THE MYSTERY OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD
THE SECRET OF JESUS’ MESSIAHSHIP AND PASSION
BY
ALBERT SCHWEITZER
Author of “The Quest of the Historical Jesus”
TRANSLATED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
WALTER LOWRIE
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1914
DEDICATED WITH SINCERE
RESPECT AND DEVOTION TO
_Dr. H. J. Holtzmann_
BY HIS GRATEFUL PUPIL
ALBERT SCHWEITZER
[pg 003]
PREFACE
THE attempt to write a life of Jesus, commencing not at the beginning
but in the middle, with the thought of the Passion, must of necessity
sometime be made. Strange that it has not been made earlier, for it is
in the air!
The fact is that all presentations of the life of Jesus are
satisfactory up to a certain point,—the inception of the thought of
the Passion. There, however, the connection fails. Not one of them
succeeds in rendering intelligible why Jesus now suddenly counts his
death necessary, and in what sense he conceives it as a saving act. In
order to establish this connection one must try the experiment of
making the thought of the Passion the point of departure, for the sake
of rendering the former and latter periods of the life of Jesus
comprehensible. If we do not understand the idea of the Passion, may
not that be due to the fact that we have formed an erroneous notion of
the first period of the life of Jesus and so have precluded for
ourselves in advance all possibility of attaining insight into the
genesis of the Passion idea?
The last years of research have revealed on [pg 004] what slight
grounds our historical conception of the life of Jesus really rests.
It cannot be concealed that we are confronted by a difficult antinomy.
Either Jesus really took himself to be the Messiah, or (as a new
tendency of the study now seems to suggest) this dignity was first
ascribed to him by the early Church. In either case the “Life of
Jesus” remains equally enigmatical.
If Jesus really regarded himself as Messiah, how comes it that he
acted as if he were not Messiah? How is it to be explained that his
office and dignity seem to have nothing to do with his public
activity? How are we to account for the fact that only after his
public activity was ended (not to reckon the last few days at
Jerusalem) did he disclose to his Disciples who he was, and at the
same time enjoined upon them strict silence with regard to this
_secret?_ It explains nothing to suggest that such conduct was
prescribed by motives of prudence or by pedagogical considerations. In
the Synoptical accounts where is there even the slightest hint that
Jesus wished to educate the Disciples and the people up to a knowledge
of his messiahship?
The more one thinks about it the more clearly one recognises how
little the assumption that Jesus took himself to be the Messiah [pg
005] suffices to explain his “life,” inasmuch as no connection
whatever results between his selfconsciousness and his public
activity. It may sound banal to ask the question, but it is one which
cannot on that account be avoided, why Jesus never tried through
instruction to raise the people up to the new ethical conception of
messiahship. The attempt would not have been so hopeless as one
commonly assumes, for at that time there was a deep spiritual movement
going on in Israel. Why did Jesus maintain persistent silence about
his conception of messiahship?
On the other hand, if one assumes that he did not take himself to be
the Messiah, it must be explained how he came to be made Messiah after
his death. Certainly it was not on the ground of his public activity,
for this had nothing to do with his messiahship. But then again, what
was the significance of the revelation of the secret of his
messiahship to the Twelve and the confession before the high-priest?
It is a mere act of violence to declare these scenes unhistorical. If
one resolves upon such aggression, what is there then left of the
whole Gospel tradition?
And withal one should not forget, that if Jesus did not take himself
to be the Messiah, this means the death blow to the Christian [pg 006]
faith. The judgment of the early Church is not binding upon us. The
Christian religion is founded upon the messianic consciousness of
Jesus, whereby he himself in a signal manner sharply distinguished his
own person from the rank of the other preachers of religious morality.
If now he did not take himself to be the Messiah, then the whole of
Christianity rests—to use honestly a much perverted and abused
word—upon a “value judgment” formed by the adherents of Jesus of
Nazareth after his death!
Let us not forget that we are dealing here with an antinomy from which
only one conclusion can be drawn, namely, that what has hitherto been
accounted the “historical” conception of the messianic consciousness
of Jesus is false, because it does not explain the history. Only that
conception is historical which makes it intelligible how Jesus could
take himself to be the Messiah without finding himself obliged to make
this consciousness of his tell as a factor in his public ministry for
the Kingdom of God,—rather, how he was actually compelled to make the
messianic dignity of his person a secret! Why was his messiahship a
secret of Jesus? To explain this means to understand his life.
This new conception of the life of Jesus has [pg 007] grown out of a
perception of the nature of this antinomy. How far it is capable of
solving the problem may be determined by the result of further
discussion. I publish this new view as a _sketch,_ since it belongs of
necessity within the frame of this work on the Lord’s Supper. I hope,
however, from the criticism of its general lines to reach greater
clearness with regard to many exegetical details before I can think of
giving these thoughts definitive shape in an elaborated “life of
Jesus.”
I have generally been able only to suggest the literary foundation, as
comports with the sketchy character of this presentation. Any one,
however, who is thoroughly familiar with this subject will readily
perceive that behind many an assertion here made there lurks more
detailed study of Synoptic texts than appears at the first glance.
For the Synoptic question especially, the new conception of the life
of Jesus is of great importance. From this point of view the
composition of the Synoptists appears much simpler and clearer. The
artificial redaction with which scholars have felt themselves
compelled to operate is very much reduced. The Sermon on the Mount,
the commission to the Twelve, and the eulogy of the Baptist are not
“composite speeches,” but were for the most [pg 008] part delivered as
they have been handed down to us. Also the form of the prophecy of the
Passion and the Resurrection is not to be ascribed to the early
Church, but Jesus did actually speak to his Disciples in these words
about his future. This very simplification of the literary problem and
the fact that the credibility of the Gospel tradition is thereby
enhanced is of great weight for the new interpretation of the life of
Jesus.
This simplification rests, however, not upon a naïve attitude towards
the Gospel accounts, but is brought about by insight into the laws
whereby the early Christian conception and estimate of the person of
Jesus conditioned the representation of his life and work. Here is a
question which hitherto has not been treated perhaps systematically
enough.
On the one hand it is indeed certain that the early Church had a
significant influence upon the representation of the public activity
of Jesus. But on the other hand we have again in the very nature of
the early Christian faith justification for the presumption that the
Church did not alter the main lines of the account, and above all that
it did not “fabricate facts” in the life of Jesus. For in fact the
early Church maintained an attitude of indifference towards the life
of Jesus as such! [pg 009] The early Christian faith had not the least
interest in this earthly life, because the messiahship of Jesus was
grounded upon his resurrection, not upon his earthly ministry, and the
disciples looking forward expectantly to the coming of the Messiah in
glory were interested in the earthly life of Jesus of Nazareth only in
so far as it served to illustrate his sayings. There was absolutely no
such thing as an early Christian conception of the life of Jesus, and
the Synoptic Gospels contain nothing of the sort. They string together
the narratives of the events of his public ministry without trying to
make them intelligible in their sequence and connection, or to enable
us to perceive the “development” of Jesus. Then in the course of time,
as the eschatological expectation waned, as the emphasis upon the
earthly appearing of Jesus as the Messiah began to preponderate, and
thus led to a particular view (a theory) of the life of Jesus, the
accounts of his public ministry had already assumed so fixed a form
that they could not be affected by this process. The Fourth Gospel
furnishes a historical picture of the life of Jesus, but it stands in
much the same relation to the Synoptic account of the public ministry
of Jesus as does Chronicles to the books of Samuel and Kings. The [pg
010] difference between the Fourth Gospel and the Synoptics consists
precisely in the fact that the former furnishes a “life of Jesus”
whereas the Synoptics give an account of his public ministry.
The faith of the early Church influenced by immanent laws the mode in
which the public ministry of Jesus was represented, just as the
Deuteronomic reform affected men’s conception of the course of events
during the period of the judges and the Kings. It was a case of
inevitable and unconscious shifting of the perspective. The new view
here presented takes due account of this shifting of the perspective,
and from this reckoning it results that the influence which the belief
of the early Christian community exerted upon the Synoptical accounts
does not go nearly so deep as we have hitherto been inclined to
suppose.
_Strassburg, August, 1901._
[pg 011]
Contents
Author’s Preface [3]
Translator’s Introduction [17]
Footnotes
CHAPTER I THE MODERN “HISTORICAL” SOLUTION
1. Summary account of it [59]
2. The four assumptions upon which it is based [63]
3. The two contrasted periods (first assumption) [64]
4. The influence of the Pauline theory of the atonement upon the
formulation of the Synoptical prediction of the Passion (second
assumption) [70]
5. The Kingdom of God as an ethical entity in the Passion Idea
(third assumption) [73]
6. The form of the Prediction of the Passion (fourth assumption) [80]
7. Résumé [81]
CHAPTER II THE “DEVELOPMENT” OF JESUS
1. The Kingdom of God as an ethical and as an eschatological fact [84]
2. The eschatological character of the charge to the Twelve [87]
3. The new view [92]
CHAPTER III THE PREACHING OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD
1. The new morality as repentance [94]
2. The ethics of Jesus and modern ethics [99]
CHAPTER IV THE SECRET OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD
1. The parables of the secret of the Kingdom of God [106]
2. The secret of the Kingdom of God in the address to the people
after the mission of the Twelve [110]
3. The secret of the Kingdom of God in the light of the Prophetic
and Jewish expectation [112]
4. The secret of the Kingdom of God and the assumption of a
fortunate Galilean period [115]
5. The secret of the Kingdom of God and the universalism of
Jesus [117]
6. The secret of the Kingdom of God and Jesus’ attitude towards
the Law and the State [119]
7. The modern element in Jesus’ eschatology [120]
CHAPTER V The Secret of the Kingdom of God in the Thought of the
Passion [124]
CHAPTER VI THE CHARACTER ASCRIBED TO JESUS ON THE GROUND OF HIS
PUBLIC MINISTRY
1. The problem and the facts [127]
2. Jesus is Elijah through his solidarity with the Son of Man [135]
3. Jesus is Elijah through the signs which proceed from Him [139]
4. The victory over demons and the secret of the Kingdom of God [143]
5. Jesus and the Baptist [145]
6. The Baptist and Jesus [147]
7. The blind man at Jericho and the ovation at the entrance of
Jesus to Jerusalem [156]
CHAPTER VII AFTER THE MISSION OF THE TWELVE LITERARY AND HISTORICAL
PROBLEMS
1. The voyage on the lake after the return of the Twelve [164]
2. The supper by the seashore [168]
3. The week at Bethsaida [174]
CHAPTER VIII THE SECRET OF MESSIAHSHIP
1. From the Mount of Transfiguration to Cæsarea Philippi [180]
2. The futuristic character of Jesus’ messiahship [185]
3. The Son of Man and the futuristic character of Jesus’
messiahship [190]
4. The resurrection of the dead and the futuristic character of
Jesus’ messiahship [201]
5. The betrayal by Judas—the last disclosure of the secret of
messiahship [214]
CHAPTER IX THE SECRET OF THE PASSION
1. The pre-messianic affliction [219]
2. The idea of the Passion in the first period [223]
3. The “Temptation” and the divine omnipotence [226]
4. The idea of the Passion in the second period [230]
5. Isaiah 40-66: the secret of the Passion foretold in the
Scripture [236]
6. The “human” element in the secret of the Passion [240]
7. The idea of the Passion in the primitive Church. The shifting
of the perspective [242]
CHAPTER X
Summary of the Life of Jesus [253]
Postscript [274]
THE MYSTERY OF
THE KINGDOM OF GOD
[pg 017]
AN INTRODUCTION
BY THE TRANSLATOR
1. An Account of Schweitzer’s Work and Its Reception.
THE work which is here translated was published in 1901 as the
_second_ part of a treatise entitled _Das Abendmahl._ The full title
reads: _The Lord’s Supper in connection with the Life of Jesus and the
History of Early Christianity._ This second part was issued separately
and bore also the following sub-title: _Das Messianitäts und
Leidensgeheimnis. Eine Skizze des Lebens Jesu._
It implies no disparagement of Schweitzer’s novel and important study
of the Lord’s Supper that this second part is here separated from the
first and published by itself in English. This part is really
independent. It has moreover a much broader scope and appeals to a far
wider interest than does the treatise as a whole. There is reason to
fear that, appearing as a part of a study of the Lord’s Supper and
under that title, it might be ignored by many of the persons who most
would desire to read it. The scant [pg 018] attention accorded at
first to Schweitzer’s work in Germany may be ascribed in part to that
very cause, and there appears to be no other reason to account for the
fact that the “Sketch” has not yet been publicly noticed in England or
America, so far as the translator is aware.
It will not be denied, even by those who are least inclined to agree
with the views of the Author, that this first work of the young
Strassburg student did not deserve the oblivion which seemed to
threaten it for some years after its appearance. It is manifest now
that Schweitzer’s theory, to say the least of it, must be _reckoned_
with by every one who would seriously study the Gospels or the Life of
Jesus. Obviously it was not the weakness of the book, but rather its
strong originality, and in particular the trenchant way in which it
demolished the “liberal life of Jesus,” which accounts for the passive
hostility with which it was greeted. In fact it contained more than
could be readily digested at once either by a liberal or a
conservative mind. Most of the New Testament students in Germany had
collaborated in the fabrication of the “liberal life of Jesus” and
they could not patiently endure to see their work destroyed. Those
among us who fancy that German [pg 019] professors are bloodless
beings who live in an atmosphere purified of passion and prejudice,
need to be informed that on the contrary they are human, all too
human. The animosities of party and school and the jealousies of the
cathedra have been proverbial for generations. The reception accorded
to Schweitzer’s work does not seem creditable. It was met by something
like a conspiracy of silence.
Schweitzer, however, _compelled_ attention by the publication in 1906
of a much larger work entitled, _“Von Reimarus zu Wrede,”_ which is a
history of the study of the life of Jesus during the last century. A
work like this, practically the only one of its sort, supplied a felt
need and could not be passed by without notice. Schweitzer’s own view,
however, though it was presented clearly in this volume, was still not
taken due account of in Germany. Jülicher’s supercilious criticism in
_“Neue Linien”_ (190—) is characteristic of the treatment it received.
The translator knows of no prominent scholar in Germany who has
cordially welcomed Schweitzer’s view, nor of any that has thoroughly
and ably opposed it. They have been occupied there rather with
Wrede’s_(_1_)_acute criticism of the messianic element in the Gospels
[pg 020] and with the denial by Drews_(_2_)_and others of the
historical existence of Jesus. To destructive criticism of this sort
Schweitzer’s own work is the best answer. The only work which
seriously reckons with this new point of view is a brief but
magisterial book by H. J. Holtzmann: _Das messianische Bewusstsein
Jesu,_ 1907.
Very different was the reception of Schweitzer’s latter work in
England. The interest there centred at once upon Schweitzer’s own
view. In 1907, the year after its publication, Professor Sanday
delivered a course of lectures at Oxford and Cambridge in which he
enthusiastically accepted Schweitzer’s position with hardly a
reservation._(_3_)_In 1910 this second work of Schweitzer’s was
translated into English and published under the title: _The Quest of
the Historical Jesus,_ with a preface by Professor Burkitt. By this
time the interest in Schweitzer and his theory had become a furore
among the younger men in Oxford and Cambridge. But just then there
came an emissary from Germany, Professor Ernst von Dobschütz, who
essayed to disprove Schweitzer’s theory in a course of lectures
delivered at [pg 021] Oxford in 1909._(_4_)_Whereupon Professor
Sanday, in a pathetic article in the _Hibbert Journal_ for October,
1911, retracted his support of Schweitzer’s position. He felt that he
had been over hasty in adopting it. And so indeed it seems he was, for
it appears that in preparing his lectures he had not taken the pains
to read the “Sketch,” that is to say, Schweitzer’s first and
fundamental and most carefully reasoned argument for his view. By the
same token Canon Sanday seems to have been over hasty in making his
retraction, for he had not _yet_ read the “Sketch,”—and von Dobschütz’
criticism after all is not very impressive.
In America the whole question has been simply ignored. It generally
takes, in fact, about a decade for an important foreign work to reach
us,—except in the case of a very few scholars who have already gained
our ear. According to this reckoning it is time the “Sketch” were
translated. In view both of the acceptance which Schweitzer’s theory
has met with in England and of the opposition made to it there, it is
high time that his most cogent and careful statement of his position
be made known. For although Schweitzer’s position is restated in his
latter work already [pg 022] translated into English, and is there
also illuminated from various sides, particularly in its relation to
Wrede’s work—which appeared in the same year as the “Sketch” and is so
strikingly like it so far as its criticism goes and so different in
its result,—yet it cannot be adequately appreciated without a study of
the earlier work.
It is known that Albert Schweitzer has for some time been preparing to
go as medical missionary to the Congo. But in spite of his medical
studies he has recently found time to publish a brilliant “History of
Pauline Study since the Reformation.”_(_5_)_This is in a way a
continuation of the history of the study of the life of Jesus. Here
again Schweitzer has a view of his own: in all the complexity of
Paul’s thought he perceives a unity which is due to the pervading
eschatological outlook. Fortunately, this view of his own, instead of
being appended to the historical study, as in the former book, is to
be published separately under the title: _Die Mystic des Apostles
Paulus._ This practical measure will insure that it shall not be
overlooked. It is to be hoped too that it will not have to wait long
for an English translation.
[pg 023]
Professor Schweitzer found time also to prepare a new and much
enlarged edition of his _Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung_ (History
of the Study of the Life of Jesus), which is the title by which he now
more aptly describes his well known work. He has brought this history
down to date, and in the short concluding chapter he suggests a number
of pregnant reflections which will later be referred to in this
introduction with the aim of conciliating this archæological world of
Jesus’ thought with our religious estimate of his person. It must be
recognised from the outset that _time_ is necessary for such an
adjustment. The perception of the eschatological character of the
Gospels is a sudden emergency: we have not yet had time to assimilate
it.
At this writing Professor Schweitzer is already at work as medical
missionary in Africa. It is of interest to know that his plan is to
return after three years to Europe, and again after an equal period;
to Africa. On account of the radical character of his critical works
he was not accepted as a fellow-worker in any of the German missions
and is labouring in conjunction with (though independently and at his
own expense) the station of the Paris Evangelical [pg 024] Missionary
Society at Lambarene in French Equatorial Africa—the country which
used to be called the French Congo. “Schweitzer as Missionary” is the
title of an article in the _Hibbert Journal_ for July 1914 based upon
the printed circular letters which he sends to his friends and
supporters. In a letter to the translator he speaks of his efforts to
mitigate the scourge of leprosy and the sleeping sickness as an
example of “practical eschatology.”
2. The Significance of Schweitzer’s Work.
The opportuneness of Schweitzer’s eschatological interpretation of the
life of Jesus appears the more manifest the more one knows of the
recent history of Gospel study. To bring that out clearly is the
special purpose of the Author in his _Quest of the Historical Jesus,_
particularly in chapters I, XIX, and XX. It could not be done better.
At all events such a task is obviously beyond the scope of this
introduction. Here it need only be pointed out that Schweitzer’s
theory, striking as it is, did not spring into being without roots in
a soil prepared for it. The eschatological question itself had been
sharply brought to the fore. Contention for and against the
recognition of it as an important [pg 025] element in the Gospels was
the order of the day. All that tended to concentrate attention upon
the problem of the personal consciousness of Jesus (as, in particular,
Baldensperger’s work),_(_6_)_was a direct preparation for Schweitzer.
Johannes Weiss had already stood out as the foremost champion of
eschatology in the Gospel._(_7_)_His recognition of eschatology was
confined, however, to the _teaching of Jesus._ Hence he did not avail
himself of it for the solution of the historical problems. For this
reason he cannot be regarded as an exponent—to use Schweitzer’s
phrase—of “thoroughgoing eschatology” (konsequente Eschatologie). But
the solution Schweitzer proposed was already “in the air,” as he said
himself in his preface. That presentiment was strikingly fulfilled in
the fact that in the selfsame year Wrede published a book with a title
almost identical, which envisaged the same problems in the same way,
only that it sought to solve them by eliminating eschatology as an
intrusion in the historical narrative, thus resulting in
“thoroughgoing scepticism.” Schweitzer is justified in insisting that
his work and [pg 026] Wrede’s cannot be played off against each other,
but constitute a combined attack, so far as concerns the criticism of
the common, liberal life of Jesus.
There is nothing audacious in Schweitzer’s proclamation of the
collapse of the liberal life of Jesus. He does not claim to have
destroyed it, he merely attests the fact of its collapse. “The Jesus
of Nazareth who appeared as the Messiah, proclaimed the morality of
the kingdom of God, established the kingdom of heaven upon earth, and
died in order to consecrate his work,—this Jesus never existed. It is
a figure sketched by Rationalism, enlivened by Liberalism, and dressed
up by Modern Theology in the clothes of historical
science.”_(_8_)_This fabric did not fall by reason of the strength of
any attack from without, but collapsed through its inherent weakness,
“shattered and cloven by the actual historical problems which one
after another emerged and would not down in spite of all the cunning,
art, artifice, and force” which was expended upon this picture of
Jesus during the last hundred years. In spite of the protestation that
this picture still stands undemolished, no one can be found any more
to write a liberal life of Jesus. On [pg 027] the other hand sceptical
works have multiplied so rapidly that it would be difficult to
enumerate them here. After Kalthoff_(_9_)_ and Drews_(_10_)_the
designation of “thoroughgoing scepticism” can hardly be applied to
Wrede’s theory. All the books of this class owe what appearance of
strength they have, not to their inherent worth, but to the weakness
of the theory which opposes them—the current liberal life of Jesus.
Solely with a view to maintaining the integrity of this picture it has
been found necessary from time to time to sacrifice so much of the
documentary evidence—the Synoptic Gospels or their sources—upon which
the history of Jesus reposes, that in the end it seems not very
unreasonable for Drews and others to assume, from the admissions of
their opponents, that there is no convincing historical evidence for
the existence of Jesus, and that the real task of the scholar is to
show how such a figure was invented.
“It is extraordinary,” says Schweitzer in the last chapter of the new
edition of his History of the Life of Jesus Study, “how it has fared
with the study of the life of Jesus. It set out to find the historical
[pg 028] Jesus, and fancied that when he was found he could be set,
just as he is, in the midst of our age as Teacher and Saviour. It
loosed the bands which fettered him to the rock of ecclesiastical
dogma, and rejoiced when life and movement returned to the figure and
the historical man Jesus was seen approaching. He did not stay,
however, but passed our age by and returned again to his own. That is
what astonished and alarmed the theology of the last decades,—that by
no violence of misinterpretation could they succeed in keeping him in
our age, but had to let him go. He returned to his own age with the
same necessity that the freed pendulum swings back to its original
position.
“The historical foundation of Christianity, as rationalism,
liberalism, and modern theology count it, exists no longer,—which,
however, is not to say that Christianity has therefore lost its
historical foundation. The work which historical theology believed it
must carry out, and which it sees falling to pieces at the very moment
when the completion was near, is only the terra cotta veneer of the
true, indestructible, historical foundation, which is independent of
any historical [pg 029] knowledge and proof—simply because it is
there, it exists.
“Jesus is something to our world because a mighty stream of spiritual
influence has gone forth from him and has penetrated our age also.
This fact will be neither shaken nor confirmed by an historical
knowledge.
“One fancied he could be more to our time by the fact that he entered
it vitally as a man of our humanity. That, however, is not possible.
For one reason, because this Jesus never so existed. Also, because
historical knowledge, though it can clarify spiritual life already
existing, can never awaken life. It is able to reconcile the present
with the past; to a certain degree it can transport the present into
the past; but to construct the present is not within its power.
“One cannot estimate highly enough what the study of the life of Jesus
has accomplished. It is a great and unique demonstration of veracity
and love of the truth,—one of the most significant occurrences in the
whole spiritual life of mankind. What the modern-liberal and the
popularising investigation has done, in spite of all its errors, for
the present and for the coming state of religion can only be measured
when one takes [pg 030] into comparison the Roman Catholic—or more
broadly the Latin—culture and literature which has been touched little
or not at all by the influence of these spirits.
“And yet the disillusion had to come. We modern theologians are too
proud of our historical learning, too proud of our historical Jesus,
too confident in our faith in what our historical theology can
spiritually contribute to the world. The notion that by historical
knowledge we can construct a new and vigorous Christianity and let
loose spiritual forces in the world dominates us like a fixed idea and
does not permit us to perceive that all we have done thereby is to
assail, not the great religious problem itself, but one of the
problems of general culture which is entrenched in front of it, and
which we would solve as well as we can. We thought that we had to lead
our age as it were through a by-path, through the historical Jesus, in
order that it might come to Jesus who is present spiritual power. The
by-path is now barred by real history.
“We were in danger of putting ourselves between men and the Gospels
and not leaving the individual any longer alone with the sayings of
Jesus.
“We were in danger, too, of presenting to [pg 031] them a Jesus that
was too little, because we had forced him into man’s measure and into
the mould of average human psychology. Read through the ‘lives of
Jesus’ since the sixties and behold what they have made of the
imperial words of our Lord, what a weak and ambiguous sense they have
put upon his peremptory, other-worldly requisitions, in order that he
might not clash with our ideals of civilisation and his
other-worldliness might be brought to terms with our this-worldliness.
Many of his greatest words one finds lying in a corner, a heap of
discharged spring-bolts. We make Jesus speak with our time another
language than that which passed his lips.
“Thereby we ourselves became impotent and deprived our own thoughts of
their proper energy by transposing them into history and making them
speak to us out of antiquity. It is nothing less than a tragedy for
modern theology that it confounds with history everything it attempts
to expound, and is actually proud of the virtuosity with which it
contrives to discover its own thoughts in the past.
“Therefore there is hopeful significance in the fact that modern
theology with its study of the life of Jesus, however long it may
resist [pg 032] by the invention of fresh shifts and expedients, must
in the end find itself deluded in its manufactured history, overcome
by real history and by the facts—which according to Wrede’s fine
saying are often more radical than theories.
“What is the historical Jesus to us when we keep him clear of any
admixture of the present with the past? We have the immediate
impression that his person, in spite of all that is strange and
enigmatical, has something great to say to all ages, as long as the
world endures, may views and knowledge change never so much, and that
it means therefore to our religion also a far-reaching enrichment. It
behooves us to bring this elementary feeling to a clear expression, so
that it may not soar away in dogmatic assertions and phrases and
beguile historical science ever anew into the hopeless undertaking of
modernising Jesus by diluting or explaining away what is historically
conditioned in his preaching, as though he would become more to us
thereby.
“The whole study of the life of Jesus has in fine only the one aim, of
establishing the natural and unbiased conception of the earliest
accounts. In order to know Jesus and to apprehend him there is need of
no preparatory [pg 033] erudition. It is also not requisite that a man
comprehend the details of Jesus’ public ministry and be able to
construct with them a ‘life of Jesus.’ His nature, and that which he
is and wills, appears in certain lapidary expressions of his and
forces itself upon us. One _knows_ him without knowing much about him,
and apprehends the eschatological note even if he attain no clear
conception of the details. For this is the characteristic thing about
Jesus, that he looks beyond the perfection and blessedness of the
individual to the perfection and blessedness of the world and of an
elect humanity. His will and his hope is fixed upon the Kingdom of
God.”
It is much to be wondered at that conservative scholars have not
generally recognised the strong constructive consequences of
Schweitzer’s theory, in particular the proof it incidentally affords
of the historical worth of the Synoptic Gospels. Schweitzer
rehabilitates the credit of S. Mark’s Gospel simply by showing that no
important parts of it need be discarded on the ground that they are
inconsistent with the sketch which he draws of the history of Jesus.
When it is objected to him that he bases his view upon “the weakest
passages,” it is time we make clear to [pg 034] ourselves that
“strong” and “weak” in this connection mean no more than _consistent_
or _inconsistent_ with the _assumptions_ of the modern “liberal life
of Jesus.” It is only a roundabout way of begging the question.
Generally speaking, such a document as Mark, antecedent to any theory
we may attempt to apply, must be presumed to be of pretty equal value
throughout. That theory which, without artifice or violence, best
accords with the greatest number of facts recorded, and so best
preserves the credit of the documents upon which it seeks to found
itself, is presumably the right theory. Schweitzer’s view, as he
himself says in the Preface, greatly simplifies and clarifies the
Synoptic problem. It is no longer necessary to attribute so much to
“the editor’s hand.” The Sermon on the Mount, the Charge to the
Twelve, and the Eulogy over the Baptist are not collections of
scattered sayings, but were in the main delivered as they have come
down to us. Especially important is the recognition that even for
constructing the history of Jesus Mark by itself does not suffice: the
discourses in Matthew are invaluable indications.
Nor is this the only positive and comforting element in Schweitzer’s
view. In the Postscript he has himself laid stress upon the [pg 035]
aim of his work: “to impress upon the modern age and upon modern
theology the figure of Jesus in its overwhelming heroic greatness.”
And this he has accomplished in unexpected ways. The figure of Jesus
which we have striven so hard to bring into nearness and sympathy
through our psychological analysis has eluded our grasp, and under the
hands of the historian and archæologist it has receded inexorably into
the remote past and into a corner of Galilee. It looks to us strange
and even petty in its remote Galilean surroundings. Now that figure,
by the force of an elemental energy, is seen to break the shackles
which would bind it to a particular time and place and become—not
modern, indeed, but—universal.
One may easily be so much absorbed with the difficulties in the way of
accepting Schweitzer’s construction as to ignore the light which it
sheds upon some of the major difficulties of the traditional view with
which we have long wrestled in vain. One may mention at least eight
obscure points which are illuminated for the first time by the
eschatological view of the Gospel history. 1. Jesus’ use of the title
“Son of Man,”—commonly in the third person and with a futuristic
sense, as denoting a dignity and [pg 036] power which were _not yet_
his. Jesus was the Messiah designate. 2. The position of John the
Baptist: it was Jesus alone that discovered in him the character of
Elijah “the Coming One” (cf. Jn 1:21 ). 3. The conception of the
Kingdom of God as a _gift,_ to be received passively as by a little
child—and yet as a thing that “violent men” must wrest to themselves
“by force.” 4. The relation of Jesus’ messianic expectation to that
which was current among the people. Jesus moralised the popular
eschatological ideal by combining it with the preaching of the
Prophets. That Jesus opposed a purely moral ideal to a popular
political agitation is doubly a fiction. 5. The significance of the
Mission of the Twelve and its connection with the popular excitement
which drew five thousand men into the desert by the seashore. 6. The
significance of the Transfiguration, coming _before_ the Confession of
Peter, and explaining how the knowledge of Jesus’ Messiahship was
given by divine revelation. 7. The character of the secret which Judas
possessed and was in a position to betray. Our notion that during the
last days in Jerusalem every one knew of Jesus’ claim to be the Christ
is plainly contrary to the record. The famous disputes [pg 037] of
those days would have taken a very different form if the question
which agitated all minds was, Is he the Christ? or is he not? 8.
Jesus’ notion of the _necessity_ of his death, his resolution to die
at Jerusalem, and his conception that he was giving his life as “a
ransom for _many.”_
Unquestionably it is no easy matter to assimilate so novel and
striking a view as that of Schweitzer. To bring it into relation with
the presuppositions of our religious view in general involves
demolition and reconstruction—a labor heavy and grievous to the soul.
The mind instinctively recoils from such a labour and is fain to
protect itself by a general repudiation and denial. Moreover the
Author has presented his view with a naked simplicity which, while it
renders it easier to understand and more difficult to confute, makes
it also, one must confess, more difficult to accept. We are not
inclined to accept opinions in the face of a display of force, and as
it were at the muzzle of a gun—even when the gun is loaded with logic.
Practically we must first contrive to see how the opinions may be made
acceptable. This task the Author has not unreasonably left to
us,—although a careful study of his work will reveal many suggestions
helpful to this end. [pg 038] The translator has read this little book
not once but many times and through a course of years, with ever
increasing appreciation of its worth—not only in view of its logical
force but of its _acceptability._ On the other hand, many of us have
felt that the liberal life of Jesus was becoming increasingly more
_unacceptable._
Canon Sanday confesses_(_11_)_that he recoils from Schweitzer’s view
chiefly on account of his “tendency to push things to extremes at the
dictates of logical consistency.” It is _too_ “thoroughgoing.” It
seems indeed as though the Author were inclined to press this word to
an extreme, proposing to explain _all_ the words and acts of Jesus
with reference to his eschatological outlook. But that is only a
threat. What he _has_ done falls very far short of it, and it is upon
_that_ we have to pass judgment. _That,_ in fact, is “thoroughgoing”
enough to justify the term even if it went no further. The principle
of “thorough” might very well apply to the construction of the history
as a whole without implying that every trait of Jesus’ life and
teaching was coloured by it and that he himself was so obsessed by a
single idea that he was unable to see things as they are. [pg 039]
This is precisely what the Gospels do not permit us to believe. It is
manifest that Jesus had a peculiarly acute sensibility to his
surroundings, whether it were nature or human society, and responded
feelingly, spontaneously. His sense of right and wrong was so clearly
intuitive that he could deal sovereignly with the Law. Schweitzer
himself furnishes suggestions which tend to render even the word
“Interimsethik” acceptable. Jesus’ moral teaching was oriented towards
the coming Kingdom. It was “penance” in preparation for the Kingdom of
God. But it was not for all this an arbitrary penance: like the ethics
of the Prophets it was the prescription of righteousness. In one sense
at least, it was not of merely transitory importance. From the
expectation of the approaching Kingdom it received a sharpness of
emphasis which it could not otherwise have had,—but it was a _true_
emphasis. It described the conduct appropriate to man in this present
world _so long as this world shall last_—a conduct which is justified
here by the expectation of a better world to come, “beyond good and
evil” if you will.
“Thoroughgoing eschatology” is surely not incompatible with the
recognition of a deeper [pg 040] intuition in Jesus which is necessary
to explain the intensity of this very eschatology itself. It would be
a rigorous extreme indeed which would exclude the recognition of
Jesus’ God-consciousness—his consciousness of God as Father—as the
primary and all-controlling fact of his religious experience. Nothing
is more obvious than that out of that consciousness he acted and spoke
_immediately._ And when his acts were influenced and his speech
coloured by the eschatological outlook, what was that ultimately but
the consciousness of God’s _nearness?_ How could the expectation of a
divine world be so constant and so vivid without the feeling that it
is in a sense locally near, imminent, impending, ready to break in,
indeed actually intruding upon this present world, as it were “the
finger of God” touching us here? Intuitional feeling, presentiment,
insight, does not readily distinguish between nearness in time and in
space. Jesus’ eschatology was an expression of his
God-consciousness—the most eminent expression of it.
Eschatology in the strict sense, with all its apocalyptic features,
has long ago passed out of our view of the world. Schweitzer shows us
with what justification the Church discarded it. But the feeling that
was behind [pg 041] it remains, and still constitutes the fundamental
experience of religion. It is the feeling of a divine environment,
close to us, unspeakably close, imminent, intruding even upon the
every-day world.
“This is the finger of God,
The flash of the will that can,
Existent behind all laws,
That made them, and lo! they are.”
Intuitional feeling is not especially inclined to express
the sense of God in terms of time. Space is the category
more familiar to it. Wordsworth finds terms to express
what is so intangible.
“Those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a creature
Moving about in worlds not realised
High instincts, before which our mortal nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised.”
Apocalyptic eschatology no one could even wish to revive. But this
does not mean that Biblical eschatology—the expectation of the great
Event—must be dissolved in the modern hope of the gradual amelioration
of the world in the course of historical evolution. We cannot but feel
how great a breach that would constitute between our thought and the
[pg 042] mind of Jesus. Schweitzer remarks upon the heavy dose of
“resignation” which such a view implies. Strange that we do not more
often realise this! Does our optimism blind us to the fact that we
shall not partake in “the far off divine event”—except our spirit
survive the bodily death? _There_—in the hope of life beyond death—is
the expectation which we substitute for apocalyptic eschatology,—a
substitution so natural that it came about without observation. S.
Paul lived in the expectation of the coming of the Lord, but he
evidently felt no sense of incongruity when he expressed the feeling
that “to depart and be with Christ is very far better”—he was
referring to the natural death of the body and the hope of life
immediately beyond it. This is the hope which has ever since
characterised the Christian Church. To dwell upon that hope, to set
our “affections upon things above, where Christ is, seated at the
right hand of God”—that is “heavenly mindedness.” With respect to the
feeling at the base of it, it is not so very different from
apocalyptical eschatology. In this view Christian ethics still remains
“conditional”—you may call it _Interimsethik_ if you like. The conduct
it requires of us is conditioned by the hope of a future [pg 043] life
and is absurd under any other supposition. “The practice of the
presence of God” is the most fundamentally important religious
exercise. But if we succeed in persuading ourselves that here and now
we have the only kingdom of God we shall ever know; if all our
interest and effort is absorbed in realising a kingdom of God upon
earth; then not only have we need of “resignation,” but we cannot
avoid feeling the breach between our thought and activity and that of
Jesus. We are puzzled to distinguish between worldly and heavenly
mindedness because even our religious interest is focussed upon this
earth, as the sphere not only of our moral duty but of our ultimate
hope—the gradual evolution of a perfect human society. That is what we
have made of the Kingdom of God, interpreting it uneschatologically.
Is not this after all a more credulous hope than that which expects a
divine intervention, a “regeneration” of heaven and earth, which shall
prepare the fit abode for the perfect society? And does it not strike
at the very roots of the religious sentiment when we distract the mind
from its natural interest and curiosity about the Beyond? Our personal
fate is not so much involved in the far off amelioration of human
society as in something [pg 044] much nearer, very near and imminent,
the estate just beyond death. It is not altogether without reason that
in Christian dogmatics the name of eschatology has been applied to
this topic. The earlier type of eschatology Jesus himself has rendered
forevermore impossible. It is likely that the first objection _we_
feel to apocalyptic eschatology lies in the fact that it was expressed
in terms of an erroneous cosmology and is therefore incompatible with
our modern view of the world. But as a matter of fact apocalyptic
eschatology vanished from the vital creed of the Church long before
the cosmology upon which it was founded was proved to be false. It was
Jesus who brought it to an end. Another sort of eschatology promptly
took its place—another heavenly hope, which was substantially not
apocalyptic. Yet this doctrine too—the early Christian notion of the
soul and of heaven—was necessarily founded upon the opinions of
ancient science. The doctrine of the soul and the doctrine of heaven,
being less directly affected by the findings of modern science, have
been more slow to change in conformity with our changed view of the
world than has, for example, the doctrine of creation. But in their
old form they are none the less incompatible [pg 045] with our modern
thought; and for this reason we feel forced to put _every_ sort of
eschatology aside, we are no longer able to place the heavenly hope,
and the heavenly mindedness which it prompts, in the central position
which belongs to them. That is to say, we urgently need to express the
Christian doctrine of the soul in terms of the highest modern
psychology and to express our heavenly hope in terms of a modern
cosmology. We need a new cosmology! That may seem to express an
unpractical and fantastic desire. But it will not so seem to any one
who knows what his theory of the soul and his grandiose cosmology
meant practically and religiously to Gustav Theodor Fechner,_(_12_)_
or who has experienced what this may mean for the orientation of his
own personal religion. The old view of the world has passed away: we
have been too slothful and cowardly to take full possession of the
new. There is really nothing in the modern view of the world which
effectually precludes us from directing our hope and orienting our
life towards the Beyond, as did Jesus in his way, and as the early
Church did in its way. From the moment that Jesus passed into the
invisible and was there felt and recognised as the correspondent [pg
046] of our religious faculty we find that spatial terms better
express the substance of our heavenly mindedness than do temporal. We
“seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right
hand of God.” To recognise that our “citizenship is in heaven” is not
to render ourselves inept for the performance of our duty upon earth.
Rather it needs to be reflected whether, without the detachment,
without the superiority to earthly circumstance, happy or untoward,
which comes from setting our “mind on the things that are above,” we
possess any fulcrum for doing a real work upon the world.
The eschatological interpretation of the Gospels does not thrust Jesus
so far from us as we are prone to think: rather calls us to approach
nearer to him, to share again more closely “the mind which was in
Christ Jesus” and which in one form or another has been at all times
the chief inspiration of the Church.
In his “Concluding Reflections” Schweitzer says: “Every full view of
life, cosmic philosophy, _Weltanschauung_ (the German word it is
impossible to translate) contains side by side elements which are
conditioned by the age as well as others which are unconditioned, for
it consists in the very fact that a penetrating _will_ has pervaded
and [pg 047] constituted the conceptual material furnished it by
history. This latter is subjected to change. Hence there is no
_Weltanschauung,_ however great and profound it may be, which does not
contain perishable material. But the will itself is timeless. It
reveals the unsearchable and primary nature of a person and determines
also the final and fundamental definition of his _Weltanschauung._ May
the conceptual material alter never so much, with consequent diversity
between the new _Weltanschauung_ and the old, yet these in reality
only lie just so far apart as the wills which constitute them diverge
in direction. The differences which are determined by the alteration
of the conceptual material are in the last analysis merely secondary
in importance, however emphatically they may make themselves felt; for
the same will, however different be the conceptual material in which
it manifests itself, always creates _Weltanschauungen_ which in their
nature correspond with one another and coincide.
“Since the time when man attained the conditions precedent to such an
apprehension and judgment of things as we might call in our sense a
_Weltanschauung_—that is, since the individual learned to take into
consideration the totality of being, the world as a [pg 048] whole,
and to reflect as a knowing and willing subject upon the reciprocal
relations of a passive and active sort which subsist between himself
and the All—no far-reaching development has really occurred in the
spiritual life of humanity. The problems of the Greeks turn up again
in the most modern philosophy. The scepticism of to-day is essentially
the same as that which came to expression in ancient thought.
“The primitive, late-Jewish metaphysic in which Jesus expressed his
_Weltanschauung_ aggravates exceedingly the difficulty of translating
his ideas into the formulas of our time. The task is quite impossible
so long as one tries to accomplish it by distinguishing in detail
between the permanent and the transitory. And what results as the
consequence of this procedure is so lacking in force and
conclusiveness that the enrichment it contributes to our religion is
rather apparent than real.
“In truth there can be no question of making distinction between
transitory and permanent, but only of transposing the original
constitutive thought of that _Weltanschauung_ into terms familiar to
us. How would the Will of Jesus—apprehended in its immediateness, in
its definiteness and in its whole [pg 049] compass—how would it
vitalise our thought material and construct from it a _Weltanschauung_
of so moral and so mighty a sort that it could be counted the modern
equivalent of that which he created in terms of the late-Jewish
metaphysics and eschatology?
“If one tries, as has been done hitherto almost invariably, to
reconcile Jesus’ _Weltanschauung_ with ours any way it will go—which
can be accomplished only by paring away all that is
characteristic—this procedure strikes also at the will which is
manifested in these conceptions.
“It loses its originality and is no longer able to exert an elemental
influence upon us. Hence it is that the Jesus of modern theology is so
extraordinarily lifeless. Left in his eschatological world he is
greater and, for all the strangeness, he affects us more elementally,
more mightily than the modern Jesus.
“Jesus’ deed consists in the fact that his original and profound moral
nature took possession of the late-Jewish eschatology and so gives
expression, in the thought material of the age, to the hope and the
will which are intent upon the ethical consummation of the world. All
attempts to avert one’s vision from this _Weltanschauung_ as a whole
and to make Jesus’ significance for us to consist in [pg 050] his
revelation of the “fatherhood of God,” the “brotherhood of man,” and
so forth, must therefore of necessity lead to a narrow and peculiarly
insipid conception of his religion. In reality he is an authority for
us, not in the sphere of knowledge, but only in the matter of the
will. His destined rôle can only consist in this, that he as a mighty
spirit quickens the motives of willing and hoping which we and our
fellowmen bear within us and brings them to such a height of intensity
and clarity as we could not have attained if we were left to ourselves
and did not stand under the impression of his personality, and that he
thus conforms our _Weltanschauung_ to his own in its very nature, in
spite of all the diversity of thought material, and awakens in it the
energies which are active in his.
“The last and deepest knowledge of things comes from the will. Hence
the movement of thought which strives to frame the final synthesis of
observations and knowledge in order to construct a _Weltanschauung_ is
determined in its direction by the will, which constitutes the primary
and the inexplicable ultimate essence of the persons and ages in
question.
“If our age and our religion have not apprehended the greatness of
Jesus and have [pg 051] been frightened back by the eschatological
colour of his thought, this was due only in part to the fact that they
could not accommodate themselves to the strangeness of it all. The
decisive reason was another. They lacked the strong and clear stamp of
a will and a hope directed towards the moral consummation of the
world, which are decisive for Jesus and for his _Weltanschauung._ They
were devoid of eschatology,—using the word here in its broadest and
most general sense. They found in themselves no equivalents for the
thoughts of Jesus, and were therefore not in a position to transpose
his _Weltanschauung_ from the late-Jewish terms of thought into their
own.
“There was no answering chord of sympathy. Hence the historical Jesus
had to remain strange to them to a very great extent, and that not
only with respect to his thought material but also with respect to his
very nature. His ethical enthusiasm and the immediateness and might
which characterised his thought seems to them excessive because they
know nothing that corresponds to it in their own thought and
experience. So they were constantly intent upon making out of the
“enthusiast” a modern man and theologian duly observant of metes and
bounds [pg 052] in all his doings. Conservative theology, like the
older orthodoxy to which it is akin, was not able to do anything with
the historical Jesus, because it likewise makes far too little of the
great moral ideas which in his eschatology were struggling for life
and practical expression.
“It was therefore the lack of an inward tuning to the same pitch of
will and hope and desire which made it impossible to attain a real
knowledge of the historical Jesus and a comprehensive religious
relationship with him. Between him and a generation which was lacking
in all immediateness and in all enthusiasm directed towards the final
aims of humanity and of being, there could be no lively and
far-reaching fellowship. For all its progress in historical perception
it really remained more estranged from him than was the rationalism of
the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, which was
brought closer to him by its enthusiastic faith in the possibility of
rapid progress towards the moral perfection of humanity.”
I marvel that Schweitzer in his “Concluding Reflections” can dwell so
insistently upon one side of Jesus’ eschatology and ignore so
completely the other. Jesus’ [pg 053] eschatology, the white light of
his conception of the Kingdom of God, has come to us through the
medium of history refracted in two rays of different colour and of
different direction. One represents more specifically the
other-worldly side of Jesus’ preaching, the hope of eternal
blessedness beyond death,—which the dogmatic theologians are pleased
to call “eschatology,” as though our modern idea really reflected
Jesus’ conception in its totality. Commonly this is what we understand
by the “Kingdom of Heaven.” To denominate the other ray, Schweitzer
has appropriated (with as questionable a right) the “Kingdom of God.”
He means to indicate by this simply the moral development of humanity,
here and under present terrestrial conditions. We readily understand
what he means, because that is what _we_ mean commonly by “the kingdom
of God upon earth.” We are convinced that the progress of mankind in
true worldly culture and civilisation constitutes a high moral aim
which we dare not relinquish; but we have all experienced the
difficulty of reconciling this secular enthusiasm with the
other-worldliness of Jesus. Schweitzer helps us in a measure to
surmount this difficulty. He also makes it in a measure clear to us
_how_ (for the fact itself was [pg 054] patent) this enthusiasm for
the progress of humanity has been reinforced by Jesus’ preaching. But
it is a mistake to expect of this one coloured ray that it can ever
give back to us the whole white light of Jesus’ inspiration. We can
not return again to Jesus’ conception. History stands in the way—real
history, not written narrative. Nor shall we ever be able to combine
again in one white light the “broken lights” which have come to us
from his teaching. But we have the two rays, and in their separateness
they are both familiar to us. Our eyes bear better the coloured light.
Celestial blue denotes the heavenly hope; red will do for this earth
and our passionate hopes for its betterment. But why behave as if we
had only one colour and all of Jesus’ light must be forced into that?
Schweitzer ignores the heavenly hope (the thought of life beyond
death) as though it were no longer open to the modern man. One may get
a notion of what it still may mean to the modern scientific mind from
Gustav Theodor Fechner’s _Büchlein vom Leben nach dem Tode,_ or more
largely from his _Zend-Avesta,_ or his _Tagesansicht._ Though to be
sure it can mean nothing to one who is bound by a materialistic
philosophy. At all events it is certain that Jesus’ will and
aspiration can be [pg 055] much more readily and fully expressed in
these terms than in the terms of ethical and social progress here
below. To translate his thought into these terms requires no elaborate
effort. The first generation of his disciples did it without knowing
what they did. Schweitzer himself observes in another place that our
modern faith in the final but slow perfection of the world “requires a
larger dose of resignation” than most people are aware. And how can
any perfection upon this earth be final, since none can be eternal?
We are all of us feeling after a solution of our modern difficulties.
Schweitzer’s effort after a tolerable accommodation is poignantly
personal like ours—and like ours it is tentative. It is too early to
hope for complete satisfaction. Yet his efforts obviously tend in the
same direction as ours. Schweitzer perceives that “in the last resort
our relation with Jesus is a mystical one.” For the sake of this
acknowledgment, as well as for other reasons which will be evident, I
am fain to conclude this Introduction with Schweitzer’s own words—the
words with which he concludes his latest book:
“In the last resort our relationship to Jesus is of a mystical sort.
No personality of the past can be installed in the present [pg 056] by
historical reflection or by affirmations about his authoritative
significance. We get into relation with him only when we are brought
together in the recognition of a common will, experience a
clarification, enrichment, and quickening of our will by his, and find
ourselves again in him. In this sense every deeper relationship
between men is of a mystical sort. Our religion, therefore, so far as
it proves itself specifically Christian, is not so much ‘Jesus-cult’
as Jesus-mystic.
“It is only thus that Jesus creates fellowship among us. It is not as
a symbol that he does it, nor anything of the sort. In so far as we
with one another and with him are of one will, to place the Kingdom of
God above all, and to serve in behalf of this faith and hope, so far
is there fellowship between him and us and the men of all generations
who lived and live in the same thought.
“From this it will be manifest also in what way the free and the
confined movements of religion which now go side by side will come
together in unity. False compromises are of no avail. All concessions
by which the free conception seeks to approach the confined can only
result in ambiguity and inconsequence. The differences lie in the
thought [pg 057] material which is presupposed on either side. All
efforts after an agreement in this sphere are hopeless. These
differences appear so prominent because there is a lack of elementary
and vital religiousness. Two threads of water wind along side by side
through the boulders and gravel of a great stream bed. It is of no
avail that one seeks here and there to clear out of the way the masses
that are piled up between them, in order that they may flow on in one
bed. But when the water rises and overflows the boulders they find
themselves together as a matter of course. So will the confined and
the free spirit of religion come together when will and hope are
directed again towards the Kingdom of God, and the fellowship with the
spirit of Jesus becomes in them something elemental and mighty, and
they are thereby brought so near together in the essence of their
_Weltanschauung_ and religion that the differences of thought material
still exist indeed, but sink beneath the surface, as the boulders are
covered by the rising flood and in the end barely glimmer out of the
depths.
“The names by which Jesus was called in the thought material of late
Judaism—Messiah, Son of Man, and Son of God—have [pg 058] become to us
historical parables. Even when he applied these titles to himself,
this was an historically conditioned expression of his apprehension of
himself as a commander and ruler. We find no designation that might
express his nature for us.
“Unknown and nameless he comes to us, as he approached those men on
the seashore that knew not who he was. He says the same word: But do
thou follow me! and he sets before us the tasks which we in our
generation must accomplish. He commands. And to those that obey him,
wise and unwise, he will reveal himself in what may be given them to
experience in his fellowship of peace and activity, conflict and
suffering, and as an unutterable secret they shall come to know who he
is. ...”
FOOTNOTES
1 _Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien,_ 1901.
2 _Christusmythe._
3 _The Life of Christ in Recent Research,_ 1907.
4 _Eschatology of the Gospels,_ 1910.
5 _Geschichte der paulinischen Forschung,_ 1911.
6 _Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu,_ 1st ed., 1888.
7 _Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes,_ 2d ed., 1900; also _Das
älteste Evangelium,_ 1903.
8 _Quest of the Historical Jesus,_ cap. XX.
9 _Das Christus-Problem,_ 1902.
10 _Op. cit._
11 _Hibbert Journal,_ Oct., 1911, p. 84.
12 _Vide The Living Word_ by Elwood Worcester, 1908.
[pg 059]
CHAPTER I
THE MODERN “HISTORICAL” SOLUTION
1. Summary Account of It.
THE Synoptical texts do not explain how the idea of the Passion forced
itself upon Jesus and what it meant to him. The speeches of Peter and
Paul viewed the Passion in the aspect of a divine necessity which was
prophesied by the Scripture. The Pauline theory likewise has nothing
to do with history.
Therefore the idea of the Passion as it is developed here in
connection with an account of Jesus’ life is not directly furnished by
the texts but is deduced from them by implication. One is left here to
the unavoidable necessity of formulating a theory, the truth of which
can only be judged by the measure of clearness and order which it
introduces into the Synoptic accounts.
All of the theoretical constructions which have an outspoken
historical interest coincide in an alleged solution which we
denominate the modern-historical. What is historical about it is the
interest which prompts [pg 060] the endeavour to explain history. The
modern factor in it is the psychological sympathy of comprehension by
the help of which one endeavours to show how, under the impression of
particular experiences, the idea of the Passion forced itself upon
Jesus and was given by him a religious significance. This solution is
based upon the following considerations:
For Jesus there could be no question of constituting a ground for the
forgiveness of sins. That he already assumed, as the petition in the
Lord’s Prayer shows,—it flowed indeed quite naturally from the
pardoning father-love of God. Now the thought of the ransom (Mk 10:45
) recalls the Pauline theory of the atonement with its juridical
character. This, indeed, has reference to the forgiveness of sins. It
is therefore to be presumed that the juridical notion of the
atonement, like the thought of the forgiveness of sins, was strange to
Jesus, since it is not suggested by anything in the whole character of
his teaching. Consequently the expressions about the significance of
his Passion are in their traditional form influenced somehow or
another by Pauline conceptions.
If one takes due account of this influence, the historical saying (Mk
10:45) contains the [pg 061] notion of serving through sacrifice. This
thought is here expressed in its highest potency. We stand upon the
border where the heightened conception of service leads to that of
sacrifice and atonement. The value of this sacrifice for others
consists in the fact that this suffering death which Jesus underwent
is at the same time the inaugural act through which the new morality
of the Kingdom of God receives emphatic sanction and the new condition
contemplated in the idea of the Kingdom is itself realised. This deed
is the efficient first factor in a chain of transformations the
supernatural conclusion of which is his “coming again” in glory, where
the New Covenant which he sealed with his blood is fulfilled in him.
Therewith it is also explained why the determination to encounter
suffering and death could and must suggest itself. The realisation of
the Kingdom of God was Jesus’ mission. This he had undertaken to
effect at first within narrow limits during his Galilean ministry.
Through his preaching of the new morality grounded upon faith in the
divine Father, and under the influence of the power which proceeded
from him, the beginnings of this Kingdom developed. It was a happy,
successful period—the “Galilean spring [pg 062] time,” Keim called it.
The climax of this period was reached with the mission of the
Disciples. Through their preaching the glorious seed was to be strewn
abroad everywhere. As they upon their return announced to him their
success he broke out with the cry of exultation which accounted the
victory already present (Mt 11:25-27).
Then came the time of defeat. The opposition was contrived and carried
out from Jerusalem (Mk 7:1). Before this the sympathy of the people
delivered him from the consequences of occasional friction with the
officials. Now, however, as the opposition was systematically pursued,
even his followers fell away from him. It was ominous that the
discussion about ceremonial purification brought to light the
contradiction in which Jesus found himself with the legal tradition
(Mk 7:1-23). Before spring had again returned to the land he had been
obliged to leave Galilee. Far away in the north, in quiet and solitary
retirement, he collected his energies in the effort perfectly to
understand himself.
For the realisation of the Kingdom there remained but one way still
open to him,—namely, conflict with the power which opposed his work.
He resolved to carry this conflict into the capital itself. There fate
should decide. [pg 063] Perhaps the victory would fall to him. But,
even if it should turn out that in the course of earthly events the
fate of death awaited him inevitably, so long as he trod the path
which his office prescribed, this very suffering of death must signify
in God’s plan the performance by which his work was to be crowned. It
was then God’s will that the moral state appropriate to the Kingdom of
God should be inaugurated by the highest moral deed of the Messiah.
With this thought he set out for Jerusalem—in order to remain Messiah.
2. The Four Assumptions of the Modern-Historical Solution.
1. The life of Jesus falls into two contrasted epochs. The first was
fortunate, the second brought disillusion and ill success.
2. The form of the Synoptical Passion-idea in Mk 10:45 (his giving
himself a ransom for many) and in the institution of the Lord’s Supper
(Mk 14:24: his blood given for many) is somehow or another influenced
by the Pauline theory of the atonement.
3. The conception of the Kingdom of God as a self-fulfilling ethical
society in which service is the highest law dominated the idea of the
Passion.
[pg 064]
4. If Jesus’ Passion was the inaugural act of the new morality of the
Kingdom of God, the success of it depended upon the Disciples being
led to understand it in this sense and to act in accordance with it.
The Passion-idea was a reflection.
Are these assumptions, considered individually, justified?
3. The Two Contrasted Periods. (First Assumption.)
The period of ill success is dated from the time following the mission
of the Twelve. What are the events of the supposedly fortunate period?
We pass over the vexatious discussion with the Pharisees about the
healing of the paralytic (Mk 2:1-12), over the question of fasting (Mk
2:18-22), and that of the observance of the Sabbath (Mk 2:23-[3:6]).
Already in Mk 3:6 it has come to the point of a murderous attack.
Jesus has to renounce his family because they wish to fetch him home
by force as one who is mentally incompetent (Mk 3:20-22, Mk 3:31-35).
At Nazareth he is rejected (Mk 6:1-6).
In the same period occurs the attack which shocked him most
profoundly. The Pharisees discredited him with the people by [pg 065]
charging that he was in league with the devil (Mk 3:22-30). How deeply
this saying wounded him may be seen from his reference to it in the
commission to the Twelve. He prepared his Disciples for a similar
experience. “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub,
how much more those of his household” (Mt 10:25).
Such are the well known events of the “successful period”! But they
are nothing in comparison with those which he hints at when he is
sending out the Twelve. In general terms he has already pronounced
those blessed who are reproached and persecuted for his sake (Mt 5:11,
12). Now he leads his Disciples to expect oppression and distress (Mt
10:17-25). Faithfulness to him involves the endurance of enmity (Mt
10:22), the severance of the dearest ties (Mt 10:37), and the bearing
of the cross (Mt 10:38). The Galilean period is to be regarded as a
_happy_ one: the commission to the Twelve is _pessimistic_ in tone.
How does that agree?
The hints also which he drops at that time in the presence of the
people point to bitter catastrophes. What must have occurred in
Chorazin, in Capernaum, and in Bethsaida that he calls down upon them
the wrath of [pg 066] the Day of Judgment, in which it shall be more
tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for them (Mt 11:20-24)!
Because this gloomy tone accords ill with the happy Galilean period,
there is an obvious temptation to regard the Matthean speeches of the
time of the Apostles’ mission as compositions which include fragments
belonging to a later period. Where, however, could Jesus have spoken
such words? So long as he remained in the north after the flight he
made no speeches, and the utterances of the Jerusalem days have their
own peculiar character, so that it is hard to know where to introduce
references to Galilean occurrences and warnings to the Disciples in
prospect of their journey.
Moreover, it is a fact that nothing is related about conspicuous
successes in the first period. The successes first begin with the
mission of the Twelve. Jesus celebrates the great moment of their
return with words of enthusiasm (Mt 11:25-27). Are we to suppose now
that in the sequel the Pharisees triumphed over him completely and the
people deserted him? Of such a retrogression of his cause the texts,
however, record nothing. The discussion about ceremonial purification
(Mt 7:1-23) does not furnish what was expected [pg 067] of it. Jesus
had already at an earlier time come into much hotter conflict with the
theologians of the capital (Mk 3:22-30). In the question about the
laws of purification it was not he that was worsted.
Jesus’ defeat has been inferred from the fact that the “flight” to the
north followed this scene (Mk 7:24 ff[.]). But the accounts do not in
the least represent this departure as a flight, nor do they account
for this journey to the north as a result of the previous controversy;
rather it is _we_ who interpolate a fictitious causal connection in
the chronological sequence of the narrative. If Jesus immediately
before this was supported by the popular favour and now leaves the
region, we have a fact before us which stands unexplained in the
texts. That it was a flight is an unprovable conjecture.
No importance need be attached to the fact that subsequently Jesus
again appears on two occasions surrounded by a multitude (Mk 8:1-9:
feeding of the 4000; and Mk 8:34 ff[.]: the scenes before and after
the Transfiguration). This fact might perhaps be attributed to a
literary reconstruction of the respective accounts,—as may be
considered established, for example, in the case of the _doublette_ of
the feeding of the multitude.
[pg 068]
Decisive, however, is the reception which the Passover caravan
accorded to Jesus as he overtook it at Jericho. This ovation was not
accorded to the man who had lost ground before the Pharisees in his
own country and among his own people and at last had been forced to
flee, but to the celebrated prophet emerging from his retirement. If
this Galilean populace supported him now by their acclaim and enabled
him to terrorise the magistrates in the capital for several days—for
his purification of the Temple was nothing else but that—and to expose
the scribes with his dry irony, is it possible that they did it for
the man who a few weeks before had to yield to these theologians in
his own land?
If one insists upon speaking of a successful period, it is the
_second_ that must be so denominated. For wherever Jesus appears in
public after the return of the Twelve he is accompanied by a devoted
multitude—in Galilee, from the Jordan to Jerusalem, and in the capital
itself. The surly Jewish populace is an invention of the Fourth
Evangelist. Then, too, the illegality of his secret arrest and hasty
conviction shows what the Council feared from the popular favour in
behalf of Jesus. That was the only “ill[ ]success” of [pg 069] the
second period. It was indeed a fatal one.
The first and successful Galilean period is therefore in reality a
time of humiliation and ill[ ]success. There is a double reason for
regarding it nevertheless as a “happy” time. In the first place there
is an æsthetic element in it, which Keim in particular strongly
emphasises. A series of parables drawn from nature, as well as the
wonderful speech against worldly care (Mt 6:25-34), seem hardly
intelligible except as the reflection of a glad and cheerful sense for
the beauty of nature.
With this is associated, in the second place, an _historical
postulate._ In the first period no trace is discoverable of the idea
of the Passion: the second is dominated by it. Hence the first was
successful, the second unsuccessful,—for otherwise there is no way of
accounting, psychologically or historically, for the change.
The historical facts speak differently. In the real period of ill[
]success the resolution to suffer did not come to light. In the
successful second period, on the other hand, Jesus disclosed to his
Disciples that he must be put to death by the scribes. Thus the
relation was the reverse. Herewith modern-historical psychology finds
itself before an enigma.
[pg 070]
4. The Influence of the Pauline Theory of the Atonement upon the
Formulation of the Synoptical Prediction of the Passion. (Second
Assumption.)
No proof can be brought to support the contention that the Passion
passages in the Synoptic Gospels are influenced by Pauline
conceptions. Here again we have a sort of postulate. For if the
juridical character of Mk 10:45 and Mk 14:24 cannot be set down to the
account of the Pauline medium, one must assume that Jesus’ own notion
of the Passion contained this bold conception of atonement. The
modern-historical solution, however, is not adapted to that
alternative.
As a matter of fact it is demonstrable that no Pauline influence can
be discerned here. According to Paul, Jesus said at the Last Supper:
My body for _you_ (1 Cor. 11:24). In the same manner Luke has: My body
which is given for _you;_ the blood which is shed for _you_ (Lk 22:19,
20). Both the older Synoptists invariably write instead of this: for
_many._ Mk 10:45 = Mt 20:28: to give his life a ransom for _many._ Mk
14:24 = Mt 26:28: my blood of the covenant which is shed for _many_.
In the one case the persons who are to benefit by the Passion are
definitely determined: they [pg 071] are the Disciples. In the other
case it is a question of an indefinite number.
Nothing is accomplished by the argument that it comes in the end
substantially to the same thing. Why, according to the older
Synoptists, did Jesus speak of the _many,_ according to Paul, of _his
own?_ The sole explanation lies in the fact that Paul wrote from the
standpoint of the Church after the death of Jesus. From this point of
view the saving efficacy of Jesus’ death is applied to a determinate
community, to those, namely, who believe on him. The Disciples
represent this community of believers in the historical sayings of
Jesus, because from the standpoint of the Church, founded as it was
upon belief in the Messiah, one could not conceive that Jesus’ words
about his Passion could have any other reference but to the believers.
The early Synoptic “for many” is uttered, however, from the
_historical standpoint._ That is to say, it is appropriate to the time
when Jesus did not yet require belief in his messiahship, when
consequently the number of persons whom his death is to benefit is
left indeterminate. Of only one thing is he certain, that it is
greater than the circle of his Disciples: hence he said, “for many.”
Had [pg 072] he used the expression, “for you,” which Paul thought it
natural to attribute to him, the Disciples must have concluded from it
that he was dying for them alone, inasmuch as they could not then have
the feeling that they were representatives of a future community of
believers, according to the conception which was so obvious to Paul
and the Church.
Inasmuch as this _“for many”_ has held its place, in spite of the fact
that Paul, writing from the churchly point of view, felt instinctively
the necessity of substituting _“for you”_ (though he thereby coined an
expression which is historically impossible), one is not justified in
assuming any sort of Pauline influence upon the traditional form of
the early Synoptic Passion-idea. The bold theory of the atonement in
the Synoptists is therefore historical. Any softening of it, such as
the modern-historical solution must assume, is without justification.
Hence in the interpretation of Jesus’ saying the first requisite is to
do justice to the expression “for many.” Because they have not done
this, all expositions of the significance of Jesus’ death—from Paul to
Ritschl—are unhistorical. One has but to substitute, for the community
of believers with which they deal, the indeterminate and unqualified
[pg 073] “many” of the historical saying, and their interpretation
become simply meaningless. That interpretation alone is historical
which renders it intelligible why, according to Jesus, the atonement
accomplished by his death is to redound to the benefit of a number
which is intentionally left indeterminate.
5. The Kingdom of God as an Ethical Entity in the Passion Idea. (Third
Assumption.)
(a). Mk 10:41-45. Service as the ethical conduct prescribed in
expectation of the coming Kingdom.
The sons of Zebedee had advanced the claim to sit on either side of
the Lord in his glory, i. e. when he should reign as Messiah upon his
throne. The other Disciples object to this. Jesus calls them together
and speaks to them about serving and ruling in connection with the
Kingdom of God.
In this saying one is accustomed to find the ethical conception of the
Kingdom of God. There is to be a revaluation of all values. The
greatest in the Kingdom of heaven is he who becomes least, like a
child (Mt 18:4), and the ruler is he who serves. Self-humiliation and
the meekness of service, such is the [pg 074] new morality of the
Kingdom of God which comes into force through Jesus’ service unto
death.
With this, however, the fact is ignored that the Kingdom in which one
reigns is thought of as a future thing, whereas the serving applies to
the present! In our ethical fashion of viewing the matter, serving and
reigning coincide logically and chronologically. With Jesus, however,
it is not at all a question of a purely ethical exchange of the
notions of serving and ruling; rather it is a contrast which develops
in a chronological sequence. There is a sharp distinction made between
the present and the future æon. He who is one day to count among the
greatest in the Kingdom of God must _now_ be as a child! He who
advances a claim to a position of rule therein must _now_ serve! The
more lowly the position of humble service which one _now_ assumes, in
the time when the earthly rulers exercise authority by force, so much
the more lofty will be his station as ruler when earthly force is done
away and the Kingdom of God dawns. Hence he especially must humble
himself even unto death who is to come as the Son of Man upon the
clouds of heaven to judge and to rule the world. Before he mounts his
throne he drinks the cup of suffering, [pg 075] which they also must
taste who would reign with him!
So soon as one pays due attention to this “now and then” in Jesus’
speech, the trivial parallelism of phrase is replaced by a real and
effective climax. The descending stages of service correspond to the
ascending stages of rule.
1. Whosoever would become great _among you,_ shall be _your_
servant—Mk 10:43.
2. Whosoever _of you_ would be first, shall be bondservant of _all_
(others)—Mk 10:44.
3. Therefore the Son of Man expected the post of highest rule because
he was not come to be served but to serve, in giving his life a ransom
for _many_—Mk 10:45.
The climax is a double one. The service of the Disciples extended only
to _their_ circle: the service of Jesus to an unlimited number,
namely, to all such as were to benefit by his suffering and death. In
the case of the Disciples it was merely a question of unselfish
_subjection:_ in the case of Jesus it meant the bitter _suffering of
death._ Both count as serving, inasmuch as they establish a claim to a
position of rule in the Kingdom.
The ordinary explanation does not satisfy the early Synoptic text but
only that of Lk 22:24-27. This text has torn the narrative from [pg
076] its proper connection, so that it appears as a dispute among the
Disciples “which of them is accounted to be the greatest.”
With this, the “now and then” is eliminated from the situation, and it
is only a question of a purely ethical inversion of the ideas of
ruling and serving. Accordingly, Jesus’ speech, too, runs on in a
lifeless parallelism. He that is greater among you, let him become as
the younger, and he that is chief, as he that doth serve (Lk 22:26).
Instead of exemplifying by his own sacrifice of himself unto death for
the great generality of men the conduct required of those who would
reign with him, he speaks only of his serviceable character as
displayed towards the Disciples: But I am in the midst of you as he
that serveth (Lk 22:27). By this he means a serving that is at the
same time ruling. In the case of the two older Synoptists, however, it
is not at all a question of the proclamation of the new morality of
the Kingdom of God, where serving is ruling; rather it is a question
of the significance of humility and service in _expectation of the
Kingdom of God._ Service is the fundamental law of _interim-ethics._
This thought is much deeper and more vital than the modern play upon
words which we attribute to the Lord. Only through lowliness [pg 077]
and childlikeness in this æon is one worthily prepared to reign in the
Kingdom of God. Only he who is here morally purified and ennobled
through suffering can be great there. Hence suffering is for Jesus the
moral means of acquiring and confirming the messianic authority to
which he is designated.
Earthly rule, because it depends upon force, is an emanation of the
power of ungodliness. Authority in the Kingdom of God, where the power
of this world is destroyed, signifies emanation from the divine power.
Only he can be the bearer of such authority who has kept himself free
from the contamination of earthly rule. To allot it to such as have
prepared themselves through suffering is God’s affair and his alone
(Mk 10:39, 40).
But if service does not represent the morality of the Kingdom of God,
Jesus’ conception of the Passion does not deal with the corresponding
notion of the Kingdom as a self-developing ethical society, but rather
with a super-moral entity, namely, the Kingdom of God in its
eschatological aspect.
(b). The idea of the Passion and the Eschatological Expectation.
The investigation of the accounts of the Lord’s Supper [in the first
part of this work] revealed a close connection between the
eschatological [pg 078] conclusion (Mk 14:25) and the expression about
the blood shed for many (Mk 14:24). The other passages about the
Passion suggest a similar connection.
After Jesus with his “Yes” had himself pronounced the verdict of death
he speaks of his “coming again” upon the clouds of heaven. Hereby,
according to Mark’s text, he associates the two events in a single
thought. Mk 14:62: I am, and ye shall see the Son of Man sitting at
the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of Heaven. This
logical connection is already weakened by Matthew, as in the case of
the word about the cup. He substitutes for the “and” an expression
which denotes a temporal sequence merely. Mt 26:64: Thou hast said:
_nevertheless_ I say unto you, _henceforth_ shall ye, etc. The
eschatological reference is lacking in Luke: he has omitted it also
from the word about the cup.
A close connection between the thought of the Passion and eschatology
is implied also in Jesus’ saying about the path of suffering which his
followers must tread (Mk 8:34- 9:1). Whosoever shall be ashamed of
Jesus when he suffers reproach and persecution in this adulterous and
sinful world, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he cometh in
the glory [pg 079] of his Father with the holy angels. For this
generation shall not sink into the grave until they see the Kingdom of
God come with power!
This connection must have appeared extremely prominent to the hearers.
After the departure from Cæsarea Philippi, under the impression of the
secret of the Passion, which filled them with a sense of sadness and
fear (Mk 9:30-32),—the Disciples dispute which of them shall receive
the highest place in the Kingdom. In the house at Capernaum Jesus had
to rebuke them (Mk 9:33-37). That was after he had spoken for the
second time about his Passion.
On the way to Jerusalem the same scene was reenacted in closest
conjunction with the third prediction of the Passion. (Mk 10:32-41).
The sons of Zebedee advance their claim to the seats upon the throne.
This is not in the least a case of childish misunderstanding on the
part of his followers, for Jesus in fact treats their suggestion with
perfect seriousness. The eschatological expectation must accordingly
have been thrown into such strong relief for the Disciples by Jesus’
prediction of his Passion that they necessarily reasoned within
themselves about the position they should occupy in the coming
Kingdom.
[pg 080]
The modern-historical solution eliminates the eschatological
conception of the Kingdom of God from the Passion, reducing it to the
notion of an apotheosis, “the coming _again,”_ as it is called. This
expression is entirely false. Jesus never spoke of his coming _again_
but only of his _coming_ or of the _advent_ of the Son of Man. We use
the expression “coming again” because we connect death and glory by
contrast, as though the new situation were conditioned merely upon a
victorious transfiguration of Jesus. Our view makes him say: “I shall
die, but I shall be glorified through my coming again.” As a matter of
fact, however, he said: “I must suffer _and_ the Son of Man shall
appear upon the clouds of heaven.” But that for his hearers meant much
more than an apotheosis—for with the appearing of the Son of Man
dawned the eschatological Kingdom. Jesus therefore sets his death in
temporal-causal connection with the eschatological dawning of the
Kingdom. The _eschatological_ notion of the Kingdom, not the
_modern-ethical_ notion, dominates his idea of the Passion.
6. The Form of the Prediction of the Passion. (Fourth Assumption.)
If the modern historical solution be correct [pg 081] in its
conception, Jesus must have communicated the thought of the Passion to
his Disciples in the form of an ethical _reflection._ If they were to
comprehend the approaching catastrophe as the inauguration of the new
morality, and were to derive from it incentive to a change of conduct,
then he must have familiarised them with the character of this event
from the very beginning, as soon as ever he announced it.
As a matter of fact, however, he imparted to them the thought of the
Passion, not in the form of an _ethical reflection,_ but as a
_secret,_ without further explanation. It is dominated by a “must,”
the expression for incomprehensible divine necessity. The fact that
the Passion-idea was a secret stands opposed to the modern-historical
solution.
7. Résumé.
1. The assumption of a fortunate Galilean period which was followed by
a time of defeat is historically untenable.
2. Pauline influence cannot have conditioned the form of the early
Synoptic sayings about the Passion.
3. Not the ethical but the hyper-ethical, the eschatological, notion
of the Kingdom [pg 082] dominates the Passion as Jesus conceived it.
4. The utterances of the Passion-idea did not occur in the form of an
ethical reflection but it was a question of an incomprehensible secret
which the Disciples had not the least need to understand and in fact
did not.
Such is the situation with regard to the four pillars of the
modern-historical solution. With them the whole structure collapses.
It is after all a lifeless thought! The feeble modernity of it is
visible in the fact that it does not get beyond a sort of
representative significance of Jesus’ death. Jesus effects by his
offering of himself nothing absolutely new, since throughout his whole
public ministry he assumes that the Kingdom of God is already present
as a dispensation of the forgiveness of sin or as the morally
developing society. With his very appearance upon earth it is there.
The performance of atonement, however, requires a _real_ significance
in Jesus’ death.
Herein lies the weakness of the modern dogmatic in contrast with the
old. Paul, Anselm, and Luther know of an absolutely new situation
which follows in time the death of Jesus [pg 083] and results as a
consequence of it. Modern theology talks all around the subject; it
has nothing specific to say, however, but involves itself in the cloud
of its own assumptions. Both accounts, indeed, are unhistorical.
Religiously considered, only the modern view is justifiable. The old
dogmatic, however, is in this point the more historical, for it
postulates at all events a real effect of the death of Jesus, as the
Synoptical passages require.
In what, however, does this absolutely new thing consist which is
there made to depend upon the death of Jesus? The Synoptic sayings
give but one answer to this: the eschatological realisation of the
Kingdom! The coming of the Kingdom of God with power is dependent upon
the atonement which Jesus performs. That is substantially the secret
of the Passion.
How is that to be understood? Only the history of Jesus can throw
light upon it. _In place of the modern-historical solution we advance
now the eschatological-historical._
[pg 084]