Chapter XIX: Thoroughgoing Scepticism and Thoroughgoing Eschatology (3)

The ultimate _differentia_ of this eschatology is that it was not, like the other apocalyptic movements, called into existence by historical events. The Apocalypse of Daniel was called forth by the religious oppression of Antiochus;(281) the Psalms of Solomon by the civil strife at Jerusalem and the first appearance of the Roman power under Pompey;(282) Fourth Ezra and Baruch by the destruction of Jerusalem.(283) The apocalyptic movement in the time of Jesus is not connected with any historical event. It cannot be said, as Bruno Bauer rightly perceived, that we know anything about the Messianic expectations of the Jewish people at that time.(284) On the contrary, the indifference shown by the Roman administration towards the movement proves that the Romans knew nothing of a condition of great and general Messianic excitement among the Jewish people. The conduct of the Pharisaic party also, and the indifference of the great mass of the people, show that there can have been no question at that time of a national movement. What is really remarkable about this wave of apocalyptic enthusiasm is the fact that it was called forth not by external events, but solely by the appearance of two great personalities, and subsides with their disappearance, without leaving among the people generally any trace, except a feeling of hatred towards the new sect.

The Baptist and Jesus are not, therefore, borne upon the current of a general eschatological movement. The period offers no events calculated to give an impulse to eschatological enthusiasm. They themselves set the times in motion by acting, by creating eschatological facts. It is this mighty creative force which constitutes the difficulty in grasping historically the eschatology of Jesus and the Baptist. Instead of literary artifice speaking out of a distant imaginary past, there now enter into the field of eschatology men, living, acting men. It was the only time when that ever happened in Jewish eschatology.

There is silence all around. The Baptist appears, and cries: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” Soon after that comes Jesus, and in the knowledge that He is the coming Son of Man lays hold of the wheel of the world to set it moving on that last revolution which is to bring all ordinary history to a close. It refuses to turn, and He throws Himself upon it. Then it does turn; and crushes Him. Instead of bringing in the eschatological conditions, He has destroyed them. The wheel rolls onward, and the mangled body of the one immeasurably great Man, who was strong enough to think of Himself as the spiritual ruler of mankind and to bend history to His purpose, is hanging upon it still. That is His victory and His reign.

These considerations regarding the distinctive character of the Synoptic eschatology were necessary in order to explain the significance of the sending forth of the disciples and the discourse which Jesus uttered upon that occasion. Jesus’ purpose is to set in motion the eschatological development of history, to let loose the final woes, the confusion and strife, from which shall issue the Parousia, and so to introduce the supra‐mundane phase of the eschatological drama. That is His task, for which He has authority here below. That is why He says in the same discourse, “Think not that I am come to send peace on the earth; I am not come to send peace, but a sword” (Matt. x. 34).

It was with a view to this initial movement that He chose His disciples. They are not His helpers in the work of teaching; we never see them in that capacity, and He did not prepare them to carry on that work after His death. The very fact that He chooses just twelve shows that it is a dogmatic idea which He has in mind. He chooses them as those who are destined to hurl the firebrand into the world, and are afterwards, as those who have been the comrades of the unrecognised Messiah, before He came to His Kingdom, to be His associates in ruling and judging it.(285)

But what was to be the fate of the future Son of Man during the Messianic woes of the last times? It appears as if it was appointed for Him to share the persecution and the suffering. He says that those who shall be saved must take their cross and follow Him (Matt. x. 38), that His followers must be willing to lose their lives for His sake, and that only those who in this time of terror confess their allegiance to Him, shall be confessed by Him before His heavenly Father (Matt. x. 32). Similarly, in the last of the Beatitudes, He had pronounced those blessed who were despised and persecuted for His sake (Matt. v. 11, 12). As the future bearer of the supreme rule He must go through the deepest humiliation. There is danger that His followers may doubt Him. Therefore, the last words of His message to the Baptist, just at the time when He had sent forth the Twelve, is, “Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me” (Matt. xi. 6).

If He makes a point of familiarising others with the thought that in the time of tribulation they may even lose their lives, He must have recognised that this possibility was still more strongly present in His own case. It is possible that in the enigmatic saying about the disciples fasting “when the bridegroom is taken away from them” (Mark ii. 20), there is a hint of what Jesus expected. In that case suffering, death, and resurrection must have been closely united in the Messianic consciousness from the first. So much, however, is certain, viz. that the thought of suffering formed part, at the time of the sending forth the disciples, of the mystery of the Kingdom of God and of the Messiahship of Jesus, and that in the form that Jesus and all the elect were to be brought low in the πειρασμός at the time of the death‐struggle against the evil world‐ power which would arise against them; brought down, it might be, even to death. It mattered as little in His own case as in that of others whether at the time of the Parousia He should be one of those who should be metamorphosed, or one who had died and risen again. The question arises, however, how this self‐consciousness of Jesus could remain concealed. It is true the miracles had nothing to do with the Messiahship, since no one expected the Messiah to come as an earthly miracle‐worker in the present age. On the contrary, it would have been the greatest of miracles if any one had recognised the Messiah in an earthly miracle‐worker. How far the cries of the demoniacs who addressed Him as Messiah were intelligible by the people must remain an open question. What is clear is that His Messiahship did not become known in this way even to His disciples.

And yet in all His speech and action the Messianic consciousness shines forth. One might, indeed, speak of the acts of His Messianic consciousness. The Beatitudes, nay, the whole of the Sermon on the Mount, with the authoritative “I” for ever breaking through, bear witness to the high dignity which He ascribed to Himself. Did not this “I” set the people thinking?

What must they have thought when, at the close of this discourse, He spoke of people who, at the Day of Judgment, would call upon Him as Lord, and appeal to the works that they had done in His name, and who yet were destined to be rejected because He would not recognise them (Matt. vii. 21‐23)?

What must they have thought of Him when He pronounced those blessed who were persecuted and despised for His sake (Matt. v. 11, 12)? By what authority did this man forgive sins (Mark ii. 5 ff.)?

In the discourse at the sending forth of the disciples the “I” is still more prominent. He demands of men that in the trials to come they shall confess Him, that they shall love Him more than father or mother, bear their cross after Him, and follow Him to the death, since it is only for such that He can entreat His Heavenly Father (Matt. x. 32 ff.). Admitting that the expression “Heavenly Father” contained no riddle for the listening disciples, since He had taught them to pray “Our Father which art in Heaven,” we have still to ask who was He whose yea or nay should prevail with God to determine the fate of men at the Judgment?

And yet they found it hard, nay impossible, to think of Him as Messiah. They guessed Him to be a prophet; some thought of Elias, some of John the Baptist risen from the dead, as appears clearly from the answer of the disciples at Caesarea Philippi.(286) The Messiah was a supernatural personality who was to appear in the last times, and who was not expected upon earth before that.

At this point a difficulty presents itself. How could Jesus be Elias for the people? Did they not hold John the Baptist to be Elias? Not in the least! Jesus was the first and the only person who attributed this office to him. And, moreover, He declares it to the people as something mysterious, difficult to understand—“If ye can receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear” (Matt. xi. 14, 15). In making this revelation He is communicating to them a piece of supernatural knowledge, opening up a part of the mystery of the Kingdom of God. Therefore He uses the same formula of emphasis as when making known in parables the mystery of the Kingdom of God (Mark iv.).

The disciples were not with Him at this time, and therefore did not learn what was the rôle of John the Baptist. When a little later, in descending from the mount of transfiguration He predicted to the three who formed the inner circle of His followers the resurrection of the Son of Man, they came to Him with difficulties about the rising from the dead—how could this be possible when, according to the Pharisees and Scribes, Elias must first come?—whereupon Jesus explains to them that the preacher of repentance whom Herod had put to death had been Elias (Mark ix. 11‐13).

Why did not the people take the Baptist to be Elias? In the first place no doubt because he did not describe himself as such. In the next place because he did no miracle! He was only a natural man without any evidence of supernatural power, only a prophet. In the third place, and that was the decisive point, he had himself pointed forward to the coming of Elias. He who was to come, he whom he preached, was not the Messiah, but Elias.

He describes him, not as a supernatural personality, not as a judge, not as one who will be manifested at the unveiling of the heavenly world, but as one who in his work shall resemble himself, only much greater—one who, like himself, baptizes, though with the Holy Spirit. Had it ever been represented as the work of the Messiah to baptize?

Before the Last Judgment, so it was inferred from Joel, the great outpouring of the Spirit was to take place; before the Last Judgment, so taught Malachi, Elias was to come. Until these events had occurred the manifestation of the Son of Man was not to be looked for. Men’s thoughts were fixed, therefore, not on the Messiah, but upon Elias and the outpouring of the Spirit.(287) The Baptist in his preaching combines both ideas, and predicts the coming of the Great One who shall “baptize with the Holy Spirit,” _i.e._ who brings about the outpouring of the Spirit. His own preaching was only designed to secure that at His coming that Great One should find a community sanctified and prepared to receive the Spirit.

When he heard in the prison of one who did great wonders and signs, he desired to learn with certainty whether this was “he who was to come.” If this question is taken as referring to the Messiahship the whole narrative loses its meaning, and it upsets the theory of the Messianic secret, since in this case at least one person had become aware, independently, of the office which belonged to Jesus, not to mention all the ineptitudes involved in making the Baptist here speak in doubt and confusion. Moreover, on this false interpretation of the question the point of Jesus’ discourse is lost, for in this case it is not clear why He says to the people afterwards, “If ye can receive it, John himself is Elias.” This revelation presupposes that Jesus and the people, who had heard the question which had been addressed to Him, also gave it its only natural meaning, referring it to Jesus as the bearer of the office of Elias.

That even the first Evangelist gives the episode a Messianic setting by introducing it with the words “When John heard in the prison of the works of the Christ” does not alter the facts of the body of the narrative. The sequel directly contradicts the introduction. And this interpretation fully explains the evasive answer of Jesus, in which exegesis has always recognised a certain reserve without ever being able to make it intelligible why Jesus did not simply send him the message, “Yes, I am he”—whereto, however, according to modern theology, He would have needed to add, “but another kind of Messiah from him whom you expect.”

The fact was, the Baptist had put Him in an extremely difficult position. He could not answer that He was Elias if He held Himself to be the Messiah; on the other hand He could not, and would not, disclose to him, and still less to the messengers and the listening multitude, the secret of His Messiahship. Therefore He sends this obscure message, which only contains a confirmation of the facts which John had already heard and closes with a warning, come what may, not to be offended in Him. Of this the Baptist was to make what he could.

It mattered, in fact, little how John understood the message. The time was much more advanced than he supposed; the hammer of the world’s clock had risen to strike the last hour. All that he needed to know was that he had no cause to doubt.

In revealing to the people the true office of the Baptist, Jesus unveiled to them almost the whole mystery of the Kingdom of God, and nearly disclosed the secret of His Messiahship. For if Elias was already present, was not the coming of the Kingdom close at hand? And if John was Elias, who was Jesus?... There could only be one answer: the Messiah. But this seemed impossible, because Messiah was expected as a supernatural personality. The eulogy on the Baptist is, historically regarded, identical in content with the prediction of the Parousia in the discourse at the sending forth of the disciples. For after the coming of Elias there must follow immediately the judgment and the other events belonging to the last time. Now we can understand why in the enumeration of the events of the last time in the discourse to the Twelve the coming of Elias is not mentioned.

We see here, too, how, in the thought of Jesus, Messianic doctrine forces its way into history and simply abolishes the historic aspect of the events. The Baptist had not held himself to be Elias, the people had not thought of attributing this office to him; the description of Elias did not fit him at all, since he had done none of those things which Elias was to do: and yet Jesus makes him Elias, simply because He expected His own manifestation as Son of Man, and before that it was necessary that Elias must first have come. And even when John was dead Jesus still told the disciples that in him Elias had come, although the death of Elias was not contemplated in the eschatological doctrine, and was in fact unthinkable, But Jesus must somehow drag or force the eschatological events into the framework of the actual occurrences.

Thus the conception of the “dogmatic element” in the narrative widens in an unsuspected fashion. And even what before seemed natural becomes on a closer examination doctrinal. The Baptist is made into Elias solely by the force of Jesus’ Messianic consciousness.

A short time afterwards, immediately upon the return of the disciples, He spoke and acted before their eyes in a way which presupposed the Messianic secret. The people had been dogging his steps; at a lonely spot on the shores of the lake they surrounded Him, and He “taught them about many things” (Mark vi. 30‐34). The day was drawing to a close, but they held closely to Him without troubling about food. In the evening, before sending them away, He fed them.

Weisse, long ago, had constantly emphasised the fact that the feeding of the multitude was one of the greatest historical problems, because this narrative, like that of the transfiguration, is very firmly riveted to its historical setting and, therefore, imperatively demands explanation. How is the historical element in it to be got at? Certainly not by seeking to explain the apparently miraculous in it on natural lines, by representing that at the bidding of Jesus people brought out the baskets of provisions which they had been concealing, and, thus importing into the tradition a natural fact which, so far from being hinted at in the narrative, is actually excluded by it.

Our solution is that the whole is historical, except the closing remark that they were all filled. Jesus distributed the provisions which He and His disciples had with them among the multitude so that each received a very little, after He had first offered thanks. The significance lies in the giving of thanks and in the fact that they had received from Him consecrated food. Because He is the future Messiah, this meal becomes without their knowledge the Messianic feast. With the morsel of bread which He gives His disciples to distribute to the people He consecrates them as partakers in the coming Messianic feast, and gives them the guarantee that they, who had shared His table in the time of His obscurity, would also share it in the time of His glory. In the prayer He gave thanks not only for the food, but also for the coming Kingdom and all its blessings. It is the counterpart of the Lord’s prayer, where He so strangely inserts the petition for daily bread between the petitions for the coming of the Kingdom and for deliverance from the πειρασμός.

The feeding of the multitude was more than a love‐feast, a fellowship‐ meal. It was from the point of view of Jesus a sacrament of salvation.

We never realise sufficiently that in a period when the judgment and the glory were expected as close at hand, one thought arising out of this expectation must have acquired special prominence—how, namely, in the present time a man could obtain a guarantee of coming scatheless through the judgment, of being saved and received into the Kingdom, of being signed and sealed for deliverance amid the coming trial, as the Chosen People in Egypt had a sign revealed to them from God by means of which they might be manifest as those who were to be spared. But once we do realise this, we can understand why the thought of signing and sealing runs through the whole of the apocalyptic literature. It is found as early as the ninth chapter of Ezekiel. There, God is making preparation for judgment. The day of visitation of the city is at hand. But first the Lord calls unto “the man clothed with linen who had the writer’s ink‐horn by his side” and said unto him, “Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.” Only after that does He give command to those who are charged with the judgment to begin, adding, “But come not near any man upon whom is the mark” (Ezek. ix. 4 and 6).

In the fifteenth of the Psalms of Solomon,(288) the last eschatological writing before the movement initiated by the Baptist, it is expressly said in the description of the judgment that “the saints of God bear a sign upon them which saves them.”

In the Pauline theology very striking prominence is given to the thought of being sealed unto salvation. The apostle is conscious of bearing about with him in his body “the marks of Jesus” (Gal. vi. 17), the “dying” of Jesus (2 Cor. iv. 10). This sign is received in baptism, since it is a baptism “into the death of Christ”; in this act the recipient is in a certain sense really buried with Him, and thenceforth walks among men as one who belongs, even here below, to risen humanity (Rom. vi. 1 ff.). Baptism is the seal, the earnest of the spirit, the pledge of that which is to come (2 Cor i. 22; Eph. i. 13, 14, iv. 30).

This conception of baptism as a “salvation” in view of that which was to come goes down through the whole of ancient theology. Its preaching might really be summed up in the words, “Keep your baptism holy and without blemish.”

In the Shepherd of Hermas even the spirits of the men of the past must receive “the seal, which is the water” in order that they may “bear the name of God upon them.” That is why the tower is built over the water, and the stones which are brought up out of the deep are rolled through the water (Vis. iii. and Sim. ix. 16).

In the Apocalypse of John the thought of the sealing stands prominently in the foreground. The locusts receive power to hurt those only who have not the seal of God on their foreheads (Rev. ix. 4, 5). The beast (Rev. xiii. 16 ff.) compels men to bear his mark; only those who will not accept it are to reign with Christ (Rev. xx. 4). The chosen hundred and forty‐four thousand bear the name of God and the name of the Lamb upon their foreheads (Rev. xiv. 1).

“Assurance of salvation” in a time of eschatological expectation demanded some kind of security for the future of which the earnest could be possessed in the present. And with this the predestinarian thought of election was in complete accord. If we find the thought of being sealed unto salvation previously in the Psalms of Solomon, and subsequently in the same signification in Paul, in the Apocalypse of John, and down to the Shepherd of Hermas, it may be assumed in advance that it will be found in some form or other in the so strongly eschatological teaching of Jesus and the Baptist.

It may be said, indeed, to dominate completely the eschatological preaching of the Baptist, for this preaching does not confine itself to the declaration of the nearness of the Kingdom, and the demand for repentance, but leads up to an act to which it gives a special reference in relation to the forgiveness of sins and the outpouring of the spirit. It is a mistake to regard baptism with water as a “symbolic act” in the modern sense, and make the Baptist decry his own wares by saying, “I baptize only with water, but the other can baptize with the Holy Spirit.” He is not contrasting the two baptisms, but connecting them—he who is baptized by him has the certainty that he will share in the outpouring of the Spirit which shall precede the judgment, and at the judgment shall receive forgiveness of sins, as one who is signed with the mark of repentance. The object of being baptized by him is to secure baptism with the Spirit later. The forgiveness of sins associated with baptism is proleptic; it is to be realised at the judgment. The Baptist himself did not forgive sin.(289) If he had done so, how could such offence have been taken when Jesus claimed for Himself the right to forgive sins in the present (Mark ii. 10).

The baptism of John was therefore an eschatological sacrament pointing forward to the pouring forth of the spirit and to the judgment, a provision for “salvation.” Hence the wrath of the Baptist when he saw Pharisees and Sadducees crowding to his baptism: “Ye generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth now fruits meet for repentance” (Matt. iii. 7, 8). By the reception of baptism, that is, they are saved from the judgment.

As a cleansing unto salvation it is a divine institution, a revealed means of grace. That is why the question of Jesus, whether the baptism of John was from heaven or from men, placed the Scribes at Jerusalem in so awkward a dilemma (Mark xi. 30).

The authority of Jesus, however, goes farther than that of the Baptist. As the Messiah who is to come He can give even here below to those who gather about Him a right to partake in the Messianic feast, by this distribution of food to them; only, they do not know what is happening to them and He cannot solve the riddle for them. The supper at the Lake of Gennesareth was a veiled eschatological sacrament. Neither the disciples nor the multitude understood what was happening, since they did not know who He was who thus made them His guests.(290) This meal must have been transformed by tradition into a miracle, a result which may have been in part due to the references to the wonders of the Messianic feast which were doubtless contained in the prayers, not to speak of the eschatological enthusiasm which then prevailed universally. Did not the disciples believe that on the same evening, when they had been commanded to take Jesus into their ship at the mouth of the Jordan, to which point He had walked along the shore—did they not believe that they saw Him come walking towards them upon the waves of the sea? The impulse to the introduction of the miraculous into the narrative came from the unintelligible element with which the men who surrounded Jesus were at this time confronted.(291)

The Last Supper at Jerusalem had the same sacramental significance as that at the lake. Towards the end of the meal Jesus, after giving thanks, distributes the bread and wine. This had as little to do with the satisfaction of hunger as the distribution to the Galilaean believers. The act of Jesus is an end in itself, and the significance of the celebration consists in the fact that it is He Himself who makes the distribution. In Jerusalem, however, they understood what was meant, and He explained it to them explicitly by telling them that He would drink no more of the fruit of the vine until He drank it new in the Kingdom of God. The mysterious images which He used at the time of the distribution concerning the atoning significance of His death do not touch the essence of the celebration, they are only discourses accompanying it.

On this interpretation, therefore, we may think of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper as from the first eschatological sacraments in the eschatological movement which later detached itself from Judaism under the name of Christianity. That explains why we find them both in Paul and in the earliest theology as sacramental acts, not as symbolic ceremonies, and find them dominating the whole Christian doctrine. Apart from the assumption of the eschatological sacraments, we can only make the history of dogma begin with a “fall” from the earlier purer theology into the sacramental magical, without being able to adduce a single syllable in support of the idea that after the death of Jesus Baptism and the Lord’s Supper existed even for an hour as symbolical actions—Paul, indeed, makes this supposition wholly impossible.

In any case the adoption of the baptism of John in Christian practice cannot be explained except on the assumption that it was the sacrament of the eschatological community, a revealed means of securing “salvation” which was not altered in the slightest by the Messiahship of Jesus. How else could we explain the fact that baptism, without any commandment of Jesus, and without Jesus’ ever having baptized, was taken over, as a matter of course, into Christianity, and was given a special reference to the receiving of the Spirit?

It is no use proposing to explain it as having been instituted as a symbolical repetition of the baptism of Jesus, thought of as “an anointing to the Messiahship.” There is not a single passage in ancient theology to support such a theory. And we may point also to the fact that Paul never refers to the baptism of Jesus in explaining the character of Christian baptism, never, in fact, makes any distinct reference to it. And how could baptism, if it had been a symbolical repetition of the baptism of Jesus, ever have acquired this magic‐sacramental sense of “salvation”?

Nothing shows more clearly than the dual character of ancient baptism, which makes it the guarantee both of the reception of the Spirit and of deliverance from the judgment, that it is nothing else than the eschatological baptism of John with a single difference. Baptism with water and baptism with the Spirit are now connected not only logically, but also in point of time, seeing that since the day of Pentecost the period of the outpouring of the Spirit is present. The two portions of the eschatological sacrament which in the Baptist’s preaching were distinguished in point of time—because he did not expect the outpouring of the Spirit until some future period—are now brought together, since one eschatological condition—the baptism with the Spirit—is now present. The “Christianising” of baptism consisted in this and in nothing else; though Paul carried it a stage farther when he formed the conception of baptism as a mystic partaking in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Thus the thoroughgoing eschatological interpretation of the Life of Jesus puts into the hands of those who are reconstructing the history of dogma in the earliest times an explanation of the conception of the sacraments, of which they had been able hitherto only to note the presence as an _x_ of which the origin was undiscoverable, and for which they possessed no equation by which it could be evaluated. If Christianity as the religion of historically revealed mysteries was able to lay hold upon Hellenism and overcome it, the reason of this was that it was already in its purely eschatological beginnings a religion of sacraments, a religion of eschatological sacraments, since Jesus had recognised a Divine institution in the baptism of John, and had Himself performed a sacramental action in the distribution of food at the Lake of Gennesareth and at the Last Supper.

This being so, the feeding of the multitude also belongs to the dogmatic element in the history. But no one had previously recognised it as what it really was, an indirect disclosure of the Messianic secret, just as no one had understood the full significance of Jesus’ description of the Baptist as Elias.

But how does Peter at Caesarea Philippi know the secret of his Master? What he there declares is not a conviction which had gradually dawned on him, and slowly grown through various stages of probability and certainty.

The real character of this incident has been interpreted with remarkable penetration by Wrede. The incident itself, he says, is to be understood in quite as supernatural a fashion in Mark as in Matthew. But on the other hand one does not receive the impression that the writer intends to represent the confession as a merit or a discovery of Peter. “For according to the text of Mark, Jesus shows no trace of joy or surprise at this confession. His only answer consists of the command to say nothing about His Messiahship.” Keim, whom Wrede quotes, had received a similar impression from the Marcan account, and had supposed that Jesus had actually found the confession of Peter inopportune.

How is all this to be explained—the supernatural knowledge of Peter and the rather curt fashion in which Jesus receives his declaration?

It might be worth while to put the story of the transfiguration side by side with the incident at Caesarea Philippi, since there the Divine Sonship of Jesus is “a second time” revealed to the “three,” Peter, James, and John, and the revelation is made supernaturally by a voice from heaven. It is rather striking that Mark does not seem to be conscious that he is reporting something which the disciples knew already. At the beginning of the actual transfiguration Peter still addresses Jesus simply as Rabbi (Mark ix. 5). And what does it mean when Jesus, during the descent from the mountain, forbids them to speak to any man concerning that which they have seen until after the resurrection of the Son of Man? That would exclude even the other disciples who knew only the secret of His Messiahship. But why should they not be told of the Divine confirmation of that which Peter had declared at Caesarea Philippi and Jesus had “admitted”?

What has the transfiguration to do with the resurrection of the dead? And why are the thoughts of the disciples suddenly busied, not with what they have seen, not with the fact that the Son of Man shall rise from the dead, but simply with the possibility of the rising from the dead, the difficulty being that Elias was not yet present? Those who see in the transfiguration a projection backwards of the Pauline theology into the Gospel history do not realise what are the principal points and difficulties of the narrative. The problem lies in the conversation during the descent. Against the Messiahship of Jesus, against His rising from the dead, they have only one objection to suggest: Elias had not yet come.

We see here, in the first place, the importance of the revelation which Jesus had made to the people in declaring to them the secret that the Baptist is Elias. From the standpoint of the eschatological expectation no one could recognise Elias in the Baptist, unless he knew of the Messiahship of Jesus. And no one could believe in the Messiahship and “resurrection” of Jesus, that is, in His Parousia, without presupposing that Elias had in some way or other already come. This was therefore the primary difficulty of the disciples, the stumbling‐block which Jesus must remove for them by making the same revelation concerning the Baptist to them as to the people. It is also once more abundantly clear that expectation was directed at that time primarily to the coming of Elias.(292) But since the whole eschatological movement arose out of the Baptist’s preaching, the natural conclusion is that by “him who was to come after” and baptize with the Holy Spirit John meant, not the Messiah, but Elias.

But if the non‐appearance of Elias was the primary difficulty of the disciples in connexion with the Messiahship of Jesus and all that it implied, why does it only strike the “three,” and moreover, all three of them together, now, and not at Caesarea Philippi?(293) How could Peter there have declared it and here be still labouring with the rest over the difficulty which stood in the way of his own declaration? To make the narrative coherent, the transfiguration, as being a revelation of the Messiahship, ought to precede the incident at Caesarea Philippi. Now let us look at the connexion in which it actually occurs. It falls in that inexplicable section Mark viii. 34‐ix. 30 in which the multitude suddenly appears in the company of Jesus who is sojourning in a Gentile district, only to disappear again, equally enigmatically, afterwards, when He sets out for Galilee, instead of accompanying Him back to their own country.

In this section everything points to the situation during the days at Bethsaida after the return of the disciples from their mission. Jesus is surrounded by the people, while what He desires is to be alone with His immediate followers. The disciples make use of the healing powers which He had bestowed upon them when sending them forth, and have the experience of finding that they are not in all cases adequate (Mark ix. 14‐29). The mountain to which He takes the “three” is not a mountain in the north, or as some have suggested, an imaginary mountain of the Evangelist, but the same to which Jesus went up to pray and to be alone on the evening of the feeding of the multitude (Mark vi. 46 and ix. 2). The house to which He goes after His return from the transfiguration is therefore to be placed at Bethsaida.

Another thing which points to a sojourn at Bethsaida after the feeding of the multitude is the story of the healing of the blind man at Bethsaida (Mark viii. 22‐26).

The circumstances, therefore, which we have to presuppose are that Jesus is surrounded and thronged by the people at Bethsaida. In order to be alone He once more puts the Jordan between Himself and the multitude, and goes with the “three” to the mountain where He had prayed after the feeding of the five thousand. This is the only way in which we can understand how the people failed to follow Him, and He was able really to carry out His plan.

But how could this story be torn out of its natural context and its scene removed to Caesarea Philippi, where it is both on external and internal grounds impossible? What we need to notice is the Marcan account of the events which followed the sending forth of the disciples. We have two stories of the feeding of the multitude with a crossing of the lake after each (Mark vi. 31‐56, Mark viii. 1‐22), two stories of Jesus going away towards the north with the same motive, that of being alone and unrecognised. The first time, after the controversy about the washing of hands, His course is directed towards Tyre (Mark vii. 24‐30), the second time, after the demand for a sign, he goes into the district of Caesarea Philippi (Mark viii. 27). The scene of the controversy about the washing of hands is some locality in the plain of Gennesareth (Mark vi. 53 ff); Dalmanutha is named as the place where the sign was demanded (Mark viii. 10 ff.).

The most natural conclusion is to identify the two cases of feeding the multitude, and the two journeys northwards. In that case we should have in the section Mark vi. 31‐ix. 30, two sets of narratives worked into one another, both recounting how Jesus, after the disciples came back to Him, went with them from Capernaum to the northern shore of the lake, was there surprised by the multitude, and after the meal which He gave them, crossed the Jordan by boat to Bethsaida, stayed there for a while, and then returned again by ship to the country of Gennesareth, and was there again overtaken and surrounded by the people; then after some controversial encounters with the Scribes, who at the report of His miracles had come down from Jerusalem (Mark vii. 1), left Galilee and again went northwards.(294)

The seams at the joining of the narratives can be recognised in Mark vii. 31, where Jesus is suddenly transferred from the north to Decapolis, and in the saying in Mark viii. 14 ff., which makes explicit reference to the two miracles of feeding the multitude. Whether the Evangelist himself worked these two sets of narratives together, or whether he found them already united, cannot be determined, and is not of any direct historical interest. The disorder is in any case so complete that we cannot fully reconstruct each of the separate sets of narratives.

The external reasons why the narratives of Mark viii. 34‐ix. 30, of which the scene is on the northern shore of the lake, are placed in this way after the incident of Caesarea Philippi are not difficult to grasp. The section contains an impressive discourse to the people on following Jesus in His sufferings, crucifixion, and death (Mark viii. 34‐ix. 1). For this reason the whole series of scenes is attached to the revelation of the secret of the suffering of the Son of Man; and the redactor did not stop to think how the people could suddenly appear, and as suddenly disappear again. The statement, too, “He called the people with the disciples” (Mark viii. 34), helped to mislead him into inserting the section at this point, although this very remark points to the circumstances of the time just after the return of the disciples, when Jesus was sometimes alone with the disciples, and sometimes calls the eager multitude about Him.

The whole scene belongs, therefore, to the days which He spent at Bethsaida, and originally followed immediately upon the crossing of the lake, after the feeding of the multitude. It was after Jesus had been six days surrounded by the people, not six days after the revelation at Caesarea Philippi, that the “transfiguration” took place (Mark ix. 2). On this assumption, all the difficulties of the incident at Caesarea Philippi are cleared up in a moment; there is no longer anything strange in the fact that Peter declares to Jesus who He really is, while Jesus appears neither surprised nor especially rejoiced at the insight of His disciple. The transfiguration had, in fact, been the revelation of the secret of the Messiahship to the three who constituted the inner circle of the disciples.(295) And Jesus had not Himself revealed it to them; what had happened was, that in a state of rapture common to them all, in which they had seen the Master in a glorious transfiguration, they had seen Him talking with Moses and Elias and had heard a voice from heaven saying, “This is my beloved Son, hear ye Him.”

We must always make a fresh effort to realise to ourselves, that Jesus and His immediate followers were, at that time, in an enthusiastic state of intense eschatological expectation. We must picture them among the people, who were filled with penitence for their sins, and with faith in the Kingdom, hourly expecting the coming of the Kingdom, and the revelation of Jesus as the Son of Man, seeing in the eager multitude itself a sign that their reckoning of the time was correct; thus the psychological conditions were present for a common ecstatic experience such as is described in the account of the transfiguration.

In this ecstasy the “three” heard the voice from heaven saying who He was. Therefore, the Matthaean report, according to which Jesus praises Simon “because flesh and blood have not revealed it to him, but the Father who is in heaven,” is not really at variance with the briefer Marcan account, since it rightly indicates the source of Peter’s knowledge.

Nevertheless Jesus was astonished. For Peter here disregarded the command given during the descent from the mount of transfiguration. He had “betrayed” to the Twelve Jesus’ consciousness of His Messiahship. One receives the impression that Jesus did not put the question to the disciples in order to reveal Himself to them as Messiah, and that by the impulsive speech of Peter, upon whose silence He had counted because of His command, and to whom He had not specially addressed the question, He was forced to take a different line of action in regard to the Twelve from what He had intended. It is probable that He had never had the intention of revealing the secret of His Messiahship to the disciples. Otherwise He would not have kept it from them at the time of their mission, when He did not expect them to return before the Parousia. Even at the transfiguration the “three” do not learn it from His lips, but in a state of ecstasy, an ecstasy which He shared with them. At Caesarea Philippi it is not He, but Peter, who reveals His Messiahship. We may say, therefore, that Jesus did not voluntarily give up His Messianic secret; it was wrung from Him by the pressure of events.

However that may be, from Caesarea Philippi onwards it was known to the other disciples through Peter; what Jesus Himself revealed to them, was the secret of his sufferings.

Pfleiderer and Wrede were quite right in pointing to the clear and definite predictions of the suffering, death, and resurrection as the historically inexplicable element in our reports, since the necessity of Jesus’ death, by which modern theology endeavours to make His resolve and His predictions intelligible, is not a necessity which arises out of the historical course of events. There was not present any natural ground for such a resolve on the part of Jesus. Had He returned to Galilee, He would immediately have had the multitudes flocking after Him again.

In order to make the historical possibility of the resolve to suffer and the prediction of the sufferings in some measure intelligible, modern theology has to ignore the prediction of the resurrection which is bound up with them, for this is “dogmatic.” That is, however, not permissible. We must, as Wrede insists, take the words as they are, and must not even indulge in ingenious explanations of the “three days.” Therefore, the resolve to suffer and to die are dogmatic; therefore, according to him, they are unhistorical, and only to be explained by a literary hypothesis.

But the thoroughgoing eschatological school says they are dogmatic, and therefore historical; because they find their explanation in eschatological conceptions.

Wrede held that the Messianic conception implied in the Marcan narrative is not the Jewish Messianic conception, just because of the thought of suffering and death which it involves. No stress must be laid on the fact that in Fourth Ezra vii. 29 the Christ dies and rises again, because His death takes place at the end of the Messianic Kingdom.(296) The Jewish Messiah is essentially a glorious being who shall appear in the last time. True, but the case in which the Messiah should be present, prior to the Parousia, should cause the final tribulations to come upon the earth, and should Himself undergo them, does not arise in the Jewish eschatology as described from without. It first arises with the self‐consciousness of Jesus. Therefore, the Jewish conception of the Messiah has no information to give us upon this point.

In order to understand Jesus’ resolve to suffer, we must first recognise that the mystery of this suffering is involved in the mystery of the Kingdom of God, since the Kingdom cannot come until the πειρασμός has taken place. This certainty of suffering is quite independent of the historic circumstances, as the beatitude on the persecuted in the sermon on the mount, and the predictions in the discourse at the sending forth of the Twelve, clearly show. Jesus’ prediction of His own sufferings at Caesarea Philippi is precisely as unintelligible, precisely as dogmatic, and therefore precisely as historical as the prediction to the disciples at the time of their mission. The “must be” of the sufferings is the same—the coming of the Kingdom, and of the Parousia, which are dependent upon the πειρασμός having first taken place.

In the first period Jesus’ thoughts concerning His own sufferings were included in the more general thought of the sufferings which formed part of the mystery of the Kingdom of God. The exhortations to hold steadfastly to Him in the time of trial, and not to lose faith in Him, certainly tended to suggest that He thought of Himself as the central point amid these conflicts and confusions, and reckoned on the possibility of His own death as much as on that of others. Upon this point nothing more definite can be said, since the mystery of Jesus’ own sufferings does not detach itself from the mystery of the sufferings connected with the Kingdom of God until after the Messianic secret is made known at Caesarea Philippi. What is certain is that, for Him, suffering was always associated with the Messianic secret, since He placed His Parousia at the end of the pre‐ Messianic tribulations in which He was to have His part.

The suffering, death, and resurrection of which the secret was revealed at Caesarea Philippi are not therefore in themselves new or surprising.(297) The novelty lies in the form in which they are conceived. The tribulation, so far as Jesus is concerned, is now connected with an historic event: He will go to Jerusalem, there to suffer death at the hands of the authorities.

For the future, however, He no longer speaks of the general tribulation which He is to bring upon the earth, nor of the sufferings which await His followers, nor of the sufferings in which they must rally round Him. In the predictions of the passion there is no word of that; at Jerusalem there is no word of that. This thought disappears once for all.

In the secret of His passion which Jesus reveals to the disciples at Caesarea Philippi the pre‐Messianic tribulation is for others set aside, abolished, concentrated upon Himself alone, and that in the form that they are fulfilled in His own passion and death at Jerusalem. That was the new conviction that had dawned upon Him. He must suffer for others ... that the Kingdom might come.

This change was due to the non‐fulfilment of the promises made in the discourse at the sending forth of the Twelve. He had thought then to let loose the final tribulation and so compel the coming of the Kingdom. And the cataclysm had not occurred. He had expected it also after the return of the disciples. In Bethsaida, in speaking to the multitude which He had consecrated by the foretaste of the Messianic feast, as also to the disciples at the time of their mission, He had turned their thoughts to things to come and had adjured them to be prepared to suffer with Him, to give up their lives, not to be ashamed of Him in His humiliation, since otherwise the Son of Man would be ashamed of them when He came in glory (Mark viii. 34‐ix. 1).(298)

In leaving Galilee He abandoned the hope that the final tribulation would begin of itself. If it delays, that means that there is still something to be done, and yet another of the violent must lay violent hands upon the Kingdom of God. The movement of repentance had not been sufficient. When, in accordance with His commission, by sending forth the disciples with their message, he hurled the fire‐brand which should kindle the fiery trials of the Last Time, the flame went out. He had not succeeded in sending the sword on earth and stirring up the conflict. And until the time of trial had come, the coming of the Kingdom and His own manifestation as Son of Man were impossible.

That meant—not that the Kingdom was not near at hand—but that God had appointed otherwise in regard to the time of trial. He had heard the Lord’s Prayer in which Jesus and His followers prayed for the coming of the Kingdom—and at the same time, for deliverance from the πειρασμός. The time of trial was not come; therefore God in His mercy and omnipotence had eliminated it from the series of eschatological events, and appointed to Him whose commission had been to bring it about, instead to accomplish it in His own person. As He who was to rule over the members of the Kingdom in the future age, He was appointed to serve them in the present, to give His life for them, the many (Mark x. 45 and xiv. 24), and to make in His own blood the atonement which they would have had to render in the tribulation.

The Kingdom could not come until the debt which weighed upon the world was discharged. Until then, not only the now living believers, but the chosen of all generations since the beginning of the world wait for their manifestation in glory—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the countless unknown who should come from the East and from the West to sit at tables with them at the Messianic feast (Matt. viii. 11). The enigmatic πολλοί for whom Jesus dies are those predestined to the Kingdom, since His death must at last compel the Coming of the Kingdom.(299)

This thought Jesus found in the prophecies of Isaiah, which spoke of the suffering Servant of the Lord. The mysterious description of Him who in His humiliation was despised and misunderstood, who, nevertheless bears the guilt of others and afterwards is made manifest in what He has done for them, points, He feels, to Himself.