning John,
was to fix the time for the appearance of Jesus. To agree with this
purpose, he must have understood that Jesus came to the banks of the
Jordan and began to teach, shortly after the appearance of John. [527]
For that the above chronological determination was originally merely
the introduction to a document concerning John, quoted by Luke, is
improbable, since its exactness corresponds with the style of him who
had perfect understanding of all things from the very first,
παρηκολουθηκότι ἄνωθεν πᾶσιν ἀκριβῶς, and who sought to determine, in
like manner, the epoch of the Messiah’s birth.
It is not easy, however, to imagine, in accordance with this statement,
that John was by so little the predecessor of Jesus, nor is it without
reason that the improbability of his having had so short an agency is
maintained. For he had a considerable number of disciples, whom he not
only baptized, but taught (Luke xi. 1), and he left behind a party of
his peculiar followers (Acts xviii. 25, xix. 3), all which could hardly
be the work of a few months. There needed time, it has been observed,
for the Baptist to become so well known, that people would undertake a
journey to him in the wilderness; there needed time for his doctrine to
be comprehended, time for it to gain a footing and establish itself,
especially as it clashed with the current Jewish ideas; in a word, the
deep and lasting veneration in which John was held by his nation,
according to Josephus [528] as well as the evangelists, could not have
been so hastily won. [529]
But the foregoing considerations, although they demand, in general, a
longer agency for the Baptist, do not prove that the evangelists err in
placing the commencement of his ministry shortly before that of Jesus,
since they might suppose the required prolongation as a sequel, instead
of an introduction, to the appearance of Jesus. Such a prolongation of
the Baptist’s ministry, however, is not to be found, at least in the
first two Gospels; for not only do these contain no details concerning
John, after the baptism of Jesus, except his sending two disciples
(Matt. xi.), which is represented as a consequence of his imprisonment;
but we gather from Matt. iv. 12, Mark i. 14, that during or shortly
after the forty days’ abode of Jesus in the wilderness, the Baptist was
arrested, and thereupon Jesus went into Galilee, and entered on his
public career. Luke, it is true (iv. 14), does not mention the
imprisonment of John as the cause of the appearance of Jesus in
Galilee, and he seems to regard the commission of the two disciples as
occurring while John was at large (vii. 18 ff.); and the fourth
Evangelist testifies yet more decisively against the notion that John
was arrested so soon after the baptism of Jesus; for in chap. iii. 24,
it is expressly stated, that John was actively engaged in his ministry
after the first passover, attended by Jesus during His public life. But
on the one hand, as it appears from Luke ix. 9; Matt. xiv. 1 ff.; Mark
xiv. 16, that John was put to death long before Jesus, the continuance
of his agency after the rise of the latter could not be very protracted
(Luke ix. 9; Matt. xiv. 1 ff.; Mark xiv. 16); and on the other, that
which may be added to the agency of John after the appearance of Jesus,
will not make amends for that which is subtracted from it before that
epoch. For, apart from the fact implied by the fourth Evangelist (i.
35), that the Baptist had formed a definite circle of familiar
disciples before the appearance of Jesus, it would be difficult to
account for the firm footing acquired by his school, if he had laboured
only a few months, to be, at their close, eclipsed by Jesus.
There is yet one resource, namely, to separate the baptism of Jesus
from the commencement of his ministry, and to say: It was indeed after
the first half-year of John’s agency that Jesus was so attracted by his
fame, as to become a candidate for his baptism; but for some time
subsequently, he either remained among the followers of the Baptist, or
went again into retirement, and did not present himself independently
until a considerable interval had elapsed. By this means we should
obtain the requisite extension of John’s ministry prior to the more
brilliant career of Jesus, without impugning the apparent statement of
our evangelists that the baptism of Jesus followed close upon the
public appearance of John. But the idea of a long interim, between the
baptism of Jesus and the commencement of his ministry, is utterly
foreign to the New Testament writers. For that they regard the baptism
of Jesus as his consecration to the Messianic office, is proved by the
accompanying descent of the spirit and the voice from heaven; the only
pause which they allow to intervene, is the six weeks’ fast in the
wilderness, immediately after which, according to Luke, or after the
apparently cotemporary arrest of the Baptist, according to Matthew and
Mark, Jesus appears in Galilee. Luke, in particular, by designating
(iii. 23) the baptism of Jesus as his ἄρχεσθαι, his assumption of
office, and by dating the intercourse of Jesus with his disciples from
the βάπτισμα Ἰωάννου (Acts i. 22), evinces his persuasion that the
baptism and public manifestation of Jesus were identical.
Thus the gospel narrative is an obstacle to the adoption of the two
most plausible expedients for the prolongation of John’s ministry,
viz., that Jesus presented himself for baptism later, or that his
public appearance was retarded longer after his baptism, than has been
generally inferred. We are not, however, compelled to renounce either
of these suppositions, if we can show that the New Testament writers
might have been led to their point of view even without historical
grounds. A sufficient motive lies close at hand, and is implied in the
foregoing observations. Let the Baptist once be considered, as was the
case in the Christian Church (Acts xix. 4), not a person of independent
significance, but simply a Forerunner of the Christ; and the
imagination would not linger with the mere Precursor, but would hasten
forward to the object at which he pointed. Yet more obvious is the
interest which primitive Christian tradition must have had in
excluding, whatever might have been the fact, any interval between the
baptism of Jesus and the beginning of his public course. For to allow
that Jesus, by his submission to John’s baptism, declared himself his
disciple, and remained in that relation for any length of time, was
offensive to the religious sentiment of the new church, which desired a
Founder instructed by God, and not by man: another turn, therefore,
would soon be given to the facts, and the baptism of Jesus would be
held to signify, not his initiation into the school of John, but a
consecration to his independent office. Thus the diverging testimony of
the evangelists does not preclude our adopting the conclusion to which
the nature of the case leads us; viz., that the Baptist had been long
labouring, anterior to the appearance of Jesus.
If, in addition to this, we accept the statement of Luke (i. 26 and
iii. 23), that Jesus, being only half a year younger than John, was
about in his thirtieth year at his appearance, we must suppose that
John was in his twentieth year when he began his ministry. There is, as
we have seen, no express law against so early an exercise of the
prophetic office; neither do I, so decidedly as Cludius, [530] hold it
improbable that so young a preacher of repentance should make an
impression, or even that he should be taken for a prophet of the olden
time—an Elias; I will only appeal to the ordinary course of things as a
sanction for presuming, that one who entered so much earlier upon the
scene of action was proportionately older, especially when the
principles and spirit of his teaching tell so plainly of a mature age
as do the discourses of John. There are exceptions to this rule; but
the statement of Luke (i. 26), that John was only six months older than
Jesus, is insufficient to establish one in this instance, as it accords
with the interest of the poetical legend, and must therefore be
renounced for the slightest improbability.
The result then of our critique on the chronological data Luke iii. 1,
2, comp. 23 and i. 26, is this: if Jesus, as Luke seems to understand,
appeared in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, the appearance of John
occurred, not in the same year, but earlier; and if Jesus was in his
thirtieth year when he began his ministry, the Baptist, so much his
predecessor, could hardly be but six months his senior.
§ 45.
APPEARANCE AND DESIGN OF THE BAPTIST. HIS PERSONAL RELATIONS WITH
JESUS.
John, a Nazarite, according to our authorities (Matt. iii. 4, ix. 14,
xi. 18; Luke i. 15), and in the opinion of several theologians, [531]
an Essene, is said by Luke (iii. 2) to have been summoned to his public
work by the word of God ῥῆμα Θεοῦ, which came to him in the wilderness.
Not possessing the Baptist’s own declaration, we cannot accept as
complete the dilemma stated by Paulus, [532] when he says, that we know
not whether John himself interpreted some external or internal fact as
a divine call, or whether he received a summons from another
individual; and we must add as a third possibility, that his followers
sought to dignify the vocation of their Teacher by an expression which
recalls to mind the ancient Prophets.
While from the account of Luke it appears that the divine call came to
John in the wilderness, ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ, but that for the purpose of
teaching and baptizing he resorted to the country about Jordan,
περίχωρος τοῦ Ἰορδάνου (ver. 3); Matthew (iii. ff.) makes the
wilderness of Judea the scene of his labours, as if the Jordan in which
he baptized flowed through that wilderness. It is true that, according
to Josephus, the Jordan before emptying itself into the Dead Sea
traverses a great wilderness, πολλὴν ἐρημίαν, [533] but this was not
the wilderness of Judea, which lay farther south. [534] Hence it has
been supposed that Matthew, misled by his application of the prophecy,
the voice of one crying in the wilderness, φωνὴ βοῶντος ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ, to
John, who issued from the wilderness of Judea, ἔρημος τῆς Ἰουδαίας,
placed there his labours as a preacher of repentance and a baptizer,
although their true scene was the blooming valley of the Jordan. [535]
In the course of Luke’s narrative, however, this evangelist ceases to
intimate that John forsook the wilderness after receiving his call, for
on the occasion of John’s message to Jesus, he makes the latter ask,
Whom went ye out into the wilderness to see? Τί ἐξεληλύθατε εἰς τὴν
ἔρημον θεάσασθαι (vii. 24). Now as the valley of the Jordan in the
vicinity of the Dead Sea was in fact a barren plain, the narrow margin
of the river excepted, no greater mistake may belong to Matthew than
that of specifying the wilderness as the ἔρημος τῆς Ἰουδαίας; and even
that may be explained away by the supposition, either that John, as he
alternately preached and baptized, passed from the wilderness of Judea
to the borders of the Jordan, [536] or that the waste tract through
which that river flowed, being a continuation of the wilderness of
Judea, retained the same name. [537]
The baptism of John could scarcely have been derived from the baptism
of proselytes, [538] for this rite was unquestionably posterior to the
rise of Christianity. It was more analogous to the religious
lustrations in practice amongst the Jews, especially the Essenes, and
was apparently founded chiefly on certain expressions used by several
of the prophets in a figurative sense, but afterwards understood
literally. According to these expressions, God requires from the
Israelitish people, as a condition of their restoration to his favour,
a washing and purification from their iniquity, and he promises that he
will himself cleanse them with water (Isaiah i. 16, Ez. xxxvi. 25,
comp. Jer. ii. 22). Add to this the Jewish notion that the Messiah
would not appear with his kingdom until the Israelites repented, [539]
and we have the combination necessary for the belief that an ablution,
symbolical of conversion and forgiveness of sins, must precede the
advent of the Messiah.
Our accounts are not unanimous as to the signification of John’s
baptism. They all, it is true, agree in stating repentance, μετάνοια,
to be one of its essential requirements; for even what Josephus says of
the Baptist, that he admonished the Jews, practising virtue, just
towards each other, and devout towards God, to come to his baptism,
ἀρετὴν ἐπασκοῦντας, καὶ τῇ πρὸς ἀλλήλους δικαιοσύνῃ καὶ πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν
εὐσεβεία χρωμένους βαπτισμῷ συνιέναι, [540] has the same sense under a
Greek form. Mark and Luke, however, while designating the baptism of
John, βάπτισμα μετανοίας, add, εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν (i. 4, iii. 3).
Matthew has not the same addition; but he, with Mark, describes the
baptized as confessing their sins, ἐξομολογοὺμενοι τὰς ἁμαρτίας αὐτῶν
(iii. 6). Josephus, on the other hand, appears in direct contradiction
to them, when he gives it as the opinion of the Baptist, that baptism
is pleasing to God, not when we ask pardon for some transgressions, but
when we purify the body, after having first purified the mind by
righteousness, οὕτω γὰρ καὶ τὴν βάπτισιν ἀποδεκτὴν αὐτῷ (τῷ Θεῷ)
φανεῖσθαι, μὴ ἐπί τίνων ἁμαρτάδων παραιτήσει χρωμένων, ἀλλ’ ἐφ’ ἁγνείᾳ
τοῦ σώματος, ἄτε δὴ, καὶ τῆς ψυχῆς δικαιοσύνῃ προεκκεκαθαρμένης. We
might here be led to the supposition that the words for the remission
of sins, εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν, as in Acts ii. 38, and other passages,
was commonly used in relation to Christian baptism, and was thence
transferred unhistorically to that of John; but as in the passages
quoted from Ezekiel the washing typified not only reformation but
forgiveness, the probabilities are in favour of the evangelical
statement. Moreover, it is possible to reconcile Josephus and the
Evangelists, by understanding the words of the former to mean that the
baptism of John was intended to effect a purification, not from
particular or merely Levitical transgressions, but of the entire man,
not immediately and mysteriously through the agency of water, but by
means of the moral acts of reformation. [541]
The several accounts concerning John are farther at variance, as to the
relation in which they place his baptism to the kingdom of heaven,
βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν. According to Matthew, the concise purport of the
appeal with which he accompanied his baptism was, Repent, for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand, μετανοεῖτε’ ἤγγικε γὰρ ἡ βασιλεία τῶν
οὐρανῶν (iii. 2); according to Luke, the Baptist in the first instance
mentions only repentance and remission of sins, but no kingdom of
heaven; and it is the conjecture of the people, that he might be the
Messiah, by which he is first led to direct them to one who was coming
after him (iii. 15 ff.). In Josephus, there is no trace of a relation
between the ministry of John and the Messianic idea. Yet we must not
therefore conclude that the Baptist himself recognized no such
relation, and that its only source was the Christian legend. For the
baptism of John, waiving the opinion that it was derived from the
baptism of proselytes, is not quite explicable without a reference to
the above-mentioned expiatory lustrations of the people—lustrations
which were to usher in the times of the Messiah; moreover, the
appearance of Jesus is made more comprehensible by the supposition,
that John had introduced the idea of the proximity of the Messiah’s
kingdom. That Josephus should keep back the Messianic aspect of the
fact, is in accordance with his general practice, which is explained by
the position of his people with respect to the Romans. Besides, in the
expression, to assemble for baptism, βαπτισμῷ συνιέναι, in his mention
of popular assemblages, συστρέφεσθαι, and in the fear of Antipas lest
John should excite a revolt, ἀπόστασις there lies an intimation of
precisely such a religious and political movement as the hope of the
Messiah was calculated to produce. That the Baptist should so
distinctly foretell the immediate appearance of the Messiah’s kingdom
must create surprise, and (Luke’s reference to a divine call and
revelation being held unsatisfactory) might lead to the supposition
that the Christian narrator, believing that the true Messiah was
actually manifested in the person of Jesus, the cotemporary of John,
gave to the language of the latter a definiteness which did not belong
to it originally; and while the Baptist merely said, consonantly with
the Jewish notion already mentioned: Repent, that the kingdom of heaven
may come, μετανοεῖτε, ἵνα ἔλθῃ ἡ βας. τ. οὐρ., a later edition of his
words gave γὰρ (for) instead of ἵνα (that). But such a supposition is
needless. In those times of commotion, John might easily believe that
he discerned signs, which certified to him the proximity of the
Messiah’s kingdom; the exact degree of its proximity he left undecided.
According to the Evangelists, the coming of the kingdom of heaven,
βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν, was associated by John with a Messianic
individual to whom he ascribed, in distinction from his own baptism
with water, a baptism with the Holy Ghost and with fire, βαπτίζειν
πνεύματι ἁγίῳ καὶ πυρὶ (Matt. iii. 11 parall.), the outpouring of the
Holy Spirit being regarded as a leading feature of the Messianic times
(Joel ii. 28; Acts ii. 16 ff.). Of this personage he farther predicted,
in imagery akin to that used by the prophets on the same subject, that
he would winnow the people as wheat (Mal. iii. 2, 3; Zech. xiii. 9).
The Synoptical Gospels state the case as if John expressly understood
this Messianic individual to be Jesus of Nazareth. According to Luke,
indeed, the mothers of these two men were cousins, and aware of the
destination of their sons. The Baptist while yet unborn acknowledged
the divinity of Jesus, and all the circumstances imply that both were
early acquainted with their relative position, predetermined by a
heavenly communication. Matthew, it is true, says nothing of such a
family connexion between John and Jesus; but when the latter presents
himself for baptism, he puts into the mouth of John words which seem to
presuppose an earlier acquaintance. His expression of astonishment that
Jesus should come to him for baptism, when he had need to be baptized
of Jesus, could only arise from a previous knowledge or instantaneous
revelation of his character. Of the latter there is no intimation; for
the first visible sign of the Messiahship of Jesus did not occur till
afterwards. While in the first and third Gospels (in the second, the
facts are so epitomized that the writer’s view on the subject is not
evident), John and Jesus seem to have been no strangers to each other
prior to the baptism; in the fourth, the Baptist pointedly asserts that
he knew not Jesus before the heavenly appearance, which, according to
the Synoptical Gospels, was coincident with his baptism (i. 31, 33).
Simply considered, this looks like a contradiction. By Luke, the
previous acquaintance of the two is stated objectively, as an external
matter of fact; by Matthew, it is betrayed in the involuntary
confession of the astonished Baptist; in the fourth Gospel, on the
contrary, their previous unacquaintance is attested subjectively, by
his premeditated assertion. It was not, therefore, a very far-fetched
idea of the Wolfenbüttel fragmentist, to put down the contradiction to
the account of John and Jesus, and to presume that they had in fact
long known and consulted each other, but that in public (in order
better to play into one another’s hands) they demeaned themselves as if
they had hitherto been mutual strangers, and each delivered an
unbiassed testimony to the other’s excellence. [542]
That such premeditated dissimulation might not be imputed to John, and
indirectly to Jesus, it has been sought to disprove the existence of
the contradiction in question exegetically. What John learned from the
heavenly sign was the Messiahship of Jesus; to this therefore, and not
to his person, refer the words, I knew him not, κᾀγὼ οὐκ ᾔδειν αὐτὸν.
[543] But it may be questioned whether such an acquaintance as John
must have had with Jesus, presupposing the narrative of Matthew and
Luke, was separable from a knowledge of his Messiahship. The connection
and intercourse of the two families, as described by Luke, would render
it impossible for John not to be early informed how solemnly Jesus had
been announced as the Messiah, before and at his birth; he could not
therefore say at a later period that, prior to the sign from heaven, he
had not known, but only that he had not believed, the story of former
wonders, one of which relates to himself. [544] It being thus
unavoidable to acknowledge that by the above declaration in the fourth
Gospel, the Baptist is excluded, not only from a knowledge of the
Messiahship of Jesus, but also from a personal acquaintance with him;
it has been attempted to reconcile the first chapter of Luke with this
ignorance, by appealing to the distance of residence between the two
families, as a preventive to the continuance of their intercourse.
[545] But if the journey from Nazareth to the hill country of Judea was
not too formidable for the betrothed Mary, how could it be so for the
two sons when ripening to maturity? What culpable indifference is
hereby supposed in both families to the heavenly communications they
had received! nay, what could be the object of those communications, if
they had no influence on the early life and intercourse of the two
sons? [546]
Let it be granted that the fourth Gospel excludes an acquaintance with
the Messiahship only of Jesus, and that the third presupposes an
acquaintance with his person only, on the part of John; still the
contradiction is not removed. For in Matthew, John, when required to
baptize Jesus, addresses him as if he knew him, not generally and
personally alone, but specially, in his character of Messiah. It is
true that the words: I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest
thou to me? (iii. 14), have been interpreted, in the true spirit of
harmonizing, as referring to the general superior excellence of Jesus,
and not to his Messiahship. [547] But the right to undertake the
baptism which was to prepare the way for the Messiah’s kingdom, was not
to be obtained by moral superiority in general, but was conferred by a
special call, such as John himself had received, and such as could
belong only to a prophet, or to the Messiah and his Forerunner (John i.
19 ff.). If then John attributed to Jesus authority to baptize, he must
have regarded him not merely as an excellent man, but as indubitably a
prophet, nay, since he held him worthy to baptize himself, as his own
superior: that is, since John conceived himself to be the Messiah’s
Forerunner, no other than the Messiah himself. Add to this, that
Matthew had just cited a discourse of the Baptist, in which he ascribes
to the coming Messiah a baptism more powerful than his own; how then
can we understand his subsequent language towards Jesus otherwise than
thus: “Of what use is my water baptism to thee, O Messiah? Far more do
I need thy baptism of the Spirit!” [548]
The contradiction cannot be cleared away; we must therefore, if we
would not lay the burthen of intentional deception on the agents, let
the narrators bear the blame; and there will be the less hindrance to
our doing so, the more obvious it is how one or both of them might be
led into an erroneous statement. There is in the present case no
obstacle to the reconciliation of Matthew with the fourth evangelist,
farther than the words by which the Baptist seeks to deter Jesus from
receiving baptism; words which, if uttered before the occurrence of
anything supernatural, presuppose a knowledge of Jesus in his character
of Messiah. Now the Gospel of the Hebrews, according to Epiphanius,
places the entreaty of John that Jesus would baptize him, as a sequel
to the sign from heaven; [549] and this account has been recently
regarded as the original one, abridged by the writer of our first
Gospel, who, for the sake of effect, made the refusal and confession of
the Baptist coincident with the first approach of Jesus. [550] But that
we have not in the Gospel of the Hebrews the original form of the
narrative, is sufficiently proved by its very tedious repetition of the
heavenly voice and the diffuse style of the whole. It is rather a very
traditional record, and the insertion of John’s refusal after the sign
and voice from heaven, was not made with the view of avoiding a
contradiction of the fourth Gospel, which cannot be supposed to have
been recognized in the circle of the Ebionite Christians, but from the
very motive erroneously attributed to Matthew in his alleged
transposition, namely, to give greater effect to the scene. A simple
refusal on the part of the Baptist appeared too weak; he must at least
fall at the feet of Jesus; and a more suitable occasion could not be
given than that of the sign from heaven, which accordingly must be
placed beforehand. This Hebrew Gospel, therefore, will not help us to
understand how Matthew was led into contradiction with John; still less
will it avail for the explanation of Luke’s narrative.
All is naturally explained by the consideration, that the important
relation between John and Jesus must have been regarded as existing at
all times, by reason of that ascription of pre-existence to the
essential which is a characteristic of the popular mind. Just as the
soul, when considered as an essence, is conceived more or less clearly
as pre-existent; so in the popular mind, every relation pregnant with
consequences is endowed with pre-existence. Hence the Baptist, who
eventually held so significant a relation to Jesus, must have known him
from the first, as is indistinctly intimated by Matthew, and more
minutely detailed by Luke; according to whom, their mothers knew each
other, and the sons themselves were brought together while yet unborn.
All this is wanting in the fourth Gospel, the writer of which
attributes an opposite assertion to John, simply because in his mind an
opposite interest preponderated; for the less Jesus was known to John
by whom he was afterwards so extolled, the more weight was thrown on
the miraculous scene which arrested the regards of the Baptist—the more
clearly was his whole position with respect to Jesus demonstrated to be
the effect, not of the natural order of events, but of the immediate
agency of God.
§ 46.
WAS JESUS ACKNOWLEDGED BY JOHN AS THE MESSIAH? AND IN WHAT SENSE?
To the foregoing question whether Jesus was known to John before the
baptism, is attached another, namely, What did John think of Jesus and
his Messiahship? The evangelical narratives are unanimous in stating,
that before Jesus had presented himself for baptism, John had announced
the immediate coming of One to whom he stood in a subordinate relation;
and the scene at the baptism of Jesus marked him, beyond mistake, as
the personage of whom John was the forerunner. According to Mark and
Luke, we must presume that the Baptist gave credence to this sign;
according to the fourth Gospel, he expressly attested his belief (i.
34), and moreover uttered words which evince the deepest insight into
the higher nature and office of Jesus (i. 29 ff. 36; iii. 27 ff.);
according to the first Gospel, he was already convinced of these before
the baptism of Jesus. On the other hand, Matthew (xi. 2 ff.) and Luke
(vii. 18 ff.) tell us that at a later period, the Baptist, on hearing
of the ministry of Jesus, despatched some of his disciples to him with
the inquiry, whether he (Jesus) was the promised Messiah, or whether
another must be expected.
The first impression from this is, that the question denoted an
uncertainty on the part of the Baptist whether Jesus were really the
Messiah; and so it was early understood. [551] But such a doubt is in
direct contradiction with all the other circumstances reported by the
Evangelists. It is justly regarded as psychologically impossible that
he whose belief was originated or confirmed by the baptismal sign,
which he held to be a divine revelation, and who afterwards pronounced
so decidedly on the Messianic call and the superior nature of Jesus,
should all at once have become unsteady in his conviction; he must then
indeed have been like a reed shaken by the wind, a comparison which
Jesus abnegates on this very occasion (Matt. xi. 7). A cause for such
vacillation is in vain sought in the conduct or fortunes of Jesus at
the time; for the rumour of the works of Christ, ἔργα τοῦ Χριστοῦ,
which in Luke’s idea were miracles, could not awaken doubt in the
Baptist, and it was on this rumour that he sent his message. Lastly,
how could Jesus subsequently (John v. 33 ff.) so confidently appeal to
the testimony of the Baptist concerning him, when it was known that
John himself was at last perplexed about his Messiahship? [552]
Hence it has been attempted to give a different turn to the facts, and
to show that John’s inquiry was not made on his own account, but for
the sake of his disciples, to overcome in them the doubt with which he
was himself untainted. [553] Hereby it is true, the above-named
difficulties are removed; in particular it is explained why the Baptist
should contrive to send this message precisely on hearing of the
miracles of Jesus; he plainly hoping that his disciples, who had not
believed his testimony to the Messiahship of Jesus, would be convinced
of its truth by beholding the marvellous works of the latter. But how
could John hope that his envoys would chance to find Jesus in the act
of working miracles? According to Matthew, indeed, they did not so find
him, and Jesus appeals (v. 4) only to his former works, many of which
they had seen, and of which they might hear wherever he had presented
himself. Luke alone, in giving his evidently second-hand narrative,
[554] misconstrues the words of Jesus to require that the disciples of
John should have found him in the exercise of his supernatural power.
Further, if it had been the object of the Baptist to persuade his
disciples by a sight of the works of Jesus, he would not have charged
them with a question which could be answered by the mere words, the
authentic declaration of Jesus. For he could not hope by the assertion
of the person whose Messiahship was the very point in debate, to
convince the disciples whom his own declaration, in other cases
authoritative, had failed to satisfy. On the whole, it would have been
a singular course in the Baptist to lend his own words to the doubts of
others, and thereby, as Schleiermacher well observes, to compromise his
early and repeated testimony in favour of Jesus. It is clear that Jesus
understood the question proposed to him by the messengers as proceeding
from John himself; (ἀπαγγείλατε Ἰωάννῃ, Matt. xi. 4;) and he indirectly
complained of the want of faith in the latter by pronouncing those
blessed who were not offended in him (ver. 6). [555]
If then it must be granted that John made his inquiry on his own
behalf, and not on that of his disciples, and if nevertheless we cannot
impute to him a sudden lapse into doubt after his previous confidence;
nothing remains but to take the positive instead of the negative side
of the question, and to consider its scepticism as the mere garb of
substantial encouragement. [556] On this interpretation, the time which
Jesus allowed to escape without publicly manifesting himself as the
Messiah, seemed too tedious to John in his imprisonment; he sent
therefore to inquire how long Jesus would allow himself to be waited
for, how long he would delay winning to himself the better part of the
people by a declaration of his Messiahship, and striking a decisive
blow against the enemies of his cause—a blow that might even liberate
the Baptist from his prison. But if the Baptist, on the strength of his
belief that Jesus was the Messiah, hoped and sued for a deliverance,
perhaps miraculous, by him from prison, he would not clothe in the
language of doubt an entreaty which sprang out of his faith. Now the
inquiry in our evangelical text is one of unmixed doubt, and
encouragement must be foisted in, before it can be found there. How
great a violence must be done to the words is seen by the way in which
Schleiermacher handles them in accordance with this interpretation. The
dubitative question, σὺ εἶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος; he changes into the positive
assumption, thou art he who was to come; the other still more
embarrassing interrogatory, ἢ ἕτερον προσδοκῶμεν; he completely
transfigures thus: wherefore (seeing that thou performest so great
works) do we yet await thee?—shall not John with all his authority
command, through us, all those who have partaken of his baptism to obey
thee as the Messiah, and be attentive to thy signs? Even if we allow,
with Neander, the possibility of truth to this interpretation, a mere
summons to action will not accord with the earlier representation of
Jesus given by the Baptist. The two enunciations are at issue as to
form; for if John doubted not the Messiahship of Jesus, neither could
he doubt his better knowledge of the fitting time and manner of his
appearance: still farther are they at issue as to matter; for the
Baptist could not take offence at what is termed the delay of Jesus in
manifesting himself as the Messiah, or wish to animate him to bolder
conduct, if he retained his early view of the destination of Jesus. If
he still, as formerly, conceived Jesus to be the Lamb of God that
taketh away the sins of the world, ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ Τεοῦ, ὁ αἴρων τὴν
ἁμαρτίαν τοῦ κόσμοῦ, no thought could occur to him of a blow to be
struck by Jesus against his enemies, or in general, of a violent
procedure to be crowned by external conquest; rather, the quiet path
which Jesus trod must appear to him the right one—the path befitting
the destination of the Lamb of God. Thus if the question of John
conveyed a mere summons to action, it contradicted his previous views.
These expedients failing, the original explanation returns upon us;
namely, that the inquiry was an expression of uncertainty respecting
the messianic dignity of Jesus, which had arisen in the Baptist’s own
mind; an explanation which even Neander allows to be the most natural.
This writer seeks to account for the transient apostacy of the Baptist
from the strong faith in which he gave his earlier testimony, by the
supposition that a dark hour of doubt had overtaken the man of God in
his dismal prison; and he cites instances of men who, persecuted for
their Christian faith or other convictions, after having long borne
witness to the truth in the face of death, at length yielded to human
weakness and recanted. But on a closer examination, he has given a
false analogy. Persecuted Christians of the first centuries, and,
later, a Berengarius or a Galileo, were false to the convictions for
which they were imprisoned, and by abjuring which they hoped to save
themselves: the Baptist, to be compared with them, should have
retracted his censure of Herod, and not have shaken his testimony in
favour of Christ, which had no relation to his imprisonment. However
that may be, it is evident here that these doubts cannot have been
preceded by a state of certainty.
We come again to the difficulty arising from the statement of Matthew
that John sent his two disciples on hearing of the works of Christ,
ἀκούσας τὰ ἔργα τοῦ Χριστοῦ, or as Luke has it, because his disciples
showed him of all these things, ἀπήγγειλαν περὶ πάντων τούτων. The
latter evangelist has narrated, immediately before, the raising of the
widow’s son, and the healing of the centurion’s servant. Could John,
then, believe Jesus to be the Messiah before he had performed any
messianic works, and be seized with doubt when he began to legitimatize
his claim by miracles such as were expected from the Messiah [557]?
This is so opposed to all psychological probability, that I wonder Dr.
Paulus, or some other expositor versed in psychology and not timid in
verbal criticism, has not started the conjecture that a negative has
slipped out of Matt. xi. 2, and that its proper reading is, ὁ δὲ
Ἰωάννης οὐκ ἀκούσας ἐν τῷ δεσμωτηρίῳ τὰ ἔργα τοῦ Χριστοῦ, κ.τ.λ. It
might then be conceived, that John had indeed been convinced, at a
former period, of the Messiahship o£ Jesus; now, however, in his
imprisonment, the works of Jesus came no longer to his ears, and
imagining him inactive, he was assailed with doubt. But had John been
previously satisfied of the Messiahship of Jesus, the mere want of
acquaintance with his miracles could not have unhinged his faith. The
actual cause of John’s doubt, however, was the report of these
miracles;—a state of the case which is irreconcilable with any previous
confidence.
But how could he become uncertain about the Messiahship of Jesus, if he
had never recognised it? Not indeed in the sense of beginning to
suspect that Jesus was not the Messiah; but quite possibly in the sense
of beginning to conjecture that a man of such deeds was the Messiah.
We have here, not a decaying, but a growing certainty, and this
discrimination throws light on the whole purport of the passages in
question. John knew nothing of Jesus before, but that he had, like many
others, partaken of his baptism, and perhaps frequented the circle of
his disciples; and not until after the imprisonment of the Baptist did
Jesus appear as a teacher, and worker of miracles. Of this John heard,
and then arose in his mind a conjecture, fraught with hope, that as he
had announced the proximity of the Messiah’s kingdom, this Jesus might
be he who would verify his idea. [558] So interpreted, this message of
the Baptist excludes his previous testimony; if he had so spoken
formerly, he could not have so inquired latterly, and vice versâ. It is
our task, therefore, to compare the two contradictory statements, that
we may ascertain which has more traces than the other, of truth or
untruth.
The most definite expressions of John’s conviction that Jesus was the
Messiah are found in the fourth Gospel, and these suggest two distinct
questions: first, whether it be conceivable that John had such a notion
of the Messiah as is therein contained; and, secondly, whether it be
probable that he believed it realized in the person of Jesus.
With respect to the former, the fourth Gospel makes the Baptist’s idea
of the Messiah include the characteristics of expiatory suffering, and
of a premundane, heavenly existence. It has been attempted, indeed, so
to interpret the expressions with which he directs his disciples to
Jesus, as to efface the notion of expiatory suffering. Jesus, we are
told, is compared to a lamb on account of his meekness and patience;
αἴρειν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν τοῦ κόσμου, is to be understood either of a patient
endurance of the world’s malice, or of an endeavour to remove the sins
of the world by reforming it; and the sense of the Baptist’s words is
this: “How moving is it that this meek and gentle Jesus should have
undertaken so difficult and painful an office [559]!” But the best
critics have shown that even if αἴρειν by itself might bear this
interpretation, still ἀμνὸς, not merely with the article but with the
addition τοῦ Θεοῦ, must signify, not a lamb in general, but a special,
holy Lamb; and if, as is most probable, this designation has reference
to Isa. liii. 7., αἴρειν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν can only be expounded by what is
there predicated of the lamb-like servant of God, that he τὰς ἁμαρτίας
ἡμῶν φέρει, καὶ περὶ ἡμῶν ὀδυνᾶται (V. 4, LXX.), words which must
signify vicarious suffering. [560] Now that the Baptist should have
referred the above prophetic passage to the Messiah, and hence have
thought of him as suffering, has been recently held more than doubtful.
[561]
For so foreign to the current opinion, at least, was this notion of the
Messiah, that the disciples of Jesus, during the whole period of their
intercourse with him, could not reconcile themselves to it; and when
his death had actually resulted, their trust in him as the Messiah was
utterly confounded (Luke xxiv. 20 ff.). How, then, could the Baptist,
who, according to the solemn declaration of Jesus, Matt. xi. 11,
confirmed by the allusions in the Gospels to his strict ascetic life,
ranked below the least in the kingdom of heaven, to which the apostles
already belonged—how could this alien discern, long before the
sufferings of Jesus, that they pertained to the character of the
Messiah, when the denizens were only taught the same lesson by the
issue? Or, if the Baptist really had such insight, and communicated it
to his disciples, why did it not, by means of those who left his circle
for that of Jesus, win an entrance into the latter—nay, why did it not,
by means of the great credit which John enjoyed, mitigate the offence
caused by the death of Jesus, in the public at large [562]? Add to
this, that in none of our accounts of the Baptist, with the exception
of the fourth Gospel, do we find that he entertained such views of the
Messiah’s character; for, not to mention Josephus, the Synoptical
Gospels confine his representation of the Messianic office to the
spiritual baptism and winnowing of the people. Still it remains
possible that a penetrating mind, like that of the Baptist, might, even
before the death of Jesus, gather from Old Testament phrases and types
the notion of a suffering Messiah, and that his obscure hints on the
subject might not be comprehended by his disciples and cotemporaries.
Thus the above considerations are not decisive, and we therefore turn
to the expressions concerning the premundane existence and heavenly
origin of the Messiah, with the question: Could the Baptist have really
held such tenets? That from the words, John i. 15, 27, 30: He that
cometh after me is preferred before me; for he was before me, ὁ ὀπίσω
μοῦ ἐρχόμενος ἔμπροσθέν μοῦ γέγονεν, ὄτι πρῶτος μου ἦν, nothing but
dogmatical obstinacy can banish the notion of pre-existence, is seen by
a mere glance at such expositions as this of Paulus: “He who in the
course of time comes after me; has so appeared in my eyes, ἔμπροσθέν
μοῦ, that he (ὅτι—ὥστε, premiss—conclusion!) deserves rather from his
rank and character to be called the first.” [563] With preponderating
arguments more unprejudiced commentators have maintained, that the
reason here given why Jesus, who appeared after the Baptist in point of
time, had the precedence of him in dignity, is the pre-existence of the
former. [564] We have here obviously the favourite dogma of the fourth
Evangelist, the eternal pre-existence of the λόγος, present indeed to
the mind of that writer, who had just been inditing his proem, but that
it was also present to the mind of the Baptist is another question. The
most recent expositor allows that the sense in which the Evangelist
intends πρῶτος μοῦ, must have been very remote from the Baptist’s point
of view, at least so far as the λόγος is concerned. The Baptist, he
thinks, held the popular Jewish notion of the pre-existence of the
Messiah, as the subject of the Old Testament theophanies. [565] There
are traces of this Jewish notion in the writings of Paul (e.g. 1 Cor.
x. 4. Col. i. 15 f.) and the rabbins [566]; and allowing that it was of
Alexandrian origin, as Bretschneider argues, [567] we may yet ask
whether even before the time of Christ, the Alexandrian-judaic theology
may not have modified the opinions of the mother country? [568] Even
these expressions then, taken alone, are not conclusive, although it
begins to appear suspicious that the Baptist, otherwise conspicuous for
exhibiting the practical side of the idea of the Messiah’s kingdom,
should have ascribed to him by the fourth Evangelist solely, two
notions which at that time undoubtedly belonged only to the deepest
messianic speculations; and that the form in which those notions are
expressed is too peculiarly that of the writer, not to be put to his
account.
We arrive at a more decisive result by taking into examination the
passage John iii. 27–36, where John replies to the complaints of his
disciples at the rival baptism of Jesus, in a way that reduces all
commentators to perplexity. After showing how it lay at the foundation
of their respective destinies, which he desired not to overstep, that
he must decrease, while Jesus must increase, he proceeds (ver. 31) to
use forms of expression precisely similar to those in which the
Evangelist makes Jesus speak of himself, and in which he delivers his
own thoughts concerning Jesus. Our most recent commentator [569] allows
that this discourse of John seems the echo of the foregoing
conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. [570] The expressions in the
speech lent to the Baptist are peculiarly those of the apostle John;
for instance, σφραγίζω (to seal), μαρτυρία (testimony), the antithesis
of ἄνωθεν and ἐκ τῆς γῆς (from above and of the earth), the phrase
ἔχειν ζωὴν αἰώνιον (to have eternal life); and the question presents
itself: Is it more probable that the Evangelist, as well as Jesus, in
whose mouth these expressions are so often put, borrowed them from the
Baptist, or that the Evangelist lent them (I will only at present say)
to the latter? This must be decided by the fact that the ideas, to
which the Baptist here gives utterance, lie entirely within the domain
of Christianity, and belong specially to the Christianity of the
Apostle John. Take for example that antithesis of ἄνω (from above), and
ἐκ τῆς γῆς (of the earth), the designation of Jesus as ἄνωθεν ἐρχόμενος
(he that cometh from above), as ὃν ἀπέστειλεν ὁ Θεὸς (he whom God hath
sent), who consequently τὰ ῥήματα τοῦ θεοῦ λαλεῖ (speaketh the words of
God), the relation of Jesus to God as the υἱὸς (son), whom ὁ πατὲρ
ἀγαπᾷ (the Father loveth):—what can be characteristic of Christianity,
and of the Apostle John’s mode of presenting it, if these ideas are not
so? and could they belong to the Baptist? Christianismus ante Christum!
And then, as Olshausen well observes, [571] is it consistent for John,
who, even on the fourth Evangelist’s own showing, remained separate
from Jesus, to speak of the blessedness of a believing union with him?
(v. 33 and 36).
Thus much then is certain, and has been acknowledged by the majority of
modern commentators: the words v. 31–36 cannot have been spoken by the
Baptist. Hence theologians have concluded, that the Evangelist cannot
have intended to ascribe them to him, but from v. 31 speaks in his own
person. [572] This sounds plausible, if they can only point out any
mark of division between the discourse of the Baptist and the addenda
of the Evangelist. But none such is to be found. It is true that the
speaker from v. 31 uses the third person, and not the first as in v.
30, when referring to the Baptist: but in the former passage the
Baptist is no longer alluded to directly and individually, but as one
of a class, in which case he must, though himself the speaker, choose
the third person. Thus there is no definitive boundary, and the speech
glides imperceptibly from those passages which might have been uttered
by the Baptist, into those which are altogether incongruous with his
position; moreover from v. 30 Jesus is spoken of in the present tense,
as the Evangelist might represent the Baptist to speak during the
lifetime of Jesus, but could not in his own person have written after
the death of Jesus. In other passages, when presenting his own
reflections concerning Jesus, he uses the preterite. [573] Thus,
grammatically, the Baptist continues to speak from v. 31, and yet,
historically, it is impossible that he should have uttered the sequel;
a contradiction not to be solved, if it be added that, dogmatically,
the Evangelist cannot have ascribed to the Baptist words which he never
really pronounced. Now if we do not choose to defy the clear rules of
grammar, and the sure data of history, for the sake of the visionary
dogma of inspiration, we shall rather conclude from the given premises,
with the author of the Probabilia, that the Evangelist falsely ascribes
the language in question to the Baptist, putting into his mouth a
Christology of his own, of which the latter could know nothing. This is
no more than Lücke [574] confesses, though not quite so frankly, when
he says that the reflections of the Evangelist are here more than
equally mixed with the discourse of the Baptist, in such a way as to be
undistinguishable. In point of fact, however, the reflections of the
Evangelist are easily to be recognized; but of the fundamental ideas of
the Baptist there is no trace, unless they are sought for with a good
will which amounts to prejudice, and to which therefore we make no
pretension. If then we have a proof in the passages just considered,
that the fourth Evangelist did not hesitate to lend to the Baptist
messianic and other ideas which were never his; we may hence conclude
retrospectively concerning the passages on which we formerly suspended
our decision, that the ideas expressed in them of a suffering and
pre-existent Messiah belonged, not to the Baptist, but to the
Evangelist.
In giving the above reply to our first question, we have, in
strictness, answered the remaining one; for if the Baptist had no such
messianic ideas, he could not refer them to the person of Jesus. But to
strengthen the evidence for the result already obtained, we will make
the second question the object of a special examination. According to
the fourth Evangelist the Baptist ascribed to Jesus all the messianic
attributes above discussed. If he did this so enthusiastically,
publicly, and repeatedly, as we read in John, he could not have been
excluded by Jesus from the kingdom of heaven (Matt. xi. 11), nor have
been placed below the least of its citizens. For such a confession as
that of the Baptist, when he calls Jesus the υἱὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ, who was
before him,—such refined insight into the messianic economy, as is
shown by his designating Jesus ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ, ὁ αἴρων τὴν ἁμαρτίαν
τοῦ κόσμου, Peter himself had not to produce, though Jesus not only
receives him into the kingdom of heaven for his confession, Matt. xvi.
16, but constitutes him the rock on which that kingdom was to be
founded. But we have something yet more incomprehensible. John, in the
fourth gospel, gives it as the object of his baptism, ἵνα φανερωθῆ
(Jesus as Messiah) τῷ Ἰσραὴλ (i. 31), and acknowledges it to be the
divine ordinance, that by the side of the increasing Jesus, he must
decrease (iii. 30); nevertheless after Jesus had begun to baptize by
the instrumentality of his disciples, John continues to practise his
baptism (iii. 32). Why so, if he knew the object of his baptism to be
fulfilled by the introduction of Jesus, and if he directed his
followers to him as the Messiah? (i. 36 f.). [575] The continuance of
his baptism would be to no purpose; for Lücke’s supposition that John’s
baptism was still of effect in those places where Jesus had not
appeared, he himself overthrows by the observation, that at least at
the period treated of in John iii. 22 ff., Jesus and John must have
been baptizing near to each other, since the disciples of John were
jealous of the concourse to the baptism of Jesus. But the continuance
of John’s baptism appears even to counteract his aim, if that aim were
merely to point out Jesus as the Messiah. He thereby detained a circle
of individuals on the borders of the Messiah’s kingdom, and retarded or
hindered their going over to Jesus (and that through his own fault, not
theirs alone, [576] for he nullified his verbal direction to Jesus by
his contradictory example). Accordingly we find the party of John’s
disciples still existing in the time of the Apostle Paul (Acts xviii.
24 f., xix. 1 ff.); and, if the Sabæans are to be credited concerning
their own history, the sect remains to this day. [577] Certainly,
presupposing the averred conviction of the Baptist relative to Jesus,
it would seem most natural for him to have attached himself to the
latter; this, however, did not happen, and hence we conclude that he
cannot have had that conviction. [578]
But chiefly the character and entire demeanour of the Baptist render it
impossible to believe that he placed himself on that footing with
Jesus, described by the fourth evangelist. How could the man of the
wilderness, the stern ascetic, who fed on locusts and wild honey, and
prescribed severe fasts to his disciples, the gloomy, threatening
preacher of repentance, animated with the spirit of Elias—how could he
form a friendship with Jesus, in every thing his opposite? He must
assuredly, with his disciples, have stumbled at the liberal manners of
Jesus, and have been hindered by them from recognizing him as the
Messiah. Nothing is more unbending than ascetic prejudice; he who, like
the Baptist, esteems it piety to fast and mortify the body, will never
assign a high grade in things divine to him who disregards such
asceticism. A mind with narrow views can never comprehend one whose
vision takes a wider range, although the latter may know how to do
justice to its inferior; hence Jesus could value and sanction John in
his proper place, but the Baptist could never give the precedence to
Jesus, as he is reported to have done in the fourth gospel. The
declaration of the Baptist (John iii. 30), that he must decrease, but
Jesus must increase, is frequently praised as an example of the noblest
and sublimest resignation. [579] The beauty of this representation we
grant; but not its truth. The instance would be a solitary one, if a
man whose life had its influence on the world’s history, had so readily
yielded the ascendant, in his own æra, to one who came to eclipse him
and render him superfluous. Such a step is not less difficult for
individuals than for nations, and that not from any vice, as egotism or
ambition, so that an exception might be presumed (though not without
prejudice) in the case of a man like the Baptist; it is a consequence
of that blameless limitation which, as we have already remarked, is
proper to a low point of view in relation to a higher, and which is all
the more obstinately maintained if the inferior individual is, like
John, of a coarse, rugged nature. Only from the divine point of view,
or from that of an historian, bent on establishing religious doctrines,
could such things be spoken, and the fourth Evangelist has in fact put
into the mouth of the Baptist the very same thoughts concerning the
relation between him and Jesus, that the compiler of the 2nd book of
Samuel has communicated, as his own observation, on the corresponding
relation between Saul and David. [580] Competent judges have recently
acknowledged that there exists a discrepancy between the synoptical
gospels and the fourth, the blame of which must be imputed to the
latter: [581] and this opinion is confirmed and strengthened by the
fact that the fourth Evangelist transforms the Baptist into a totally
different character from that in which he appears in the Synoptical
gospels and in Josephus; out of a practical preacher he makes a
speculative christologist; out of a hard and unbending, a yielding and
self-renunciating nature.
The style in which the scenes between John and Jesus (John i. 29 ff. 35
ff.) are depicted, shows them to have originated partly in the free
composition of the imagination, partly in a remodelling of the
synoptical narratives with a view to the glorification of Jesus. With
respect to the former: Jesus is walking, v. 35, near to John; in v. 29
he is said to come directly to him; yet on neither occasion is there
any account of an interview between the two. Could Jesus really have
avoided contact with the Baptist, that there might be no appearance of
preconcerted action? This is Lampe’s conjecture; but it is the product
of modern reflections, foreign to the time and circumstances of Jesus.
Or shall we suppose that the narrator, whether fortuitously or
purposely, omitted known details? But the meetings of Jesus and John
must have furnished him with peculiarly interesting matter, so that, as
Lücke allows, [582] his silence is enigmatical. From our point of view
the enigma is solved. The Baptist had, in the Evangelist’s idea,
pointed to Jesus as the Messiah. This, understood as a visible
pointing, required that Jesus should pass by or approach John; hence
this feature was inserted in the narrative; but the particulars of an
actual meeting being unnecessary, were, though very awkwardly, omitted.
The incident of some disciples attaching themselves to Jesus in
consequence of the Baptist’s direction, seems to be a free version of
the sending of two disciples by John from his prison. Thus, as in
Matthew xi. 2, and Luke vii. 18, John despatches two disciples to Jesus
with the dubitative question, “Art thou he that should come?” so in the
fourth gospel he likewise sends two disciples to Jesus, but with the
positive assertion that he (Jesus) is the Lamb of God, ἀμνὸς Θεοῦ; as
Jesus in the former case gives to the disciples, after the delivery of
their message, the direction: “Go and tell John the things ye have seen
and heard,” ἂ εἴδετε καὶ ἠκοῦσατε: so in the latter, he gives to the
inquiry concerning his abode, the answer: Come and see, ἔρχεσθε καὶ
ἴδετε. But while in the synoptical gospels the two disciples return to
John, in the fourth, they permanently attach themselves to Jesus.
From the foregoing considerations, it is inconceivable that John should
ever have held and pronounced Jesus to be the Messiah: but it is easy
to show how a belief that he did so might obtain, without historical
foundation. According to Acts xix. 4, the Apostle Paul declares what
seems sufficiently guaranteed by history, that John baptized εἰς τὸν
ἐρχόμενον, and this coming Messiah, adds Paul, to whom John pointed was
Jesus (τουτέστιν εἰς Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν). This was an interpretation of the
Baptist’s words by the issue; for Jesus had approved himself to a great
number of his cotemporaries, as the Messiah announced by John. There
was but a step to the notion that the Baptist himself had, under the
ἐρχόμενος, understood the individual Jesus,—had himself the τουτέστιν,
κ.τ.λ. in his mind; a view which, however unhistorical, would be
inviting to the early Christians, in proportion to their wish to
sustain the dignity of Jesus by the authority of the Baptist, then very
influential in the Jewish world. [583] There was yet another reason,
gathered from the Old Testament. The ancestor of the Messiah, David,
had likewise in the old Hebrew legend a kind of forerunner in the
person of Samuel, who by order from Jehovah anointed him to be king
over Israel (1 Sam. xvi.), and afterwards stood in the relation of a
witness to his claims. If then it behoved the Messiah to have a
forerunner, who, besides, was more closely characterized in the
prophecy of Malachi as a second Elias, and if, historically, Jesus was
preceded by John, whose baptism as a consecration corresponded to an
anointing; the idea was not remote of conforming the relation between
John and Jesus to that between Samuel and David.
We might have decided with tolerable certainty which of the two
incompatible statements concerning the relation between the Baptist and
Jesus is to be renounced as unhistorical, by the universal canon of
interpretation, that where, in narratives having a tendency to
aggrandise a person or a fact (a tendency which the Gospels evince at
every step), two contradictory statements are found, that which best
corresponds to this aim is the least historical; because if, in
accordance with it, the original fact had been so dazzling, it is
inconceivable that the other less brilliant representation should
afterwards arise; as here, if John so early acknowledged Jesus, it is
inexplicable how a story could be fabricated, which reports him to have
been in doubt on the same subject at a very late period. We have,
however, by a separate examination of the narrative in the fourth
gospel, ascertained that it is self-contradictory and contains its own
solution; hence our result, found independently of the above canon,
serves for its confirmation.
Meanwhile that result is only the negative, that all which turns upon
the early acknowledgment of Jesus by John has no claim to be received
as historical; of the positive we know nothing, unless the message out
of prison may be regarded as a clue to the truth, and we must therefore
subject this side of the matter to a separate examination. We will not
extend our arguments against the probability of an early and decided
conviction on the part of the Baptist, to a mere conjecture awakened in
him at a later period that Jesus was the Messiah; and therefore we
leave uncontested the proper contents of the narrative. But as regards
the form, it is not to be conceived without difficulty. That the
Baptist in prison, ἐν τῷ δεσμωτηρίῳ, should have information of the
proceedings of Jesus; that he should from that locality send his
disciples to Jesus; and that these as we are led to infer, should bring
him an answer in his imprisonment.
According to Josephus, [584] Herod imprisoned John from fear of
disturbances: allowing this to be merely a joint cause with that given
by the Evangelist, it is yet difficult to believe that to a man, one
motive of whose imprisonment was to seclude him from his followers, his
disciples should have retained free access; although we cannot prove it
an impossibility that circumstances might favour the admission of
certain individuals. Now that the message was sent from prison we learn
from Matthew alone; Luke says nothing of it, although he tells of the
message. We might hence, with Schleiermacher, [585] consider Luke’s
account the true one, and the δεσμωτηρίῳ of Matthew an unhistorical
addition. But that critic has himself very convincingly shown, from the
tedious amplifications, partly betraying even misunderstanding, which
the narrative of Luke contains (vii. 20, 21, 29, 30), that Matthew
gives the incident in its original, Luke in a revised form. [586] It
would indeed be singular if Matthew had supplied the δεσμωτηρίῳ when it
was originally wanting; it is far more natural to suppose that Luke,
who in the whole paragraph appears as a reviser, expunged the original
mention of the prison.
In judging of Luke’s motives for so doing, we are led to notice the
difference in the dates given by the evangelists for the imprisonment
of John. Matthew, with whom Mark agrees, places it before the public
appearance of Jesus in Galilee; for he gives it as the motive for the
return of Jesus into that province (Matt. iv. 12; Mark i. 14). Luke
assigns no precise date to the arrest of the Baptist (iii. 19 f.), yet
it is to be inferred from his silence about the prison, in connexion
with the sending of the two disciples, that he regarded it as a later
occurrence; but John expressly says, that after the first passover
attended by Jesus in his public character, John was not yet cast into
prison (iii. 24). If it be asked, who is right? we answer that there is
something on the face of the account of the first Evangelist, which has
inclined many commentators to renounce it in favour of the two last.
That Jesus, on the report of John’s imprisonment in Galilee by Herod
Antipas, should have returned into the dominions of that prince for the
sake of safety, is, as Schneckenburger well maintains, [587] highly
improbable, since there, of all places, he was the least secure from a
similar fate. But even if it be held impossible to dissociate the
ἀνεχώρησεν (he withdrew) from the cognate idea of seeking security, we
may still ask whether, disregarding the mistake in the motive, the fact
itself may not be maintained. Matthew and Mark connect with this
journey into Galilee after John’s imprisonment, the commencement of the
public ministry of Jesus; and that this was consequent on the removal
of the Baptist, I am quite inclined to believe. For it is in itself the
most natural that the exit of the Baptist should incite Jesus to carry
on in his stead the preaching of μετανοιεῖτἐ· ἦγγικε γὰρ ἡ βασιλεία τῶν
οὐρανῶν; and the canon cited above is entirely in favour of Matthew.
For if it be asked which fiction best accords with the aggrandising
spirit of the Christian legend,—that of John’s removal before the
appearance of Jesus, or that of their having long laboured in
conjunction?—the answer must be, the latter. If he to whom the hero of
a narrative is superior disappears from the scene before the entrance
of the latter, the crowning opportunity for the hero to demonstrate his
ascendancy is lost—the full splendour of the rising sun can only be
appreciated, when the waning moon is seen above the horizon, growing
paler and paler in the presence of the greater luminary. Such is the
case in the Gospels of Luke and John, while Matthew and Mark rest
satisfied with the less effective representation. Hence, as the least
calculated to magnify Jesus, the account of Matthew has the advantage
in historical probability.
Thus at the time when the two disciples must have been sent to Jesus,
the Baptist was already imprisoned, and we have remarked above, that he
could hardly, so situated, transmit and receive messages. But popular
legend might be prompted to fabricate such a message, that the Baptist
might not depart without at least an incipient recognition of Jesus as
the Messiah; so that neither the one nor the other of the two
incompatible statements is to be regarded as historical.
§ 47.
OPINION OF THE EVANGELISTS AND JESUS CONCERNING THE BAPTIST, WITH HIS
OWN JUDGMENT ON HIMSELF. RESULT OF THE INQUIRY INTO THE RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN THESE TWO INDIVIDUALS.
The Evangelists apply to John, as the preparer of the Messiah’s
kingdom, several passages of the Old Testament.
The abode of the preacher of repentance in the wilderness, his activity
in preparing the way for the Messiah, necessarily recalled the passage
of Isaiah (xl. 3ff. LXX.): φωνὴ βοῶντος ἐν ἐρήμῳ· ἑτοιμάσατε τὴν ὁδὸν
Κυρίῳ κ.τ.λ. This passage, which in its original connection related not
to the Messiah and his forerunner, but to Jehovah, for whom a way was
to be prepared through the wilderness toward Judea, that he might
return with his people from exile, is quoted by the first three
Evangelists as a prophecy fulfilled by the appearance of the Baptist
(Matt. iii. 3; Mark i. 3; Luke iii. 4 ff.). This might be thought a
later and Christian application, but there is nothing to controvert the
statement of the fourth Evangelist, that the Baptist had himself
characterized his destination by those prophetic words.
As the synoptical gospels have unanimously borrowed this passage from
the Baptist himself, so Mark has borrowed the application of another
prophetic passage to the Baptist from Jesus. Jesus had said (Matt. xi.
10; Luke vii. 27): οὗ τος γάρ ἐστι περὶ οὗ γέγραπται· ἰδοὺ ἀποστέλλω
τὸν ἄγγελόν μου πρὸ προσώπου σου, ὃς κατασκευάσει τὴν ὁδόν σου
ἔμπροσθέν σου·. This is he of whom it is written, Behold I send my
messenger before thy face, to prepare thy way before thee; and Mark in
the introduction to his Gospel, applies these words of Malachi (iii.
1), together with the above passage from Isaiah, without distinguishing
their respective sources, to the forerunner, John. The text is a
messianic one; Jehovah, however, does not therein speak of sending a
messenger before the Messiah, but before himself: and it is only in the
New Testament citations in all these instances that the second person
(σου) is substituted for the first (לְפָנַי).
Another notable passage of the same prophet (iii. 23, LXX. iv. 4: καὶ
ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ ἀποστελῶ ὑμῖν Ἠλίαν τὸν Θεσβίτην, πρὶν ἐλθεῖν τὴν ἡμέραν
Κυρίου, κ.τ.λ.: Behold, I will send you Elijah the Tishbite before the
coming of the day of the Lord, etc.) suggested to the Evangelists the
assimilation of John the Baptist to Elias. That John, labouring for the
reformation of the people, in the spirit and power of Elias, should
prepare the way for the Divine visitation in the times of the Messiah,
was according to Luke i. 17, predicted before his birth. In John i. 21,
when the emissaries of the Sanhedrim ask, “Art thou Elias?” the Baptist
declines this dignity: according to the usual explanation, he only
extended his denial to the rude popular notion, that he was the ancient
seer corporeally resuscitated, whereas he would have admitted the view
of the synoptical gospels, that he had the spirit of Elias.
Nevertheless it appears improbable that if the fourth Evangelist had
been familiar with the idea of the Baptist as a second Elias, he would
have put into his mouth so direct a negative.
This scene, peculiar to the fourth gospel, in which John rejects the
title of Elias, with several others, demands a yet closer examination,
and must be compared with a narrative in Luke (iii. 15), to which it
has a striking similarity. In Luke, the crowd assembled round the
Baptist begin to think: Is not this the Christ? μήποτε αὐτὸς εἴη ὁ
Χριστός· in John, the deputies of the Sanhedrim [588] ask him, Who art
thou? σὺ τίς εἶ; which we infer from the Baptist’s answer to mean: “Art
thou, as is believed, the Messiah?” [589] According to Luke, the
Baptist answers, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than
I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose.
According to John he gives a similar reply: I baptize with water; but
there standeth one among you whom ye know not; He it is who coming
after me is preferred before me, whose shoes’ latchet I am not worthy
to unloose: the latter Evangelist adding his peculiar propositions
concerning the pre-existence of Jesus, and deferring to another
occasion (v. 33) the mention of the Messiah’s spiritual baptism, which
Luke gives in immediate connexion with the above passage. In Luke, and
still more decidedly in John, this whole scene is introduced with a
design to establish the Messiahship of Jesus, by showing that the
Baptist had renounced that dignity, and attributed it to one who should
come after him. If at the foundation of two narratives so similar,
there can scarcely be more than one fact, [590] the question is, which
gives that fact the most faithfully? In Luke’s account there is no
intrinsic improbability; on the contrary it is easy to imagine, that
the people, congregated round the man who announced the Messiah’s
kingdom, and baptized with a view to it, should, in moments of
enthusiasm, believe him to be the Messiah. But that the Sanhedrim
should send from Jerusalem to John on the banks of the Jordan, for the
sake of asking him whether he were the Messiah, seems less natural.
Their object could only be what, on a later occasion, it was with
respect to Jesus (Matt. xxi. 23 ff.), namely, to challenge the
authority of John to baptize, as appears from v. 25. Moreover, from the
hostile position which John had taken towards the sects of the
Pharisees and Sadducees (Matt. iii. 7), to whom the members of the
Sanhedrim belonged, they must have prejudged that he was not the
Messiah, nor a prophet, and consequently, that he had no right to
undertake a βάπτισμα. But in that case, they could not possibly have so
put their questions as they are reported to have done in the fourth
gospel. In the passage from Mathew above cited, they asked Jesus, quite
consistently with their impression that he had no prophetic authority:
ἐν ποίᾳ ἐξουσίᾳ ταῦτα ποιεῖς; By what authority doest thou these
things? but in John, they question the Baptist precisely as if they
pre-supposed him to be the Messiah, and when he, apparently to their
consternation, has denied this, they tender him successively the
dignities of Elias, and of another prophetic forerunner, as if they
earnestly wished him to accept one of these titles. Searching opponents
will not thus thrust the highest honours on the man to whom they are
inimical;—this is the representation of a narrator who wishes to
exhibit the modesty of the man, and his subordination to Jesus, by his
rejection of those brilliant titles. To enable him to reject them, they
must have been offered; but this could in reality only be done by
well-wishers, as in Luke, where the conjecture that the Baptist was the
Messiah is attributed to the people.
Why then did not the fourth Evangelist attribute those questions
likewise to the people, from whom, with a slight alteration, they would
have seemed quite natural? Jesus, when addressing the unbelieving Jews
in Jerusalem, (John v. 33), appeals to their message to the Baptist,
and to the faithful testimony then given by the latter. Had John given
his declaration concerning his relation to Jesus before the common
people merely, such an appeal would have been impossible; for if Jesus
were to refer his enemies to the testimony of John, that testimony must
have been delivered before his enemies; if the assertions of the
Baptist were to have any diplomatic value, they must have resulted from
the official inquiry of a magisterial deputation. Such a remodelling of
the facts appears to have been aided by the above-mentioned narrative
from the synoptical traditions, wherein the high priests and scribes
ask Jesus, by what authority he does such things (as the casting out of
the buyers and sellers). Here also Jesus refers to John, asking for
their opinion as to the authority of his baptism, only, it is true,
with the negative view of repressing their further inquiries (Matt.
xxi. 23 ff. parall.); but how easily might this reference be made to
take an affirmative sense, and instead of the argument, “If ye know not
what powers were entrusted to John, ye need not know whence mine are
given,”—the following be substituted: “Since ye know what John has
declared concerning me, ye must also know what power and dignity belong
to me;” whereupon what was originally a question addressed to Jesus,
transformed itself into a message to the Baptist. [591]
The judgment of Jesus on the character of John is delivered on two
occasions in the synoptical gospels; first after the departure of
John’s messengers (Matt xi. 7 ff.); secondly, after the appearance of
Elias at the transfiguration (Matt. xvii. 12 ff.), in reply to the
question of a disciple. In the fourth gospel, after an appeal to the
Baptist’s testimony, Jesus pronounces an eulogium on him in the
presence of the Jews (v. 35), after referring, as above remarked, to
their sending to John. In this passage he calls the Baptist a burning
and a shining light, in whose beams the fickle people were for a season
willing to rejoice. In one synoptical passage, he declares John to be
the promised Elias; in the other, there are three points to be
distinguished. First, with respect to the character and agency of
John,—the severity and firmness of his mind, and the pre-eminence which
as the messianic forerunner, who with forcible hand had opened the
kingdom of heaven, he maintained even over the prophets, are extolled
(v. 7–14); secondly, in relation to Jesus and the citizens of the
kingdom of heaven, the Baptist, though exalted above all the members of
the Old Testament economy, is declared to be in the rear of every one
on whom, through Jesus, the new light had arisen (v. 11). We see how
Jesus understood this from what follows (v. 18), when we compare it
with Matt. ix. 16 f. In the former passage Jesus describes John as μήτε
ἐσθίων μήτε πίνων, neither eating nor drinking; and in the latter it is
this very asceticism which is said to liken him to the ἱματίοις and
ἀσκοῖς παλαιοῖς, the old garments and old bottles, with which the new,
introduced by Jesus, will not agree. What else then could it be, in
which the Baptist was beneath the children of the kingdom of Jesus, but
(in connexion with his non-recognition or only qualified acknowledgment
of Jesus as Messiah) the spirit of external observance, which still
clung to fasting and similar works, and his gloomy asceticism? And, in
truth, freedom from these is the test of transition from a religion of
bondage, to one of liberty and spirituality. [592] Thirdly, with
respect to the relation in which the agency of John and Jesus stood to
their cotemporaries, the same inaptitude to receive the ministrations
of both is complained of v. 16 ff., although in v. 12 it is observed,
that the violent zeal of some βιασταὶ had, under the guidance of John,
wrested for them an entrance into the kingdom of the Messiah. [593]
In conclusion, we must take a review of the steps by which tradition
has gradually annexed itself to the simple historical traits of the
relation between John and Jesus. Thus much seems to be historical: that
Jesus, attracted by the fame of the Baptist, put himself under the
tuition of that preacher, and that having remained some time among his
followers, and been initiated into his ideas of the approaching
messianic kingdom, he, after the imprisonment of John, carried on,
under certain modifications, the same work, never ceasing, even when he
had far surpassed his predecessor, to render him due homage.
The first addition to this in the Christian legend, was, that John had
taken approving notice of Jesus. During his public ministry, it was
known that he had only indefinitely referred to one coming after him;
but it behoved him, at least in a conjectural way, to point out Jesus
personally, as that successor. To this it was thought he might have
been moved by the fame of the works of Jesus, which, loud as it was,
might even penetrate the walls of his prison. Then was formed Matthew’s
narrative of the message from prison; the first modest attempt to make
the Baptist a witness for Jesus, and hence clothed in an interrogation,
because a categorical testimony was too unprecedented.
But this late and qualified testimony was not enough. It was a late
one, for prior to it there was the baptism which Jesus received from
John, and by which he, in a certain degree, placed himself in
subordination to the Baptist; hence those scenes in Luke, by which the
Baptist was placed, even before his birth, in a subservient relation to
Jesus.
Not only was it a late testimony which that message contained; it was
but half a one; for the question implied uncertainty, and ὁ ἐρχόμενος
conveyed indecision. Hence in the fourth gospel there is no longer a
question about the Messiahship of Jesus, but the most solemn
asseverations on that head, and we have the most pointed declarations
of the eternal, divine nature of Jesus, and his character as the
suffering Messiah.
In a narrative aiming at unity, as does the fourth gospel, these very
pointed declarations could not stand by the side of the dubious
message, which is therefore only found in this Gospel under a totally
reorganized form. Neither does this message accord with that which in
the synoptical gospels is made to occur at the baptism of Jesus, and
even earlier in his intercourse with John; but the first three
Evangelists, in their loose compositions, admitted, along with the more
recent form of the tradition, the less complete one, because they
attached less importance to the question of John than to the consequent
discourse of Jesus.
§ 48.
THE EXECUTION OF JOHN THE BAPTIST.
We here take under our examination, by way of appendix, all that has
been transmitted to us concerning the tragic end of the Baptist.
According to the unanimous testimony of the synoptical Evangelists and
Josephus, [594] he was executed, after a protracted imprisonment, by
order of Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee; and in the New Testament
accounts he is said to have been beheaded. (Matt. xiv. 3 ff.; Mark vi.
17 ff.; Luke ix. 9.)
But Josephus and the Evangelists are at variance as to the cause of his
imprisonment and execution. According to the latter, the censure which
John had pronounced on the marriage of Herod with his (half) brother’s
[595] wife, was the cause of his imprisonment, and the revengeful
cunning of Herodias, at a court festival, of his death: Josephus gives
the fear of disturbances, which was awakened in Herod by the formidable
train of the Baptist’s followers, as the cause at once of the
imprisonment and the execution. [596] If these two accounts be
considered as distinct and irreconcilable, it may be doubted which of
the two deserves the preference. It is not here as in the case of Herod
Agrippa’s death, Acts xii. 23, viz., that the New Testament narrative,
by intermixing a supernatural cause where Josephus has only a natural
one, enables us to prejudge it as unhistorical; on the contrary, we
might here give the palm to the evangelical narrative, for the
particularity of its details. But on the other hand, it must be
considered that that very particularity, and especially the conversion
of a political into a personal motive, corresponds fully to the
development of the legendary spirit among the people, whose imagination
is more at home in domestic than in political circles. [597] Meanwhile
it is quite possible to reconcile the two narratives. This has been
attempted by conjecturing, that the fear of insurrection was the proper
cabinet motive for the imprisonment of the Baptist, while the
irreverent censure passed on the ruler was thrust forward as the
ostensible motive. [598] But I greatly doubt whether Herod would
designedly expose the scandalous point touched on by John; it is more
likely, if a distinction is to be here made between a private and
ostensible cause, that the censure of the marriage was the secret
reason, and the fear of insurrection disseminated as an excuse for
extreme severity. [599] Such a distinction, however, is not needed; for
Antipas might well fear, that John, by his strong censure of the
marriage and the whole course of the tetrarch’s life, might stir up the
people into rebellion against him.
But there is a diversity even between the evangelical narratives
themselves, not only in this, that Mark gives the scene at the feast
with the most graphic details, while Luke is satisfied with a concise
statement (iii. 18–20, ix. 9), and Matthew takes a middle course; but
Mark’s representation of the relation between Herod and the Baptist
differs essentially from that of Matthew. While according to the
latter, Herod wished to kill John, but was withheld by his dread of the
people, who looked on the Baptist as a prophet (v. 5); according to
Mark, it was Herodias who conspired against his life, but could not
attain her object, because her husband was in awe of John as a holy
man, sometimes heard him gladly, and not seldom followed his counsel
(v. 19). [600] Here, again, the individualizing characteristic of
Mark’s narrative has induced commentators to prefer it to that of
Matthew. [601] But in the finishing touches and alterations of Mark we
may detect the hand of tradition; especially as Josephus merely says of
the people, that they gave ear to the sound of his words, ἤρθησαν τῇ
ἀκροάσει τῶν λόγων, while he says of Herod, that having conceived fears
of John, he judged it expedient to put him to death, δείσας κρεῖττον
ἡγεῖται (τὸν Ἰωάννην) ἀναιρεῖν. How near lay the temptation to exalt
the Baptist, by representing the prince against whom he had spoken, and
by whom he was imprisoned, as feeling bound to venerate him, and only,
to his remorse, seduced into giving his death-warrant, by his
vindictive wife! It may be added, that the account of Matthew is not
inconsistent with the character of Antipas, as gathered from other
sources. [602]
The close of the evangelical narratives leaves the impression that the
dissevered head of John was presented at table, and that the prison was
consequently close at hand. But we learn from the passage in Josephus
above cited, that the Baptist was confined in Machærus, a fortress on
the southern border of Peræa, whereas the residence of Herod was in
Tiberias, [603] a day’s journey distant from Machærus. Hence the head
of John the Baptist could only be presented to Herod after two days’
journey, and not while he yet sat at table. The contradiction here
apparent is not to be removed by the consideration, that it is not
expressly said in the Gospels that John’s head was brought in during
the meal, for this is necessarily inferred from the entire narrative.
Not only are the commission of the executioner and his return with the
head, detailed in immediate connexion with the incidents of the meal;
but only thus has the whole dramatic scene its appropriate
conclusion;—only thus is the contrast complete, which is formed by the
death-warrant and the feast: in fine, the πίναξ, on which the
dissevered head is presented, marks it as the costliest viand which the
unnatural revenge of a woman could desire at table. But we have, as a
probable solution, the information of Josephus, [604] that Herod
Antipas was then at war with the Arabian king, Aretas, between whose
kingdom and his own lay the fortress of Machærus; and there Herod might
possibly have resided with his court at that period.
Thus we see that the life of John in the evangelical narratives is,
from easily conceived reasons, overspread with mythical lustre on the
side which is turned towards Jesus, while on the other its historical
lineaments are more visible.