Chapter XIX: Thoroughgoing Scepticism and Thoroughgoing Eschatology (2)

As he does not deal with the teaching of Jesus, he has no occasion to take account of the secret of the Kingdom of God. That is the more remarkable because corresponding to one fundamental idea of the Messianic secret there is a parallel, more general dogmatic conception in Jesus’ preaching of the Kingdom. For if Jesus in Matt. x. gives the disciples nothing to take with them on their mission but predictions of suffering; if at the very beginning of His ministry He closes the Beatitudes with a blessing upon the persecuted; if in Mark viii. 34 ff. He warns the people that they will have to choose between life and life, between death and death; if, in short, from the first, He loses no opportunity of preaching about suffering and following Him in His sufferings; that is just as much a matter of dogma as His own sufferings and predictions of sufferings. For in both cases the necessity of suffering, the necessity of facing death, is not “a necessity of the historical situation,” not a necessity which arises out of the circumstances; it is an assertion put forth without empirical basis, a prophecy of storm while the sky is blue, since neither Jesus nor the people to whom He spoke were undergoing any persecution; and when His fate overtook Him not even the disciples were involved in it. It is distinctly remarkable that, except for a few meagre references, the enigmatic character of Jesus’ constant predictions of suffering has not been discussed in the Life‐of‐Jesus literature.(268)

What has now to be done, therefore, is, in contradistinction to Wrede, to make a critical examination of the dogmatic element in the life of Jesus on the assumption that the atmosphere of the time was saturated with eschatology, that is, to keep in even closer touch with the facts than Wrede does, and moreover, to proceed, not from the particular to the general, but from the general to the particular, carefully considering whether the dogmatic element is not precisely the historical element. For, after all, why should not Jesus think in terms of doctrine, and make history in action, just as well as a poor Evangelist can do it on paper, under the pressure of the theological interests of the primitive community.

Once again, however, we must repeat that the critical analysis and the assertion of a system running through the disorder are the same in the eschatological as in the sceptical hypothesis, only that in the eschatological analysis a number of problems come more clearly to light. The two constructions are related like the bones and cartilage of the body. The general structure is the same, only that in the case of the one a solid substance, lime, is distributed even in the minutest portions, giving it firmness and solidity, while in the other case this is lacking. This reinforcing substance is the eschatological world‐view.

How is it to be explained that Wrede, in spite of the eschatological school, in spite of Johannes Weiss, could, in critically investigating the connecting principle of the life of Jesus, simply leave eschatology out of account? The blame rests with the eschatological school itself, for it applied the eschatological explanation only to the preaching of Jesus, and not even to the whole of this, but only to the Messianic secret, instead of using it also to throw light upon the whole public work of Jesus, the connexion and want of connexion between the events. It represented Jesus as thinking and speaking eschatologically in some of the most important passages of His teaching, but for the rest gave as uneschatological a presentation of His life as modern historical theology had done. The teaching of Jesus and the history of Jesus were set in different keys. Instead of destroying the modern‐historical scheme of the life of Jesus, or subjecting it to a rigorous examination, and thereby undertaking the performance of a highly valuable service to criticism, the eschatological theory confined itself within the limits of New Testament Theology, and left it to Wrede to reveal one after another by a laborious purely critical method the difficulties which from its point of view it might have grasped historically at a single glance. It inevitably follows that Wrede is unjust to Johannes Weiss and Johannes Weiss towards Wrede.(269)

It is quite inexplicable that the eschatological school, with its clear perception of the eschatological element in the preaching of the Kingdom of God, did not also hit upon the thought of the “dogmatic” element in the history of Jesus. Eschatology is simply “dogmatic history”—history as moulded by theological beliefs—which breaks in upon the natural course of history and abrogates. it. Is it not even a priori the only conceivable view that the conduct of one who looked forward to His Messianic “Parousia” in the near future should be determined, not by the natural course of events, but by that expectation? The chaotic confusion of the narratives ought to have suggested the thought that the events had been thrown into this confusion by the volcanic force of an incalculable personality, not by some kind of carelessness or freak of the tradition.

A very little consideration suffices to show that there is something quite incomprehensible in the public ministry of Jesus taken as a whole. According to Mark it lasted less than a year, for since he speaks of only one Passover‐journey we may conclude that no other Passover fell within the period of Jesus’ activity as a teacher. If it is proposed to assume that He allowed a Passover to go by without going up to Jerusalem, His adversaries, who took Him to task about hand‐washings and about rubbing the ears of corn on the Sabbath, would certainly have made a most serious matter of this, and we should have to suppose that the Evangelist for some reason or other thought fit to suppress the fact. That is to say, the burden of proof lies upon those who assert a longer duration for the ministry of Jesus.

Until they have succeeded in proving it, we may assume something like the following course of events. Jesus, in going up to a Passover, came in contact with the movement initiated by John the Baptist in Judaea, and, after the lapse of a little time—if we bring into the reckoning the forty days’ sojourn in the wilderness mentioned in Mark i. 13, a few weeks later—appeared in Galilee proclaiming the near approach of the Kingdom of God. According to Mark He had known Himself since His baptism to be the Messiah, but from the historical point of view that does not matter, since history is concerned with the first announcement of the Messiahship, not with inward psychological processes.(270)

This work of preaching the Kingdom was continued until the sending forth of the Twelve; that is to say, at the most for a few weeks. Perhaps in the saying “the harvest is great but the labourers are few,” with which Jesus closes His work prior to sending forth the disciples, there lies an allusion to the actual state of the natural fields. The flocking of the people to Him after the Mission of the Twelve, when a great multitude thronged about Him for several days during His journey along the northern shore of the lake, can be more naturally explained if the harvest had just been brought in.

However that may be, it is certain that Jesus, in the midst of His initial success, left Galilee, journeyed northwards, and only resumed His work as a teacher in Judaea on the way to Jerusalem! Of His “public ministry,” therefore, a large section falls out, being cancelled by a period of inexplicable concealment; it dwindles to a few weeks of preaching here and there in Galilee and the few days of His sojourn in Jerusalem.(271)

But in that case the public life of Jesus becomes practically unintelligible. The explanation that His cause in Galilee was lost, and that He was obliged to flee, has not the slightest foundation in the text.(272) That was recognised even by Keim, the inventor of the successful and unsuccessful periods in the life of Jesus, as is shown by his suggestion that the Evangelists had intentionally removed the traces of failure from the decisive period which led up to the northern journey. The controversy over the washing of hands in Mark vii. 1‐23, to which appeal is always made, is really a defeat for the Pharisees. The theory of the “desertion of the Galilaeans,” which appears with more or less artistic variations in all modern Lives of Jesus, owes its existence not to any other confirmatory fact, but simply to the circumstance that Mark makes the simple statement: “And Jesus departed and went into the region of Tyre” (vii. 24) without offering any explanation of this decision.

The only conclusion which the text warrants is that Mark mentioned no reason because he knew of none. The decision of Jesus did not rest upon the recorded facts, since it ignores these, but upon considerations lying outside the history. His life at this period was dominated by a “dogmatic idea” which rendered Him indifferent to all else ... even to the happy and successful work as a teacher which was opening before Him. How could Jesus the “teacher” abandon at that moment a people so anxious to learn and so eager for salvation? His action suggests a doubt whether He really felt Himself to be a “teacher.” If all the controversial discourses and sayings and answers to questions, which were so to speak wrung from Him, were subtracted from the sum of His utterances, how much of the didactic preaching of Jesus would be left over?

But even the supposed didactic preaching is not really that of a “teacher,” since the purpose of His parables was, according to Mark iv. 10‐12, not to reveal, but to conceal, and of the Kingdom of God He spoke only in parables (Mark iv. 34).

Perhaps, however, we are not justified in extending the theory of concealment, simply because it is mentioned in connexion with the first parable, to all the parables which He ever spoke, for it is never mentioned again. It could hardly indeed be applied to the parables with a moral, like that, for instance, of the pearl of great price. It is equally inapplicable to the parables of coming judgment uttered at Jerusalem, in which He explicitly exhorts the people to be prepared and watchful in view of the coming of judgment and of the Kingdom. But here too it is deserving of notice that Jesus, whenever He desires to make known anything further concerning the Kingdom of God than just its near approach, seems to be confined, as it were by a higher law, to the parabolic form of discourse. It is as though, for reasons which we cannot grasp, His teaching lay under certain limitations. It appears as a kind of accessory aspect of His vocation. Thus it was possible for Him to give up His work as a teacher even at the moment when it promised the greatest success.

Accordingly the fact of His always speaking in parables and of His taking this inexplicable resolution both point back to a mysterious pre‐ supposition which greatly reduces the importance of Jesus’ work as a teacher.

One reason for this limitation is distinctly stated in Mark iv. 10‐12, viz. predestination! Jesus knows that the truth which He offers is exclusively for those who have been definitely chosen, that the general and public announcement of His message could only thwart the plans of God, since the chosen are already winning their salvation from God. Only the phrase, “Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand” and its variants belong to the public preaching. And this, therefore, is the only message which He commits to His disciples when sending them forth. What this repentance, supplementary to the law, the special ethic of the interval before the coming of the Kingdom (_Interimsethik_) is, in its positive acceptation, He explains in the Sermon on the Mount. But all that goes beyond that simple phrase must be publicly presented only in parables, in order that those only, who are shown to possess predestination by having the initial knowledge which enables them to understand the parables, may receive a more advanced knowledge, which is imparted to them in a measure corresponding to their original degree of knowledge: “Unto him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath” (Mark iv. 24‐25).

The predestinarian view goes along with the eschatology. It is pushed to its utmost consequences in the closing incident of the parable of the marriage of the King’s son (Matt. xxii. 1‐14) where the man who, in response to a publicly issued invitation, sits down at the table of the King, but is recognised from his appearance as not called, is thrown out into perdition. “Many are called but few are chosen.” The ethical idea of salvation and the predestinarian limitation of acceptance to the elect are constantly in conflict in the mind of Jesus. In one case, however, He finds relief in the thought of predestination. When the rich young man turned away, not having strength to give up his possessions for the sake of following Jesus as he had been commanded to do, Jesus and His disciples were forced to draw the conclusion that he, like other rich men, was lost, and could not enter into the Kingdom of God. But immediately afterwards Jesus makes the suggestion, “With men it is impossible, but not with God, for with God all things are possible” (Mark x. 17‐27). That is, He will not give up the hope that the young man, in spite of appearances, which are against him, will be found to have belonged to the Kingdom of God, solely in virtue of the secret all‐powerful will of God. Of a “conversion” of the young man there is no question.

In the Beatitudes, on the other hand, the argument is reversed; the predestination is inferred from its outward manifestation. It may seem to us inconceivable, but they are really predestinarian in form. Blessed are the poor in spirit! Blessed are the meek! Blessed are the peacemakers!—that does not mean that by virtue of their being poor in spirit, meek, peace‐loving, they deserve the Kingdom. Jesus does not intend the saying as an injunction or exhortation, but as a simple statement of fact: in their being poor in spirit, in their meekness, in their love of peace, it is made manifest that they are predestined to the Kingdom. By the possession of these qualities they are marked as belonging to it. In the case of others (Matt. v. 10‐12) the predestination to the Kingdom is made manifest by the persecutions which befall them in this world. These are the light of the world, which already shines among men for the glory of God (Matt. v. 14‐15).

The kingdom cannot be “earned”; what happens is that men are called to it, and show themselves to be called to it. On careful examination it appears that the idea of reward in the sayings of Jesus is not really an idea of reward, because it is relieved against a background of predestination. For the present it is sufficient to note the fact that the eschatologico‐ predestinarian view brings a mysterious element of dogma not merely into the teaching, but also into the public ministry of Jesus.

To take another point, what is the mystery of the Kingdom of God? It must consist of something more than merely its near approach, and something of extreme importance; otherwise Jesus would be here indulging in mere mystery‐mongering. The saying about the candle which He puts upon the stand, in order that what was hidden may be revealed to those who have ears to hear, implies that He is making a tremendous revelation to those who understand the parables about the growth of the seed. The mystery must therefore contain the explanation why the Kingdom must now come, and how men are to know how near it is. For the general fact that it is very near had already been openly proclaimed both by the Baptist and by Jesus. The mystery, therefore, must consist of something more than that.

In these parables it is not the idea of development, but of the apparent absence of causation which occupies the foremost place. The description aims at suggesting the question, how, and by what power, incomparably great and glorious results can be infallibly produced by an insignificant fact without human aid. A man sowed seed. Much of it was lost, but the little that fell into good ground brought forth a harvest—thirty, sixty, an hundredfold—which left no trace of the loss in the sowing. How did that come about?

A man sows seed and does not trouble any further about it—cannot indeed do anything to help it, but he knows that after a definite time the glorious harvest which arises out of the seed will stand before him. By what power is that effected?

An extremely minute grain of mustard seed is planted in the earth and there necessarily arises out of it a great bush, which cannot certainly have been contained in the grain of seed. How was that?

What the parables emphasise is, therefore, so to speak, the in itself negative, inadequate, character of the initial fact, upon which, as by a miracle, there follows in the appointed time, through the power of God, some great thing. They lay stress not upon the natural, but upon the miraculous character of such occurrences.

But what is the initial fact of the parables? It is the sowing.

It is not said that by the man who sows the seed Jesus means Himself. The man has no importance. In the parable of the mustard seed he is not even mentioned. All that is asserted is that the initial fact is already present, as certainly present as the time of the sowing is past at the moment when Jesus speaks. That being so, the Kingdom of God must follow as certainly as harvest follows seed‐sowing. As a man believes in the harvest, without being able to explain it, simply because the seed has been sown; so with the same absolute confidence he may believe in the Kingdom of God.

And the initial fact which is symbolised? Jesus can only mean a fact which was actually in existence—the movement of repentance evoked by the Baptist and now intensified by His own preaching. That necessarily involves the bringing in of the Kingdom by the power of God; as man’s sowing necessitates the giving of the harvest by the same Infinite Power. Any one who knows this sees with different eyes the corn growing in the fields and the harvest ripening, for he sees the one fact in the other, and awaits along with the earthly harvest the heavenly, the revelation of the Kingdom of God.

If we look into the thought more closely we see that the coming of the Kingdom of God is not only symbolically or analogically, but also really and temporally connected with the harvest. The harvest ripening upon earth is the last! With it comes also the Kingdom of God which brings in the new age. When the reapers are sent into the fields, the Lord in Heaven will cause His harvest to be reaped by the holy angels.

If the three parables of Mark iv. contain the mystery of the Kingdom of God, and are therefore capable of being summed up in a single formula, this can be nothing else than the joyful exhortation: “Ye who have eyes to see, read, in the harvest which is ripening upon earth, what is being prepared in heaven!” The eager eschatological hope was to regard the natural process as the last of its kind, and to see in it a special significance in view of the event of which it was to give the signal.

The analogical and temporal parallelism becomes complete if we assume that the movement initiated by the Baptist began in the spring, and notice that Jesus, according to Matt. ix. 37 and 38, before sending out the disciples to make a speedy proclamation of the nearness of the Kingdom of God, uttered the remarkable saying about the rich harvest. It seems like a final expression of the thought contained in the parables about the seed and its promise, and finds its most natural explanation in the supposition that the harvest was actually at hand.

Whatever may be thought of this attempt to divine historically the secret of the Kingdom of God, there is one thing that cannot be got away from, viz. that the initial fact to which Jesus points, under the figure of the sowing, is somehow or other connected with the eschatological preaching of repentance, which had been begun by the Baptist.

That may be the more confidently asserted because Jesus in another mysterious saying describes the days of the Baptist as a time which makes preparation for the coming of the Kingdom of God. “From the days of John the Baptist,” He says in Matt. xi. 12, “even until now, the Kingdom of Heaven is subjected to violence, and the violent wrest it to themselves.” The saying has nothing to do with the entering of individuals into the Kingdom; it simply asserts, that since the coming of the Baptist a certain number of persons are engaged in forcing on and compelling the coming of the Kingdom. Jesus’ expectation of the Kingdom is an expectation based upon a fact which exercises an active influence upon the Kingdom of God. It was not He, and not the Baptist who “were working at the coming of the Kingdom”; it is the host of penitents which is wringing it from God, so that it may now come at any moment.

The eschatological insight of Johannes Weiss made an end of the modern view that Jesus founded the Kingdom. It did away with all activity, as exercised upon the Kingdom of God, and made the part of Jesus purely a waiting one. Now the activity comes back into the preaching of the Kingdom, but this time eschatologically conditioned. The secret of the Kingdom of God which Jesus unveils in the parables about confident expectation in Mark iv., and declares in so many words in the eulogy on the Baptist (Matt. xi.), amounts to this, that in the movement to which the Baptist gave the first impulse, and which still continued, there was an initial fact which was drawing after it the coming of the Kingdom, in a fashion which was miraculous, unintelligible, but unfailingly certain, since the sufficient cause for it lay in the power and purpose of God.

It should be observed that Jesus in these parables, as well as in the related saying at the sending forth of the Twelve, uses the formula, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear” (Mark iv. 23 and Matt. xi. 15), thereby signifying that in this utterance there lies concealed a supernatural knowledge concerning the plans of God, which only those who have ears to hear—that is, the foreordained—can detect. For others these sayings are unintelligible.

If this genuinely “historical” interpretation of the mystery of the Kingdom of God is correct, Jesus must have expected the coming of the Kingdom at harvest time. And that is just what He did expect. It is for that reason that He sends out His disciples to make known in Israel, as speedily as may be, what is about to happen. That in this He is actuated by a dogmatic idea, becomes clear when we notice that, according to Mark, the mission of the Twelve followed immediately on the rejection at Nazareth. The unreceptiveness of the Nazarenes had made no impression upon Him; He was only astonished at their unbelief (Mark vi. 6). This passage is often interpreted to mean that He was astonished to find His miracle‐ working power fail Him. There is no hint of that in the text. What He is astonished at is, that in His native town there were so few believers, that is, elect, knowing as He does that the Kingdom of God may appear at any moment. But that fact makes no difference whatever to the nearness of the coming of the Kingdom.

The Evangelist, therefore, places the rejection at Nazareth and the mission of the Twelve side by side, simply because he found them in this temporal connexion in the tradition. If he had been working by “association of ideas,” he would not have arrived at this order. The want of connexion, the impossibility of applying any natural explanation, is just what is historical, because the course of the history was determined, not by outward events, but by the decisions of Jesus, and these were determined by dogmatic, eschatological considerations.

To how great an extent this was the case in regard to the mission of the Twelve is clearly seen from the “charge” which Jesus gave them. He tells them in plain words (Matt. x. 23), that He does not expect to see them back in the present age. The Parousia of the Son of Man, which is logically and temporally identical with the dawn of the Kingdom, will take place before they shall have completed a hasty journey through the cities of Israel to announce it. That the words mean this and nothing else, that they ought not to be in any way weakened down, should be sufficiently evident. This is the form in which Jesus reveals to them the secret of the Kingdom of God. A few days later, He utters the saying about the violent who, since the days of John the Baptist, are forcing on the coming of the Kingdom.

It is equally clear, and here the dogmatic considerations which guided the resolutions of Jesus become still more prominent, that this prediction was not fulfilled. The disciples returned to Him; and the appearing of the Son of Man had not taken place. The actual history disavowed the dogmatic history on which the action of Jesus had been based. An event of supernatural history which must take place, and must take place at that particular point of time, failed to come about. That was for Jesus, who lived wholly in the dogmatic history, the first “historical” occurrence, the central event which closed the former period of His activity and gave the coming period a new character. To this extent modern theology is justified when it distinguishes two periods in the Life of Jesus; an earlier, in which He is surrounded by the people, a later in which He is “deserted” by them, and travels about with the Twelve only. It is a sound observation that the two periods are sharply distinguished by the attitude of Jesus. To explain this difference of attitude, which they thought themselves bound to account for on natural historical grounds, theologians of the modern historical school invented the theory of growing opposition and waning support. Weisse, no doubt, had expressed himself in direct opposition to this theory.(273) Keim, who gave it its place in theology, was aware that in setting it up he was going against the plain sense of the texts. Later writers lost this consciousness, just as in the first and third Gospel the significance of the Messianic secret in Mark gradually faded away; they imagined that they could find the basis of fact for the theory in the texts, and did not realise that they only believed in the desertion of the multitude and the “flights and retirements” of Jesus because they could not otherwise explain historically the alteration in His conduct, His withdrawal from public work, and His resolve to die.

The thoroughgoing eschatological school makes better work of it. They recognise in the non‐occurrence of the Parousia promised in Matt. x. 23, the “historic fact,” in the estimation of Jesus, which in some way determined the alteration in His plans, and His attitude towards the multitude.

The whole history of “Christianity” down to the present day, that is to say, the real inner history of it, is based on the delay of the Parousia, the non‐occurrence of the Parousia, the abandonment of eschatology, the progress and completion of the “de‐eschatologising” of religion which has been connected therewith. It should be noted that the non‐fulfilment of Matt. x. 23 is the first postponement of the Parousia. We have therefore here the first significant date in the “history of Christianity”; it gives to the work of Jesus a new direction, otherwise inexplicable.

Here we recognise also why the Marcan hypothesis, in constructing its view of the Life of Jesus, found itself obliged to have recourse more and more to the help of modern psychology, and thus necessarily became more and more unhistorical. The fact which alone makes possible an understanding of the whole, is lacking in this Gospel. Without Matt. x. and xi. everything remains enigmatic. For this reason Bruno Bauer and Wrede are in their own way the only consistent representatives of the Marcan hypothesis from the point of view of historical criticism, when they arrive at the result that the Marcan account is inherently unintelligible. Keim, with his strong sense of historical reality, rightly felt that the plan of the Life of Jesus should not be constructed exclusively on the basis of Mark.

The recognition that Mark alone gives an inadequate basis, is more important than any “Ur‐Markus” theories, for which it is impossible to discover a literary foundation, or find an historical use. A simple induction from the “facts” takes us beyond Mark. In the discourse‐material of Matthew, which the modern‐historical school thought they could sift in here and there, wherever there seemed to be room for it, there lie hidden certain facts—facts which never happened but are all the more important for that.

Why Mark describes the events and discourses in the neighbourhood of the mission of the Twelve with such careful authentication is a literary question which the historical study of the life of Jesus may leave open; the more so since, even as a literary question, it is insoluble.

The prediction of the Parousia of the Son of Man is not the only one which remained unfulfilled. There is the prediction of sufferings which is connected with it. To put it more accurately, the prediction of the appearing of the Son of Man in Matt. x. 23 runs up into a prediction of sufferings, which, working up to a climax, forms the remainder of the discourse at the sending forth of the disciples. This prediction of sufferings has as little to do with objective history as the prediction of the Parousia. Consequently, none of the Lives of Jesus, which follow the lines of a natural psychology, from Weisse down to Oskar Holtzmann, can make anything of it.(274) They either strike it out, or transfer it to the last “gloomy epoch” of the life of Jesus, regard it as an unintelligible anticipation, or put it down to the account of “primitive theology,” which serves as a scrap‐heap for everything for which they cannot find a place in the “historical life of Jesus.”

In the texts it is quite evident that Jesus is not speaking of sufferings after His death, but of sufferings which will befall them as soon as they have gone forth from Him. The death of Jesus is not here pre‐supposed, but only the Parousia of the Son of Man, and it is implied that this will occur just after these sufferings and bring them to a close. If the theology of the primitive Church had remoulded the tradition, as is always being asserted, it would have made Jesus give His followers directions for their conduct after His death. That we do not find anything of this kind is the best proof that there can be no question of a remoulding of the Life of Jesus by primitive theology. How easy it would have been for the Early Church to scatter here and there through the discourses of Jesus directions which were only to be applied after His death! But the simple fact is that it did not do so.

The sufferings of which the prospect is held out at the sending forth are doubly, trebly, nay four times over, unhistorical. In the first place—and this is the only point which modern historical theology has noticed—because there is not a shadow of a suggestion in the outward circumstances of anything which could form a natural occasion for such predictions of, and exhortations relating to, sufferings. In the second place—and this has been overlooked by modern theology because it had already declared them to be unhistorical in its own characteristic fashion, viz. by striking them out—because they were not fulfilled. In the third place—and this has not entered into the mind of modern theology at all—because these sayings were spoken in the closest connexion with the promise of the Parousia and are placed in the closest connexion with that event. In the fourth place, because the description of that which is to befall the disciples is quite without any basis in experience. A time of general dissension will begin, in which brothers will rise up against brothers, and fathers against sons and children against their parents to cause them to be put to death (Matt. x. 21). And the disciples “shall be hated of all men for His name’s sake.” Let them strive to hold out to the “end,” that is, to the coming of the Son of Man, in order that they may be saved (Matt. x. 22).

But why should they suddenly be hated and persecuted for the name of Jesus, seeing that this name played no part whatever in their preaching? That is simply inconceivable. The relation of Jesus to the Son of Man, the fact, that is to say, that it is He who is to be manifested as Son of Man, must therefore in some way or other become known in the interval; not, however, through the disciples, but by some other means of revelation. A kind of supernatural illumination will suddenly make known all that Jesus has been keeping secret regarding the Kingdom of God and His position in the Kingdom. This illumination will arise as suddenly and without preparation as the spirit of strife.

And as a matter of fact Jesus predicts to the disciples in the same discourse that to their own surprise a supernatural wisdom will suddenly speak from their lips, so that it will be not they but the Spirit of God who will answer the great ones of the earth. As the Spirit is for Jesus and early Christian theology something concrete which is to descend upon the elect among mankind only in consequence of a definite event—the outpouring of the Spirit which, according to the prophecy of Joel, should precede the day of judgment—Jesus must have anticipated that this would occur during the absence of the disciples, in the midst of the time of strife and confusion.

To put it differently; the whole of the discourse at the sending forth of the Twelve, taken in the clear sense of the words, is a prediction of the events of the “time of the end,” events which are immediately at hand, in which the supernatural eschatological course of history will break through into the natural course. The expectation of sufferings is therefore doctrinal and unhistorical, as is, precisely in the same way, the expectation of the pouring forth of the Spirit uttered at the same time. The Parousia of the Son of Man is to be preceded according to the Messianic dogma by a time of strife and confusion—as it were, the birth‐ throes of the Messiah—and the outpouring of the Spirit. It should be noticed that according to Joel iii. and iv. the outpouring of the Spirit, along with the miraculous signs, forms the prelude to the judgment; and also, that in the same context, Joel iii. 13, the judgment is described as the harvest‐day of God.(275) Here we have a remarkable parallel to the saying about the harvest in Matt. ix. 38, which forms the introduction to the discourse at the sending forth of the disciples.

There is only one point in which the predicted course of eschatological events is incomplete: the appearance of Elias is not mentioned.

Jesus could not prophesy to the disciples the Parousia of the Son of Man without pointing them, at the same time, to the pre‐eschatological events which must first occur. He must open to them a part of the secret of the Kingdom of God, viz. the nearness of the harvest, that they might not be taken by surprise and caused to doubt by these events.

Thus this discourse is historical as a whole and down to the smallest detail precisely because, according to the view of modern theology, it must be judged unhistorical. It is, in fact, full of eschatological dogma. Jesus had no need to instruct the disciples as to what they were to teach; for they had only to utter a cry. But concerning the events which should supervene, it was necessary that He should give them information. Therefore the discourse does not consist of instruction, but of predictions of sufferings and of the Parousia.

That being so, we may judge with what right the modern psychological theology dismisses the great Matthaean discourses off‐hand as mere “composite structures.” Just let any one try to show how the Evangelist when he was racking his brains over the task of making a “discourse at the sending forth of the disciples,” half by the method of piecing it together out of traditional sayings and “primitive theology,” and half by inventing it, lighted on the curious idea of making Jesus speak entirely of inopportune and unpractical matters; and of then going on to provide the evidence that they never happened.

The foretelling of the sufferings that belong to the eschatological distress is part and parcel of the preaching of the approach of the Kingdom of God, it embodies the secret of the Kingdom. It is for that reason that the thought of suffering appears at the end of the Beatitudes and in the closing petition of the Lord’s Prayer. For the πειρασμός which is there in view is not an individual psychological temptation, but the general eschatological time of tribulation, from which God is besought to exempt those who pray so earnestly for the coming of the Kingdom, and not to expose them to that tribulation by way of putting them to the test.

There followed neither the sufferings, nor the outpouring of the Spirit, nor the Parousia of the Son of Man. The disciples returned safe and sound and full of a proud satisfaction; for one promise had been realised—the power which had been given them over the demons.

But from the moment when they rejoined Him, all His thoughts and efforts were devoted to getting rid of the people in order to be alone with them (Mark vi. 30‐33). Previously, during their absence, He had, almost in open speech, taught the multitude concerning the Baptist, concerning that which was to precede the coming of the Kingdom, and concerning the judgment which should come upon the impenitent, even upon whole towns of them (Matt. xi. 20‐24), because, in spite of the miracles which they had witnessed, they had not recognised the day of grace and diligently used it for repentance. At the same time He had rejoiced before them over all those whom God had enlightened that they might see what was going forward; and had called them to His side (Matt. xi. 25‐30).

And now suddenly, the moment the disciples return, His one thought is to get away from the people. They, however, follow Him and overtake Him on the shores of the lake. He puts the Jordan between Himself and them by crossing to Bethsaida. They also come to Bethsaida. He returns to Capernaum. They do the same. Since in Galilee it is impossible for Him to be alone, and He absolutely must be alone, He “slips away” to the north. Once more modern theology was right: He really does flee; not, however, from hostile Scribes, but from the people, who dog His footsteps in order to await in His company the appearing of the Kingdom of God and of the Son of Man—to await it in vain.(276)

In Strauss’s first Life of Jesus the question is thrown out whether, in view of Matt. x. 23, Jesus did not think of His Parousia as a transformation which should take place during His lifetime. Ghillany bases his work on this possibility as on an established historical fact. Dalman takes this hypothesis to be the necessary correlative of the interpretation of the self‐designation Son of Man on the basis of Daniel and the Apocalypses.

If Jesus, he argues, designated Himself in this futuristic sense as the Son of Man who comes from Heaven, He must have assumed that He would first be transported thither. “A man who had died or been rapt away from the earth might perhaps be brought into the world again in this way, or one who had never been on earth might so descend thither.” But as this conception of transformation and removal seems to Dalman untenable in the case of Jesus, he treats it as a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the eschatological interpretation of the title.

But why? If Jesus as a man walking in a natural body upon earth, predicts to His disciples the Parousia of the Son of Man in the immediate future, with the secret conviction that He Himself was to be revealed as the Son of Man, He must have made precisely this assumption that He would first be supernaturally removed and transformed. He thought of Himself as any one must who believes in the immediate coming of the last things, as living in two different conditions: the present, and the future condition into which He is to be transferred at the coming of the new supernatural world. We learn later that the disciples on the way up to Jerusalem were entirely possessed by the thought of what they should be when this transformation took place. They contend as to who shall have the highest position (Mark ix. 33); James and John wish Jesus to promise them in advance the thrones on His right hand and on His left (Mark x. 35‐37).

He, moreover, does not rebuke them for indulging such thoughts, but only tells them how much, in the present age, of service, humiliation, and suffering is necessary to constitute a claim to such places in the future age, and that it does not in the last resort belong to Him to allot the places on His left and on His right, but that they shall be given to those for whom they are prepared; therefore, perhaps not to any of the disciples (Mark x. 40). At this point, therefore, the knowledge and will of Jesus are thwarted and limited by the predestinarianism which is bound up with eschatology.

It is quite mistaken, however, to speak as modern theology does, of the “service” here required as belonging to the “new ethic of the Kingdom of God.” There is for Jesus no ethic of the Kingdom of God, for in the Kingdom of God all natural relationships, even, for example, the distinction of sex (Mark xii. 25 and 26), are abolished. Temptation and sin no longer exist. All is “reign,” a “reign” which has gradations—Jesus speaks of the “least in the Kingdom of God”—according as it has been determined in each individual case from all eternity, and according as each by his self‐humiliation and refusal to rule in the present age has proved his fitness for bearing rule in the future Kingdom.

For the loftier stations, however, it is necessary to have proved oneself in persecution and suffering. Accordingly, Jesus asks the sons of Zebedee whether, since they claim these thrones on His right hand and on His left, they feel themselves strong enough to drink of His cup and be baptized with His baptism (Mark x. 38). To serve, to humble oneself, to incur persecution and death, belong to “the ethic of the interim” just as much as does penitence. They are indeed only a higher form of penitence.

A vivid eschatological expectation is therefore impossible to conceive apart from the idea of a metamorphosis. The resurrection is only a special case of this metamorphosis, the form in which the new condition of things is realised in the case of those who are already dead. The resurrection, the metamorphosis, and the Parousia of the Son of Man take place simultaneously, and are one and the same act.(277) It is therefore quite indifferent whether a man loses his life shortly before the Parousia in order to “find his life,” if that is what is ordained for him; that signifies only that he will undergo the eschatological metamorphosis with the dead instead of with the living.

The Pauline eschatology recognises both conceptions side by side, in such a way, however, that the resurrection is subordinated to the metamorphosis. “Behold, I shew you a mystery,” he says in 1 Cor. xv. 51 ff.; “we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”

The apostle himself desires to be one of those who live to experience the metamorphosis and to be clothed with the heavenly mode of existence (2 Cor. v. 1 ff.). The metamorphosis, however, and the resurrection are, for those who are “in Christ,” connected with a being caught up into the clouds of heaven (1 Thess. iv. 15 ff.). Therefore Paul also makes one and the same event of the metamorphosis, resurrection, and translation.

In seeking clues to the eschatology of Jesus, scholars have passed over the eschatology which lies closest to it, that of Paul. But why? Is it not identical with that of Jesus, at least in so far that both are “Jewish eschatology”? Did not Reimarus long ago declare that the eschatology of the primitive Christian community was identical with the Jewish, and only went beyond it in claiming a definite knowledge on a single point which was unessential to the nature and course of the expected events, in knowing, that is, who the Son of Man should be? That Christians drew no distinction between their own eschatology and the Jewish is evident from the whole character of the earlier apocalyptic literature, and not least from the Apocalypse of John! After all, what alteration did the belief that Jesus was the Son of Man who was to be revealed make in the general scheme of the course of apocalyptic events?

From the Rabbinic literature little help is to be derived towards the understanding of the world of thought in which Jesus lived, and His view of His own Person. The latest researches may be said to have made that clear. A few moral maxims, a few halting parables—that is all that can be produced in the way of parallels. Even the conception which is there suggested of the hidden coming and work of the Messiah is of little importance. We find the same ideas in the mouth of Trypho in Justin’s dialogue, and that makes their Jewish character doubtful. That Jesus of Nazareth knew Himself to be the Son of Man who was to be revealed is for us the great fact of His self‐consciousness, which is not to be further explained, whether there had been any kind of preparation for it in contemporary theology or not.

The self‐consciousness of Jesus cannot in fact be illustrated or explained; all that can be explained is the eschatological view, in which the Man who possessed that self‐consciousness saw reflected in advance the coming events, both those of a more general character, and those which especially related to Himself.(278)

The eschatology of Jesus can therefore only be interpreted by the aid of the curiously intermittent Jewish apocalyptic literature of the period between Daniel and the Bar‐Cochba rising. What else, indeed, are the Synoptic Gospels, the Pauline letters, the Christian apocalypses than products of Jewish apocalyptic, belonging, moreover, to its greatest and most flourishing period? Historically regarded, the Baptist, Jesus, and Paul are simply the culminating manifestations of Jewish apocalyptic thought. The usual representation is the exact converse of the truth. Writers describe Jewish eschatology in order to illustrate the ideas of Jesus. But what is this “Jewish eschatology” after all? It is an eschatology with a great gap in it, because the culminating period, with the documents which relate to it, has been left out. The true historian will describe the eschatology of the Baptist, of Jesus, and of Paul in order to explain Jewish eschatology. It is nothing less than a misfortune for the science of New Testament Theology that no real attempt has hitherto been made to write the history of Jewish eschatology as it really was; that is, with the inclusion of the Baptist, of Jesus, and of Paul.(279)

All this has had to be said in order to justify the apparently self‐ evident assertion that Mark, Matthew, and Paul are the best sources for the Jewish eschatology of the time of Jesus. They represent a phase, which even in detail is self‐explanatory, of that Jewish apocalyptic hope which manifested itself from time to time. We are, therefore, justified in first reconstructing the Jewish apocalyptic of the time independently out of these documents, that is to say, in bringing the details of the discourses of Jesus into an eschatological system, and then on the basis of this system endeavouring to explain the apparently disconnected events in the history of His public life.

The lines of connection which run backwards towards the Psalms of Solomon, Enoch, and Daniel, and forwards towards the apocalypses of Baruch and Enoch, are extremely important for the understanding of certain general conceptions. On the other hand, it is impossible to over‐emphasise the uniqueness of the point of view from which the eschatology of the time of the Baptist, of Jesus, and of Paul presents itself to us.

In the first place, men feel themselves so close to the coming events that they only see what lies nearest to them, the imaginative development of detail entirely ceases. In the second place, it appears to us as though seen, so to speak, from within, passed through the medium of powerful minds like those of the Baptist and Jesus. That is why it is so great and simple. On the other hand, a certain complication arises from the fact that it now intersects actual history. All these are original features of it, which are not found in the Jewish apocalyptic writings of the preceding and following periods, and that is why these documents give us so little help in regard to the characteristic detail of the eschatology of Jesus and His contemporaries.

A further point to be noticed is that the eschatology of the time of Jesus shows the influence of the eschatology of the ancient prophets in a way which is not paralleled either before or after. Compare the Synoptic eschatology with that of the Psalms of Solomon. In place of the legal righteousness, which, since the return from the exile, had formed the link of connexion between the present and the future, we find the prophetic ethic, the demand for a general repentance, even in the case of the Baptist. In the Apocalypses of Baruch and Ezra we see, especially in the theological character of the latter, the persistent traces of this ethical deepening of apocalyptic.

But even in individual conceptions the apocalyptic of the Baptist, and of the period which he introduces, reaches back to the eschatology of the prophetic writings. The pouring forth of the spirit, and the figure of Elias, who comes again to earth, play a great rôle in it. The difficulty is, indeed, consciously felt of combining the two eschatologies, and bringing the prophetic within the Danielic. How, it is asked, can the Son of David be at the same time the Danielic Son‐of‐Man Messiah, at once David’s son and David’s Lord?

It is inadequate to speak of a synthesis of the two eschatologies. What has happened is nothing less than the remoulding, the elevation, of the Daniel‐Enoch apocalyptic by the spirit and conceptions belonging to the ancient prophetic hope.

A great simplification and deepening of eschatology begins to show itself even in the Psalms of Solomon. The conception of righteousness which the writer applies is, in spite of its legal aspect, of an ethical, prophetic character. It is an eschatology associated with great historical events, the eschatology of a Pharisaism which is fighting for a cause, and has therefore a certain inward greatness.(280) Between the Psalms of Solomon and the appearance of the Baptist there lies the decadence of Pharisaism. At this point there suddenly appears an eschatological movement detached from Pharisaism, which was declining into an external legalism, a movement resting on a basis of its own, and thoroughly penetrated with the spirit of the ancient prophets.