CHAPTER X.

THE TRANSFIGURATION OF JESUS, AND HIS LAST JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM.

§ 105.

THE TRANSFIGURATION OF JESUS CONSIDERED AS A MIRACULOUS EXTERNAL EVENT.

The history of the transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain could not

be ranged with the narratives of miracles which we have hitherto

examined; not only because it relates to a miracle which took place in

Jesus instead of a miracle performed by him; but also because it has

the character of an epoch in the life of Jesus, which on the score of

resemblance could only be associated with the baptism and resurrection.

Hence Herder has correctly designated these three events as the three

luminous points in the life of Jesus, which attest his heavenly

mission. [1531]

According to the impression produced by the first glance at the

synoptical narrative (Matt. xvii. 1 ff.; Mark ix. 2 ff.; Luke ix. 28

ff.)—for the history is not found in the fourth gospel—we have here a

real, external, and miraculous event. Jesus, six or eight days after

the first announcement of his passion, ascends a mountain with his

three most confidential disciples, who are there witnesses how all at

once his countenance, and even his clothes, are illuminated with

supernatural splendour; how two venerable forms from the realm of

spirits, Moses and Elias, appear talking with him; and lastly, how a

heavenly voice, out of the bright cloud, declares Jesus to be the Son

of God, to whom they are to give ear.

These few points in the history give rise to a multitude of questions,

by the collection of which Gabler has done a meritorious service.

[1532] In relation to each of the three phases of the event—the light,

the apparition of the dead, and the voice—both its possibility, and the

adequacy of its object, may be the subject of question. First, whence

came the extraordinary light with which Jesus was invested? Let it be

remembered that a metamorphosis of Jesus is spoken of (μεταμορφώθη

ἔμπροσθεν αὐτῶν): now this would appear to imply, not a mere

illumination from without, but an irradiation from within, a transient

effulgence, so to speak, of the beams of the divine glory through the

veil of humanity. Thus Olshausen regards this event as an important

crisis in the process of purification and glorification, through which

he supposes the corporeality of Jesus to have passed, during his whole

life up to the time of his ascension. [1533] But without here dilating

further on our previous arguments, that either Jesus was no real man,

or the purification which he underwent during his life, must have

consisted in something else than the illumination and subtilization of

his body; it is in no case to be conceived how his clothes, as well as

his body, could participate in such a process of transfiguration. If,

on this account, it be rather preferred to suppose an illumination from

without, this would not be a metamorphosis, which however is the term

used by the Evangelists: so that no consistent conception can be formed

of this scene, unless indeed we choose, with Olshausen, to include both

modes, and think of Jesus as both radiating, and irradiated. But even

supposing this illumination possible, there still remains the question,

what purpose could it serve? The answer which most immediately suggests

itself is: to glorify Jesus; but compared with the spiritual glory

which Jesus created for himself by word and deed, this physical

glorification, consisting in the investing of his body with a brilliant

light, must appear very insignificant, nay, almost childish. If it be

said that, nevertheless, such a mode of glorifying Jesus was necessary

for the maintenance of weak faith: we reply that in that case, it must

have been effected in the presence of the multitude, or at least before

the entire circle of the disciples, not surely before just the select

three who were spiritually the strongest; still less would these few

eye-witnesses have been prohibited from communicating the event

precisely during the most critical period, namely, until after the

resurrection.—These two questions apply with enhanced force to the

second feature in our history, the apparition of the two dead men. Can

departed souls become visible to the living? and if, as it appears, the

two men of God presented themselves in their former bodies, only

transfigured, whence had they these—according to biblical ideas—before

the universal resurrection? Certainly in relation to Elijah, who went

up to heaven without laying aside his body, this difficulty is not so

great; Moses, however, died, and his corpse was buried. But further, to

what end are we to suppose that these two illustrious dead appeared?

The evangelical narrative, by representing the forms as talking with

Jesus, συλλαλοῦντες τῶ Ἰ., seems to place the object of their

appearance in Jesus; and if Luke be correct, it had reference more

immediately to the approaching sufferings and death of Jesus. But they

could not have made the first announcement of these events to him, for,

according to the unanimous testimony of the synoptists, he had himself

predicted them a week before (Matt. xvi. 21 parall.). Hence it is

conjectured, that Moses and Elias only informed Jesus more minutely

concerning the particular circumstances and conditions of his death:

[1534] but, on the one hand, it is not accordant with the position

which the gospels assign to Jesus in relation to the ancient prophets,

that he should have needed instruction from them; and on the other

hand, Jesus had already foretold his passion so circumstantially, that

the more special revelations from the world of spirits could only have

referred to the particulars of his being delivered to the Gentiles, and

the spitting in his face, of which he does not speak till a subsequent

occasion (Matt. xx. 19; Mark x. 34). If, however, it be suggested, that

the communication to be made to Jesus consisted not so much in

information, as in the conferring of strength for his approaching

sufferings: we submit that at this period there is not yet any trace of

a state of mind in Jesus, which might seem to demand assistance of this

kind; while for his later sufferings this early strengthening did not

suffice, as is evident from the fact, that in Gethsemane a new

impartation is necessary. Thus we are driven, though already in

opposition to the text, to try whether we cannot give the appearance a

relation to the disciples; but first, the object of strengthening faith

is too general to be the motive of so special a dispensation; secondly,

Jesus, in the parable of the rich man, must on this supposition have

falsely expounded the principle of the divine government in this

respect, for he there says that he who will not hear the writings of

Moses and the prophets,—and how much more he who will not hear the

present Christ?—would not be brought to believe, though one should

return to him from the dead: whence it must be inferred that such an

apparition, at least to that end, is not permitted by God. The more

special object, of convincing the disciples that the doctrine and fate

of Jesus were in accordance with Moses and the prophets, had been

already partly attained; and it was not completely attained until after

the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the outpouring of the Spirit:

the transfiguration not having formed any epoch in their enlightenment

on this subject.—Lastly, the voice out of the bright cloud (without

doubt the Shechinah) is, like that at the baptism, a divine voice: but

what an anthropomorphic conception of the Divine Being must that be,

which admits the possibility of real, audible speech on his part! Or if

it be said, that a communication of God to the spiritual ear, is alone

spoken of here, [1535] the scene of the transfiguration is reduced to a

vision, and we are suddenly transported to a totally different point of

view.

§ 106.

THE NATURAL EXPLANATION OF THE NARRATIVE IN VARIOUS FORMS.

It has been sought to escape from the difficulties of the opinion which

regards the transfiguration of Jesus as not only a miraculous, but also

an external event, by confining the entire incident to the internal

experience of the parties concerned. In adopting this position, the

miraculous is not at once relinquished; it is only transferred to the

internal workings of the human mind, as being thus more simple and

conceivable. Accordingly it is supposed, that by divine influence the

spiritual nature of the three apostles, and probably also of Jesus

himself, was exalted to a state of ecstasy, in which they either

actually entered into intercourse with the higher world, or were able

to shadow forth its forms to themselves in the most vivid manner; that

is, the event is regarded as a vision. [1536] But the chief support of

this interpretation, namely, that Matthew himself, by the expression

ὅραμα, vision (v. 9), describes the event as merely subjective and

visionary, gives way so soon as it is remembered, that neither is there

anything in the signification of the word ὅραμα which determines it to

refer to what is merely mental, nor is it exclusively so applied even

in the phraseology of the New Testament, for we also find it, as in

Acts vii. 31, used to denote something perceived externally. [1537] As

regards the fact itself, it is improbable, and at least without

scriptural precedent, that several persons, as, here, three or four,

should have had the same very complex vision; [1538] to which it may be

added, that on this view of the subject also, the whole difficult

question recurs concerning the utility of such a miraculous

dispensation.

To avoid the above difficulty, others, still confining the event to the

internal experience of the parties, regard it as the product of a

natural activity of soul, and thus explain the whole as a dream. [1539]

During or after a prayer offered by Jesus, or by themselves, in which

mention was made of Moses and Elias, and their advent as messianic

forerunners desired, the three disciples, according to this

interpretation, slept, and (the two names mentioned by Jesus yet

sounding in their ears) dreamed that Moses and Elias were present, and

that Jesus conversed with them: an illusion which continued during the

first confused moments after their awaking. As the former explanation

rests on the ὅραμα of Matthew, so it is alleged in support of this,

that Luke describes the disciples as heavy with sleep, βεβαρημένοι

ὕπνῳ, and only towards the end of the scene as fully awake,

διαγρηγορήσαντες (v. 32). The hold which the third Evangelist here

presents to the natural explanation, has been made a reason for

assigning to his narrative an important superiority over that of the

two other Evangelists; recent critics pronouncing that by this and

other particulars, which bring the event nearer to natural possibility,

the account in Luke evinces itself to be the original, while that of

Matthew, by its omission of those particulars, is proved to be the

traditionary one, since with the eagerness for the miraculous which

characterized that age, no one would fabricate particulars calculated

to diminish the miracle, as is the case with the sleepiness of the

disciples. [1540] This mode of conclusion we also should be obliged to

adopt, if in reality the above features could only be understood in the

spirit of the natural interpretation. But we have only to recollect how

in another scene, wherein the sufferings, which according to Luke were

announced at the transfiguration, began to be accomplished, and

wherein, according to the same Evangelist, Jesus likewise held

communication with a heavenly apparition, namely, in Gethsemane, the

disciples, in all the synoptical gospels, again appear asleep,

καθεύδοντες (Matt. xxvi. 40 parall.). If it be admitted, that the

merely external, formal resemblance of the two scenes, might cause a

narrator to convey the trait of the slumber into the history of the

transfiguration, there is a yet stronger probability that the internal

import of the trait might appear to him appropriate to this occasion

also, for the sleeping of the disciples at the very moment when their

master was going through his most critical experience, exhibits their

infinite distance from him, their inability to attain his exalted

level; the prophet, the recipient of a revelation, is among ordinary

men like a watcher among the sleeping: hence it followed, of course,

that as in the deepest suffering, so here also in the highest

glorification of Jesus, the disciples should be represented as heavy

with sleep. Thus this particular, so far from furnishing aid to the

natural explanation, is rather intended by a contrast to heighten the

miracle which took place in Jesus. We are, therefore, no longer

warranted in regarding the narrative in Luke as the original one, and

in building an explanation of the event on his statement; on the

contrary, we consider that addition, in connexion with the one already

mentioned (v. 31), a sign that his account is a traditionary and

embellished one, [1541] and must rather adhere to that of the two other

Evangelists.

Not only, however, does the interpretation which sees in the

transfiguration only a natural dream of the apostles, fail as to its

main support, but it has besides a multitude of internal difficulties.

It presupposes only the three disciples to have been dreaming, leaving

Jesus awake, and thus not included in the illusion. But the whole tenor

of the evangelical narrative implies that Jesus as well as the

disciples saw the appearance; and what is still more decisive, had the

whole been a mere dream of the disciples, he could not afterwards have

said to them: Tell the vision to no man, since by these words he must

have confirmed in them the belief that they had witnessed something

special and miraculous. Supposing however that Jesus had no share in

the dream, it still remains altogether unexampled, that three persons

should in a natural manner have had the same dream at the same time.

This the friends of the above interpretation have perceived, and hence

have supposed that the ardent Peter, who indeed is the only speaker,

alone had the dream, but that the narrators, by a synecdoche attributed

to all the disciples what in fact happened only to one. But from the

circumstance that Peter here, as well as elsewhere, is the spokesman,

it does not follow that he alone had the vision, and the contrary can

by no figure of speech be removed from the clear words of the

Evangelists. But the explanation in question still more plainly betrays

its inadequacy. Not only does it require, as already noticed, that the

audible utterance of the name of Moses and Elias on the part of Jesus,

should be blended with the dream of the disciples; but it also calls in

the aid of a storm, which by its flashes of lightning is supposed to

have given rise in them to the idea of supernatural splendour, by its

peals of thunder, to that of conversation and heavenly voices, and to

have held them in this delusion even for some time after they awaked.

But, according to Luke, it was on the waking of the disciples

(διαγρηγορήσαντες δὲ εἶδον κ.τ.λ.) that they saw the two men standing

by Jesus: this does not look like a mere illusion protracted from a

dream into waking moments; hence Kuinöl introduces the further

supposition, that, while the disciples slept, there came to Jesus two

unknown men, whom they, in awaking, connected with their dream, and

mistook for Moses and Elias. By giving this turn to the circumstances,

all those occurrences which on the interpretation based on the

supposition of a dream, should be regarded as mere mental conceptions,

are again made external realities: for the idea of supernatural

brilliancy is supposed to have been produced by a flash of lightning,

the idea of voices, by thunder, and lastly, the idea of two persons in

company with Jesus, by the actual presence of two unknown individuals.

All this the disciples could properly perceive only when they were

awake; and hence the supposition of a dream falls to the ground as

superfluous.

Therefore, since this interpretation, by still retaining a thread of

connexion between the alleged character of the event and a mental

condition, has the peculiar difficulty of making three partake in the

same dream, it is better entirely to break this thread, and restore all

to the external world: so that we now have a natural external

occurrence before us, as in the first instance we had a supernatural

one. Something objective presented itself to the disciples; thus it is

explained how it could be perceived by several at once: they deceived

themselves when awake as to what they saw; this was natural, because

they were all born within the same circle of ideas, were in the same

frame of mind, and in the same situation. According to this opinion,

the essential fact in the scene on the mountain, is a secret interview

which Jesus had preconcerted, and with a view to which he took with him

the three most confidential of his disciples. Who the two men were with

whom Jesus held this interview, Paulus does not venture to determine;

Kuinöl conjectures that they were secret adherents of the same kind as

Nicodemus; according to Venturini, they were Essenes, secret allies of

Jesus. Before these were arrived, Jesus prayed, and the disciples, not

being invited to join, slept; for the sleep noticed by Luke, though it

were dreamless, is gladly retained in this interpretation, since a

delusion appears more probable in the case of persons just awaking. On

hearing strange voices talking with Jesus, they awake, see Jesus, who

probably stood on a higher point of the mountain than they, enveloped

in unwonted brilliancy, proceeding from the first rays of morning,

which, perhaps reflected from a sheet of snow, fell on Jesus, but were

mistaken by them in the surprise of the moment for a supernatural

illumination; they perceive the two men, whom, for some unknown

reasons, the drowsy Peter, and after him the rest, take for Moses and

Elias; their astonishment increases when they see the two unknown

individuals disappear in a bright morning cloud, which descends as they

are in the act of departing, and hear one of them pronounce out of the

cloud the words: οὗτος ἐστιν κ.τ.λ., which they under these

circumstances unavoidably regard as a voice from heaven. [1542] This

explanation, which even Schleiermacher is inclined to favour, [1543] is

supposed, like the former, to find a special support in Luke, because

in this Evangelist the assertion that the two men are Moses and Elias,

is much less confidently expressed than in Matthew and Mark, and more

as a mere notion of the drowsy Peter. For while the two first

Evangelists directly say: ὤφθησαν αὐτοῖς Μωσῆς καὶ Ἐλίας (there

appeared unto them Moses and Elias), Luke more warily, as it seems,

speaks of ἄνδρες δύο, οἵτινες ἦσαν Μωσῆς καὶ Ἐλίας (two men, who were

Moses and Elias), the first designation being held to contain the

objective fact, the second its subjective interpretation. But this

interpretation is obviously approved by the narrator, from his choice

of the word οἵτινες ἦσαν, instead of ἔδοξαν εἶναι; that he first speaks

of two men, and afterwards gives them their names, cannot have been to

leave another interpretation open to the reader, but only to imitate

the mysteriousness of the extraordinary scene, by the indefiniteness of

his first expression. While this explanation has thus as little support

in the evangelical narratives as those previously considered, it has at

the same time no fewer difficulties in itself. The disciples must have

been so far acquainted with the appearance of the morning beams on the

mountains of their native land, as to be able to distinguish them from

a heavenly glory; how they came to have the idea that the two unknown

individuals were Moses and Elias, is not easy to explain on any of the

former views, but least of all on this;—why Jesus, when Peter, by his

proposal about the building of the three tabernacles, gave him to

understand the delusion of the disciples, did not remove it, is

incomprehensible, and this difficulty has induced Paulus to resort to

the supposition, that Jesus did not hear the address of Peter;—the

whole conjecture about secret allies of Jesus has justly lost all

repute; and lastly, the one of those allies who spoke the words to the

disciples out of the cloud, must have permitted himself to use an

unworthy mystification.

§ 107.

THE HISTORY OF THE TRANSFIGURATION CONSIDERED AS A MYTHUS.

Thus here, as in every former instance, after having run through the

circle of natural explanations, we are led back to the supernatural; in

which, however, we are precluded from resting by difficulties equally

decisive. Since then the text forbids a natural interpretation, while

it is impossible to maintain as historical the supernatural

interpretation which it sanctions, we must apply ourselves to a

critical examination of its statements. These are indeed said to be

especially trustworthy in the narrative before us, the fact being

narrated by three Evangelists, who strikingly agree even in the precise

determination of the time, and being moreover attested by the Apostle

Peter (2 Pet. i. 17). [1544] The agreement as to the time (the eight

days ἡμέραι ὀκτὼ of Luke meaning, according to the usual reckoning, the

same as the six days ἡμέραι ἓξ of the other Evangelists) is certainly

striking; and besides this, all the three narrators concur in placing

immediately after the transfiguration the cure of the demoniacal boy,

which the disciples had failed to effect. But both these points of

agreement may be accounted for, by the origin of the synoptical gospels

from a fixed fund of evangelical tradition, in relation to which, we

need not be more surprised that it has grouped together many anecdotes

in a particular manner without any objective reason, than that it has

often preserved expressions in which it might have varied, through all

the three editions. [1545] The attestation of the history by the three

synoptists is, however, very much weakened, at least on the ordinary

view of the relation which the four gospels bear to each other, by the

silence of John; since it does not appear why this Evangelist should

not have included in his history an event which was so important, and

which moreover accorded so well with his system, nay, exactly realized

the declaration in his prologue (v. 14): We beheld his glory, the glory

as of the only begotten of the Father. The worn-out reason, that he

might suppose the event to be sufficiently known through his

predecessors, is, over and above its general invalidity, particularly

unavailable here, because no one of the synoptists was in this instance

an eye-witness, and consequently there must be many things in their

narratives which one who, like John, had participated in the scene,

might rectify and explain. Hence another reason has been sought for

this and similar omissions in the fourth gospel; and such an one has

been supposed to be found in the anti-gnostic, or, more strictly, the

anti-docetic tendency which has been ascribed to the gospel, in common

with the epistles, bearing the name of John. It is, accordingly,

maintained that in the history of the transfiguration, the splendour

which illuminated Jesus, the transformation of his appearance into

something more than earthly, might give countenance to the opinion that

his human form was nothing but an unsubstantial veil, through which at

times his true, superhuman nature shone forth; that his converse with

the spirits of ancient prophets might lead to the conjecture, that he

was himself perhaps only a like spirit of some Old Testament saint

revisiting the earth; and that, rather than give nourishment to such

erroneous notions, which began early to be formed among gnosticising

Christians, John chose to suppress this and similar histories. [1546]

But besides that it does not correspond with the apostolic plainness of

speech (παῤῥησία) to suppress important facts in the evangelical

history, on account of their possible abuse by individuals. John, if he

were guided by the above consideration must at least have proceeded

with some consistency, and have excluded from the circle of his

accounts all narratives which, in an equal degree with the one in

question, were susceptible of a docetic misinterpretation. Now, here,

every one must at once be reminded of the history of the walking of

Jesus on the sea, which is at least equally calculated with the history

of the transfiguration, to produce the idea that the body of Jesus was

a mere phantom, but which John nevertheless records. It is true that

the relative importance of events might introduce a distinction; so

that of two narratives with an equally strong docetic aspect, John

might include the one on account of its superior weight, while he

omitted the less important. But no one will contend that the walking of

Jesus on the sea surpasses, or even equals, in importance the history

of the transfiguration. John, if he were intent on avoiding what wore a

docetic appearance, must on every consideration have suppressed the

first history before all others. As he has not done so, the above

principle cannot have influenced him, and consequently can never be

advanced as a reason for the designed omission of a history in the

fourth gospel; rather it may be concluded, and particularly in relation

to the event in question, that the author knew nothing, or at least

nothing precise, of that history. [1547] It is true that this

conclusion can form an objection to the historical character of the

narrative of the transfiguration, to those only who suppose the fourth

gospel to be the work of an apostle; so that from this silence we

cannot argue against the truth of the narrative. On the other hand, the

agreement of the synoptists proves nothing in its favour, since we have

already been obliged to pronounce unhistorical more than one narrative

in which three, nay, all four gospels agree. Lastly, as regards the

alleged testimony of Peter, from the more than doubtful genuineness of

the second Epistle of Peter, the passage which certainly refers to our

history of the transfiguration is renounced as a proof of its

historical truth even by orthodox theologians. [1548]

On the other hand besides the difficulties previously enumerated, lying

in the miraculous contents of the narrative, we have still a further

ground for doubt in relation to the historical validity of the

transfiguration: namely, the conversation which, according to the two

first Evangelists, the disciples held with Jesus immediately after. In

descending from the mountain, the disciples ask Jesus: τί οὖν οἱ

γραμματεῖς λέγουσιν, ὅτι Ἐλίαν δεῖ ἐλθεῖν πρωτον; Why then say the

scribes that Elias must first come? (Matt. v. 10). This sounds just as

if something had happened, from which they necessarily inferred that

Elias would not appear; and not in the least as if they were coming

directly from a scene in which he had actually appeared; for in the

latter case they would not have asked a question, as if unsatisfied,

but must rather have indicated their satisfaction by the remark,

εἰκότως οὖν οἱ γραμματεῖς λέγουσιν κ.τ.λ. Truly then do the scribes

say, etc. [1549] Hence, expositors interpret the question of the

disciples to refer, not to the absence of an appearance of Elias in

general, but to the absence of a certain concomitant in the scene which

they had just witnessed. The doctrine of the scribes, namely, had

taught them to anticipate that Elias on his second appearance would

exert a reforming influence on the life of the nation; whereas in the

appearance which they had just beheld he had presently vanished again

without further activity. [1550] This explanation would be admissible

if the words ἀποκαταστήσει πάντα (will restore all things) stood in the

question of the disciples; instead of this, however, it stands in both

narratives (Matt. v. 11; Mark v. 12) only in the answer of Jesus: so

that the disciples, according to this supposition, must, in the most

contradictory manner, have been silent as to what they really missed,

the restoration of all things, and only have mentioned that which after

the foregoing appearance they could not have missed, namely, the coming

of Elias. As, however, the question of the disciples presupposes no

previous appearance of Elias, but, on the contrary, expresses the

feeling that such an appearance was wanting, so the answer which Jesus

gives them has the same purport. For when he replies: the scribes are

right in saying that Elias must come before the Messiah; but this is no

argument against my Messiahship, since an Elias has already preceded me

in the person of the Baptist,—when he thus seeks to guard his disciples

against the doubt which might arise from the expectation of the

scribes, by pointing out to them the figurative Elias who had preceded

him,—it is impossible that an appearance of the actual Elias can have

previously taken place; otherwise Jesus must in the first place have

referred to this appearance, and only in the second place to the

Baptist. [1551] Thus the immediate connexion of this conversation with

that appearance cannot be historical, but is rather owing solely to

this point of similarity;—that in both mention is made of Elias. [1552]

But not even at an interval, and after the lapse of intermediate

events, can such a conversation have been preceded by an appearance of

Elias; for however long afterwards, both Jesus and the three

eye-witnesses among his disciples must have remembered it, and could

never have spoken as if such an appearance had not taken place. Still

further, an appearance of the real Elias cannot have happened even

after such a conversation, in accordance with the orthodox idea of

Jesus. For he, too, explicitly declares his opinion that the literal

Elias was not to be expected, and that the Baptist was the promised

Elias; if therefore, nevertheless, an appearance of the real Elias did

subsequently take place, Jesus must have been mistaken; a consequence

which precisely those who are most concerned for the historical reality

of the transfiguration, are the least in a position to admit. If then

the appearance and the conversation directly exclude each other, the

question is, which of the two passages can better be renounced? Now the

purport of the conversation is so confirmed by Matt. xi. 14, comp. Luke

i. 17, while the transfiguration is rendered so improbable by all kinds

of difficulties, that there cannot be much doubt as to the decision.

According to this, it appears here as in some former cases, that two

narratives proceeding from quite different presuppositions, and having

arisen also in different times, have been awkwardly enough combined:

the passage containing the conversation proceeding from the probably

earlier opinion, that the prophecy concerning Elias had its fulfilment

in John; whereas the narrative of the transfiguration doubtless

originated at a later period, when it was not held sufficient that in

the messianic time of Jesus, Elias should only have appeared

figuratively, in the person of the Baptist,—when it was thought fitting

that he should also have shown himself personally and literally, if in

no more than a transient appearance before a few witnesses (a public

and more influential one being well known not to have taken place).

[1553]

In order next to understand how such a narrative could arise in a

legendary manner, the first feature to be considered, on the

examination of which that of all the rest will most easily follow, is

the sun-like splendour of the countenance of Jesus, and the bright

lustre of his clothes. To the oriental, and more particularly to the

Hebrew imagination, the beautiful, the majestic, is the luminous; the

poet of the Song of Songs compares his beloved to the hues of morning,

to the moon, to the sun (vi. 9); the holy man supported by the blessing

of God, is compared to the sun going forth in his might (Judg. v. 31);

and above all the future lot of the righteous is likened to the

splendour of the sun and the stars (Dan. xii. 3; Matt. xiii. 43).

[1554] Hence, not only does God appear clothed in light, and angels

with resplendent countenances and shining garments (Ps. l. 2, 3; Dan.

vii. 9 f., x. 5, 6; Luke xxiv. 4; Rev. i. 13 ff.), but also the pious

of Hebrew antiquity, as Adam before the fall, and among subsequent

instances, more particularly Moses and Joshua, are represented as being

distinguished by such a splendour; [1555] and the later Jewish

tradition ascribes celestial splendour even to eminent rabbins in

exalted moments. [1556] But the most celebrated example of this kind is

the luminous countenance of Moses, which is mentioned, Exod. xxxiv. 29

ff., and as in other points, so in this, a conclusion was drawn from

him in relation to the Messiah, a minori ad majus. Such a mode of

arguing is indicated by the Apostle Paul, 2 Cor. iii. 7 ff., though he

opposes to Moses, the minister of the letter, διακόνος τοῦ γράμματος,

not Jesus, but, in accordance with the occasion of his epistle, the

apostles and Christian teachers, ministers of the spirit, διακόνος τοῦ

πνεύματος, and the glory, δόξα, of the latter, which surpassed the

glory of Moses, is an object of hope, ἐλπίς, to be attained only in the

future life. But especially in the Messiah himself, it was expected

that there would be a splendour which would correspond to that of

Moses, nay, outshine it; and a Jewish writing which takes no notice of

our history of the transfiguration, argues quite in the spirit of the

Jews of the first Christian period, when it urges that Jesus cannot

have been the Messiah, because his countenance had not the splendour of

the countenance of Moses, to say nothing of a higher splendour. [1557]

Such objections, doubtless heard by the early Christians from the Jews,

and partly suggested by their own minds, could not but generate in the

early church a tendency to introduce into the life of Jesus an

imitation of that trait in the life of Moses, nay, in one respect to

surpass it, and instead of a shining countenance that might be covered

with a veil, to ascribe to him a radiance, though but transitory, which

was diffused even over his garments.

That the illumination of the countenance of Moses served as a type for

the transfiguration of Jesus, is besides proved by a series of

particular features. Moses obtained his splendour on Mount Sinai: of

the transfiguration of Jesus also the scene is a mountain; Moses, on an

earlier ascent of the mountain, which might easily be confounded with

the later one, after which his countenance became luminous, had taken

with him, besides the seventy elders, three confidential friends,

Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, to participate in the vision of Jehovah (Exod.

xxiv. 1, 9–11); so Jesus takes with him his three most confidential

disciples, that, so far as their powers were adequate, they might be

witnesses of the sublime spectacle, and their immediate object was,

according to Luke v. 28, to pray, προσεύξασθαι: just as Jehovah calls

Moses with the three companions and the elders, to come on the

mountain, that they might worship at a distance. As afterwards, when

Moses ascended Sinai with Joshua, the glory of the Lord, δόξα Κυρίου,

covered the mountain as a cloud, νεφέλη (v. 15 f. LXX.); as Jehovah

called to Moses out of the cloud, until at length the latter entered

into the cloud (v. 16–18): so we have in our narrative a bright cloud,

νεφέλη φωτὸς, which overshadows Jesus and the heavenly forms, a voice

out of the cloud, φωνὴ ἐκ τῆς νεφέλης, and in Luke an entering,

εἰσελθεῖν, of the three into the cloud. The first part of the address

pronounced by the voice out of the cloud, consists of the messianic

declaration, composed out of Ps. ii. 7, and Isa. xlii. 1, which had

already sounded from heaven at the baptism of Jesus; the second part is

taken from the words with which Moses, in the passage of Deuteronomy

quoted earlier (xviii. 15), according to the usual interpretation,

announces to the people the future Messiah, and admonishes them to

obedience towards him. [1558]

By the transfiguration on the mount Jesus was brought into contact with

his type Moses, and as it had entered into the anticipation of the Jews

that the messianic time, according to Isa. lii. 6 ff., would have not

merely one, but several forerunners, [1559] and that among others the

ancient lawgiver especially would appear in the time of the Messiah:

[1560] so no moment was more appropriate for his appearance than that

in which the Messiah was being glorified on a mountain, as he had

himself once been. With him was then naturally associated the prophet,

who, on the strength of Mal. iii. 23, was the most decidedly expected

to be a messianic forerunner, and, indeed, according to the rabbins, to

appear contemporaneously with Moses. If these two men appeared to the

Messiah, it followed as a matter of course that they conversed with

him; and if it were asked what was the tenor of their conversation,

nothing would suggest itself so soon as the approaching sufferings and

death of Jesus, which had been announced in the foregoing passage, and

which besides, as constituting emphatically the messianic mystery of

the New Testament, were best adapted for the subject of such a

conversation with beings of another world: whence one cannot but wonder

how Olshausen can maintain that the mythus would never have fallen upon

this theme of conversation. According to this, we have here a mythus,

[1561] the tendency of which is twofold: first, to exhibit in the life

of Jesus an enhanced repetition of the glorification of Moses; and

secondly, to bring Jesus as the Messiah into contact with his two

forerunners,—by this appearance of the lawgiver and the prophet, of the

founder and the reformer of the theocracy, to represent Jesus as the

perfecter of the kingdom of God, and the fulfilment of the law and the

prophets; and besides this, to show a confirmation of his messianic

dignity by a heavenly voice. [1562]

Before we part with our subject, this example may serve to show us with

peculiar clearness, how the natural system of interpretation, while it

seeks to preserve the historical certainty of the narratives, loses

their ideal truth—sacrifices the essence to the form: whereas the

mythical interpretation, by renouncing the historical body of such

narratives, rescues and preserves the idea which resides in them, and

which alone constitutes their vitality and spirit. Thus if, as the

natural explanation would have it, the splendour around Jesus was an

accidental, optical phenomenon, and the two appearances either images

of a dream or unknown men, where is the significance of the incident?

where the motive for preserving in the memory of the church an anecdote

so void of ideas, and so barren of inference, resting on a common

delusion and superstition? On the contrary, while according to the

mythical interpretation, I do not, it is true, see in the evangelical

narrative any real event,—I yet retain a sense, a purpose in the

narrative, know to what sentiments and thoughts of the first Christian

community it owes its origin, and why the authors of the gospels

included so important a passage in their memoirs. [1563]

§ 108.

DIVERGING ACCOUNTS CONCERNING THE LAST JOURNEY OF JESUS TO JERUSALEM.

Shortly after the transfiguration on the mountain, the Evangelists make

Jesus enter on the fatal journey which conducted him to his death. With

respect to the place from whence he set out on this journey, and the

route which he took, the evangelical accounts differ. The synoptists

agree as to the point of departure, for they all represent Jesus as

setting out from Galilee (Matt. xix. 1; Mark x. 1; Luke ix. 51; in this

last passage, Galilee is not indeed expressly named, but we necessarily

infer it to be the supposed locality from what precedes, in which only

Galilee and districts in Galilee are spoken of, as well as from the

journey through Samaria, mentioned in the succeeding passage): [1564]

but concerning the route which Jesus chose from thence to Judæa, they

appear to be at variance. It is true that the statements of two of them

on this point are so obscure, that they might appear to lend some aid

to the harmonizing exegesis. Mark says in the clearest and most

definite manner that Jesus took his course through Peræa; but his

statement, He came into the coasts of Judæa on the further side of

Jordan, ἔρχεται εἰς τὰ ὅρια τῦς Ἰουδαίας διὰ τοῦ πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου, is

scarcely anything more than the mode in which he judged it right to

explain the hardly intelligible expression of Matthew, whom he follows

in this chapter. What it precisely is which the latter intends by the

words, He departed from Galilee, and came into the coasts of Judæa

beyond Jordan, μετῆρεν ἀπὸ τῆς Γαλιλαίας καὶ ἦλθεν εἰς τὰ ὅρια τῆς

Ἰουδαίας πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου, is in fact not at all evident. For if the

explanation: he came into that part of Judæa which lies on the opposite

side of the Jordan, [1565] clashes alike with geography and grammar, so

the interpretation to which the comparison of Mark inclines the

majority of commentators, namely, that Jesus came into Judæa through

the country on the farther side of the Jordan, [1566] is, even as

modified by Fritzsche, not free from grammatical difficulty. In any

case, however, thus much remains: that Matthew, as well as Mark, makes

Jesus take the most circuitous course through Peræa, while Luke, on the

other hand, appears to lead him the more direct way through Samaria. It

is true that his expression, xvii. 11, where he says that Jesus, on his

journey to Jerusalem, passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee,

διήρχετο διὰ μέσου Σαμαρείας καὶ Γαλιλαίας is scarcely clearer than the

one just cited from Matthew. According to the customary meaning of

words, he seems to state that Jesus first crossed Samaria, and then

Galilee, in order to arrive at Jerusalem. But this is an inversion of

the true order; for if he set out from a place in Galilee, he must

first traverse the rest of Galilee, and not until then could he enter

Samaria. Hence the words διέρχεσθαι διὰ μέσου κ.τ.λ. have been

interpreted to mean a progress along the boundary between Galilee and

Samaria, [1567] and Luke has been reconciled with the two first

Evangelists by the supposition, that Jesus journeyed along the

Galilean-Samarian frontier, until he reached the Jordan, that he then

crossed this river, and so proceeded through Peræa towards Judæa and

Jerusalem. But this latter supposition does not agree with Luke ix. 51

ff.; for we learn from this passage that Jesus, after his departure

from Galilee, went directly to a Samaritan village, and here made an

unfavourable impression, because his face was as though he would go to

Jerusalem, ὅτι τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ ἦν πορευόμενον εἰς Ἱερουσαλήμ. Now

this seems clearly to indicate that Jesus took his way directly from

Galilee, through Samaria, to Judæa. We shall therefore be on the side

of probability, if we judge this statement to be an artificial

arrangement of words, to which the writer was led by his desire to

introduce the narrative of the ten lepers, one of whom was a Samaritan;

[1568] and consequently admit that there is here a divergency between

the synoptical gospels. [1569] Towards the end of the journey of Jesus,

they are once more in unison, for according to their unanimous

statement, Jesus arrived at Jerusalem from Jericho (Matt. xx. 29,

parall.); a place which, we may observe, lay more in the direct road

for a Galilean coming through Peræa, than for one coming through

Samaria.

Thus there is indeed a difference between the synoptists with regard to

the way taken by Jesus; but still they agree as to the first point of

departure, and the last stage of the road; the account of John,

however, diverges from them in both respects. According to him, it is

not Galilee from whence Jesus sets out to attend the last passover, for

so early as before the feast of tabernacles of the previous year, he

had left that province, apparently for the last time (vii. 1, 10); that

between this feast and that of the dedication (x. 22) he had returned

thither, is at least not stated; after the latter feast, however, he

betook himself to Peræa, and remained there (x. 40) until the illness

and death of Lazarus recalled him into Judæa, and into the immediate

vicinity of Jerusalem, namely, to Bethany (xi. 8 ff.). On account of

the machinations of his enemies, he quickly withdrew from thence again,

but, because he intended to be present at the coming Passover, he

retired no further than to the little city of Ephraim, near to the

wilderness (xi. 54); and from this place, no mention being made of a

residence in Jericho (which, besides, did not lie in the way from

Ephraim, according to the situation usually assigned to the latter

city), he proceeded to Jerusalem to the feast.

So total a divergency necessarily gave unwonted occupation to the

harmonists. According to them, the departure from Galilee mentioned by

the synoptists, is not the departure to the last Passover, but to the

feast of dedication; [1570] though Luke, when he says, when the time

came that he should be received up, ἐν τῷ συμπληροῦσθαι τὰς ἡμέρας τῆς

ἀναλήψεως αὐτοῦ (ix. 51), incontrovertibly marks it as the departure to

that feast on which the sufferings and death of Jesus awaited him, and

though all the synoptists make the journey then begun end in that

triumphal entry into Jerusalem which, according to the fourth gospel

also, took place immediately before the last passover. [1571] If,

according to this, the departure from Galilee narrated by the

synoptists is regarded as that to the feast of dedication, and the

entrance into Jerusalem which they mention as that to the subsequent

passover; they must have entirely passed over all which, on this

supposition, lay between these two points, namely, the arrival and

residence of Jesus in Jerusalem during the feast of dedication, his

journey from thence into Peræa, from Peræa to Bethany, and from Bethany

to Ephraim. If from this it should appear to follow that the synoptists

were ignorant of all these particulars: our harmonists urge, on the

contrary, that Luke makes Jesus soon after his journey out of Galilee,

encounter scribes, who try to put him to the proof (x. 25 ff.); then

shows him in Bethany in the vicinity of Jerusalem (x. 38 ff.);

hereupon, removes him to the frontiers of Samaria and Galilee (xvii.

11); and not until then, makes him proceed to the passover in Jerusalem

(xix. 29 ff.): all which plainly enough indicates, that between that

departure out of Galilee, and the final entrance into Jerusalem, Jesus

made another journey to Judæa and Jerusalem, and from thence back

again. [1572] But, in the first place, the presence of the scribes

proves absolutely nothing; and in the second, Luke makes no mention of

Bethany, but only of a visit to Mary and Martha, whom the fourth

Evangelist places in that village: from which, however, it does not

follow that the third also supposed them to dwell there, and

consequently imagined Jesus when at their home, to be in the vicinity

of Jerusalem. Again, from the fact that so very long after his

departure (ix. 51–xvii. 11), Jesus first appears on the frontier

between Galilee and Samaria, it only follows that we have before us no

orderly progressive narrative. But, according to this harmonizing view,

even Matthew was aware of those intermediate events, and has indicated

them for the more attentive reader: the one member of his sentence, he

departed from Galilee, μετηρεν ἀπὸ τῆς Γαλιλαίας, intimates the journey

of Jesus to the feast of dedication, and thus forms a separate whole;

the other, and came into the coasts of Judæa beyond Jordan, καὶ ἦλθεν

εἰς τὰ ὅρια τῆς Ἰουδαίας πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου, refers to the departure of

Jesus from Jerusalem into Peræa (John x. 40), and opens a new period.

In adopting this expedient, however, it is honourably confessed that

without the data gathered from John, no one would have thought of such

a dismemberment of the passage in Matthew. [1573] In opposition to such

artifices, no way is open to those who presuppose the accuracy of

John’s narrative, but that adopted by the most recent criticism;

namely, to renounce the supposition that Matthew, who treats of the

journey very briefly, was an eye-witness; and to suppose of Luke, whose

account of it is very full, that either he or one of the collectors of

whose labours he availed himself, mingled together two separate

narratives, of which one referred to the earlier journey of Jesus to

the feast of dedication, the other to his last journey to the passover,

without suspecting that between the departure of Jesus out of Galilee,

and his entrance into Jerusalem, there fell yet an earlier residence in

Jerusalem, together with other journeys and adventures. [1574]

We may now observe how in the course of the narrative concerning the

last journey or journeys to Jerusalem, the relation between the

synoptical gospels and that of John is in a singular manner reversed.

As in the first instance, we discovered a great blank on the side of

the former, in their omission of a mass of intermediate events which

John notices; so now, towards the end of the account of the journey,

there appears on the side of the latter, a similar, though smaller

blank, for he gives no intimation of Jesus having come through Jericho

on his way to Jerusalem. It may indeed be said, that John might

overlook this passage through Jericho, although, according to the

synoptists, it was distinguished by a cure of the blind, and the visit

to Zacchæus; but, it is to be asked, is there in his narrative room for

a passage through Jericho? This city does not lie on the way from

Ephraim to Jerusalem, but considerably to the eastward; hence help is

sought in the supposition that Jesus made all kinds of minor

excursions, in one of which he came to Jericho, and from hence went

forward to Jerusalem. [1575]

In any case a remarkable want of unity prevails in the evangelical

accounts of the last journey of Jesus; for according to the common,

synoptical tradition, he journeyed out of Galilee by Jericho (and, as

Matthew and Mark say, through Peræa, as Luke says, through Samaria);

while according to the fourth gospel, he must have come hither from

Ephraim: statements which it is impossible to reconcile.

§ 109.

DIVERGENCIES OF THE GOSPELS, IN RELATION TO THE POINT FROM WHICH JESUS

MADE HIS ENTRANCE INTO JERUSALEM.

Even concerning the close of the journey of Jesus—concerning the last

station before he reached Jerusalem, the Evangelists are not entirely

in unison. While from the synoptical gospels it appears, that Jesus

entered Jerusalem on the same day on which he left Jericho, and

consequently without halting long at any intervening place (Matt. xx.

34, xxi. 1 ff. parall.): the fourth gospel makes him go from Ephraim

only so far as Bethany, spend the night there, and enter Jerusalem only

on the following day (xii. 1, 12 ff.). In order to reconcile the two

accounts it is said: we need not wonder that the synoptists, in their

summary narrative, do not expressly touch upon the spending of the

night in Bethany, and we are not to infer from this that they intended

to deny it; there exists, therefore, no contradiction between them and

John, but what they present in a compact form, he exhibits in detail.

[1576] But while Matthew does not even name Bethany, the two other

synoptists mention this place in a way which decidedly precludes the

supposition that Jesus spent the night there. They narrate that when

Jesus came near to Bethphage and Bethany, ὡς ἤγγισεν εἰς Βηθφαγῆ καὶ

Βηθανίαν, he caused an ass to be fetched from the next village, and

forthwith rode on this into the city. Between events so connected it is

impossible to imagine a night interposed; on the contrary, the

narrative fully conveys the impression that immediately on the message

of Jesus, the ass was surrendered by its owner, and that immediately

after the arrival of the ass, Jesus prepared to enter the city.

Moreover, if Jesus intended to remain in Bethany for the night, it is

impossible to discover his motive in sending for the ass. For if we are

to suppose the village to which he sent to be Bethany, and if the

animal on which he purposed to ride would not be required until the

following morning, there was no need for him to send forward the

disciples, and he might conveniently have waited until he arrived with

them in Bethany; the other alternative, that before he had reached

Bethany, and ascertained whether the animal he required might not be

found there, he should have sent beyond this nearest village to

Bethphage, in order there to procure an ass for the following morning,

is altogether destitute of probability; and yet Matthew, at least, says

decidedly that the ass was procured in Bethphage. To this it may be

added, that according to the representation of Mark, when Jesus arrived

in Jerusalem, the evening ὀψία, had already commenced (xi. 11), and

consequently it was only possible for him to take a cursory survey of

the city and the temple, after which he again returned to Bethany. It

is not, certainly, to be proved that the fourth gospel lays the

entrance in the morning; but it must be asked, why did not Jesus, when

he only came from so near a place as Bethany, set out earlier from

thence, that he might have time to do something worth speaking of in

Jerusalem? The late arrival of Jesus in the city, as stated by Mark, is

evidently to be explained only by the longer distance from Jericho

thither; if he came from Bethany merely, he would scarcely set out so

late, as that after he had only looked round him in the city, he must

again return to Bethany, in order on the following day to set out

earlier, which nothing had hindered him from doing on this day. It is

true that, in deferring the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem until late in

the evening, Mark is not supported by the two other synoptists, for

these represent Jesus as undertaking the purification of the temple on

the day of his arrival, and Matthew even makes him perform cures, and

give answers to the high priests and scribes (Matt. xxi. 12 ff.): but

even without this statement as to the hour of entrance, the arrival of

Jesus near to the above villages, the sending of the disciples, the

bringing of the ass, and the riding into the city, are too closely

consecutive, to allow of our inserting in the narrative of the

synoptists a night’s residence in Bethany.

If then it remains, that the three first Evangelists make Jesus proceed

directly from Jericho, without any stay in Bethany, while the fourth

makes him come to Jerusalem from Bethany only, they must, if they are

mutually correct, speak of two separate entrances; and this has been

recently maintained by several critics. [1577] According to them, Jesus

first (as the synoptists relate) proceeded directly to Jerusalem with

the caravan going to the feast, and on this occasion there happened,

when he made himself conspicuous by mounting the animal, an

unpremeditated demonstration of homage on the part of his

fellow-travellers, which converted the entrance into a triumphal

progress. Having retired to Bethany in the evening, on the following

morning (as John relates) a great multitude went out to meet him, in

order to convey him into the city, and as he met with them on the way

from Bethany, there was a repetition on an enlarged scale of the scene

on the foregoing day,—this time preconcerted by his adherents. This

distinction of an earlier entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem before his

approach was known in the city, and a later, after it was learned that

he was in Bethany, is favoured by the difference, that according to the

synoptical narrative, the people who render homage to him are only

going before προάγοντες, and following ἀκολουθοῦντες (Matt. v. 9),

while according to that of John, they are meeting him ὑπαντήσαντες (v.

13, 18). If however it be asked: why then among all our narrators, does

each give only one entrance, and not one of them show any trace of a

second? The answer in relation to John is, that this Evangelist is

silent as to the first entrance, probably because he was not present on

the occasion, having possibly been sent to Bethany to announce the

arrival of Jesus. [1578] As, however, according to our principles, if

it be assumed of the author of the fourth gospel, that he is the

apostle named in the superscription, the same assumption must also be

made respecting the author of the first: we ask in vain, whither are we

then to suppose that Matthew was sent on the second entrance, that he

knew nothing to relate concerning it? since with the repeated departure

from Bethany to Jerusalem, there is no conceivable cause for such an

errand. In relation to John indeed it is a pure invention; not to

insist, that even if the two Evangelists were not personally present,

they must yet have learned enough of an event so much talked of in the

circle of the disciples, to be able to furnish an account of it. Above

all, as the narrative of the synoptists does not indicate that a second

entrance had taken place after the one described by them: so that of

John is of such a kind, that before the entrance which it describes, it

is impossible to conceive another. For according to this narrative, the

day before the entrance which it details (consequently, according to

the given supposition, on the day of the synoptical entrance), many

Jews went from Jerusalem to Bethany, because they had heard of the

arrival of Jesus, and now wished to see him and Lazarus whom he had

restored to life (v. 9, comp. 12). But how could they learn on the day

of the synoptical entrance, that Jesus was at Bethany? On that day

Jesus did indeed pass either by or through Bethany, but he proceeded

directly to Jerusalem, whence, according to all the narratives, he

could have returned to Bethany only at so late an hour in the evening,

that Jews who now first went from Jerusalem, could no longer hope to be

able to see him. [1579] But why should they take the trouble to seek

Jesus in Bethany, when they had on that very day seen him in Jerusalem

itself? Surely in this case it must have been said—not merely, that

they came not for Jesus’ sake ONLY, but that they might see Lazarus

also, οὐ διὰ τὸν Ἰησοῦν μόνον ἀλλ’ ἵνα καὶ τὸν Λάζαρον ἴδωσι,—but

rather that they had indeed seen Jesus himself in Jerusalem, but as

they wished to see Lazarus also, they came therefore to Bethany:

whereas the Evangelist represents these people as coming from Jerusalem

partly to see Jesus; he cannot therefore have supposed that Jesus might

have been seen in Jerusalem on that very day. Further, when it is said

in John, that on the following day it was heard in Jerusalem that Jesus

was coming (v. 12), this does not at all seem to imply that Jesus had

already been there the day before, but rather that the news had come

from Bethany, of his intention to enter on this day. So also the

reception which is immediately prepared for him, alone has its proper

significance when it is regarded as the glorification of his first

entrance into the metropolis; it could only have been appropriate on

his second entrance, if Jesus had the day before entered unobserved and

unhonoured, and it had been wished to repair this omission on the

following day—not if the first entrance had already been so brilliant.

Moreover, on the second entrance every feature of the first must have

been repeated, which, whether we refer it to a preconceived arrangement

on the part of Jesus, or to an accidental coincidence of circumstances,

still remains improbable. With respect to Jesus, it is not easy to

understand how he could arrange the repetition of a spectacle which, in

the first instance significant, if acted a second time would be flat

and unmeaning; [1580] on the other hand, circumstances must have

coincided in an unprecedented manner, if on both occasions there

happened the same demonstrations of homage on the part of the people,

with the same expressions of envy on the part of his opponents; if, on

both occasions, too, there stood at the command of Jesus an ass, by

riding which he brought to mind the prophecy of Zechariah. We might

therefore call to our aid Sieffert’s hypothesis of assimilation, and

suppose that the two entrances, originally more different, became thus

similar by traditional intermixture: were not the supposition that two

distinct events lie at the foundation of the evangelical narratives,

rendered improbable by another circumstance.

On the first glance, indeed, the supposition of two entrances seems to

find support in the fact, that John makes his entrance take place the

day after the meal in Bethany, at which Jesus was anointed under

memorable circumstances; whereas the two first synoptists (for Luke

knows nothing of a meal at Bethany in this period of the life of Jesus)

make their entrance precede this meal: and thus, quite in accordance

with the above supposition, the synoptical entrance would appear the

earlier, that of John the later. This would be very well, if John had

not placed his entrance so early, and the synoptists their meal at

Bethany so late, that the former cannot possibly have been subsequent

to the latter. According to John, Jesus comes six days before the

passover to Bethany, and on the following day enters Jerusalem (xiii.

1, 12); on the other hand, the meal at Bethany, mentioned by the

synoptists (Matt. xxvi. 6 ff. parall.), can have been at the most but

two days before the passover (v. 2); so that if we are to suppose the

synoptical entrance prior to the meal and the entrance in John, there

must then have been after all this, according to the synoptists, a

second meal in Bethany. But between the two meals thus presupposed, as

between the two entrances, there would have been the most striking

resemblance even to the minutest points; and against the interweaving

of two such double incidents, there is so strong a presumption, that it

will scarcely be said there were two entrances and two meals, which

were originally far more dissimilar, but, from the transference of

features out of the one incident into the other by tradition, they have

become as similar to each other as we now see them: on the contrary,

here if anywhere, it is easier, when once the authenticity of the

accounts is given up, to imagine that tradition has varied one

incident, than that it has assimilated two. [1581]

§ 110.

MORE PARTICULAR CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE ENTRANCE. ITS OBJECT AND

HISTORICAL REALITY.

While the fourth gospel first makes the multitude that streamed forth

to meet Jesus render him their homage, and then briefly states that

Jesus mounted a young ass which he had obtained; the synoptists

commence their description of the entrance with a minute account of the

manner in which Jesus came by the ass. When, namely, he had arrived in

the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, towards Bethphage and Bethany, at the

Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples into the village lying

before them, telling them that when they came there they would

find—Matthew says, an ass tied, and a colt with her; the two others, a

colt whereon never man sat—which they were to loose and bring to him,

silencing any objections of the owner by the observation, the Lord hath

need of him (or them). This having been done, the disciples spread

their clothes, and placed Jesus—on both the animals, according to

Matthew; according to the two other synoptists, on the single animal.

The most striking part of this account is obviously the statement of

Matthew, that Jesus not only required two asses, though he alone

intended to ride, but that he also actually sat on them both. It is

true that, as is natural, there are not wanting attempts to explain the

former particular, and to do away with the latter. Jesus, it is said,

caused the mother animal to be brought with the colt, on which alone he

intended to ride, in order that the young and still sucking animal

might by this means be made to go more easily; [1582] or else the

mother, accustomed to her young one, followed of her own accord: [1583]

but a young animal, yet unweaned, would scarcely be given up by its

owner to be ridden. A sufficient motive on the part of Jesus in sending

for the two animals, could only be that he intended to ride both, which

Matthew appears plainly enough to say; for his words imply, not only

that the clothes were spread, but also that Jesus was placed on the two

animals (ἐπάνω αὐτων). But how are we to represent this to ourselves?

As an alternate mounting of the one and the other, Fritzsche thinks:

[1584] but this, for so short a distance would have been a superfluous

inconvenience. Hence commentators have sought to rid themselves of the

singular statement. Some, after very weak authorities, and in

opposition to all critical principles, read in the words relative to

the spreading of the clothes, ἐπ’ αὐτὸν (τὸν πωλον), upon it (the

colt), instead of ἐπάνω αὐτων, upon them; and then in the mentioning

that Jesus placed himself thereon, refer the ἐπάνω αυτων to the clothes

which were spread on one of the animals. [1585] Others, thinking to

escape the difficulty without an alteration of the reading,

characterize Matthew’s statement as an enallage numeri, [1586] by

which, according to Winer’s explanation, it is meant that the

Evangelist, using an inaccurate mode of expression, certainly speaks of

both the animals, but only in the sense in which we say of him who

springs from one of two horses harnessed together, that he springs from

the horses. [1587] Admitting this expedient to be sufficient, it again

becomes incomprehensible why Jesus, who according to this only meant to

use one animal, should have sent for two. The whole statement becomes

the more suspicious, when we consider that it is given by the first

Evangelist alone; for in order to reconcile the others with him it will

not suffice to say, as we ordinarily read, that they name only the foal

as being that on which Jesus rode, and that while omitting the ass as

an accessory fact, they do not exclude it.

But how was Matthew led into this singular statement? Its true source

has been pointed out, though in a curious manner, by those who

conjecture, that Jesus in his instructions to the two disciples, and

Matthew in his original writing, following the passage of Zechariah

(ix. 9), made use of several expressions for the one idea of the ass,

which expressions were by the Greek translator of the first gospel

misconstrued to mean more than one animal. [1588] Undoubtedly it was

the accumulated designations of the ass in the above passage: ‏הֲמוֹר

וְעַיִר בֶּן־אֲתֹנות‎, ὑποζύγιον καὶ πωλον νέον, LXX. which occasioned the

duplication of it in the first gospel; for the and which in the Hebrew

was intended in an explanatory sense, was erroneously understood to

denote an addition, and hence instead of: an ass, that is, an ass’s

foal, was substituted: an ass together with an ass’s foal. [1589] But

this mistake cannot have originated with the Greek translator, who, if

he had found throughout Matthew’s narrative but one ass, would scarcely

have doubled it purely on the strength of the prophetic passage, and as

often as his original spoke of one ass, have added a second, or

introduced the plural number instead of the singular; it must rather

have been made by one whose only written source was the prophetic

passage, out of which, with the aid of oral tradition, he spun his

entire narrative, i.e. the author of the first gospel; who hereby, as

recent criticism correctly maintains, irrecoverably forfeits the

reputation of an eye-witness? [1590]

If the first gospel stands alone in this mistake, so, on the other

hand, the two intermediate Evangelists have a feature peculiar to

themselves, which it is to the advantage of the first to have avoided.

We shall merely point out in passing the prolixity with which Mark and

Luke (though they, as well as Matthew, make Jesus describe to the two

disciples, how they would find the ass, and wherewith they were to

satisfy the owner), yet do not spare themselves or the reader the

trouble of almost verbally repeating every particular as having

occurred (Mark v. 4 ff.; Luke v. 32 ff.); whereas Matthew, with more

judgment, contents himself with the observation, and the disciples went

and did as Jesus commanded them. This, as affecting merely the form of

the narrative, we shall not dwell on further. But it concerns the

substance, that, according to Mark and Luke, Jesus desired an animal

whereon yet never man sat, ἐφ’ ὃ οὐδεὶς πώποτε ἀνθρώπων ἐκάθισε: a

particular of which Matthew knows nothing. One does not understand how

Jesus could designedly increase the difficulty of his progress, by the

choice of a hitherto unridden animal, which, unless he kept it in order

by divine omnipotence (for the most consummate human skill would not

suffice for this on the first riding), must inevitably have occasioned

much disturbance to the triumphal procession, especially as we are not

to suppose that it was preceded by its mother, this circumstance having

entered into the representation of the first Evangelist only. To such

an inconvenience Jesus would assuredly not have exposed himself without

a cogent reason: such a reason however appears to lie sufficiently near

in the opinion of antiquity, according to which, to use Wetstein’s

expression, animalia, usibus humanis nondum mancipata, sacra

habebantur; so that thus Jesus, for his consecrated person, and the

high occasion of his messianic entrance, may have chosen to use only a

sacred animal. But regarded more closely, this reason will appear

frivolous, and absurd also; for the spectators had no means of knowing

that the ass had never been ridden before, except by the unruliness

with which he may have disturbed the peaceful progress of the triumphal

train. [1591] If we are thus unable to comprehend how Jesus could seek

an honour for himself in mounting an animal which had never yet been

ridden; we shall, on the contrary, find it easy to comprehend how the

primitive Christian community might early believe it due to his honour

that he should ride only on such an animal, as subsequently that he

should lie only in an unused grave. The authors of the intermediate

gospels did not hesitate to receive this trait into their memoirs,

because they indeed, in writing, would not experience the same

inconvenience from the undisciplined animal, which it must have caused

to Jesus in riding.

The two difficulties already considered belong respectively to the

first Evangelist, and the two intermediate ones: another is common to

them all, namely, that which lies in the circumstance that Jesus so

confidently sends two disciples for an ass which they would find in the

next village, in such and such a situation, and that the issue

corresponds so closely to his prediction. It might here appear the most

natural, to suppose that he had previously bespoken the ass, and that

consequently it stood ready for him at the hour and place appointed;

[1592] but how could he have thus bespoken an ass in Bethphage, seeing

that he was just come from Jericho? Hence even Paulus in this instance

finds something else more probable: namely, that about the time of the

feasts, in the villages lying on the high road to Jerusalem, many

beasts of burden stood ready to be hired by travellers; but in

opposition to this it is to be observed, that Jesus does not at all

seem to speak of the first animal that may happen to present itself,

but of a particular animal. Hence we cannot but be surprised that

Olshausen describes it as only the probable idea of the narrator, that

to the Messiah making his entrance into Jerusalem, the providence of

God presented everything just as he needed it; as also that the same

expositor, in order to explain the ready compliance of the owners of

the animal, finds it necessary to suppose that they were friends of

Jesus; since this trait rather serves to exhibit the as it were magical

power which resided in the name of the Lord, at the mention of which

the owner of the ass unresistingly placed it at his disposal, as

subsequently the inhabitant of the room gave it up at a word from the

Master (Matt. xxvi. 18 parall.). To this divine providence in favour of

the Messiah, and the irresistible power of his name, is united the

superior knowledge by means of which Jesus here clearly discerns a

distant fact which might be available for the supply of his wants.

Now admitting this to be the meaning and design of the Evangelists,

such a prediction of an accidental circumstance might certainly be

conceived as the effect of a magnetic clairvoyance. [1593] But, on the

one hand, we know full well the tendency of the primitive Christian

legend to create such proofs of the superior nature of her Messiah

(witness the calling of the two pairs of brethren; but the instance

most analogous has been just alluded to, and is hereafter to be more

closely examined, namely, the manner in which Jesus causes the room to

be bespoken for his last supper with the twelve); on the other hand,

the dogmatic reasons drawn from prophecy, for displaying the far-seeing

of Jesus here as precisely the knowledge of an ass being tied at a

certain place, are clearly obvious; so that we cannot abstain from the

conjecture, that we have here nothing more than a product of the

tendency which characterized the Christian legend, and of the effort to

base Christian belief on ancient prophecy. In considering, namely, the

passage quoted in the first and fourth gospels from Zechariah, where it

is merely said that the meek and lowly king will come riding on an ass,

in general; it is usual to overlook another prophetic passage, which

contains more precisely the tied ass of the Messiah. This passage is

Gen. xlix. 11, where the dying Jacob says to Judah concerning the

Shiloh, ‏שׁילח‎, Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass’s colt unto

the choice vine, δεσμεύων πρὸς ἄμπελον τὸν πῶλον αὐτοῦ καὶ τῇ ἕλικι τὸν

πῶλον τῆς ὄνου αὐτοῦ. Justin Martyr understands this passage also, as

well as the one from Zechariah, as a prediction relative to the

entrance of Jesus, and hence directly asserts that the foal which Jesus

caused to be fetched was bound to a vine. [1594] In like manner the

Jews not only held the general interpretation that the Shiloh was the

Messiah, as may be shown already in the Targum, [1595] but also

combined the passage relative to the binding of the ass with that on

the riding of it into Jerusalem. [1596] That the above prophecy of

Jacob is not cited by any one of our Evangelists, only proves, at the

utmost, that it was not verbally present to their minds when they were

writing the narrative before us: it can by no means prove that the

passage was not an element in the conceptions of the circle in which

the anecdote was first formed. The transmission of the narrative

through the hands of many who were not aware of its original relation

to the passage in Genesis, may certainly be argued from the fact that

it no longer perfectly corresponds to the prophecy. For a perfect

agreement to exist, Jesus, after he had, according to Zechariah, ridden

into the city on the ass, must on dismounting, have bound it to a vine,

instead of causing it to be unbound in the next village (according to

Mark, from a door by the way-side) as he actually does. By this means,

however, there was obtained, together with the fulfilment of those two

prophecies, a proof of the supernatural knowledge of Jesus, and the

magical power of his name; and in relation to the former point, it

might be remembered in particular, that Samuel also had once proved his

gifts as a seer by the prediction, that as Saul was returning homeward,

two men would meet him with the information that the asses of Kis his

father were found (1 Sam. x. 2). The narrative in the fourth gospel,

having no connection with the Mosaic passage, says nothing of the ass

being tied, or of its being fetched by the disciples, and merely states

with reference to the passage of Zechariah alone: Jesus, having found a

young ass, sat thereon (v. 14). [1597]

The next feature that presents itself for our consideration, is the

homage which is rendered to Jesus by the populace. According to all the

narrators except Luke, this consisted in cutting down the branches of

trees, which, according to the synoptists, were strewed in the way,

according to John (who with more particularity mentions palm branches),

were carried by the multitude that met Jesus; further, according to all

except John, in the spreading of clothes in the way. To this were added

joyous acclamations, of which all have, with unimportant modifications,

the words εὐλογημένος ὁ ἐρχόμενος ἐν ὀνόματι Κυρίου, Blessed be he that

cometh in the name of the Lord; all except Luke the ὡσαννὰ, Hosanna;

and all, the greeting as King, or Son of David. The first, from Ps.

cxviii. 26, ‏בָּרוּךְ הַבָּא בְּשֵׁם יְהוָֹה‎, was, it is true, a customary form of

salutation to persons visiting the feasts, and even the second, ‏חושִׁיעָה

נָּא‎, taken from the preceding verse of the same psalm, was a usual cry

at the feast of tabernacles and the passover; [1598] but the addition

τῷ υἱῷ Δαυὶδ, to the Son of David, and ὁ βασιλεὺς τοῦ Ἰσραὴλ, the King

of Israel, shows that the people here applied these general forms to

Jesus especially as the Messiah, bid him welcome in a pre-eminent

sense, and wished success to his undertaking. In relation to the

parties who present the homage, Luke’s account is the most

circumscribed, for he so connects the spreading of the clothes in the

way (v. 36) with the immediately preceding context, that he appears to

ascribe it, as well as the laying of the clothes on the ass, solely to

the disciples, and he expressly attributes the acclamations to the

whole multitude of the disciples only (ἅπαν τὸ πλῆθος τῶν μαθητῶν);

whereas Matthew and Mark make the homage proceed from the accompanying

mass of people. This difference, however, can be easily reconciled; for

when Luke speaks of the multitude of the disciples, πλῆθος τῶν μαθητῶν,

this means the wider circle of the adherents of Jesus, and, on the

other hand, the very great multitude πλεῖστος ὄχλος in Matthew, only

means all those who were favourable to him among the multitude. But

while the synoptists remain within the limits of the company who were

proceeding to the feast, and who were thus the fellow-travellers of

Jesus, John, as above noticed, makes the whole solemnity proceed from

those who go out of Jerusalem to meet Jesus (v. 13), while he

represents the multitude who are approaching with Jesus as testifying

to the former the resurrection of Lazarus, on account of which,

according to John, the solemn escort of Jesus into Jerusalem was

prepared (v. 17 f.). This cause we cannot admit as authentic, inasmuch

as we have found critical reasons for doubting the resurrection of

Lazarus: but with the alleged cause, the fact itself of the escort is

shaken; especially if we reflect, that the dignity of Jesus might

appear to demand that the inhabitants of the city of David should have

gone forth to bring him in with all solemnity, and that it fully

harmonizes with the prevailing characteristics of the representation of

the fourth gospel, to describe, before the arrival of Jesus at the

feast, how intently the expectations of the people were fixed upon him

(vii. 11 ff., xi. 56).

The last trait in the picture before us, is the displeasure of the

enemies of Jesus at the strong attachment to him, exhibited by the

people on this occasion. According to John (v. 19), the Pharisees said

to each other: we see from this that the (lenient) proceedings which we

have hitherto adopted are of no avail; all the world is following him

(we must interpose, with forcible measures). According to Luke (v. 39

f.), some Pharisees addressed Jesus as if they expected him to impose

silence on his disciples; on which he answers, that if these were

silent, the stones would cry out. While in Luke and John this happens

during the progress, in Matthew it is only after Jesus has arrived with

the procession in the temple, and when the children, even here,

continue to cry, Hosanna to the Son of David, that the high priests and

scribes direct the attention of Jesus to the impropriety, as it appears

to them, whereupon he repulses them with a sentence out of Ps. viii. 3.

(Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise)

(v. 15 f.); a sentence which in the original obviously relates to

Jehovah, but which Jesus thus applies to himself. The lamentation of

Jesus over Jerusalem, connected by Luke with the entrance, will come

under our consideration further on.

John, and more particularly Matthew by his phrase τοῦτο δὲ ὅλον

γέγονεν, ἵνα πληρωθῇ κ.τ.λ., All this was done that it might be

fulfilled, etc. (v. 4), unequivocally express the idea that the design,

first of God, inasmuch as he ordained this scene, and next of the

Messiah, as the participant in the Divine counsels, was, by giving this

character to the entrance, to fulfil an ancient prophecy. If Jesus saw

in the passage of Zechariah (ix. 9), [1599] a prophecy concerning

himself as the Messiah, this cannot have been a knowledge resulting

from the higher principle within him; for, even if this prophetic

passage ought not to be referred to an historical prince, as Uzziah,

[1600] or John Hyrcanus, [1601] but to a messianic individual, [1602]

still the latter, though a pacific, must yet be understood as a

temporal prince, and moreover as in peaceful possession of

Jerusalem—thus as one altogether different from Jesus. But it appears

quite possible for Jesus to have come to such an interpretation in a

natural way, since at least the rabbins with decided unanimity

interpret the passage of Zechariah of the Messiah. [1603] Above all, we

know that the contradiction which appeared to exist between the

insignificant advent here predicted of the Messiah, and the brilliant

one which Daniel had foretold, was at a later period commonly

reconciled by the doctrine, that according as the Jewish people showed

themselves worthy or the contrary, their Messiah would appear in a

majestic or a lowly form. [1604] Now even if this distinction did not

exist in the time of Jesus, but only in general a reference of the

passage Zech. ix. 9 to the Messiah: still Jesus might imagine that now,

on his first appearance, the prophecy of Zechariah must be fulfilled in

him, but hereafter, on his second appearance, the prophecy of Daniel.

But there is a third possibility; namely, that either an accidental

riding into Jerusalem on an ass by Jesus was subsequently interpreted

by the Christians in this manner, or that, lest any messianic attribute

should be wanting to him, the whole narrative of the entrance was

freely composed after the two prophecies and the dogmatic

presupposition of a superhuman knowledge on the part of Jesus.

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?

According to the gospels, Jesus more than once, and while the result

was yet distant, [1605] predicted to his disciples that sufferings and

a violent death awaited him. Moreover, if we trust the synoptical

accounts, he did not predict his fate merely in general terms, but

specified beforehand the place of his passion, namely, Jerusalem; the

time, namely, the approaching passover; the persons from whom he would

have to suffer, namely, the chief priests, scribes and Gentiles; the

essential form of his passion, namely, crucifixion, in consequence of a

judicial sentence; and even its accessory circumstances, namely,

scourging, reviling, and spitting (Matt. xvi. 21, xvii. 12, 22 f., xx.

17 ff., xxvi. 12 with the parall., Luke xiii. 33). Between the

synoptists and the author of the fourth gospel, there exists a

threefold difference in relation to this subject. Firstly and chiefly,

in the latter the predictions of Jesus do not appear so clear and

intelligible, but are for the most part presented in obscure figurative

discourses, concerning which the narrator himself confesses that the

disciples understood them not until after the issue (ii. 22). In

addition to a decided declaration that he will voluntarily lay down his

life (x. 15 ff.), Jesus in this gospel is particularly fond of alluding

to his approaching death under the expressions ὑψοῦν, ὑψοῦσθαι, to lift

up, to be lifted up, in the application of which he seems to vacillate

between his exaltation on the cross, and his exaltation to glory (iii.

14, viii. 28, xii. 32); he compares his approaching exaltation with

that of the brazen serpent in the wilderness (iii. 14), as, in Matthew,

he compares his fate with that of Jonah (xii. 40); on another occasion,

he speaks of going away whither no man can follow him (vii. 33 ff.,

viii. 21 f.), as, in the synoptists, of a taking away of a bridegroom,

which will plunge his friends into mourning (Matt. ix. 15 parall.), and

of a cup, which he must drink, and which his disciples will find it

hard to partake of with him (Matt. xx. 22 parall.). The two other

differences are less marked, but are still observable. One of them is,

that while in John the allusions to the violent death of Jesus run in

an equal degree through the whole gospel; in the synoptists, the

repeated and definite announcements of his death are found only towards

the end, partly immediately before, partly during, the last journey; in

earlier chapters there occurs, with the exception of the obscure

discourse on the sign of Jonah (which we shall soon see to be no

prediction of death), only the intimation of a removal (doubtless

violent) of the bridegroom. The last difference is, that while

according to the three first Evangelists, Jesus imparts those

predictions (again with the single exception of the above intimation,

Matt. ix. 15) only to the confidential circle of his disciples; in

John, he utters them in the presence of the people, and even of his

enemies.

In the critical investigation of these evangelical accounts, we shall

proceed from the special to the general, in the following manner. First

we shall ask: Is it credible that Jesus had a foreknowledge of so many

particular features of the fate which awaited him? and next: Is even a

general foreknowledge and prediction of his sufferings, on the part of

Jesus, probable? in which inquiry, the difference between the

representation of John and that of the synoptists, will necessarily

come under our consideration.

There are two modes of explaining how Jesus could so precisely foreknow

the particular circumstances of his passion and death; the one resting

on a supernatural, the other on a natural basis. The former appears

adequate to solve the problem by the simple position, that before the

prophetic spirit, which dwelt in Jesus in the richest plenitude, his

destiny must have lain unfolded from the beginning. As, however, Jesus

himself, in his announcements of his sufferings, expressly appealed to

the Old Testament, the prophecies of which concerning him must be

fulfilled in all points (Luke xviii. 31, comp. xxii. 37, xxiv. 25 ff.;

Matt. xxvi. 54): so the orthodox view ought not to despise this help,

but must give to its explanation the modification, that Jesus

continually occupied with the prophecies of the Old Testament, may have

drawn those particularities out of them, by the aid of the spirit that

dwelt within him. [1606] According to this, while the knowledge of the

time of his passion remains consigned to his prophetic presentiment,

unless he be supposed to have calculated this out of Daniel, or some

similar source; Jesus must have come to regard Jerusalem as the scene

of his suffering and death, by contemplating the fate of earlier

prophets as a type of his own, the Spirit telling him, that where so

many prophets had suffered death, there, à fortiori, must the Messiah

also suffer (Luke xiii. 33); that his death would be the sequel of a

formal sentence, he must have gathered from Isa. liii. 8, where a

judgment ‏מִשְׁפִּט‎ is spoken of as impending over the servant of God, and

from v. 12, where it is said that he was numbered with the

transgressors, ἐν τοῖς ἀνόμοις ἐλογίσθη (comp. Luke xxii. 37); that his

sentence would proceed from the rulers of his own people, he might

perhaps have concluded from Ps. cxviii. 22, where the builders,

αἰκοδομοῦντες who reject the corner-stone, are, according to apostolic

interpretation (Acts iv. 11), the Jewish rulers; that he would be

delivered to the Gentiles, he might infer from the fact, that in

several plaintive psalms, which are susceptible of a messianic

interpretation, the persecuting parties are represented as ‏רְשָׁעִים‎,

i.e. heathens; that the precise manner of his death would be

crucifixion, he might have deduced, partly from the type of the brazen

serpent which was suspended on a pole, Num. xxi. 8 f. (comp. John iii.

14), partly from the piercing of the hands and feet, Ps. xxii. 17,

LXX.; lastly, that he would be the object of scorn and personal

maltreatment, he might have concluded from passages such as v. 7 ff. in

the Psalm above quoted, Isa. l. 6, etc. Now if the spirit which dwelt

in Jesus, and which, according to the orthodox opinion, revealed to him

the reference of these prophecies and types to his ultimate destiny,

was a spirit of truth: this reference to Jesus must admit of being

proved to be the true and original sense of those Old Testament

passages. But, to confine ourselves to the principal passages only, a

profound grammatical and historical exposition has convincingly shown,

for all who are in a condition to liberate themselves from dogmatic

presuppositions, that in none of these is there any allusion to the

sufferings of Christ. Instead of this, Isa. l. 6, speaks of the ill

usage which the prophets had to experience; [1607] Isa. liii. of the

calamities of the prophetic order, or more probably of the Israelitish

people; [1608] Ps. cxviii. of the unexpected deliverance and exaltation

of that people, or of one of their princes; [1609] while Ps. xxii. is

the complaint of an oppressed exile. [1610] As to the 17th verse of

this Psalm, which has been interpreted as having reference to the

crucifixion of Christ, even presupposing the most improbable

interpretation of ‏כארי‎ by perfoderunt, this must in no case be

understood literally, but only figuratively, and the image would be

derived, not from a crucifixion, but from a chase, or a combat with

wild beasts; [1611] hence the application of this passage to Christ is

now only maintained by those with whom it would be lost labour to

contend. According to the orthodox view, however, Jesus, in a

supernatural manner, by means of his higher nature, discovered in these

passages a pre-intimation of the particular features of his passion;

but, in that case, since such is not the true sense of these passages,

the spirit that dwelt in Jesus cannot have been the spirit of truth,

but a lying spirit. Thus the orthodox expositor, so far as he does not

exclude himself from the light dispensed by an unprejudiced

interpretation of the Old Testament, is driven, for the sake of his own

interest, to adopt the natural opinion; namely, that Jesus was led to

such an interpretation of Old Testament passages, not by divine

inspiration, but by a combination of his own.

According to this opinion, [1612] there was no difficulty in foreseeing

that it would be the ruling sacerdotal party to which Jesus must

succumb, since, on the one hand, it was pre-eminently embittered

against Jesus, on the other, it was in possession of the necessary

power; and equally obvious was it that they would make Jerusalem the

theatre of his judgment and execution, since this was the centre of

their strength; that after being sentenced by the rulers of his people,

he would be delivered to the Romans for execution, followed from the

limitation of the Jewish judicial power at that period; that

crucifixion was the death to which he would be sentenced, might be

conjectured from the fact that with the Romans this species of death

was a customary infliction, especially on rebels; lastly, that

scourging and reviling would not be wanting, might likewise be inferred

from Roman custom, and the barbarity of judicial proceedings in that

age.—But viewing the subject more nearly, how could Jesus so certainly

know that Herod, who had directed a threatening attention to his

movements (Luke xiii. 31), would not forestall the sacerdotal party,

and add to the murder of the Baptist, that of his more important

follower? And even if he felt himself warranted in believing that real

danger threatened him from the side of the hierarchy only (Luke xiii.

33); what was his guarantee that one of their tumultuary attempts to

murder him would not at last succeed (comp. John viii. 39, x. 31), and

that he would not, as Stephen did at a later period, without any

further formalities, and without a previous delivery to the Romans,

find his death in quite another manner than by the Roman punishment of

crucifixion? Lastly, how could he so confidently assert that the very

next plot of his enemies, after so many failures, would be successful,

and that the very next journey to the passover would be his last?—But

the natural explanation also can call to its aid the Old Testament

passages, and say: Jesus, whether by the application of a mode of

interpretation then current among his countrymen, or under the guidance

of his own individual views, gathered from the passages already quoted,

a precise idea of the circumstances attendant on the violent end which

awaited him as the Messiah. [1613] But if in the first place it would

be difficult to prove, that already in the lifetime of Jesus all these

various passages were referred to the Messiah; and if it be equally

difficult to conceive that Jesus could independently, prior to the

issue, discover such a reference; so it would be a case

undistinguishable from a miracle, if the result had actually

corresponded to so false an interpretation; moreover, the Old Testament

oracles and types will not suffice to explain all the particular

features in the predictions of Jesus, especially the precise

determination of time.

If then Jesus cannot have had so precise a foreknowledge of the

circumstances of his passion and death, either in a supernatural or a

natural way: he cannot have had such a foreknowledge at all: and the

minute predictions which the Evangelists put into his mouth must be

regarded as a vaticinium post eventum. [1614] Commentators who have

arrived at this conclusion, have not failed to extol the account of

John, in opposition to that of the synoptists, on the ground that

precisely those traits in the predictions of Jesus which, from their

special character, he cannot have uttered, are only found in the

synoptists, while John attributes to Jesus no more than indefinite

intimations, and distinguishes these from his own interpretation, made

after the issue; a plain proof that in his gospel alone we have the

discourses of Jesus unfalsified, and in their original form. [1615]

But, regarded more nearly, the case does not stand so that the fourth

Evangelist can only be taxed with putting an erroneous interpretation

on the otherwise unfalsified declarations of Jesus: for in one passage,

at least, he has put into his mouth an expression which, obscurely, it

is true, but still unmistakably, determines the manner of his death as

crucifixion; and consequently, he has here altered the words of Jesus

to correspond with the result. We refer to the expression ὑψωθῆναι, to

be lifted up: in those passages of the fourth gospel where Jesus speaks

in a passive sense of the Son of Man being lifted up, this expression

might possibly mean his exaltation to glory, although in iii. 14, from

the comparison with the serpent in the wilderness, which was well known

to have been elevated on a pole, even this becomes a difficulty; but

when, as in viii. 28, he represents the exaltation of the Son of Man as

the act of his enemies (ὅταν ὑψώσητε τὸν υἱὸν τ. ἀ.), it is obvious

that these could not lift him up immediately to glory, but only to the

cross; consequently, if the result above stated be admitted as valid,

John must himself have framed this expression, or at least have

distorted the Aramæan words of Jesus, and hence he essentially falls

under the same category with the synoptical writers. That the fourth

Evangelist, though the passion and death of Jesus were to him past

events, and therefore clearly present to his mind, nevertheless makes

Jesus predict them in obscure expressions,—this has its foundation in

the entire manner of this writer, whose fondness for the enigmatical

and mysterious here happily met the requirement, to give an

unintelligible form to prophecies which were not understood.

There were sufficient inducements for the Christian legend thus to put

into the mouth of Jesus, after the event, a prediction of the

particular features of his passion, especially of the ignominious

crucifixion. The more the Christ crucified became to the Jews a

stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness (1 Cor. i. 23), the more

need was there to remove this offence by every possible means; and as,

among subsequent events, the resurrection especially served as a

retrospective cancelling of that shameful death; so it must have been

earnestly desired to take the sting from that offensive catastrophe

beforehand also, and this could not be done more effectually than by

such a minute prediction. For as the most unimportant fact, when

prophetically announced, gains importance, by thus being made a link in

the chain of a higher knowledge: so the most ignominious fate, when it

is predicted as part of a divine plan of salvation, ceases to be

ignominious; above all, when the very person over whom such a fate

impends, also possesses the prophetic spirit, which enables him to

foresee and foretell it, and thus not only suffers, but participates in

the divine prescience of his sufferings, he manifests himself as the

ideal power over those suffering. But the fourth Evangelist has gone

still farther on this track; he believes it due to the honour of Jesus

to represent him as also the real power over his sufferings, as not

having his life taken away by the violence of others, but as resigning

it voluntarily (x. 17 f.): a representation which indeed already finds

some countenance in Matt. xxvi. 53, where Jesus asserts the possibility

of praying to the Father for legions of angels, in order to avert his

sufferings.

§ 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.

If in this manner we subtract from the declarations of Jesus concerning

his approaching fate, attributed to him in the gospels, all which

regards the particular circumstances of this catastrophe; there still

remains on the part of Jesus the general announcement, that suffering

and death awaited him, and also that this part of his career was a

fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecies relative to the Messiah. As,

however, the principal passages cited from the Old Testament, which

treat of suffering and death, are only by mistake referred to the

Messiah, while others, as Dan. ix. 26; Zech. xii. 10, have not this

signification: [1616] the orthodox, above all, must again beware of

attributing so false an interpretation of these prophecies, to the

supernatural principle in Jesus. That instead of this, Jesus might

possibly, by a purely natural combination, have educed the general

result, that since he had made the hierarchy of his nation his

implacable enemies, he had, in so far as he was resolved not to swerve

from the path of his destination, the worst to fear from their revenge

and authority (John x. 11 ff.); that from the fate of former prophets

(Matt. v. 12, xxi. 33 ff.; Luke xiii. 33 f.), and isolated passages

bearing such an interpretation, he might prognosticate a similar end to

his own career, and accordingly predict to his followers that earlier

or later a violent death awaited him—this it would be a needless

overstraining of the supranaturalistic view any longer to deny, and the

rational mode of considering the subject should be admitted. [1617]

It may appear surprising if, after this admission, we still put the

question, whether, according to the New Testament representation, it be

probable that Jesus actually uttered such a prediction? since,

certainly, a general announcement of his violent death is the least

which the evangelical accounts appear to contain, but our meaning in

the question is this: is the sequel, especially the conduct of the

disciples, so described in the gospels, as to be reconcilable with a

prior disclosure of Jesus relative to the sufferings which awaited him?

Now the express statements of the Evangelists do not merely tend to

show that the disciples did not understand the discourses of Jesus on

his coming death, in the sense that they did not know how to adjust

these facts in their own minds, or to make them tally with their

preconceived ideas concerning the Messiah,—a difficulty which drew from

Peter the first time that Jesus announced his death, the exclamation:

Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee;—for we find the

words of Mark (ix. 32), But they understood not that saying, οἱ δὲ

ἠγνόουν τὸ ρῆμα, thus amplified in Luke: and it was hid from them, that

they perceived it not, καί ἠν παρακεκαλυμμένον ἀπ’ αὐτῶν ἵνα μὴ

αἴσθωνται αὐτό (ix. 45); and the latter Evangelist on another occasion

says: and they understood none of these things, and this saying was hid

from them, neither knew they the things that were spoken, καὶ αὐτοὶ

οὐδὲν τούτων συνῆκαν, καὶ ἠν τὸ ῥῆμα τοῦτο κεκρυμμένον ἀπ’ αὐτων, καὶ

οὐκ ἐγίνωσκον τὰ λεγόμενα (xviii. 34): expressions which appear to

imply that the disciples absolutely did not understand what the words

of Jesus meant. In accordance with this, the condemnation and execution

of Jesus fall upon them as a blow for which they are entirely

unprepared, and consequently annihilate all the hopes which they had

fixed on him as the Messiah (Luke xxiv. 20 f., The chief priests and

our rulers have crucified him. But we trusted that it had been he which

should have redeemed Israel). But had Jesus spoken of his death to the

disciples with such perfect openness (παῤῥησίᾳ, Mark viii. 32), they

must necessarily have understood his clear words and detailed

discourses, and had he besides shown them that his death was

foreshadowed in the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament, and was

consequently a part of the Messiah’s destination (Luke xviii. 31, xxii.

37), they could not, when his death actually ensued, have so entirely

lost all belief in his messiahship. It is true that the Wolfenbüttel

Fragmentist is wrong in his attempt to show in the conduct of Jesus, as

described by the Evangelists, indications that his death was unexpected

even to himself; but, looking merely at the conduct of the disciples,

it is difficult to avoid the conclusion which that writer draws,

namely, that to judge by that conduct, Jesus cannot have made any

antecedent disclosure to his disciples concerning his death; on the

contrary, they appear to the very last moment to have held the common

opinion on this matter, and only to have adopted the characteristics of

suffering and death into their conception of the Messiah, after the

death of Jesus had unexpectedly come upon them. [1618] At all events we

have before us the following dilemma: either the statements of the

Evangelists as to the inability of the disciples to understand the

predictions of Jesus, and their surprise at his death, are

unhistorically exaggerated; or the decided declarations of Jesus

concerning the death which awaited him, were composed ex eventu, nay,

it becomes doubtful whether he even in general predicted his death as a

part of his messianic destiny. On both sides, the legend might be led

into unhistorical representations. For the fabrication of a prediction

of his death in general, there were the same reasons which we have

above shown to be an adequate motive for attributing to him a

prognostication of the particular features of his passion: to the

fiction of so total a want of comprehension in the disciples, an

inducement might be found, on the one hand, in the desire to exhibit

the profoundness of the mystery of a suffering Messiah revealed by

Jesus, through the inability of the disciples to understand it; on the

other, in the fact that in the evangelical tradition the disciples were

likened to unconverted Jews and heathens, to whom anything was more

intelligible than the death of the Messiah.

In order to decide between these alternatives, we must first examine

whether, prior to the death of Jesus, and independently of that event,

the messianic ideas of the age included the characteristics of

suffering and death. If already in the lifetime of Jesus it was the

Jewish opinion that the Messiah must die a violent death, then it is

highly probable that Jesus imbibed this idea as a part of his

convictions, and communicated it to his disciples; who, in that case,

could so much the less have remained uninstructed on this point, and

overwhelmed by the actual result, in the degree alleged by the

Evangelists. If, on the contrary, that idea was not diffused among his

countrymen before the death of Jesus, it still remains possible that

Jesus might arrive at that idea by his private reflection; but it is a

prior possibility that the disciples were the first to adopt the

characteristics of suffering and death into their conception of the

Messiah, after they had been taught by the issue.

The question whether the idea of a suffering and dying Messiah was

already diffused among the Jews in the time of Jesus, is one of the

most difficult points of discussion among theologians, and one

concerning which they are the least agreed. And the difficulty of the

question does not lie in the interests of party, so that it might be

hoped that with the rise of impartial investigation, the subject would

cease to be perplexed; for, as Stäudlin has aptly shown, [1619] both

the orthodox and the rationalistic interest may alternately tend in

each direction, and we in fact find theologians of both parties on both

sides. [1620] The difficulty lies in the deficiency of information, and

in the uncertainty of that which we do possess. If the Old Testament

contained the doctrine of a suffering and dying Messiah, it might

certainly thence be inferred with more than mere probability, that this

doctrine existed among the Jews in the time of Jesus: as, however,

according to the most recent researches, the Old Testament, while it

does indeed contain the doctrine of an expiation of the sins of the

people to take place at the messianic era (Ezek. xxxvi. 25, xxxvii. 23;

Zech. xiii. 1; Dan. ix. 24), has no trace of this expiation being

effected by the suffering and death of the Messiah [1621]: there is no

decision of the question before us to be expected from this quarter.

The apocryphal books of the Old Testament lie nearer to the time of

Jesus; but as these are altogether silent concerning the Messiah in

general, [1622] there can be no discussion as to their containing that

special feature. Again, if we turn to Philo and Josephus, the two

authors who wrote soonest after the period in question, we find the

latter silent as to the messianic hopes of his nation; [1623] and

though the former does indeed speak of messianic times, and a

messiah-like hero, he says nothing of sufferings on his part. [1624]

Thus there remain, as sources of information on this point, only the

New Testament and the later Jewish writings.

In the New Testament, almost everything is calculated to give the

impression, that a suffering and dying Messiah was unthought-of among

the Jews who were contemporary with Jesus. To the majority of the Jews,

we are told, the doctrine of a crucified Messiah was a σκανδαλὸν, and

the disciples were at a loss to understand Jesus in his repeated and

explicit announcements of his death. This does not look as if the

doctrine of a suffering Messiah had been current among the Jews of that

period; on the contrary, these circumstances accord fully with the

declaration which the fourth Evangelist puts into the mouth of the

Jewish multitude, ὄχλος (xii. 34), namely, that they had heard in the

law (νόμος) that Christ abideth for ever, ὅτι ὁ Χριστὸς μένει εἰς τὸν

αἰῶνα. [1625] Indeed, for a general acceptation of the idea of a

suffering Messiah among the Jews of that period, even those theologians

who take the affirmative side in this argument do not contend; but,

admitting that the hope of a worldly Messiah whose reign was to endure

for ever, was the prevalent one, they only maintain (and herein the

Wolfenbüttel Fragmentist agrees with them) [1626], that a less numerous

party,—according to Stäudlin, the Essenes; according to Hengstenberg,

the better and more enlightened part of the people in general—held the

belief that the Messiah would appear in a humble guise, and only enter

into glory through suffering and death. In support of this they appeal

especially to two passages; one out of the third, and one out of the

fourth gospel. When Jesus is presented as an infant in the temple at

Jerusalem, the aged Simeon, among other prophecies, particularly

concerning the opposition which her son would have to encounter, says

to Mary: Yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also (Luke

ii. 35); words which seem to describe her maternal sorrow at the death

of her son, and consequently to represent the opinion, that a violent

death awaited the Messiah, as one already current before Christ. Still

more plainly is the idea of a suffering Messiah contained in the words

which the fourth gospel makes the Baptist utter on seeing Jesus: Behold

the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world (i. 29)! This,

viewed in its relation to Isa. liii., would in the mouth of the Baptist

likewise tend to prove, that the idea of expiatory suffering on the

part of the Messiah was in existence before the time of Jesus. But both

these passages have been above shown to be unhistorical, and from the

fact that the primitive Christian legend was led, a considerable time

after the issue, to attribute to persons whom it held divinely

inspired, a foreknowledge of the divine decree with respect to the

death of Jesus, it can by no means be concluded, that this insight

really existed prior to the death of Jesus. In conclusion, it is urged,

that at least the Evangelists and apostles refer to the idea of a

suffering and dying Messiah in the Old Testament; whence it is thought

warrantable to conclude, that this interpretation of the Old Testament

passages connected with our present subject, was not unprecedented

among the Jews. Certainly Peter (Acts iii. 18 f.; 1 Pet. i. 11 f.) and

Paul (Acts xxvi. 22 f.; 1 Cor. xv. 3) appeal to Moses and the prophets

as annunciators of the death of Jesus, and Philip, in his interview

with the Ethiopian eunuch, interprets a passage in Isa. liii. of the

sufferings of the Messiah: but as those teachers of the church spoke

and wrote all this after the event, we have no assurance that they did

not assign to certain Old Testament passages a relation to the

sufferings of the Messiah, solely in consequence of that event, and not

by adopting a mode of interpretation previously current among their

Jewish cotemporaries. [1627]

If, according to this, the opinion that the idea in question already

existed among the countrymen of Jesus during his lifetime, has no solid

foundation in the New Testament; we must proceed to inquire whether

that idea may not be found in the later Jewish writings. Among the

earliest writings of this class now extant, are the Chaldee paraphrases

of Onkelos and Jonathan; and the Targum of the latter, who, according

to rabbinical tradition, was a pupil of Hillel the elder, [1628] is

commonly cited as presenting the idea of a suffering Messiah, because

it refers the passage, Isa. lii. 13-liii. 12, to the Messiah. But with

respect to the interpretation of this passage in the Targum of

Jonathan, it is the singular fact, that while the prophecies which it

contains are in general interpreted messianically, yet so often as

suffering and death are spoken of, either these ideas are avoided with

marked design, and for the most part by some extremely forced

expedient, or are transferred to a different subject, namely, the

people of Israel: a significant proof that to the author, suffering and

violent death appeared irreconcilable with the idea of the Messiah.

[1629] But this, we are told, is the commencement of that aberration

from the true sense of the sacred text, into which the later Jews were

seduced by their carnal disposition, and their hostility to

Christianity: the more ancient interpreters, it is said, discovered in

this passage of Isaiah a suffering and dying Messiah. It is true that

Abenezra, Abarbanel and others, testify that many ancient teachers

referred Isa. liii. to the Messiah: [1630] but some of their statements

leave it by no means clear that those more ancient interpretations are

not as partial as that of Jonathan; and in relation to all of them it

remains uncertain, whether the interpreters of whom they speak reach as

far back as the age of Jonathan, which is highly improbable with

respect to those parts of the book Sohar, wherein the passage in

question is referred to a suffering Messiah. [1631] The writing which,

together with that of Jonathan, may be regarded as the nearest to the

time of Jesus, namely, the apocryphal fourth book of Esdras, drawn up,

according to the most probable computation, shortly after the

destruction of Jerusalem under Titus, [1632] does indeed mention the

death of the Messiah: not however as a painful one, but only as a death

which, after the long duration of the messianic kingdom, was to precede

the general resurrection. [1633] The idea of great calamities, the

birth-throes, as it were, of the Messiah (‏חבלי המשח‎, comp. ἀρχὴ

ὠδίνων, Matt. xxiv. 8), which would usher in the messianic times, was

undoubtedly disseminated before Christ; [1634] and equally early there

appears to have been placed in the front of these ills, which were to

press upon the people of Israel in particular, the Antichrist,

ἀντίχριστος, whom the Christ, Χριστὸς would have to oppose (2 Thess.

ii. 3 ff.): [1635] but since he was to annihilate this adversary in a

supernatural manner, with the spirit of his mouth, τῷ πνεύματι τοῦ

στόματος αὑτοῦ, this involved no suffering for the Messiah.

Nevertheless, there are to be found passages in which a suffering of

the Messiah is spoken of, and in which this suffering is even

represented as vicarious, on behalf of the people: [1636] but first,

this is only a suffering, and no death of the Messiah; secondly, it

befals him either before his descent into earthly life, in his

pre-existence, [1637] or during the concealment in which he keeps

himself from his birth until his appearance as Messiah: [1638] lastly,

the antiquity of these ideas is doubtful, and according to certain

indications, they could only be dated after the destruction of the

Jewish state by Titus. [1639] Meanwhile, Jewish writings are by no

means destitute of passages, in which it is directly asserted that a

Messiah would perish in a violent manner: but these passages relate,

not to the proper Messiah, the offspring of David, but to another, from

among the posterity of Joseph and Ephraim, who was appointed to hold a

subordinate position in relation to the former. This Messiah ben Joseph

was to precede the Messiah ben David, to unite the ten tribes of the

former kingdom of Israel with the two tribes of the kingdom of Judah,

but after this to perish by the sword in the battle with Gog and Magog:

a catastrophe to which Zech. xii. 10 was referred. [1640] But of this

second, dying Messiah, any certain traces are wanting before the

Babylonian Gemara, which was compiled in the fifth and sixth centuries

after Christ, and the book Sohar, the age of which is extremely

doubtful. [1641]

Although, according to this, it cannot be proved, and is even not

probable, that the idea of a suffering Messiah already existed among

the Jews in the time of Jesus: it is still possible that, even without

such a precedent, Jesus himself, by an observation of circumstances,

and a comparison of them with Old Testament narratives and prophecies,

might come to entertain the belief that suffering and death were a part

of the office and destination of the Messiah; and if so, it would be

more natural that he should embrace this conviction gradually in the

course of his public ministry, and that he should chiefly have confined

his communications on the subject to his intimate friends, than that he

should have had this conviction from the beginning, and have expressed

it before indifferent persons, nay enemies. The latter is the

representation of John; the former, of the synoptists.

In relation also to the declarations of Jesus concerning the object and

effects of his death, we can, as above in relation to the announcement

of the death itself, distinguish a more natural, from a more

supranatural point of view. When Jesus in the fourth gospel likens

himself to the true shepherd, who lays down his life for the sheep (x.

11, 15): this may have the perfectly natural sense, that he is

determined not to swerve from his office of shepherd and teacher, even

though, in the prosecution of it, death should threaten him (the moral

necessity of his death); [1642] the foreboding expression in the same

gospel (xii. 24), that except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and

die, it abideth alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit,

admits of an equally rational explanation, as a figurative

representation of the victorious power which martyrdom gives to an idea

and conviction (the moral efficacy of his death); [1643] lastly, that

which is so often repeated in the Gospel of John,—namely, that it is

good for the disciples that Jesus should go away, for without his

departure the comforter, παράκλητος will not come to them, who will

glorify him in them,—may be supposed to express the perfectly natural

consideration of Jesus, that without the removal of his sensible

presence, the hitherto so material ideas of his disciples would not be

spiritualized (the psychological efficacy of his death). [1644] The

words of Jesus at the institution of the sacramental supper, belong

more to the supranaturalistic mode of view. For if that which the

intermediate Evangelists make him say on this occasion—that the cup

presented is the blood of the new testament, τὸ αἷμα τῆς καινῆς

διαθήκης (Mark xiv. 24), and the new testament in his blood, ἡ καινὴ

διαθήκη ἐν τῷ αἵματι αὐτοῦ (Luke xxii. 20),—might appear to signify no

more than that, as by the bloody sacrifice at Sinai was sealed the

covenant of this ancient people with God, so by his (the Messiah’s)

blood would be sealed in a higher sense the community of the new

covenant, gathering round him: in the account of Matthew, on the

contrary, when he makes Jesus add, that his blood will be shed for many

for the remission of sins, εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν, the idea of the

covenant sacrifice is blended with that of expiatory sacrifice: and

also in the two other Evangelists by the addition: which is shed for

many, or for you, τὸ περὶ πολλῶν, ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν ἐκχυνόμενον, the transition

is made from the covenant sacrifice to the expiatory sacrifice.

Further, when in the first gospel (xx. 28) Jesus says, he must give his

life a ransom for many, δοῦναι τὴν ψυχὴν αὑτοῦ λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν, this

is doubtless to be referred to Isa. liii., where, according to a notion

current among the Hebrews (Isa. xliii. 3; Prov. xxi. 18), the death of

the servant of God is supposed to have a propitiatory relation to the

rest of mankind.

Thus Jesus might by psychological reflection come to the conviction

that such a catastrophe would be favourable to the spiritual

development of his disciples, and that it was indispensable for the

spiritualizing of their messianic ideas, nay, in accordance with

national conceptions, and by a consideration of Old Testament passages,

even to the idea that his messianic death would have an expiatory

efficacy. Still, what the synoptists make Jesus say of his death, as a

sin offering, might especially appear to belong rather to the system

which was developed after the death of Jesus; and what the fourth

Evangelist puts into his mouth concerning the Paraclete, to have been

conceived ex eventu: so that, again, in these expressions of Jesus

concerning the object of his death, there must be a separation of the

general from the special.

§ 113.

PRECISE DECLARATIONS OF JESUS CONCERNING HIS FUTURE RESURRECTION.

According to the evangelical accounts, Jesus predicted his resurrection

in words not less clear than those in which he announced his death, and

also fixed the time of its occurrence with singular precision. As often

as he said to his disciples, the Son of Man will be crucified, he

added: And the third day he shall rise again, καὶ τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ

ἀναστήσεται, or ἐγερθήσεται (Matt. xvi. 21, xvii. 23, xx. 19 parall.

comp. xvii. 9, xxvi. 32 parall.).

But of this announcement also it is said, that the disciples understood

it not; so little, that they even debated among themselves what the

rising from the dead should mean, τί ἐστι τὸ ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀναστῆναι (Mark

ix. 10); and in consistency with this want of comprehension, they,

after the death of Jesus, exhibit no trace of a recollection that his

resurrection had been foretold to them, no spark of hope that this

prediction would be fulfilled. When the friends of Jesus had taken down

his body from the cross, and laid it in the grave, they undertook (John

xix. 40)—or the women reserved to themselves (Mark xvi. 1; Luke xxiii.

56)—the task of embalming him, which is only performed in the case of

those who are regarded as the prey of corruption; when, on the morning

which, according to the mode of reckoning in the New Testament, opened

the day which had been predetermined as that of the resurrection, the

women went to the grave, they were so far from thinking of a predicted

resurrection, that they were anxious about the probable difficulty of

rolling away the stone from the grave (Mark xvi. 3); when Mary

Magdalene, and afterwards Peter, found the grave empty, their first

thought, had the resurrection been predicted, must have been, that it

had now actually taken place: instead of this, the former conjectures

that the body may have been stolen (John xx. 2), while Peter merely

wonders, without coming to any definite conjecture (Luke xxiv. 12);

when the women told the disciples of the angelic apparition which they

had witnessed, and discharged the commission given them by the angel,

the disciples partly regarded their words as idle tales, λῆρος (Luke

xxiv. 11), and were partly moved to fear and astonishment (ἐξέστησαν

ἡμᾶς, Luke xxiv. 22 ff.); when Mary Magdalene, and subsequently the

disciples going to Emmaus, assured the eleven, that they had themselves

seen the risen one, they met with no credence (Mark xvi. 11, 13), and

Thomas still later did not believe even the assurance of his

fellow-apostles (John xx. 25); lastly, when Jesus himself appeared to

the disciples in Galilee, all of them did not even then cast off doubt

(οἱ δὲ ἐδίστασαν, Mark xxviii. 17). All this we must, with the

Wolfenbüttel Fragmentist, [1645] find incomprehensible, if Jesus had so

clearly and decidedly predicted his resurrection.

It is true, that as the conduct of the disciples, after the death of

Jesus, speaks against such a prediction on the part of Jesus, so the

conduct of his enemies appears to speak for it. For when, according to

Matt. xxvii. 62 ff., the chief priests and Pharisees entreat Pilate to

set a watch at the grave of Jesus, they allege as a reason for their

request, that Jesus while yet alive had said: After three days I will

rise again, μετὰ τρεῖς ἡμέρας ἐγείπομαι. But this narrative of the

first gospel, which we can only estimate at a future point in our

investigation, at present decides nothing, but only falls to one side

of the dilemma, so that we must now say: if the disciples really so

acted after the death of Jesus, then neither can he have decidedly

foretold his resurrection, nor can the Jews in consideration of such a

prediction have placed a watch at his grave; or, if the two latter

statements be true, the disciples cannot have so acted.

It has been attempted to blunt the edge of this dilemma, by attributing

to the above predictions, not the literal sense, that the deceased

Jesus would return out of the grave, but only the figurative sense that

his doctrine and cause, after having been apparently crushed, would

again expand and flourish. [1646] As the Old Testament prophets, it was

said, represent the restoration of the Israelitish people to renewed

prosperity, under the image of a resurrection from the dead (Isa. xxvi.

19; Ezek. xxxvii.); as they mark the short interval within which, under

certain conditions, this turn of things was to be expected, by the

expression: in two or three days will Jehovah revive the smitten one,

and raise the dead (Hos. vi. 2), [1647] a statement of time which Jesus

also uses indefinitely for a short interval (Luke xiii. 32): so by the

declaration that he will rise on the third day after his death, τῇ

τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ ἀναστῆναι, he intends to say no more than that even though

he may succumb to the power of his enemies and be put to death, still

the work which he has begun will not come to an end, but will in a

short time go forward with a fresh impetus. These merely figurative

modes of speaking adopted by Jesus, the apostles, after Jesus had

actually risen in the body, understood literally, and regarded them as

prophecies of his personal resurrection. Now that in the prophetic

passages adduced, the expressions ‏קוּם חָיָה‎ and ‏הֵקִיץ‎ have only the

alleged figurative sense, is true; but these are passages the whole

tenor of which is figurative, and in which, in particular, the

depression and death which precede the revivification are themselves to

be understood only in a figurative sense. Here, on the contrary, all

the foregoing expressions: παραδίδοσθαι, κατακρίνεσθαι, σταυροῦσθαι,

ἀποκτείνεσθαι κ.τ.λ. (to be delivered, condemned, crucified, killed,

etc.) are to be understood literally; hence all at once, with the words

ἐγερθῆναι and ἀναστῆναι, to enter on a figurative meaning, would be an

unprecedented abruptness of transition; not to mention that passages

such as Matt. xxvi. 32, where Jesus says: After I am risen again I will

go before you into Galilee, μετὰ τὸ ἐγερθηναί με προάξω ὑμᾶς εἰς τὴν

Γαλιλαίαν, can have no meaning at all unless ἐγείρεσθαι be understood

literally. In this closely consecutive series of expressions, which

must be taken in a purely literal sense, there is then no warrant, and

even no inducement, to understand the statement of time which is

connected with them, otherwise than also literally, and in its strictly

etymological meaning. Thus if Jesus really used these words, and in the

same connexion in which they are given by the Evangelists, he cannot

have meant to announce by them merely the speedy victory of his cause;

his meaning must have been, that he himself would return to life in

three days after his violent death. [1648]

As however Jesus, judging from the conduct of his disciples after his

death, cannot have announced his resurrection in plain words: other

commentators have resigned themselves to the admission, that the

Evangelists, after the issue, gave to the discourses of Jesus a

definiteness which, as uttered by him, they did not possess; that they

have not merely understood literally, what Jesus intended figuratively,

of the revival of his cause after his death, but in accordance with

their erroneous interpretation, have so modified his words that, as we

now read them, we must certainly understand them in a literal sense;

[1649] yet that not all the discourses of Jesus are altered in this

manner; here and there his original expressions still remain.

§ 114.

FIGURATIVE DISCOURSES, IN WHICH JESUS IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE ANNOUNCED HIS

RESURRECTION.

According to the fourth gospel, Jesus, at the very commencement of his

ministry, in figurative language, referred his enemies, the Jews, to

his future resurrection (ii. 19 ff.). On his first messianic visit to

Jerusalem, and when, after the abuse of the market in the temple had

provoked him to that exhibition of holy zeal of which we have formerly

spoken, the Jews require a sign from him, by which he should

legitimatize his claim to be considered a messenger of God, who had

authority to adopt such violent measures, Jesus gives them this answer,

Destroy this temple, and after three days I will raise it up, λύσατε

τὸν ναὸν τοῦτον, καὶ ἐν τρισὶν ἡμέραις ἐγερῶ αὐτόν. The Jews took these

words in the sense, which, since they were spoken in the temple, was

the most natural, and urged, in reply to Jesus, that as it had taken

forty years to build this temple, he would scarcely be able, if it were

destroyed, to rebuild it in three days; but the Evangelist informs us,

that this was not the meaning of Jesus, and that he here spoke (though

indeed the disciples were not aware of this until after his

resurrection), of the temple of his body, ναὸς τοῦ στόματος αυτοῦ: i.e.

under the destruction and rebuilding of the temple, he alluded to his

death and resurrection. Even if we admit, what however the most

moderate expositors deny, [1650] that Jesus could properly (as he is

also represented to have done in Matthew xii. 39 ff.) when the Jews

asked him for a visible and immediate sign, refer them to his

resurrection as the greatest, and for his enemies the most overwhelming

miracle in his history: still he must have done this in terms which it

was possible for them to understand (as in the above passage of

Matthew, where he expresses himself quite plainly). But the expressions

of Jesus, as here given, could not possibly be understood in this

sense. For when one who is in the temple, speaks of the destruction of

this temple, every one will refer his words to the building itself.

Hence Jesus, when he uttered the words, this temple, τὸν ναὸν τοῦτον,

must have pointed to his body with his finger; as, indeed, is generally

presupposed by the friends of this interpretation. [1651] But, in the

first place, the Evangelist says nothing of such a gesture,

notwithstanding that it lay in his interest to notice this, as a

support of his interpretation. In the second place, Gabler has with

justice remarked, how ill-judged and ineffective it would have been, by

the addition of a mere gesture to give a totally new meaning to a

speech, which verbally, and therefore logically, referred to the

temple. If, however, Jesus used this expedient, the motion of his

finger could not have been unobserved; the Jews must rather have

demanded from him how he could be so arrogant as to call his body the

temple, ναὸς; or even if not so, still, presupposing that action, the

disciples could not have remained in the dark concerning the meaning of

his words, until after the resurrection. [1652]