THE “DEVELOPMENT” OF JESUS
1. The Kingdom of God as an Ethical and as an Eschatological Fact.
THE concurrence in Jesus of an ethical with an eschatological line of
thought has always constituted one of the most difficult problems of
New Testament study. How can two such different views of the world, in
part diametrically opposed to one another, be united in _one_ process
of thought?
The attempt has been made to evade the problem, with the just feeling
that the two views cannot be united. Critical spirits like T. Colani
_(Jesus-Christ et les croyance messianique de son temps._ 1864, pp. 94
ff., 169 ff.) and G. Volkmar _(Die Evangelien._ 1870, pp. 530 ff.)
went to the length of eliminating altogether eschatology from the
field of Jesus’ thought. All expressions of that sort were accordingly
to be charged to the account of the eschatological expectation of a
later time. This procedure is frustrated by the stubbornness of the
texts: the eschatological sayings belong precisely to the best
attested passages. [pg 085] The excision of them is an act of
violence.
No more successful has been the attempt to evade the problem by
_sublimating_ the eschatology, as though Jesus had translated the
realistic conceptions of his time into spiritual terms by using them
in a figurative sense. The work of Eric Haupt _(Die eschatologischen
Aussagen Jesu in den synoptischen Evangelien,_ 1895) is based upon
this thought. But there is nothing to justify us in assuming that
Jesus attached to his words a non-natural sense, whereas his hearers,
in accordance with the prevailing view, must have understood them
realistically. Not only are we at a loss for a rational explanation of
such a method on Jesus’ part, but he himself gives not the slightest
hint of it.
So the problem remains as urgent as ever, how the juxtaposition of two
discordant views of the world is to be explained. The sole solution
seems to lie in the assumption of a gradual development. Jesus may
have entertained at first a purely ethical view, looking for the
realisation of the Kingdom of God through the spread and perfection of
the moral-religious society which he was undertaking to establish.
When, however, the opposition of the world put the organic completion
of the Kingdom in doubt, the eschatological [pg 086] conception forced
itself upon him. By the course of events he was brought to the pass
where the fulfilment of the religious-ethical ideal, which hitherto he
had regarded as the terminus of a continuous moral development, could
be expected only as the result of a cosmic catastrophe in which God’s
omnipotence should bring to its conclusion the work which he had
undertaken.
Thus a complete revolution is supposed to have occurred in Jesus’
thought. But the problem is veiled rather than solved by disposing the
terms of the contrast in chronological sequence. The acceptance of the
eschatological notion, if it is to be rendered intelligible in this
fashion, signifies nothing less than a total breach with the past, a
break at which all development ceases. For the eschatological thought,
if it be taken seriously, abrogates the ethical train of thought. It
accepts no subordinate place. To such a position of impotence it was
brought for the first time in Christian theology as the result of
historical experience. Jesus, however, must have thought either
eschatologically or uneschatologically, but not both together—nor in
such a wise that the eschatological was superadded to supplement the
uneschatological.
[pg 087]
It has been proved that in the thought of the Passion it is only the
eschatological idea of the Kingdom of God which is in view. It has
been shown likewise that the assumption of a period of ill[ ]success
after the mission of the Twelve is without historical justification.
This, however, constitutes the indispensable presumption for every
such development as has been assumed on the part of Jesus. Therefore
the eschatological notion cannot have been forced upon Jesus by
outward experiences, but it must from the beginning, even in the first
Galilean period, have lain at the base of his preaching!
2. The Eschatological Character of the Charge to the Twelve.
“The Kingdom of God is at hand” (Mt 10:7)—this word which Jesus
commissions his Disciples to proclaim is a summary expression of all
his previous preaching. They are to carry it now throughout the cities
of Israel. The charge of Jesus to the Twelve furnishes no means of
determining in what sense this proclamation is meant.
If the common conception is right about the significance of this
mission of the Twelve, the words with which he dismisses them present
an extraordinary riddle. Full of hope [pg 088] and with the joy of
productive effort he goes about to extend the scope of his activity
for the founding of the Kingdom of God. The commission to the Twelve
ought therefore to contain instruction about the missionary propaganda
they were to carry out in this sense. One must hence expect that he
would direct them how they should preach about the new relation to God
and the new morality of the Kingdom.
The commission, however, is anything but a summary of the “teaching of
Jesus.” It does not in the least contemplate instruction of a
thoroughgoing kind, rather what is in question is a flying
proclamation throughout Israel. The one errand of the Apostles as
teachers is to cry out everywhere the warning of the nearness of the
Kingdom of God—to the intent that all may be warned and given
opportunity to repent. In this, however, no time is to be lost;
therefore they are not to linger in a town where men are unsusceptible
to their message, but to hasten on in order that they may pass through
all the cities of Israel before the appearing of the Son of Man takes
place. But “the coming of the Son of Man” signifies—_the dawning of
the Kingdom of God with power._
When they persecute you in this city flee [pg 089] unto another, for
verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone through the cities of
Israel till the Son of Man be come (Mt 10:23). If one so understands
the com[m]ission to the Twelve as to suppose that Jesus would say
through his Disciples that the time is now come for the realisation of
the Kingdom by a new moral behaviour, that eschatological saying lies
like an erratic boulder in the midst of a flowery meadow. If, however,
one conceives of the embassage eschatologically, the saying acquires a
great context: it is a rock in the midst of a wild mountain landscape.
One cannot affirm of this saying that it has been interpolated here by
a later age; rather with compelling force it fixes the presence of
eschatological conceptions in the days of the mission of the Twelve.
The one and only article of instruction that is required is the call
to repentance. Whosoever believes in the nearness of the Kingdom,
repents. Hence Jesus gives the Disciples authority over unclean
spirits, to cast them out and to heal the sick (Mt 10:1). By these
signs they are to perceive that the power of ungodliness is coming to
an end and the morning-glow of the Kingdom of God already dawns. That
belongs to their errand as teachers, for whosoever fails to believe
their [pg 090] signs, and thereupon brings forth no works of
repentance unto the Kingdom of God,—that man is damned. Thus have
C[h]orazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum come into condemnation. Faith and
repentance were made easy for them by the signs and wonders with which
they were favoured beyond others—and yet they did not come to
themselves, as even pagan cities like Tyre and Sidon would have done
(Mt 11:20-24). This saying addressed to the people shows what
significance Jesus ascribed to the signs in view of the eschatological
embassage.
Thus the Disciples were to preach _the Kingdom, Repentance, and the
Judgment._ Inasmuch, however, as the event they proclaimed was so near
that it might at any moment surprise them, they must be prepared for
what precedes it, namely, for the final insurrection of the power of
this world. How they are to comport themselves in the face of this
emergency so as not to be confounded—here is the point upon which
Jesus’ parting words of instruction bear! In the general tumult of
spirits all ties will be dissolved. Faction will divide even the
family (Mt 10:34-36). Whosoever would be loyal to the Kingdom of God
must be ready to tear from out his heart those who were dearest [pg
091] to him, to endure reproach, and to bear the cross (Mt 10:37, 38).
The secular authority will bring upon them severe persecution (Mt
10:17-31). Men will call them to account and subject them to torture
in order to move them to denial of their cause. Brother shall deliver
up brother to death, and the father his child; and children shall rise
up against parents and cause them to be put to death. Only he who
remains steadfast in the midst of this general tumult, and confesses
Jesus before men, shall be saved in the Day of Judgment, when he
intervenes with God in their behalf (Mt 10:32, 33).
In the commission to the Twelve Jesus imparts instruction about the
woes of the approaching Kingdom. In the descriptive portions of it
there may be much perhaps that betrays the colouring of a later time.
By this concession, however, the character of the speech as a whole is
not prejudiced. The question at issue is not about a course of conduct
which they are to maintain _after his death._ For such instruction not
a single historical word can be adduced. The woes precede the dawning
of the Kingdom. Therefore the victorious proclamation of the nearness
of the Kingdom must accommodate itself to the woes. Hence this
juxtaposition of optimism [pg 092] and pessimism which the current
interpretation finds so unaccountable. It is the sign manual of every
eschatological _Weltanschauung._
3. The New View.
The idea of Passion is dominated _only_ by the eschatological
conception of the Kingdom. In the charge to the Twelve the question is
_only_ about the eschatological—not about the ethical-nearness of the
Kingdom. From this it follows, for one thing, that Jesus’ ministry
counted _only_ upon the eschatological realisation of the Kingdom.
Then, however, it is evident that the relation of his ethical thoughts
to the eschatological view can have suffered no alteration by reason
of outward events but must have been the same from beginning to end.
In what relation, however, did his ethics and his eschatology stand to
each other? So long as one starts with the ethics and seeks to
comprehend the eschatology as something adventitious, there appears to
be no organic connection between the two, since the ethics of Jesus,
as we are accustomed to conceive it, is not in the least accommodated
to the eschatology but stands upon a much [pg 093] higher level. One
must therefore take the opposite course and see if the ethical
proclamation in essence is not conditioned by the eschatological view
of the world.
[pg 094]