Chapter I: 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._

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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]