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EXTRACT   DECLARATION   OF  TRUST. 

March  i,   1862. 

I,  William  Binny  Webster,  late  Surgeon  in  the  H.E.I.C.S.,  presently  residing 
in  Edinburgh, — Considering  that  I  feel  deeply  interested  in  the  success  of  the 
Free  Church  College,  Edinburgh,  and  am  desirous  of  advancing  the  Theological 
Literature  of  Scotland,  and  for  this  end  to  establish  a  Lectureship  similar  to 
those  of  a  like  kind  connected  with  the  Church  of  England  and  the  Congregational 
body  in  England,  and  that  I  have  made  over  to  the  General  Trustees  of  the 
Free  Church  of  Scotland  the  sum  of  ;C2ooo  sterling,  in  trust,  for  the  purpose 
of  founding  a  Lectureship  in  memory  of  the  late  Reverend  William  Cunning- 
ham, D.D.,  Principal  of  the  Free  Church  College,  Edinburgh,  and  Professor 
of  Divinity  and  Church  History  therein,  and  under  the  following  conditions, 
namely, — First,  The  Lectureship  shall  bear  the  name,  and  be  called,  "The 
Cunningham  Lectureship."  Second,  The  Lecturer  shall  be  a  Minister  or  Professor 
of  the  Free  Church  of  Scotland,  and  shall  hold  the  appointment  for  not  less 
than  two  years,  nor  more  than  three  years,  and  be  entitled  for  the  period  of 
his  holding  the  appointment  to  the  income  of  the  endowment  as  declared  by  the 
General  Trustees,  it  being  understood  that  the  Council  after  referred  to  may 
occasionally  appoint  a  Minister  or  Professor  from  other  denominations,  provided 
this  be  approved  of  by  not  fewer  than  Eight  Members  of  the  Council,  and  it 
being  further  understood  that  the  Council  are  to  regulate  the  terms  of  payment 
of  the  Lecturer.  Third,  The  Lecturer  shall  be  at  liberty  to  choose  his  own 
subject  within  the  range  of  Apologetical,  Doctrinal,  Controversial,  Exegetical, 
Pastoral,  or  Historical  Theology,  including  what  bears  on  Missions,  Home  and 
Foreign,  subject  to  the  consent  of  the  Council.  Fourth,  The  Lecturer  shall 
be  bound  to  deliver  publicly  at  Edinburgh  a  Course  of  Lectures  on  the  subjects 
thus  choseni  at  some  time  immediately  preceding  the  expiry  of  his  appointment, 
and  during  the  Session  of  the  New  College,  Edinburgh  ;  the  Lectures  to  be  not 
fewer  than  six  in  number,  and  to  be  delivered  in  presence  of  the  Professors  and 
Students  under  such  arrangements  as  the  Council  may  appoint  ;  the  Lecturer 
shall  be  bound  also  to  print  and  publish,  at  his  own  risk,  not  fewer  than  750 
copies  of  the  Lectures  within  a  year  after  their  delivery,  and  to  deposit  three 
copies  of  the  same  in  the  Library  of  the  New  College  ;  the  form  of  the  publication 
shall  be  regulated  by  the  Council.  Fifth,  A  Council  shall  be  constituted, 
consisting  of  (first)  Two  Members  of  their  own  body,  to  be  chosen  annually  in 
the  month  of  March,  by  the  Senatus  of  the  New  College,  other  than  the 
Principal  ;  (second)  Five  Members  to  be  chosen  annually  by  the  General  Assembly, 
in  addition  to  the  Moderator  of  the  said  Free  Church  of  Scotland  ;  together 
with  (third)  the  Principal  of  the  said  New  College  for  the  time  being,  the 
Moderator  of  the  said  General  Assembly,  for  the  time  being,  the  Procurator 
or  Law  Adviser  of  the  Church,  and  myself  the  said  William  Binny  Webster, 
or  such  person  as  I  may  nominate  to  be  my  successor  :  The  Principal  of  the 
said  College  to  be  Convener  of  the  Council,  and  any  Five  Members  duly  con- 
vened to  be  entitled  to  act  notwithstanding  the  non-election  of  others.  Sixth, 
The  duties  of  the  Council  shall  be  the  following : — (first).  To  appoint  the 
Lecturer  and  determine  the  period  of  his  holding  the  appointment,  the  appoint- 
ment to  be  made  before  the  close  of  the  Session  of  College  immediately  preceding 
the  termination  of  the  previous  Lecturer's  engagement ;  (second).  To  arrange 
details  as  to  the  delivery  of  the  Lectures,  and  to  take  charge  of  any  additional 
income  and  expenditure  of  an  incidental  kind  that  may  be  connected  therewith, 
it  being  understood  that  the  obligation  upon  the  Lecturer  is  simply  to  deliver 
the  Course  of  Lectures  free  01  expense  to  himself.  Seventh,  The  Council  shall 
be  at  liberty,  on  the  expiry  of  five  years,  to  make  any  alteration  that  experience 
may  suggest  as  desirable  in  the  details  of  this  plan,  provided  such  alterations 
shall  be  approved  of  by  not  fewer  than  Eight  Members  of  the  Council. 


Tlie  Cunningham  Lectures  for  1899 


THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF   JESUS 


THE    WHOLE    TEACHING    OF 
JESUS    CHRIST      1 

I. 
THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS, 

BEING    HIS    TEACHING    CONCERNING    HIMSELF, 

ACCORDING  TO  THE  SYNOPTISTS. 
IL 

THE   ETHIC  OF  JESUS, 

BEING  HIS  TEACHING  CONCERNING  SALVATION, 

ACCORDING  TO  THE   SYNOPTISTS. 

in. 
THE    TEACHING    OF    JESUS 

AS  RECORDED  BY  ST.  JOHN. 

[Ld/fr. 


T 


HE    CHRISTOLOGY 

OF  JESUS/*  BEING  HIS 
TEACHING  CONCERNING  HIMSELF 
ACCORDING  TO  THE  SYNOPTIC 
GOSPELS  ,*  By  the  REV.  JAMES 
STALKER,  M.A.,  D.D.  *  *  ^^ 


SECOND     EDITION 


S^Ol  ^ 


^)  HODDER  ^  STOUGHTON 

27,    PATERNOSTER    ROW         ^ 
»>^LONDON  -ft-  -^N  1900 


AUG  2    1967 


!?*« 


ITY  OF  TOR< 


Printed  by  Hazcll,  Watson,  &*  Fitify,  Lei.,  London  a7id  Aylesbury. 


Ct  9^.  »>♦ 


I 


PREFACE 

N  the  preface  to  an  early  issue  of  The  Life  of 
Jesus  Christ,  and  again  in  the  preface  to  Imago 
Christi,  I  made  public  my  intention  of  writing  on 
the  Teaching  of  Christ.  But  the  fulfilment  of  this 
purpose  has  been  long  delayed.  This  has  not  been 
due  to  the  withdrawal  of  my  attention  from  the 
subject,  which  for  more  than  twenty  years  has  been 
my  favourite  study.  Again  and  again  I  have  brought 
my  materials  to  the  verge  of  publication  ;  but  I  have 
shrunk  back  owing  to  the  impossibility  of  doing 
justice  to  the  subject,  and  to  a  fear  lest  my  results 
were  not  grounded  upon  a  sufficiently  thorough 
exegesis  of  the  Saviour's  words.  At  length,  however, 
when  the  trustees  of  the  Cunningham  Lectures  did 
T*N  me  the  honour  of  asking  me  to  undertake  the  course 
for  this  year,  I  felt  this  to  be  a  providential  summons 
to  delay  no  longer  but  to  bring  at  least  a  portion  of 
my  materials  to  the  maturity  requisite  for  publication. 


viii  PREFACE 

The  result  is  the  volume  now  offered  to  the  public, 
which  deals  with  a  part  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
complete  in  itself. 

A  word  may  be  desirable  to  indicate  the  relation 
of  what  is  here  completed  to  what  is  left.  More 
prominent  than  the  Christology  in  the  Synoptists  is 
that  which  may  be  called  the  Ethic  of  Jesus  ;  and 
these  two  together — the  Christology  and  the  Ethic — 
pretty  well  embrace  all  that  the  Synoptists  offer. 
The  distinction  between  the  two  is  that,  while  the 
Christology  sets  forth  what  God  has  done  for  man's 
salvation,  the  Ethic  would  cover  what  man  has  to  do 
and  experience  in  being  saved.  Then  there  remains 
the  teaching  of  Jesus  according  to  St.  John,  which, 
as  has  been  explained  in  the  opening  lecture,  is  a 
formation  by  itself  demanding  separate  treatment. 
Some  of  my  hearers,  I  have  learnt,  were  not  satisfied 
with  what  I  said  in  the  first  lecture  about  St.  John, 
supposing  my  statement  to  be  unfavourable  to  the 
authenticity  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  This,  however, 
was  by  no  means  my  intention.  Supremely  as  I 
prize  the  Synoptists,  I  feel,  after  reading  them,  that 
there  is  something  still  untold.  They  fail  to  account 
fully  for  the  origin  of  so  stupendous  a  movement 
as  Christianity,  in    the   same   way  as,  after   reading 


PREFACE  ix 

Xenophon's  Memorabilia,  one  feels  that  something 
more  requires  to  be  told  to  make  intelligible  the 
influence  of  Socrates  in  the  history  of  Greek  thought. 
Whether  the  teaching  of  Jesus  as  recorded  by  St.  John 
is  idealised  like  that  of  Socrates  in  Plato's  Dialogues, 
or  in  what  other  way  the  Teacher  depicted  in  the 
Fourth  Gospel  is  related  to  fact,  I  need  not  attempt 
here  to  define  ;  because  it  will  be  seen,  from  the 
advertisement  at  the  beginning  of  this  volume,  that  I 
look  forward  to  writing  both  on  the  Ethic  of  Jesus 
as  unfolded  in  the  Synoptists  and  on  the  Teaching  of 
Jesus  as  recorded  by  St.  John.  But  it  is  astonishing 
how  St.  John,  after  being  so  often  proved  to  have  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  divine  picture  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  ever  and  anon  reappears  as  its  veritable 
producer  and  owner,  and,  after  having  had  to  endure 
the  reproach  of  fantasticality  and  incompetence,  is 
loaded  again  with  admiration  and  eulogy.  There  are 
enigmas  in  this  Gospel  which  still  await  explanation  ; 
but  the  world  will  never  rest  in  the  belief  either  that 
this  intimate  record  came  from  anyone  but  an  apostle, 
or  that  the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved  can  have 
distorted  and  falsified  the  image  of  his  Master. 

Though  each  of  the  three  divisions  of  our  Lord's 
teaching  indicated  above  has  its  own  difficulties,  the 


X  PREFACE 

one  treated  in  this  volume  is  the  most  difficult  of  all ; 
for,  whereas  in  expounding  the  Ethic  of  Jesus  and 
His  Teaching  as  recorded  by  St.  John,  we  shall  have 
prolonged  and  continuous  statements  to  draw  upon, 
here  we  are  dependent  on  isolated  sayings,  scattered 
throughout  the  Gospels  and  frequently  on  this  account 
difficult  of  interpretation.  But  it  would  be  rash  to 
draw  the  inference  that,  because  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
about  Himself  in  the  Synoptists  is  scanty  and  Incon- 
spicuous, it  is,  therefore,  of  subordinate  importance. 
On  the  contrary,  it  is  the  salt  of  the  whole. 

Inside  the  flyleaf  of  each  chapter  I  have  given 
the  entire  evidence  of  texts  for  what  follows  ;  so 
that  every  reader  may  have  the  means  of  verifying 
for  himself  what  is  advanced. 

When  I  first  began  to  occupy  myself  with  this 
subject,  the  helps  were  few,  and  I  was  thrown  back 
upon  the  Gospels  themselves.  In  recent  years,  as  is 
explained  in  the  first  chapter,  this  has  altered,  and  an 
extensive  literature  has  accumulated,  of  which  a  fuller 
account  will  be  found  in  this  volume  than  anywhere 
else,  as  far  as  I  am  aware,  in  the  E  nglish  language. 
But,  while  I  have  profited  by  the  labours  of  others,  I 
have  adhered  principally  to  the  biblical  documents, 
and   I  hope  my  pages  may  still  be  redolent  of  the 


PREFACE  xi 

intense  delight  with  which  I  first  found  out  the  actual 
testimony  of  Jesus  to  Himself. 

The  critical  remarks  in  the  first  lecture  are  supple- 
mented by  a  critical  essay,  reprinted  from  The 
Expositor,  in  the  Appendix,  on  the  first  volume  of 
Wendt's  Lehre  Jesu  ;  and  I  have  to  thank  Messrs. 
Nisbet  &  Co.  for  permission  to  reproduce  from  The 
Thinker  an  essay  on  the  Book  of  Enoch. 

Glasgow,  1899. 


CONTENTS 

LECIUEE  PAGE 

I.    THE   IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  TEACHING  OF   JESUS         ,           .         I 
II.    THE  SON  OF  MAN 43 

III.  THE   SON   OF   GOD 85 

IV.  THE   MESSIAH I25 

V,   THE  REDEEMER 169 

VI.    THE  JUDGE 209 

APPBNOIC£S 

A.  WENDT'S    UNTRANSLATED    VOLUME    ON    THE    TEACHING 

OF  JESUS  247 

B.  THE   BOOK   OF  ENOCH         #»..,,.    269 


xiH 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  TEACHING  OF  JESUS 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  TEACHING  OF  JESUS 

"  I  ^HE  present  generation  is  under  the  impression 
-*-  that  it  has  discovered  the  teaching  of  Jesus. 
It  would  be  absurd,  indeed,  to  speak  as  if  our  own 
age  had  been  the  first  to  appreciate  the  beauty 
and  the  power  of  our  Lord's  words  ;  for  since  the 
Christian  Church  began,  the  sentences  of  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  have  found  a  lodgment  in  the  memory 
of  Christendom  more  secure  than  any  other  words 
whatever  ;  the  Parables  have  never  in  any  century 
failed  to  charm ;  and  the  Farewell  Discourses  in 
the  Gospel  of  St.  John  have  in  every  generation 
been  the  solace  of  the  Christian  heart  in  its  most 
solemn  moods.  Nevertheless,  in  our  own  day  our 
Lord's  words  have  obtained  a  prominence  never 
accorded  to  them  before.  VVe  now  separate  them 
from  the  rest  of  Scripture,  with  which  formerly  they 
were  indiscriminately  mingled,  and  assign  them  a 
commanding  authority.  Their  unique  theological 
value    is     acknowledged.       It     is     recognised,     in 


THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 


short,  that  Jesus  is  the  best  teacher  of  His  own 
reh'gion. 

This  change  is  due  to  deep  causes,  to  trace  which 
thoroughly  would  be  a  long  and  arduous  task. 

Perhaps  it  may  be  best  assigned  to  one  of  those 
mysterious  movements  in  the  depths  of  the  human 
spirit  which  it  is  diffcult  to  scrutinise  and  account 
for,  but  by  which,  under  the  guidance  of  Providence, 
one  epoch  is  made  to  end  and  another  to  begin. 
Suddenly,  you  can  hardly  tell  how  or  why,  one  way 
of  thinking  about  things,  which  has  long  appeared 
to  be  the  only  possible  way,  becomes  disused,  and  a 
new  way  becomes  so  easy  and  universal  that  people 
can  hardly  realise  that  things  have  not  always  been 
seen  in  this  light.  At  the  Reformation  the  Pauline 
mode  of  conceiving  Christianity  fitted  into  the 
necessities  of  experience  ;  and  the  Christian  mind 
rose  up  to  take  possession  of  its  heritage  as  it  is 
unfolded  in  the  Pauline  Epistles.  The  forms  of 
truth  there  deposited  are  so  priceless  that  it  took 
long  to  bring  them  fully  to  light  ;  the  theological 
consciousness  was  aware  of  profiting  by  the  robust 
efforts  which  it  had  to  put  forth  in  the  process  of 
acquisition  ;  and  so  the  predominance  of  this  view 
of  Christianity  lasted  long.  But  it  could  not  last 
forever,  because  the  Bible  is  rich  enough  to  contain 
other  ways  of  conceiving    Christianity  ;    and   these 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE   TEACHING  OF  JESUS    5 

were  certain,  some  time  or  other,  to  get  their  turn. 
What  Novalis  says  of  Shakspeare — that  in  his 
works  "  the  last  and  deepest  of  observers  will  still 
find  new  harmonies  with  the  infinite  structure  of  the 
universe,  concurrences  with  later  ideas,  affinities  with 
the  higher  powers  and  senses  of  man  " —  is  far  truer 
of  the  Bible.  Humanity,  under  the  training  of 
history,  is  always  being  made  ready  to  understand 
and  appreciate  some  new  portion  of  the  Word  of 
God,  and  some  book  or  section  of  Scripture  is  big 
with  a  secret  which  it  can  only  disclose  to  those 
providentially  prepared  for  its  reception.  Everyone 
is  aware  how  at  present,  in  the  Old  Testament,  the 
writings  of  the  prophets,  after  being  long  neglected, 
are  coming  into  such  prominence  that  every  young 
minister  of  ability  is  discoursing  from  them  ;  and 
in  the  same  way,  in  the  New  Testament,  we  are 
moving  from  the  Epistles  to  the  Gospels.  Rabbi 
Duncan  was  one  of  those  lofty  and  sensitive  spirits 
which  catch  the  first  rays  of  an  approaching 
time,  and  he  foretold  this  change  :  "  I  have 
certainly,"  he  said,  "  more  of  the  Pauline  Epistles 
than  of  the  four  Gospels  in  my  nature  ;  but,  were 
I  a  younger  man  and  to  begin  my  studies  again, 
the  Gospels  would  bulk  more  prominently  in  my 
attention  than  they  have  done."  As  has  been 
hinted,   there    is    an    overruling    Providence  in  the 


THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 


matter  :  when  the  flock  have  long  been  in  one  section 
of  the  pasture  and  have  nibbled  it  bare,  the  great 
Shepherd  leads  them  into  another,  where  the  grass 
is  lush  and  uncropped  ;  and  there  they  abide  till 
the  fields  which  they  have  left  have  had  time  to 
grow  again. 

It  may  only  be  another  way  of  stating  the  same 
reason  to  say,  secondly,  that  the  recognition  of  the 
importance  of  the  words  of  Jesus  has  been  prepared 
for  by  the  extraordinary  attention  bestowed  in  the 
present  century  on  His  life.  At  the  Reformation 
it  was  on  the  work  of  Christ  that  the  thoughts  of 
men  were  concentrated  ;  and  this  long  remained  the 
supreme  and  ruling  conception  of  theology.  Ever 
and  anon,  however,  His  person  came  into  promi- 
nence ;  and  in  the  present  century  the  most  intense 
study  has,  owing  to  a  variety  of  causes,  been  directed 
upon  the  details  of  His  earthly  life.  Archaeology, 
the  exploration  of  Palestine,  the  history  of  the 
century  in  which  He  was  born,  and  many  other 
subsidiary  sciences  have  been  pressed  into  the 
service  ;  and  the  Son  of  man  has  been  made  to 
walk  forth  in  breathing  reality  before  the  eyes  of 
men,  who  have  eagerly  followed  every  step  of  His 
course  from  the  manger  to  the  cross.  But  under 
this  close  inspection  of  the  records  His  words  could 
not  fail  to  attract  attention.     Accordingly  everyone 


THE  IMPORTANCE   OF  THE   TEACHING   OF  JESUS    7 

who  wrote  of  His  life  expressed  the  hope  to  write 
some  day  on  His  words  Hkewise.  At  last  the  press 
begins  to  teem  with  this  new  burden  ;  and  in  the 
next  fifty  years  the  books  on  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
will  probably  be  as  numerous  as  in  the  last  fifty 
have  been  those  on  His  life.  Observers  who  watch 
closely  the  signs  of  the  times  in  the  theological 
world  are  wont  to  keep  an  eye  on  the  young 
Privatdocenten  in  the  German  universities.  When 
these  begin,  as  if  by  general  consent,  to  write  on 
any  topic,  it  may  be  taken  for  granted  that  this 
subject  is  in  the  air,  and  will  be  heard  of  everywhere 
before  long.  And  of  late  they  have  been  taking, 
in  full  cry,  to  the  teaching  of  Christ.  The  first 
monograph  on  the  subject  which  I  remember  came 
from  the  pen  of  a  French  theologian,  M.  Meyer,  in 
1883  *  ;  then  followed,  at  a  considerable  interval  of 
time,  The  Kingdom  of  God  of  Dr.  Bruce;  then  Wendt's 
Teaching  of  Jesus  f  ;  but  now  it  is  scarcely  possible 
to  take  up  a  theological  catalogue  without  seeing 
the  announcement  of  one  or  more  monographs  on 
the  whole  or  on  some  special  aspect  of  the  subject. 


*  Le  Christianisme  dii  Christ,  dealing  only  with  the  words  of 
Jesus  recorded  by  St.  Matthew. 

t  Dr.  Robertson's  excellent  handbook  in  the  Guild  Series  of 
the  Church  of  Scotland  deserves  special  notice  as  the  first  popular 
presentation  of  the  subject. 


THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 


And  the  demand  in  the  public  mind  is  equally 
keen  ;  for  multitudes  are  saying,  that  they  only  need 
to  know  for  certain  what  Jesus  believed  in  order  to 
believe  the  same. 

Another  cause  which  has  stimulated  interest  in 
this  subject  has  been  the  rise  of  Biblical  Theology.* 
The  old  view  of  the  Bible  was  that  it  is  a  unit,  all 
its  paits  forming  one  glorious  whole  and  conspiring 
to  coiivey  one  divine  message  ;  and  this  view  ex- 
presses an  eternal  truth.  But  it  is  also  manifest 
that  the  Bible  is  a  library  of  books,  differing  enor- 
mously as  to  age,  style  and  contents.  If  they  all 
convey  one  message,  yet  they  severally  embody 
different  parts  and  aspects  of  it  ;  and,  if  the  unity 
of  Scripture  is  a  grand  truth,  its  variety  lies  more 
obviously  on  the  surface.  To  see  how  revelation 
grew  from  simplicity  to  complexity,  and  how  the 
germ  unfolded  into  leaf,  flower  and  fruit,  is  to  follow 
the  course  of  a  spiritual  romance  ;  and  it  brings 
Biblical  knowledge  into  line  with  the  ideas  of  evolu- 
tion so  characteristic  of  our  time  in  all  the  other 
departments  of  knowledge.  In  the  New  Testament 
we  see  how  elementary  conceptions  of  Christianity, 


*  This  is  the  science  which  defines  the  circle  of  ideas  belonging 
to  each  prominent  writer  of  Scripture,  or  group  of  writers,  and, 
by  arranging  these  types  of  thought  in  chronological  order,  seeks 
to  trace  from  stage  to  stage  the  growth  of  revelation. 


THE  IMPORTANCE   OF  THE   TEACHING   OF  JESUS    9 


in  the  Book  of  Acts  and  the  Epistles  of  St.  James 
and  St.  Peter,  expand  into  the  comprehensive  and 
philosophical  system  of  St.  Paul,  and  how  the 
development  is  crowned  by  the  mystic  views  of 
St.  John.  But  the  question  could  not  but  be  asked, 
Where  do  Christ's  own  views  come  in  ?  They  stand 
at  the  commencement  of  the  volume  in  the  Gospels  ; 
but  is  this  their  place  in  the  development }  Arc 
they  really  overtopped  and  overshadowed  by  the 
teachings  of  the  Apostles  ?  This  was  virtually  the 
place  assigned  them  in  the  older  handbooks  of 
Biblical  Theology.  But,  as  time  has  gone  on,  they 
have  been  allowed  more  and  more  space,  till  in  the 
latest  specimen — the  handbook  of  Holtzmann  * — 
they  obtain  nearly  half  of  the  whole  room  to  them- 
selves. The  question  will  undoubtedly  force  itself 
more  and  more  to  the  front.  Is  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
a  rudimentary  form  of  Christianity  which  the  others 
transcend,  or  is  it  the  perfect  form,  which  they  only 
supplement  ? 

Whatever    may    be    the    answer    given     to    this 
question,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  tendency 

*  Since  this  was  penned,  Stevens'  Theology  of  the  New 
Testament  has  appeared ;  and  all  English-speaking  people  are 
to  be  congratulated  on  now  having  accessible  from  so  able  and 
trustworthy  a  hand  an  extended  treatise,  written  originally  in 
their  own  tongue,  on  this  grej^t  subject, 


THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 


to  attach  supreme  importance  to  the  words  of  Christ 
is  a  healthy  one.  It  is  in  accordance  with  the  mind 
of  Christ  Himself ;  for  He  frequently  spoke  of  His 
own  words  in  terms  the  grandiosity  of  which  it 
would  be  difficult  to  surpass.  The  very  first  lesson 
which  a  student  of  Christ's  teaching  should  take  is 
to  collect  the  sayings  of  Jesus  about  His  own  words. 
In  the  first  place,  He  took  a  very  high  and 
unusual  view  of  the  value  of  words  in  general. 
There  is  nothing  which  to  the  ordinary  man  appears 
more  trivial  than  a  word.  What  is  it  .''  A  breath 
converted  into  sound  :  out  it  goes  on  the  air,  and  is 
carried  away  by  the  wind  ;  and  there  is  an  end  of 
it.  No,  said  Jesus,  it  does  not  end  there,  and  it 
does  not  end  ever :  when  once  it  is  called  into 
existence  by  the  creative  force  of  the  will,  it  becomes 
a  living  thing  separated  from  our  control ;  it  goes 
ranging  through  time  and  space,  doing  good  or  evil ; 
and  it  will  confront  us  again  at  the  last  day — 
"  Every  idle  word  that  men  shall  speak,  they  shall 
give  account  thereof  at  the  day  of  judgment."  *  At 
that  solemn  crisis  the  influence  of  our  words  on  our 
destiny  will  be  extraordinary  ;  for  "  by  thy  words 
thou  shalt  be  justified  and  by  thy  words  thou  shalt 
be  condemned."  f     There  is  nothing  of  which  the 


*  Matt.  xii.  36, 
t  Matt.  xii.  37. 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OF   THE   TEACHING  OF  JESUS  ii 


average  man  is  more  surely  convinced  than  that  his 
tongue  is  his  own,  and  that  he  can  at  will  make  it 
utter  words  either  good  or  evil.  Very  different  was 
Christ's  estimate  :  words  are  inevitable  :  if  the 
speaker  be  good,  then  they  are  good,  but,  if  he  be 
evil,  then  they  are  inevitably  evil :  for  as  much 
control  as  he  seems  to  have  over  them,  he  cannot 
alter  their  character  unless  he  first  alter  his  own  ; 
for  "  out  of  the  abundance  of  the  heart  the  mouth 
speaketh."  * 

Such  was  Christ's  conception  of  words  ;  and  such 
were  His  own  words  :  they  were  the  overflowings 
of  His  heart,  an  effluence  from  His  character,  bits 
of  Himself.  No  wonder  if  virtue  resided  in  them. 
Poets  and  thinkers  have  sometimes  boasted,  half  in 
jest,  that  their  words  would  survive  the  most 
permanent  works  of  man — pyramids  of  kings  and 
monuments  of  brass — but  Jesus  declared,  in  sober 
earnest,  that  His  would  outlive  the  most  stable 
works  of  God — "  Heaven  and  earth  shall  pass  away, 
but  My  words  shall  not  pass  away."  f 

He  spoke  of  attachment  to  His  words  as  attach- 
ment to  Himself,  and  as  the  test  of  discipleship — 
"  If  ye  continue  in  My  word,  then  are  ye  My 
disciples  indeed,  and  ye  shall  know  the  truth,  and 


*  Matt.  xii.  34. 
t  Luke  xxi.  33. 


THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 


the  truth  shall  make  you  free  "  ;  "  If  a  man  love 
Me,  he  will  keep  My  words,  and  My  Father  will 
love  him  ;  and  We  will  come  unto  him  and  make 
Our  abode  with  him.  He  that  loveth  Me  not 
keepeth  not  My  sayings  ;  and  the  word  which  ye 
hear  is  not  Mine,  but  the  Father's  who  sent  Me."  * 
When  Mary  was  seated  at  His  feet  listening  to 
His  words,  He  declared  that  she  was  doing  the 
one  thing  needful. f 

He  attributed  to  His  words  the  power  of  re- 
generating and  sanctifying  the  soul — "  Now  ye  are 
clean  through  the  word  that  I  have  spoken  unto 
you  "  ;  "  The  words  that  I  speak  unto  you,  they  are 
spirit  and  they  are  life  "  ;  "  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto 
you,  if  a  man  keep  My  sayings,  he  shall  never  see 
death."  And  those  who  first  heard  His  words 
confirmed  out  of  their  own  experience  the  justice  of 
these  claims,  when  St.  Peter  said  in  their  name, 
"  Lord,  to  whom  can  we  go  ?  Thou  hast  the  words 
of  eternal  life."J 

It  was  only  the  logical  consequence  of  this  when 
Jesus  alleged,  that  the  eternal  destiny  of  His  hearers 
would  depend  on  the  attitude  they  assumed  to  His 
words — "  He   that   rejecteth   Me    and  receiveth  not 


*  John  viii.  31 ;  xiv.  23,  24. 

+  Luke  X.  42. 

\  John  XV.  3  ;  viii.  51 ;  vi.  68. 


THE  IMPORTANCE   OF  THE   TEACHING  OF  JESUS  13 

My  words  hath  one  that  judgeth  him  :  the  word 
that  I  have  spoken,  the  same  shall  judge  him  at  the 
last  day."*  He  wound  up  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
with  the  well-known  imagery  of  incomparable 
solemnity :  "  Therefore  whosoever  heareth  these 
sayings  of  Mine,  and  doeth  them,  I  will  liken  him 
unto  a  wise  man,  which  built  his  house  upon  a  rock  : 
and  the  rain  descended,  and  the  floods  came,  and 
the  winds  blew,  and  beat  upon  that  house  :  and  it 
fell  not :  for  it  was  founded  upon  a  rock.  And 
every  one  that  heareth  these  sayings  of  Mine,  and 
doeth  them  not,  shall  be  likened  unto  a  foolish  man, 
which  built  his  house  upon  the  sand  :  and  the  rain 
descended,  and  the  floods  came,  and  the  winds  blew, 
and  beat  upon  that  house  ;  and  it  fell  :  and  great 
was  the  fall  of  it."'|' 

I  have  considered  it  worth  while  to  quote  all 
these  sayings  in  detail  ;  because  they  show  not  only 
how  high  was  the  estimate  placed  by  Jesus  on  His 
own  words,  but  how  frequent  a  theme  of  thought  and 
speech  this  was  with  Him.  He  claimed  for  Himself 
as  a  teacher  a  position  far  above  all  who  had  pre- 
ceded Him,  when  He  said  to  His  hearers  that  many 
prophets  and  kings  had  desired  in  vain  to  hear  the 
things  which  they  were  blessed  enough  to  be  hearing 

*  John  xii.  48.  f  Matt.  vii.  24-27. 


14  THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

from  His  lips  ;  and  still  more  decisively  did  He  place 
Himself  above  all  who  should  come  after  Him,  when 
He  said,  "  Be  not  ye  called  Rabbi,  for  One  is  your 
teacher  ;  and  all  ye  are  brethren,"  *  There  could 
not  be  a  more  emphatic  warning  against  placing 
the  apostles  on  the  same  level  as  the  Master. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  old  doctrine  of 
inspiration  an  objection  might  be  raised  :  indeed, 
I  have  heard  it  said,  "  Why  should  the  words  of 
Jesus  be  considered  more  important  than  the  rest 
of  the  Bible  ?  all  the  Scriptures  are  utterances  of 
God,  and  what  more  are  the  words  of  Christ  ?  " 
But  even  from  the  old  point  of  view  this  objection 
can  be  met  with  a  decisive  answer.  It  is  true  that 
in  one  sense  all  sections  of  Scripture  are  equally  im- 
portant ;  because  they  are  parts  of  a  whole  which 
would  be  mutilated  if  any  of  its  constituent  parts, 
even  the  smallest,  were  absent.  In  the  same  sense 
the  smallest  joint  of  the  smallest  finger  is  as  im- 
portant in  the  human  body  as  the  head,  because 
it  is  essential  to  the  perfection  of  the  whole.  But 
manifestly  there  is  another  sense  in  which  a  finger 
is  by  no  means  as  important  as  the  head.  The 
members  of  the  body  differ  in  dignity,  the  eye  being 
a  far  more  glorious  member  than  the  car,  and  the 

•  Matt,  xxiii.  8  ;  "  even  Christ "  is  unauthentic. 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE   TEACHING   OF  JESUS  15 

majesty  of  manhood  far  more  fully  exhibited  in 
the  face  than  in  the  foot.  In  a  similar  sense  some 
portions  of  Scripture  may  be  spoken  of  as  more 
important  and  glorious  than  others.  This  has  never 
been  questioned  by  even  the  strictest  orthodoxy. 
The  nature  of  God  is  more  fully  revealed  in  the 
pages  of  Isaiah  than  in  the  lines  of  Nahum  ;  and 
no  one  would  think  of  comparing  the  message  of 
St.  James  for  glory  with  that  of  St.  Paul.  When 
God  made  use  of  inspired  men,  He  did  not  destroy 
their  individuality  or  make  them  all  speak  in  the 
same  strain,  but,  like  one  playing  on  instruments 
of  different  shapes  and  sizes,  He  transmitted  one 
element  of  revelation  through  one  and  another 
through  another.  He  let  the  light  of  the  knowledge 
of  His  glory  shine  through  a  great  variety  of  media  ; 
but  some  of  these  were  larger  and  more  transparent 
than  others,  and  let  more  of  the  light  of  revelation 
through.  If  this  is  recognised,  it  is  impossible  to 
deny  a  unique  value  to  the  words  of  Jesus  ;  for 
of  all  the  media  ever  employed  by  God  for  purposes 
of  revelation  none  can  be  compared  to  Him  :  in 
no  other  mind  did  the  spirit  of  revelation  obtain 
such  ample  room,  and  never,  either  before  or  after, 
did  it  find  such  perfect  channels  of  outlet  as  through 
His  organs  of  thought  and  speech.  This  is  the 
very   least  that  must   be   conceded   from  even   the 


16  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

most  orthodox  point  of  view ;  and  it  is  enough  to 
place  the  words  of  Jesus  above  all  human  words — 
even  those  of  revelation. 

By  some  this  contrast,  however,  is  carried  much 
further,  and  it  is  proposed  to  convert  the  teaching 
of  Christ  into  a  standard  with  which  to  criticize 
and  to  correct  the  rest  of  Scripture.  Formerly 
the  whole  Bible  was  looked  upon  as  a  single 
authority  ;  but  first  the  Old  Testament  was  dropped 
and  the  New  adopted  as  the  sole  authority  ;  and 
now  the  narrowing  process  is  carried  further  :  not 
the  New  Testament  as  a  whole,  it  is  contended, 
is  the  authority,  but  the  teaching  of  Christ  alone  ; 
and  some  go  so  far  as  to  draw  a  circle  of  exclusion 
even  inside  the  teaching  of  Christ,  maintaining  that 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  is  an  ample  norm  both 
of  faith  and  practice.  This  is  the  position  taken 
up  by  Dr.  John  Watson  in  The  Mind  of  the  Master. 
"  The  religion  of  Protestants,"  he  says,  "  or  let  us 
say  Christians,  is  not  the  Bible  in  all  its  parts' 
but  first  of  all  that  portion  which  is  its  soul,  by 
which  the  teaching  of  Prophets  and  Apostles  must 
itself  be  judged — the  very  words  of  Jesus  " ;  and 
he  goes  on  to  argue  that  even  of  the  words  of 
Jesus  those  contained  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
are  sufficient. 


THE  IMPORTAKCE  OF  THE   TEACHING  OF  JESUS  17 

To  suggestions  of  this  sort  the  reply  has  often 
been  given,  tb.at  Jesus  expressly  intimated  at  His 
departure  that  He  had  not  been  able  to  utter  all 
He  had  to  say,  but  would  find  means  of  conveying 
it  to  His  Church  after  He  was  gone  ;  and  that 
the  teaching  of  inspired  apostles  was  the  virtual 
continuation  of  His  own :  "  I  have  yet  many 
things  to  say  unto  you,  but  ye  cannot  bear  them 
now ; .  howbeit,  when  He,  the  Spirit  of  truth,  is 
come,  He  shall  guide  you  into  all  truth  ;  for  He 
shall  not  speak  of  Himself;  but  whatsoever  He 
shall  hear  that  shall  He  speak  ;  and  He  will  show 
you  things  to  come  ;  He  shall  glorify  me  ;  for  He 
shall  receive  of  Mine,  and  shall  show  it  unto  you."  * 
For  one  thing,  the  resurrection  and  ascension  of 
our  Lord  entirely  altered  the  point  of  view.  As 
long  as  He  was  on  earth,  He  had  perforce  to  speak 
from  the  level  of  the  earth,  the  minds  of  the 
disciples  obstinately  refusing  to  take  the  hint  of 
anything  higher  ;  but,  after  He  had  risen  and 
ascended,  He  was  to  all  who  believed  in  Him 
the  Lord  of  glory  ;  and  it  is  from  this  point  of 
view  that  the  latter  half  of  the  New  Testament 
is  written.  It  is  especially  contended  that  within 
the  very  extensive  promise  of  illumination  quoted 

*  John  xvi.  12-15. 


i8  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

above,  the  full  truth  about  His  own  death  was 
included,  because  it  was  impossible,  or  at  least 
unnatural,  that  He  should  speak  fully  about  this 
event  before  it  had  taken  place,  and  before  the 
minds  of  the  disciples  were  opened  to  credit  it. 
Even  if  Jesus  had  spoken  fully  on  this  subject 
from  His  own  point  of  view — that  is,  the  point 
of  view  of  the  Giver  of  salvation — it  would  still 
have  been  necessary  that  it  should  be  fully  and 
authoritatively  explained  from  the  opposite  point 
of  view — that  of  the  receivers  of  salvation.  Jesus 
might  speak  of  salvation,  but  He  was  never  Himself 
saved  ;  and  there  would  have  been  an  intolerable 
blank  in  the  Bible  had  not  inspired  men,  when 
the  forces  of  salvation,  in  their  first  freshness,  were 
doing  their  work  in  their  soul  and  life,  committed 
their  experience  to  the  pages  of  Holy  Writ.  This 
is  the  value  of  the  writings  of  St.  Paul,  St.  John 
and  St.  Peter,  who  tell  what  Christ  was  to  them- 
selves as  Saviour  and  Lord. 

A  still  weightier  argument  is,  that  Christ  Himself 
is  more  than  His  words.  Stier,  the  commentator 
on  our  Lord's  sayings,  calls  them  "  the  words  of 
the  Word " — a  most  suggestive  title,  because  it 
reminds  us  that  Christ  Himself  is  the  great  and 
final  Word  of  God,  of  which  His  detailed  wordi 
are   only   fragments.      Even    all  of   these   in   com- 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE   TEACHING  OF  JESUS    19 

bination  are  not  equal  to  Him  ;  for  there  are 
other  words  of  the  Word  :  His  earthly  history,  His 
miracles  and  His  sufferings  are  all  words  of  the 
Word,  on  a  level  with  His  spoken  words.  His 
association  with  publicans  and  sinners  was  no  less 
significant  than  were  the  parables  of  St.  Luke  xv.  ; 
His  weeping  over  Jerusalem  was  more  eloquent 
than  anything  He  said  on  patriotism  ;  His  sufferings 
and  death  were  far  more  suggestive  than  anything 
He  ever  said  about  sin.  We  are  wont  in  modern 
thought  to  draw  a  distinction  between  revelation 
and  inspiration — revelation  being  the  grand,  primary 
fact  in  God's  relation  to  men,  whereas  inspiration 
is  subsidiary  and  ministerial.  Revelation  did  not 
take  place,  as  the  old  orthodoxy  assumed,  through 
whispers  of  truth  communicated  to  the  prophets, 
but  through  the  institutions,  the  events  and  the 
personages  of  a  divine  history  ;  and  inspiration 
was  the  power  of  interpreting  this  history  and 
putting  its  meaning  into  words.  Now,  that  which 
was  perfected  in  Christ  was  the  revelation  :  in  Him 
the  divine  history  culminated  and  the  divine  love 
was  fully  disclosed.  It  may  no  doubt  be  argued 
that  the  inspiration  culminated  in  Him  likewise, 
and  was  adequate  to  the  revelation.  But  at  all 
events  even  His  inspiration  did  not  exhaust  the 
revelation  embodied  in   Himself,  which  invited  the 


THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 


attention  of  other  inspired  personalities,  to  interpret 
it  from  the  point  of  view  of  their  own  experience. 
And  this  is  the  reason  why,  instead  of  merely 
collecting  His  words  and  commenting  on  them,  the 
apostles  go  straight  themselves  to  the  revelation 
made  in  Christ  and  give  it  an  original  interpretation 
out  of  the  fulness  of  their  own  experience. 

There  is  a  double  objection  to  the  exaggerated 
way  of  putting  the  matter  on  which  I  am  com- 
menting. First,  it  tempts  to  disparage  St.  Paul 
and  the  other  New  Testament  writers  in  order  to 
exalt  Christ.  This  temptation  Dr.  Watson  has 
not  escaped.  "  If,"  he  says,  "  one  may  be  pardoned 
his  presumption  in  hinting  at  any  imperfections  in 
the  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles,  is  not  his  style  at 
times  overwrought  by  feeling  }  Are  not  some  of 
his  illustrations  forced  }  Is  not  his  doctrine  often 
rabbinical,  rather  than  Christian .-'  Does  not  one 
feel  his  treatment  of  certain  subjects — say  marriage 
and  asceticism — to  be  somewhat  wanting  in  sweet- 
ness ? "  In  the  fancied  interest  of  Jesus,  it  is  not 
uncommon  at  present  to  hit  in  this  style  at  inspired 
men.  But  would  Jesus  accept  such  championship  } 
The  truth  is,  Jesus  Himself  could  be  criticized  in 
this  tone  to  His  disparagement.  And  this  is  the 
other  side  of  the  objection  :  it  tempts  those  who 
vindicate   the    apostles    to    depreciate   Jesus,    or   at 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE   TEACHING  OF  JESUS  21 

least  to  put  Him  in  the  background.  "  The 
specifically  Christian  consciousness,"  it  is  argued, 
"  which  has  to  be  scientifically  developed  by  the 
theologian,  is  not  the  consciousness  of  Jesus,  it  is 
the  consciousness  of  reconciliation  to  God  through 
Jesus  ;  "  *  and  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  being  thus,  by 
means  of  an  ingenious  definition  of  theology,  excluded 
from  the  immediate  materials  of  the  theologian,  no 
specific  place  is  assigned  to  it  at  all. 

Of  course,  the  decisive  question  is,  whether  St. 
Paul  and  the  other  apostolic  writers  are  at  variance 
with  their  Master.  If  they  are,  then  undoubtedly 
they  must  go  to  the  wall  ;  and  Dr.  Watson  is  quite 
justified  when  he  contends  that  St.  Paul  must  be 
read  in  the  light  of  Christ  rather  than  Christ  in  the 
light  of  St.  Paul.  Only  he  and  others  are  constantly 
taking  it  for  granted  that  St.  Paul  cannot  stand  this 
test,  but  that  a  considerable  portion  of  the  apostolic 
teaching  must  be  cast  aside  as  inconsistent  with  that 
of  Jesus,  although  Dr.  Watson  himself  is  vague  and 
meagre  in  the  extreme,  when  he  comes  to  particulars. 
There  can  be  no  question  that  Jesus  abolishes  a  great 
deal  of  Moses  ;  for  He  does  so  in  express  terms  ; 


*  These  words  are  from  Dr.  Denney's  Inaugural  Lecture  on 
Dogmatic  Theology  (published  in  The  Expositor,  December, 
1897);  perhaps,  however,  it  is  scarcely  fair  to  criticize  thus  a 
mere  obiter  dictum. 


22  The  CHRiSTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

but  it  is  gratuitous  to  assume  that  He  would  have 
done  the  same  to  St.  Paul.  Even  in  the  Synoptists 
the  germs  are  to  be  found  of  all  that  the  Epistles 
contain  ;  and,  if  St.  John  be  taken  into  account,  the 
Christian  theologian  may  without  hesitation  under- 
take to  prove  the  substantial  identity  of  the  teaching 
of  the  Master  and  that  of  the  disciples.  He  speaking 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Saviour  and  they  from 
that  of  the  saved."^ 

I  have  spoken  of  the  importance  of  the  words  of 
Jesus  in  themselves,  and  of  their  comparative  import- 
ance when  contrasted  with  the  apostolic  writings  ; 
but  I  should  like  to  add  something  about  their 
importance  in  relation  to  dogma. 

Dr.  Watson  speaks  as  if  the  words  of  Jesus  were 
the  long  neglected  but  rich  source  of  dogmas,  where 
anyone  can  lay  his  hand  on  them,  as  on  the  eggs 
in  a  discovered  nest,  and  find  his  creed  made-and- 
ready.  In  fact,  he  gathers  a  creed  from  them,  in 
half-a-dozen  lines,  and  says  that,  if  only  a  church 
could  be  found  to  adopt  it,  men  would  come  from 
the  north  and  the  south,  the  east  and  the  west,  to 
press  into  its  membership.  Experiments  have  not, 
however,  been  wanting  to  found  churches  on  verj'' 

*  Compare  the  preface  to  the  new  edition  of  Dr.  Robertson 
Nicoll's  The  Incaruate  Saviour. 


THE  IMPORTANCE   OF  THE   TEACHING  OF  JESUS  23 

abbreviated  creeds.  Their  success  has  not  been  con- 
spicuous. And  it  may  be  doubted  whether  articles 
of  belief  thus  found  made-and-ready  would  be  of 
much  utility,  whatever  might  be  their  origin — even 
if  it  were  in  the  words  of  Jesus.  I  have  found,  in 
preaching,  that  to  tell  people  how  little  Abraham 
believed  or  what  were  the  precise  limits  of  Isaiah's 
theology  does  not  affect  them  much ;  and  that  merely 
to  expound  a  doctrine  as  having  been  that  of  St. 
Paul  or  even  that  of  Jesus  does  not  make  much 
impression.  Herein  lies  perhaps  the  weakness  of 
all  Biblical  theology,  which  to  a  student  is  in  many 
ways  so  fascinating :  it  is  apt  to  become  a  mere 
branch  of  archaeology ;  whereas  the  truth  which 
affects  the  human  mind  is  that  which  has  on  it  a 
streak  of  warm  blood.  Personal  conviction  is  the 
soul  of  religious  testimony.* 

But,  besides,  when  we  go  to  the  words  of  Jesus 
for  the  articles  of  a  creed,  is  not  this  to  mistake  the 
genus  to  which  these  words  belong  }  The  diff*erence 
between  religion  and  theology  may  be  hard  to 
define,  but  it  is  not  hard  to  feel  ;  and  surely  the 
words  of  Christ  belong  not  to  theology  but  to  religion. 

*  What  underlies  my  friend  Dr.  Watson's  argument,  which  I 
have  ventured  to  criticize  so  freely,  is  the  perfectly  just  perception, 
that  the  teaching  of  Jesus  is  predominantly  ethical,  and  that 
theology  has  done  no  sort  of  justice  to  the  Ethics  of  Jesus. 


24  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

They  are  kerygma,  not  dogma  ;  nature,  not  science. 
Rothe  denies  that  there  are  any  dogmas  in  the 
Bible ;  *  and  perhaps  he  is  right.  Many  parts, 
indeed,  of  the  writings  of  St.  Paul  approach  pretty 
near  to  the  dogmatic  type ;  yet  even  they  are 
perhaps  best  considered  as  kerygma — warm  out- 
bursts of  emotion  and  experience — rather  than 
scientific  theology.  At  all  events  the  words  of 
Jesus  are  at  the  opposite  pole  from  scientific  state- 
ments. Who  has  not  felt  the  transition  from  a 
confession  of  faith  or  a  dogmatic  treatise  to  the 
Parables  and  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  ?  It  is  like 
the  change  from  the  atmosphere  of  a  library  to  the 
open  air,  or  from  a  museum,  stuffed  with  skeletons 
and  specimens,  into  a  fair  garden,  where  the  flowers 
are  in  bloom  and  the  dew  of  the  morning  is  glisten- 
ing on  every  blade  of  grass. 

A  strong  corroboration  of  this  view  may  be  found 
in  the  form  in  which  Jesus  left  His  words.  He  did 
not  write  them  down  Himself,  but  entrusted  them 
to  the  memory  of  Ilis  disciples,  although  these  were 
not  men  of  literary  culture.  This  was  not  because 
He  was  indifferent  on  the  subject.     On  the  contrary, 

*  "  Ich  ziehe  natiirlich  nicht  in  Abrede,  dass  es  eine  religiose 
Lehre  in  der  Bibel  gibt  ;  aber  ich  bestreite,  dass  der  religiOsen 
Lehre  in  der  Bibel  bereits  die  Qualitat  eignet,  vermoge  welcher 
sie  den  Namen  des  Dogmas  ausprechen  kann." — Zur  Dogtnatik, 
p.  i8. 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OE  THE   TEACHING  OF  JESUS  25 

never  has  there  lived  a  son  of  Adam  to  whom  it  has 
been  so  imperative  a  necessity  to  be  remembered 
after  death  ;  and  He  took  the  most  elaborate  and 
far-sighted  measures  to  secure  this  end.  But  His 
anxiety  was  not  that  of  the  professor,  who  dictates 
the  ipsissinia  verba  of  his  paragraphs,  or  of  the 
jurist,  who  inscribes  his  decrees  on  tables  of  stone. 
He  could  trust  the  memory  even  of  humble  men, 
supplemented,  as  He  knew  it  would  be,  by  the 
living  epistle  of  their  life. 

There  is  a  widespread  desire  among  theologians 
at  present  to  find  at  least  the  organizing  idea  of  the 
theological  system  in  the  teaching  of  Christ.  Thus 
in  Ritschl's  small  handbook  of  Christian  Instruction 
the  Kingdom  of  God  is  the  organizing  idea,  and 
this  is  a  favourite  notion  ot  the  whole  Ritschlian 
school.  But,  although  Jesus  published  His  Gospel 
under  the  form  of  a  doctrine  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  He  did  this  strictly 
on  His  own  motion  or  rather  under  stress  of  circum- 
stances, adapting  His  teaching  to  the  modes  ot 
thinking  current  in  His  time.  Principal  P'airbairn 
takes  the  Fatherhood  of  God  to  be  the  centre  of 
Christ's  teaching  and  proposes  to  make  it  the  centre 
of  theology  *  ;  and  this  is  a  proceeding  which  falls 

*  In  Christ  in  Modern  Theology. 


26  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

in  with  the  tendencies  of  the  modern  mind.  But, 
like  the  Kingdom  of  God,  the  Fatherhood  of  God  is 
a  figure  of  speech  of  extremely  uncertain  application, 
even  in  the  teaching  of  Christ  sometimes  describing 
the  relation  of  all  men  to  God  and  at  other  times 
the  peculiar  relation  of  believers.  Other  great  ideas 
might  be  lifted  from  Christ's  teaching  and  made  the 
ruling  conceptions  of  theology.  There  is  Righteous- 
ness, for  example,  which  is  certainly  the  ruling  idea 
of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  *  ;  and  I  have  been 
much  interested  in  a  work  on  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
by  Titius,t  one  of  the  younger  German  writers,  who 
proposes  to  investigate  not  it  only,  but  the  whole 
teaching  of  the  New  Testament,  from  the  standpoint 
of  Blessedness — to  my  mind  a  most  central  and 
comprehensive  idea.  Of  course  all  such  proposals 
must  be  tested  by  their  success,  when  the  attempt 
is  actually  made  to  organize  by  their  means  the 
whole  mass  of  theological  material ;  but,  if  the  attempt 
be  successful,  this  will  be  due,  I  venture  to  think,  not 
to  the  idea  being  that  of  Jesus,  but  to  its  being  that 
of  the  thinker  himself. 

This  desire  to   find    dogmas   ready-made    in    the 
teaching  of  Jesus,  or  at  least  to  borrow  from  Him 

•  Dante  said  it  was  the  theme  of  The  Divine  Cotnedy. 
t  Die  N.   T.  Lehre  von  der  Seligkeit.    Erster  Theil :  Jesu 
Lehre  vom  Rciche  Go  tics.     1895. 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE   TEACHING  OF  JESUS  27 


the  organizing  conception  of  theology,  savours  too 
much  of  the  old  notion  that  the  Bible  is  a  vast 
collection  of  proof-texts,  and  that  the  work  of 
dogmatic  theology  is  merely  to  arrange  and  sys- 
tematize them.  Dogmatic  theology  is  not,  indeed, 
at  present  very  sure  of  its  own  definition  ;  but  at  all 
events,  since  Schleiermacher,  it  is  pretty  certain  that 
it  has  a  close  relation  to  Christian  experience.  Some 
would  define  it  merely  as  the  science  of  dogmas,  and 
restrict  the  material  with  which  it  has  to  deal  to  the 
creed  of  the  church  to  which  the  theologian  belongs  ; 
others  would  make  its  material  to  consist  rather  of 
the  living  faith  of  the  Church — that  is,  of  the  dogmas 
modified  by  opinion — while  others  still  would  em- 
phasize most  strongly  the  Christian  experience  of 
the  dogmatist  himself.  But  at  all  events  dogma  is 
more  than  the  mere  datum  of  Scripture  :  it  is  this 
taken  up  into  the  mind  of  the  Church  in  combination 
with  all  the  knowledge  of  which  it  may  at  any  stage 
be  possessed  and  viewed  under  the  providential  light 
shining  at  the  time.  It  is  not  a  mere  report  by  the 
Church  to  the  world  that  such-and-such  a  statement 
was  made  by  Isaiah  or  Moses,  by  St.  Paul  or  Jesus, 
and,  therefore,  must  be  true  ;  but  it  is  an  affirmation 
by  the  Church  of  its  own  present  conviction  :  "  I 
know  and  declare  this  to  be  true,  not  merely  because 
the  Bible  says  it,  but  because  I  have  experienced  it. 


28  THE   CHRtSTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

and  because  it  is  at  this  moment  throbbing  in  my 
heart  as  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation." 

The  old  view  was,  that  a  perfect  theology  could 
only  have  one  form,  and  that  the  organizing  idea 
must  be  either  the  right  or  the  wrong  one.  But 
does  not  the  whole  history  of  theology  prove  that 
the  intention  of  nature  is  different  1  The  form  is 
continually  changing ;  and  new  organizing  ideas 
emerge  with  every  new  generation,  every  spiritual 
movement,  and  every  original  thinker.  Even  the 
individual,  if  his  religion  be  progressive,  does  not  see 
truth  always  from  the  same  point  of  view.  John 
Bunyan's  experience  is  normal  in  this  respect ;  who, 
in  Grace  Abounding,^  tells,  that,  preaching  ever 
what  he  saw  and  felt,  he  moved  every  two  years 
or  so  from  one  standpoint  to  another,  being  now 
absorbed  with  the  curse  and  doom  of  sin,  then  with 
the  offices  of  Christ,  and  again  with  union  to  Christ. 
So  the  Church  at  large,  if  its  mind  is  not  stagnating, 
must  quit  one  point  of  view  and  move  on  to  another. 
This  is  because  its  own  historical  position  is  shifting. 
While  Scripture  is  meant  to  explain  all  the  changing 
aspects  of  providence,  providence,  on  the  other  hand, 
likewise  casts  on  Scripture  an  ever-changing  light. 
The   organizing    thought    of   theology   is  with    one 

*  Pars.  276  to  278. 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE   TEACHING   OF  JESUS  29 

thinker  the  Sovereignty  of  God,  with  another  Justifi- 
cation by  Faith  ;  but,  if  the  Church  is  progressing 
instead  of  stagnating,  it  will  neither  be  the  one  nor 
the  other  forever.  In  our  day  the  best  ruling  idea 
may  possibly  be  the  Kingdom  of  God  or  the  Father- 
hood of  God  ;  but,  if  so,  it  will  be,  not  because  this 
was  the  supreme  conception  of  Jesus,  but  because  it 
is  the  thought  which  corresponds  most  intimately  to 
the  knowledge  and  the  temper  of  the  age. 

The  use  of  Scripture,  and  especially  of  the  Words 
of  Jesus,  is  not  to  supersede  the  spiritual  and  intel- 
lectual processes  of  the  Church's  life  by  supplying 
her  with  dogmas  ready-made,  but  to  give  stimulus 
and  direction  to  these  processes.  The  Scriptures 
have  the  same  relation  to  the  thinking  and  tes- 
timony of  the  Church  as  the  influences  of  the 
atmosphere  have  to  the  products  of  the  soil.  Let 
the  mind  of  the  Church  be  continually  refreshed 
with  the  Law,  the  Prophets  and  the  Psalms,  with 
the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  the  Writings  of  St.  John, 
and,  above  all,  the  Words  of  Jesus,  and  it  will  think 
both  copiously  and  correctly ;  but,  let  it  cease  to 
absorb  into  its  experience  these  divine  oracles,  or 
let  it  deal  with  them  carelessly  and  deceitfully,  and 
its  thinking,  as  well  as  the  other  manifestations  of 
spiritual  life,  will  suffer.  Thus  there  is  always  an 
appeal  from  the  teaching  of  the  Church  to  the  truth 


30  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

as  it  is  in  Jesus,  and  the  Scripture  is  always  above 
the  Church,  but  not  in  the  sense  of  a  creed  or  a 
doctrinal  system.  The  Scripture  is  like  the  rain 
from  heaven,  without  the  continual  soaking  of  which 
through  the  soil  the  rivers,  lakes  and  reservoirs 
would  soon  dry  up  and  every  green  thing  perish 
from  the  face  of  the  earth.  And  this  shows  what 
should  be  the  aim  of  a  revival  of  the  teaching  of 
Jesus — not  to  set  up  a  creed  of  Christ  in  opposition 
to  the  creeds  of  the  churches,  which  would  simply 
be  to  revive  in  the  twentieth  century  the  arrogance 
of  those  who  in  the  first  said  at  Corinth,  "  We  are 
of  Christ,"  but  to  facilitate  such  a  saturation  of  the 
Christian  mind  with  the  words  and  the  spirit  of 
the  Author  of  Christianity  that  from  the  soil,  thus 
nourished,  all  forms  of  good  thinking  as  well  as  all 
manner  of  good  living  may  spontaneously  spring. 

It  will  be  observed  that,  in  this  course  of  lectures, 
I  propose  to  derive  the  teaching  of  Jesus  from  the 
Synoptical  Gospels,  to  the  exclusion  of  St.  John. 
One  reason  for  this  is  the  present  state  of  criticism. 
At  one  time  the  Gospel  of  St.  John — the  pneumatic 
gospel,  as  it  was  called,  or  gospel  of  religious  genius 
— enjoyed  singular  favour  among  the  most  advanced 
critics,  who  declared,  that  in  it,  if  anywhere,  was  to 
be   found    the   authentic   portrait   of  Jesus ;    but  at 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OF   THE   TEACHING   OF  JESUS   31 

present  the  pendulum  has  swung  to  the  opposite 
extreme,  and  this  gospel  is  spoken  of  in  terms  of 
great  dubiety,  if  not  of  condemnation  ;  and  in  these 
circumstances,  whatever  one  may  think  of  the  merits 
of  the  case,  it  is  advisable  to  adduce  the  evidence  for 
the  teaching  of  Jesus  concerning  Himself  from  the 
two  sources  separately.  There  is,  besides,  another 
reason,  which  to  my  mind  is  still  more  cogent :  the 
Gospel  of  St.  John  is  a  work  of  unique  character,  in 
which  the  shape  given  even  to  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
is  due  to  the  peculiarities  of  the  Evangelist ;  and 
the  whole  hangs  together  so  compactly  that  the 
parts  cannot  without  some  violence  be  separated 
from  the  whole,  in  order  to  supplement  the  outline 
of  the  Synoptists.  In  short,  the  system  of  the 
thoughts  of  Jesus,  as  it  is  presented  in  St.  John, 
ought  always  to  be  developed  from  its  own  centre. 
Dr.  Wendt,  the  author  of  the  most  important  mono- 
graph which  has  yet  appeared  on  the  teaching  of 
Jesus,  does  not  follow  this  course,  but  gives,  under 
each  leading  article,  first  the  account  supplied  by  the 
Synoptists  and  then  the  corresponding  section  from 
St.  John.  This  is  extremely  interesting  ;  in  fact,  it 
is  the  most  striking  feature  of  Dr.  Wendt's  per- 
formance ;  and  many  readers  must  have  been 
astonished  at  the  identity  of  thought  which  he  has 
often  been  able  to  demonstrate  as  existing  beneath 


THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 


both  the  plain  language  of  the  Synoptists  and  the 
mystic  phraseology  of  the  Fourth  Evangelist.  Yet 
it  must  also  have  been  felt  that  this  method  scarcely 
does  justice  to  St.  John,  whose  ideas  are  torn  from 
their  natural  connexion  and  not  infrequently  some- 
what distorted  in  the  process. 

We  have  not,  however,  done  with  critical  questions 
when  we  leave  St.  John  out,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
are  face  to  face  with  the  Synoptic  Problem,  the 
most  perplexing  of  literary  riddles.  It  is  known 
how  interminable  has  been  the  controversy  about 
the  order  of  the  first  three  Evangelists  and  their 
relation  to  one  another ;  but  it  seems  to  me  that 
those  who  have  contended  for  the  priority  of  one  or 
another  have  seldom  taken  sufficient  time  to  consider 
what  is  the  precise  value  of  priority,  even  if  it  could 
be  made  out.  As  a  rule,  it  is  taken  for  granted 
that  priority  must  necessarily  imply  superiority  ;  but 
to  a  student  of  the  words  as  distinguished  from  the 
acts  of  Jesus  this  must  appear  a  doubtful  proposition. 
Suppose  three  authors  of  our  own  time  were  to 
write  memoirs  of  a  life  belonging  to  about  the 
middle  of  the  century,  would  the  one  who  wrote  in 
1880  have  a  very  great  advantage  over  the  one  who 
wrote  in  1890,  or  he  over  the  one  who  wrote  in 
1900.^  Might  not  any  such  advantage  be  far 
outweighed  by  superior  ability  or  access  to  special 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE    TEACHING    OF  JESUS  33 

information  ?  I  do  not  pretend  that  the  cases  are 
exactly  parallel,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  I  do  not 
know  that  there  is  any  very  great  difference,  unless 
we  are  to  assume  that  in  the  Christian  circles  of  the 
first  century  there  was  at  work  a  strong  mythopoetic 
propensity,  which  was  engaged  in  adorning  with 
legendary  marvels  the  memory  of  Jesus.  The 
distance  between  St.  Mark  and  St.  Matthew,  or 
St.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke,  is  so  inconsiderable 
that  the  question  of  priority  is  of  only  secondary 
importance.*  Far  more  worthy  of  notice  are  the 
evidences  which  the  contents  of  these  books  them- 
themselves  supply  of  special  aptitude  for  investiga- 
tion or  presentation.  St.  Mark,  to  whom  the 
priority  in  time  is  now  generally  conceded,  has 
seemed  to  many  to  possess  a  remarkable  gift  for 
indicating  the  movement  and  energy  of  the  life  of 
Jesus,  together  with  the  sequence  and  articulation 
of  its  periods  ;  and  through  his  rough,  hasty  and 
graphic  sketches  there  is  conveyed  an  image  of 
the  facts  which  carries  on  its  face  the  signature 
of  veracity.  But  St.  Mark  has  no  such  gift  for 
rendering  the  words  of  Jesus.  This  belongs  to  St. 
Matthew,  who  inspires  me,  as  a  student  during  many 
years  of  the  words  of  Jesus,  with  the  same  enthusiasm 

*  The  dates  given  by  Harnack  in  his  great  work  on  Chronology 
are— St.  Mark  65-85,  St.  Matthew  70-75,  St.  Luke  78-93. 

3 


34  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

as  students  of  the  events  feel  for  St.  Mark.  Evidently 
St.  Matthew  had  a  passion  for  the  words,  and  he 
diligently  searched  them  out.  They  were  treasured 
in  his  mind,  where  they  arranged  themselves  in  the 
pregnant  forms  in  which  he  has  reproduced  them. 
For  he  does  not  render  them  in  chronological  order, 
but  in  groups,  as  a  goldsmith  arranges  gems  in  such 
settings  that  one  precious  stone  is  set  off  by  another. 
The  supreme  instance  of  this  is  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount ;  but  only  less  conspicuous  are  the  parables 
grouped  together  in  chapter  xiii.,  the  succession  of 
sayings  on  Offences  in  chapter  xviii.,  and  the  dis- 
courses on  the  Last  Things  in  chapters  xxiv.  and 
XXV.  St.  Matthew  has  penetrated  down  through 
the  original  sayings  to  the  spirit  moving  beneath 
them  all,  and  everywhere  in  his  record  we  feel  the 
height,  the  wisdom  and  the  subtlety  of  the  mind  of 
Him  who  spake  as  never  man  spake.  In  the  Gospel 
of  St.  Luke,  as  a  whole,  I  feel  more  of  the  atmosphere 
of  a  later  time  ;*  yet  how  little  the  faithfulness  of 
his  reporting  has  been  impaired  by  greater  distance 
from  the  events  may  be  realised  by  recalling  the 
parables  which  we  owe  to  him  alone,  such  as  the 
Good  Samaritan  and  the  Prodigal  Son. 

Of  course  it  would  be  different  if  we  could  get 

*  A  striking  illustration  of  this  is  the  frequent  occurrence  of 
"the  Lord"  as  a  name  for  Jesus. 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE   TEACHING  OF  JESUS   35 

back  much  nearer  to  the  life  of  Jesus  than  the 
date  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels  ;  and  at  this  problem 
scholarship  is  labouring  at  the  present  time  with 
astonishing  enterprise.  It  is  believed  that  the  words 
of  Jesus  were  the  first  memorials  of  Him  which  His 
followers  collected  in  written  form,  and  that  there 
existed  such  a  collection  from  the  pen  of  the  Apostle 
Matthew,  upon  which  the  authors  of  the  canonical 
St.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke,  and  possibly  St.  Mark, 
drew  in  compiling  their  gospels.  By  the  close 
scrutiny  of  the  Gospels  as  we  now  have  them,  and 
especially  by  gathering  together  the  common  element 
which  they  exhibit,  it  has  been  recently  attempted 
to  reproduce  this  assumed  document.*  In  a  critical 
volume  published  by  Dr.  Wendt  before  his  work  on 
the  Teaching  of  Jesus  which  has  been  translated  into 
English,  this  original  St.  Matthew  is  printed  verse 
by  verse  in  Greek.  Another  German  scholar,  Dr. 
Resch,  well  known  for  his  profound  studies  on  the 
forms  in  which  the  words  of  Jesus  appear  in  the 
earliest  postcanonical  literature,  has  gone  further: 
holding  that  the  original  St.  Matthew  contained, 
besides  discourses,  an  element  of  narrative,  he  has 
reproduced  narrative  and  logia  together ;  and,  since 

*  Besides  the  works  described  in  the  following  sentences, 
mention  should  be  made  also  of  The  Apostolic  Gospel,  by  J. 
Fulton  Blair,  B.D.,  1896. 


36  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

Papias,  to  whose  information  the  idea  of  the  original 
St.  Matthew  is  due,  says  that  it  was  written  in 
Hebrew,  he  has  supplied  a  Hebrew  rendering  of  his 
own  in  addition  to  the  Greek.*  Finally,  Dr.  Dalman, 
an  eminent  Aramaic  scholar,  in  the  first  volume,  just 
published,  of  a  work  on  the  Words  of  Jesus,  maintains 
that  the  Hebrew  of  the  original  St.  Matthew  was 
really  Aramaic  ;  although  he  does  not  propose  to 
retranslate  back  into  that  language,  but  only  to 
make  constant  use  of  Aramaic,  which  he  believes 
to  have  been  the  tongue  in  which  Jesus  spoke,  in 
order  to  throw  light  on  the  sayings  in  general  and 
in  detail.f 

The  attempt,  not  only  to  prove  the  existence  of  a 
written  gospel  earlier  than  the  canonical  Gospels,  but 
actually  to  reconstruct  the  document,  must  be  felt  to 
be  of  profound  interest.  Dr.  Resch  believes  that  we 
are  thus  carried  back  to  a  date  not  later  perhaps  than 
four  years  after  the  death  of  Jesus,  when,  he  supposes, 
St.  Matthew  committed  his  recollections  to  writing, 

*  Die  Logiajesu,  1898.  The  author  holds  that  the  Hebrew, 
as  the  sacred  and  Hterary  language,  would  in  any  case  have  been 
employed  for  such  a  purpose. 

t  Die  Worte  Jcsu,  1898.  The  impression  left  on  my  mind 
by  the  arguments  of  Dalman,  who  speaks  with  great  contempt 
of  the  knowledge  of  Aramaic  possessed  by  his  predecessors,  is 
that  there  do  not  exist  sufficient  remains  of  the  language  or 
dialect  spoken  by  Jesus  to  make  it  possible  to  determine  with 
any  great  amount  of  certainty  the  actual  vocables  He  used. 


I 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE   TEACHING  OF  JESUS    37 

if  he  did  not  actually  keep  notes  of  his  Master's 
utterances  from  day  to  day  ;  though  of  course  this 
is  only  the  conjecture  of  a  sanguine  specialist.  It 
would  be  gratifying  to  learn  that  any  of  our  Lord's 
words  or  acts  could  be  traced  back,  in  written 
records,  so  near  to  the  confines  of  His  actual  life. 
But  the  use  made  of  the  results  thus  obtained  falls 
in  rather  with  German  ideas  than  with  ours  ;  for  it 
is  proposed  to  employ  this  gospel  above  the  Gospels 
as  a  standard  by  which  to  try  the  other  contents  of 
the  canonical  Gospels.  German  scholarship,  even  of 
a  comparatively  orthodox  type,  takes  quite  naturally 
to  the  idea,  that  even  among  our  Lord's  words  there 
must  be  distinctions  made  between  those  the  authen- 
ticity of  which  is  of  first  rank  and  others  belonging 
to  a  secondary  or  tertiary  formation,  in  which  His 
actual  sentiments  are  compounded  with  later  elements 
caught  from  the  atmosphere  of  the  apostolic  age. 
Indeed,  a  German  theologian  is  never  quite  happy 
unless,  in  dealing  with  a  book  of  Scripture,  he  is 
making  use  of  one  portion  to  test,  and  generally 
more  or  less  to  invalidate,  the  rest.  In  this  country 
scholarship  is  more  modest :  we  at  least  keep  open 
the  possibility  that  the  application  of  the  test  may 
justify  all  the  sayings.  We  are  not  unfamiliar, 
indeed,  even  in  this  country,  with  the  fact  that  for 
reasons     of    edification     an    evangelist    may    have 


THE  CHRISfOLOGY  OF  JESUS 


omitted  words  in  his  possession,  and  I  have  already 
referred  to  the  influence  of  St.  John's  genius  on  his 
reporting  ;  there  may  be  modifications  due  to  other 
causes  of  like  kind  ;  but  it  does  not  seem  to  me 
reasonable  to  suppose  that  a  first  sketch  such  as  is 
attributed  to  St.  Matthew  would  contain  all  that 
was  vital  in  our  Lord's  teaching  ;  and  I  prefer  to 
start  with  the  presupposition  that  all  the  sayings 
are  authentic  till  strong  evidence  is  forthcoming  to 
the  contrary. 

No  other  words  ever  uttered  possess  in  the  same 
degree  the  power  of  self-authentication.  As  a 
painter  of  the  highest  genius,  like  Raphael  or 
Rubens,  has  a  style  of  his  own  by  which  his  work 
may  be  recognised,  so  the  words  of  Jesus  are  full  of 
peculiarities  by  which  they  can  be  identified. 

One  of  their  prominent  characteristics  is  Preg- 
nancy. No  other  speaker  ever  put  so  much  into 
few  words.  Yet  the  matter  is  not  too  closely 
packed  :  all  is  simple,  limpid,  musical.  This  virtue 
was  studied  in  the  rabbinical  schools,  and  it  was 
realised  in  a  high  degree  in  the  Wisdom  Literature  of 
the  Old  Testament,  where,  it  may  not  be  irreverent 
to  suppose,  Jesus  admired  and  studied  it.  But  in 
His  case  it  was  chiefly  due  to  the  cast  and  habit  of 
His  own  mind.  It  is  when  truth  has  been  long  and 
thoroughly  pondered  that  it  embodies  itself  in  brief 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE   TEACHING   OF  JESUS    39 

and  memorable  language,  as  it  is  the  ore  thoroughly 
smelted  which  flows  out  in  an  uninterrupted  stream 
and  crystallizes  in  perfect  shapes  ;  and  such  intense 
and  convinced  thought  was  so  habitual  to  Jesus  that 
the  most  striking  sayings  were  often  coined  by  Him 
on  the  spur  of  the  moment,  as  when  He  said  in  con- 
troversy, "  Render  unto  Caesar  the  things  which  are 
Caesar's,  and  unto  God  the  things  which  are  God's." 
Sentences  of  this  kind  stick  like  goads  and  nails. 
No  other  words  have  adhered  as  those  of  Jesus  to 
the  memory  of  mankind.  Let  almost  any  of  His 
sayings  be  commenced,  and  the  ordinary  hearer  can 
without  difficulty  finish  the  sentence.  But,  if  we  can 
retain  them  so  easily  since  they  have  been  written, 
the  first  hearers  could  remember  them  as  easily 
before  they  were  written. 

Another  very  prominent  characteristic  is  Imagina- 
tiveness. The  style  of  Jesus  is  intensely  figurative. 
He  never  says,  "  You  ought  to  exert  a  good  influence 
on  your  fellow-creatures,"  but,  "  Ye  are  the  salt  of 
the  earth  ;  ye  are  the  light  of  the  world " ;  never, 
"  All  events  are  ordered  by  Providence,"  but,  "  Are 
not  two  sparrows  sold  for  a  farthing  .-*  yet  one  of 
them  shall  not  fall  to  the  ground  without  your 
Father."  Never  abstract  statements  or  general 
terms,  but  always  pictures,  full  of  life,  movement 
and  colour !     Of  course  the  use  of  imagery  was  a 


40  THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

feature  of  the  sacred  books  He  studied.  In  many 
a  verse,  for  example,  of  the  Book  of  Proverbs  a 
moral  truth  is  embodied  in  a  picture  borrowed  from 
the  realm  of  nature  ;  and,  indeed,  the  Hebrew  word 
for  a  proverb  means  a  simile.  The  psalmists  and 
the  prophets  have  a  grasp  of  nature  such  as  can  be 
found  in  no  other  ancient  literature.  But,  whatever 
influence  Jesus  may  have  derived  from  this  quarter, 
the  peculiarity  of  His  language  was  due,  in  the 
fullest  sense,  to  Himself — to  His  insight  into  the 
secret  of  beauty,  His  sympathy  with  every  aspect  ot 
human  life,  and  His  perception  of  the  play  of  natural 
law  in  the  spiritual  world.  It  is  frequently  said  that 
the  use  of  parables  is  common  in  the  rabbinical 
schools,  as,  indeed,  it  is  native  to  the  Oriental  mind  ; 
but  the  specimens  produced  from  Indian  and  Jewish 
sources  only  illustrate  the  perfection  of  His  by  con- 
trast ;  and,  although  His  have  been  so  long  before 
the  world,  they  have  never  been  imitated  with  even 
tolerable  success.  The  early  Christians  have  not 
infrequently  been  credited  with  inventing  the  miracles, 
but  the  man  would  only  betray  his  own  intellectual 
and  literary  incapacity  who  ventured  to  say  that  they 
invented  the  parables.* 

*  Just  and  choice  remarks  on  what  may  be  called  the  Style 
of  Jesus  will  be  found  in  Wendt's  Teaching  of  Christ  and 
Holtzmann's  N.  T.  Theologie ;    also   in  Julicher's  introductory 


THE  IMPORTANCE   OF  THE   TEACHING  OF  JESUS   41 

These  characteristics,  however,  are  only  external ; 
and  far  more  significant  are  those  which  concern  not 
the  form  but  the  substance  of  His  teaching-,  such  as 
the  sublimity  and  simplicity  of  His  conception  of 
God,  which  answers  perfectly  to  the  idea  sunk  at 
creation  in  the  texture  of  human  nature,  and  His 
conception  of  man,  which  ennobles  while  it  humbles, 
at  once  dwarfing  all  human  attainment  and  yet 
opening  up  boundless  vistas  of  progress.  In  all 
great  teaching  the  speaker  is  more  than  the  word 
spoken  ;  and  this  is  pre-eminently  true  of  the  teach- 
ing of  Jesus.  Behind  the  qualities  of  the  words  we 
divine  a  personality  in  which  they  are  all  united — a 
personality  serene  and  harmonious,  solid  and  firm  at 
the  centre  and  yet  shading  off  at  the  circumference 
into  the  most  ethereal  nuances  of  beauty,  revealing 
God  so  perfectly  because  of  its  perfect  union  with 
God,  and  appealing  to  all  that  is  great  and  tender  in 
man  because  of  the  comprehensiveness  of  its  own 
human  experience. 

volume  on  the  Parables.  The  latter  work  is  a  powerful  plea  for 
what  is  now  the  recognised  method  of  interpreting  the  parables 
— illustration  and  truth  being  regarded  not  as  two  flat  plates, 
meeting  at  every  point,  but  as  a  sphere  resting  on  a  plate  and 
touching  it  at  a  single  point.  But  the  correct  theory  is  carried 
too  far.  Jesus  Himself  uses  the  word  "  parable  "  loosely  for  any 
figure  of  speech,  and  was  probably  unconscious  of  the  literary 
structure  of  His  illustrations.  Jiilicher  writes  as  if  He  had 
never  taken  His  eye  off  a  rhetorical  model. 


42  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

By  characteristics  such  as  these  the  words  of 
Jesus  authenticate  themselves  ;  and  I  am  not  with- 
out the  expectation  that  there  may  yet  be  founded 
on  them  a  powerful  apology  even  for  His  miracles  ; 
because  the  words  are  inextricably  mixed  up  with  the 
acts — words  so  original  and  characteristic  that  they 
must  have  been  His,  and,  at  the  same  time,  so 
obviously  occasioned  by  the  miracles,  in  the  midst  of 
which  they  stand,  that  the  latter  must  have  been  actual 
also.  At  all  events  the  words  support  and  vindicate 
one  another  ;  for  they  bear  the  stamp  of  the  same 
incomparable  mind,  and  the  study  of  them  as  a 
whole  will  make  it  increasingly  evident  that  they 
form  the  constituent  elements  of  one  harmonious 
circle  of  truth.* 

*  This  brief  discussion   of  the  sources  is  supplemented  in 
Appendix  A. 


THE   SON   OF   MAN 


43 


Passages  in  which  "  the  Son  of  Man  "  is  mentioned  : — 

Matthew  viii.  20 ;  ix.  6  ;  x.  23 ;  xi.  19  ;  xii.  S,  32,  40  ;  xiii.  37, 
41  ;  xvi.  13,  27,  28  ;  xvii.  9,  12,  22;  [xviii.  Il] ;  xix.  28;  xx.  18, 
28  ;  xxiv.  27,  30,  37,  39,  44 ;  xxv.  [13],  31  ;  xxvi.  2,  24,  45,  64. 

Mark  ii.  10,  28;  viii.  31,  38;  ix.  9,  12,  31;  x.  33,  45;  xiii.  26, 
[34];  xiv.  21,  41,  62. 

Luke  V.  24  ;  vi.  5,  22  ;  vii.  34 ;  ix.  22,  26,  44,  [56],  58  ;  xi.  30  ;  xii.  8, 
ID,  40  ;  xvii.  22,  24,  26,  30;  xviii.  8,  31  ;  xix.  10;  xxi.  27,  36; 
xxii.  22,  48,  69  ;  xxiv.  7. 
The  square  brackets  indicate  interpolations. 


44 


T 


II 

THE   SON   OF   MAN* 
HE    name    by    which    Jesus    most    frequently 
designated   Himself  was  "  the  Son  of  Man," 


•  The    following    list   contains   the   principal   books   on   the 
subject;    but   neither   here   nor   in   the   lists   at   the   beginning 
of  the  subsequent   chapters   are   the   older   treatises   on   New 
Testament  Theology  included  :— 
Weiss:  Nentestamentliche  Theologie,  1880,  §  16. 
Beyschlag:  Nentestamentliche  Theologie,  1891,  I.  pp.  54  «• 
Holtzmann:  Neutestamentliche  Theologie,  1897,  pp.  246—264. 
Stevens:  The  Theology  of  the  New  Testatnent,  1899,  cap.  IX. 
NoESGEN :  Christus  der  Menschen-  unci  Gottessohtt,  1869. 
Bruce:  The  Kingdom  of  God,  1889,  cap.  VII. 
Wendt  :  Die  Lehre  Jesu,  1890,  II.  pp.  44°  ff- 
Baldensperger  :  Das  Selbstbewusstsein  Jesu,  1892,  c.  VII. 
Grau:  Das  Selbstbewusstsein  Jesu,  1887,  c.  VI. 
Lietzmann  :  Der  Menschensohn,  1896. 

Appel:  Die  Selbstbezeichmmg  Jesu  :  Der  Menschejisohn,  1896. 
BoEHMER  :  Reich  Gottes  tmd  Menschensohn  im  Biiche  Daniel, 


li 


Franz  Sieber  :  an  essay  printed  at  p.  257  of  Schnedermann's 

second  voUime   on  Jesu    Verkiindigung  und  Lehre  vom 

Reiche  Gottes. 
Krop  :  appendix  on  La  Question  du  Fils  de  T Homme  in  his 

book  on  La  Pensee  de  Jesus  sur  le  Royaume  de  Dieu, 

pp.  ii8ff.  1897. 
Dalman  :  Die  Worte  Jesu,  1898,  cap.  IX. 

45 


46  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

which  occurs  in  St.  Matthew  thirty-two  times,  in 
St.  Mark  fifteen  times,  in  St.  Luke  twenty-five  times, 
and  in  St.  John  twelve  times. 

How  did  Jesus  come  to  designate  Himself  in  this 
way  "i 

He  never  either  defines  the  title  or  mentions 
where  He  found  it  ;  so  that  we  have  to  ascertain  its 
origin  and  significance  for  ourselves  by  examining 
His  mode  of  using  it.  This  proves  to  be  a  difficult 
inquiry,  which  has  given  rise  to  extraordinary 
diversity  of  opinion.  A  laborious  German,  writing 
on  the  subject,  has  recently  collected  a  perfectly 
bewildering  enumeration  of  the  different  meanings 
assigned  to  the  term  by  different  writers.* 

The  supposition  which  would  most  naturally  occur 
to  the  unsophisticated  mind  is  that  He  invented  the 
term  Himself.  If  this  was  His  favourite  self-designa- 
tion, it  must,  one  would  suppose,  express  what  was 
most  prominent  in  His  consciousness  of  Himself, 
and  He  must  have  carefully  constructed  a  phrase  to 
express  His  own  conception  ;  in  which  case  the 
way  for  us  to  arrive  at  the  meaning  would  be  to 
analyze  the  words  themselves.     In  sound  the   title 

*  Appel,  work  named  in  the  list  given  in  the  foregoing  note. 
Though  rather  bewildering,  the  conspectus  of  opinions  is  most 
interesting. 


THE  SON  OF  MAN  47 

seems  to  be  a  most  appropriate  expression  for  the 
human  side  of  His  person ;  and  in  this  sense  it  has 
been  understood  by  Christendom.  The  Greek  and 
Latin  Fathers,  from  Irenaeus  downwards,  thus  employ 
it ;  and  at  the  present  day  probably  ninety-nine  out 
of  every  hundred  Christians  do  the  same.  To  the 
average  man  it  is  a  designation  for  the  human  side 
of  our  Lord's  person,  as  "  the  Son  of  God  "  is  for 
the  divine  ;  and  these  two  phrases,  complementing 
each  other,  define  the  God-man. 

Merely  to  read  over,  however,  a  continuous  list 
of  the  passages  in  which  the  name  occurs  will  shake 
anyone's  faith  in  the  correctness  of  this  assumption  ; 
because  it  will  at  once  be  felt  that  the  statements 
made  about  "the  Son  of  man"  are  anything  but 
characteristic  predicates  of  humanity.  How,  for 
example,  does  this  assumption  harmonize  with  a 
saying  like  the  following  :  "  And  no  man  hath 
ascended  up  to  heaven,  but  He  that  came  down 
from  heaven,  even  the  Son  of  man,  which  is  in 
heaven  "  ;  or  with  this,  "  When  the  Son  of  man  shall 
come  in  His  glory,  and  all  the  holy  angels  with 
Him,  then  shall  He  sit  upon  the  throne  of  His 
glory,  and  before  Him  shall  be  gathered  all  nations, 
and  He  shall  separate  them  one  from  another,  as 
a  shepherd  divideth  the  sheep  from  the  goats,  and 
He  shall  set  the  sheep  on  His  right  hand,  but  the 


48  THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

goats  on  the  left "  ?  Many  more  sayings  of  a 
similar  strain  might  be  quoted,  in  which  things  are 
predicated  about  "  the  Son  of  man,"  which  are  the 
reverse  of  simply  human.  This  has  never  escaped 
the  observation  of  those  who  have  actually  looked 
at  the  facts  ;  and  as  early  as  Origen  we  find  the 
hermeneutical  principle  laid  down,  that  throughout 
the  Scripture  the  divine  nature  of  Christ  is  mentioned 
with  human  characteristics  and  the  human  nature 
adorned  with  divine  attributes.* 

In  modern  times  the  belief  that  this  title  refers 
primarily  to  the  humanity  of  our  Lord  has  been 
represented  by  many  famous  names  and  from 
different  points  of  view,  without  its  being  held, 
however,  that  Jesus  Himself  invented  it.  Thus 
Neander  interprets  it  as  the  ideal  man  ;  and  he 
has  had  a  multitude  of  followers.  His  beautiful 
words  are  well  worthy  of  quotation  :  "  Jesus  thus 
names  Himself  as  belonging  to  mankind — as  one 
who  in  human  nature  has  accomplished  such  great 
things  for  human  nature — who  is  man,  in  the 
supreme  sense,  the  sense  corresponding  to  the  idea, 
— who  makes  real  the  ideal  of  humanity."  He 
supports  this  definition  by  reference  to  such  passages 
as  St.  Matthew  ix.  8,  where  it  is  said  that  to  the  Son 

*  The  remark  is  a  common  one  in  subsequent  Fathers. 


THE  SON  OF  MAN  49 

of  man  is  given  the  power  on  earth  to  forgive  sins  ; 
and  xii.  8  :  "  The  Son  of  man  is  Lord  even  of  the 
Sabbath  day."  *  Others  have  supposed  the  view 
of  humanity  which  the  title  expresses  to  be  from 
beneath  rather  than  above — from  the  side  of  weakness 
and  lowliness  rather  than  of  dignity.  This  was  the 
view  of  Baur,  and  he  has  had  many  supporters. 
"Jesus,"  he  says,  "designates  Himself  by  this  term 
as  one  who  is  man,  with  all  the  attributes  which 
belong  to  human  nature  .  .  .  one  who  takes  His 
share  in  all  that  is  human,  qui  nihil  kumatti  a  se 
alienum  putat."  In  support  of  this  view  he  appeals 
especially  to  St.  Matthew  viii.  19  :  "  Foxes  have 
holes,  and  the  birds  of  the  air  have  nests,  but  the 
Son  of  man  hath  not  where  to  lay  His  head,"  which 
he  thus  paraphrases,  "  A  child  of  man,  like  Me,  must 
endure  the  very  lowest  which  belongs  to  the  lot  of 
any  man."  f 

One  circumstance  which  might  make  it  doubtful 
to  an  observant  reader  of  the  Bible  whether  Jesus 
invented  this  phrase  Himself  is,  that  it  occurs 
frequently  in  the  Old  Testament.  Everyone  is 
aware  how  steeped  the  mind  of  Jesus  was  in  biblical 

•  Also  St.  John  i.  32;  ii.   13;   v.  27;   vi.  53. — Leben  Jesu, 
p.  117. 

t  A^.  T.  Theologie,  pp.  80,  81. 

4 


50  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

phraseology,  and,  therefore,  the  suggestion  is  not 
unlikely,  that  He  may  have  adopted  this  name  from 
one  or  other  of  the  Old  Testament  passages  in  which 
it  is  found. 

The    most    famous    of    these     is    in   the   eighth 
Psalm  : — 

"When  I  consider  Thy  heavens,  the  work  of  Thy  fingers, 
The  moon  and  the  stars,  which  Thou  hast  ordained ; 
What  is  man,  that  Thou  art  mindful  of  him, 
And  the  son  of  man,  that  Thou  visitest  him  ?" 

Here  "  man  "  and  "  the  son  of  man  "  are  obviously 
synonyms  ;  and  the  whole  psalm  is  an  incomparable 
utterance  on  human  nature,  bringing  out  both  its 
lowliness  and  its  loftiness.  When  contrasted  with 
God,  man  is  nothing  :  it  is  a  marvel  that  the  Creator 
of  the  moon  and  the  stars  should  condescend  to 
look  upon  him.  Yet,  regarded  from  a  different  point 
of  view — as  a  favourite  among  God's  creatures — 
this  being,  insignificant  in  himself,  is  crowned  with 
glory  and  honour ;  he  is  but  a  little  lower  than  the 
divine  ;  and  to  him  has  been  committed  the  empire 
over  the  rest  of  the  creatures,  which  the  psalmist 
causes  to  march  past,  as  if  in  procession,  testifying 
their  submission.  Thus,  in  this  splendid  poem, 
which  seems  to  have  been  composed  beneath  the 
midnight  heavens,  both  the  heights  and  the  depths 
of  human  nature  are  brought  to  light  ;  and,  if  the 
origin   of  the  self-designation  of  Jesus  were  found 


THE  SON  OF  MAN  $1 

here,  both  the  meaning  of  the  term  already  quoted 

from  Neander  and  that  quoted  from  Baur  would  be 

united.     One    distinguished    theologian,   Keim,   was 

of   opinion    that    it    was    in    this    place  that  Jesus 

obtained   the  first   hint  of  the   name  ;    but   he   has 

not  been  followed  by  many.* 

There   is   another  instance  in  the  Psalms  of  the 

use  of  the  "  son  of  man  "  as  a  synonym  for  "  man  " 

which  I  am  surprised  has  never  been  referred  to  as 

possibly  furnishing   the   seed-thought  out   of  which 

grew  the  ideas  which  Jesus  combined  in  His  favourite 

self-designation.     In    Psalm    Ixxx.    17   occur   these 

words  : 

"  Let  Thy  hand  be  upon  the  man  of  Thy  right  hand, 
Upon  the  son  of  man  whom  Thou  madest  strong  for  Thyself." 

The  whole  psalm  is  a  passionate  appeal  for  national 

revival.      It   describes,   first,   the   public   defeat  and 

humiliation :    the    people    are    fed    with    the    bread 

of   tears,   and    are    given   tears   to    drink    in    great 

measure ;    they  are  a  strife   unto   their   neighbours, 

and  their  enemies  laugh  among  themselves.     Then 

comes   in  the  celebrated  comparison  of  the  nation 

to   a  vine,    brought  out   of   Egypt   and  planted  in 

Canaan,    where    it    grew    and     flourished,     till     the 

hills  were  covered  with  the  shadow  of  it  and  the 

*  Jesi^s  0/ A^azara,  in.  yg-g2.     The  whole  passage  is  one  of 
great  beauty. 


52  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

boughs  thereof  were  like  the  goodly  cedars.  Alas, 
however,  days  of  calamity  supervened,  when  the 
hedge  was  broken  down  and  the  fair  plant  defaced  : 
"  the  boar  out  of  the  v/ood  doth  waste  it,  and  the 
wild  beast  of  the  field  doth  devour  it."  In  these 
circumstances  the  sacred  poet  appeals  to  the  Shepherd 
of  Israel  to  shine  forth — to  come  and  save  them — 
and  the  form  in  which  he  anticipates  deliverance  is 
indicated  in  the  words  quoted  above.  He  expected 
a  hero  to  be  raised  up,  whom  Jehovah  would  favour 
and  sustain,  until  He  should  have  accomplished 
the  grand  task  of  emancipating  His  people.  This 
passage  is  interpreted  messianically  in  the  Targums  *  ; 
the  situation  sketched  in  the  psalm  is  only  too 
faithful  a  description  of  the  political  condition  of 
Palestine  during  the  youth  of  Jesus  ;  and  the  picture 
of  a  deliverer,  under  the  designation  of  "  the  son  of 
man,"  is  such  as  might  well  have  fired  a  pious  and 
patriotic  mind.  Here,  it  will  be  observed,  the  idea 
is  totally  different  from  that  in  the  eighth  psalm  :  in 
the  latter  passage  "  the  son  of  man  "  is  humanity  in 
general,  but  here  the  term  signifies  an  individual, 
chosen  from  the  mass  and  endowed  with  special  gifts 
and  graces  for  God's  work. 

There  is  another  book  of  the  Old  Testament  in 

•  See  Delitzsch  :  Die  Psalmen,  in  loco 


THE  SON  OF  MAN  S3 

which  the  phrase  "  the  son  of  man  "  occurs  no  fewer 
than  ninety  times.  This  is  the  Book  of  Ezekiel ;  and 
the  term  is  always  applied  to  the  prophet  himself. 
Thus,  in  the  opening  vision,  which  describes  his  call 
to  the  office  of  prophet,  the  very  first  words  ad- 
dressed to  him  by  Jehovah  are,  "  Son  of  man,  stand 
upon  thy  feet,  and  I  will  speak  to  thee."  "And," 
he  proceeds,  "  the  Spirit  entered  into  me,  when  He 
spake  unto  me,  and  He  set  me  upon  my  feet,  that  I 
heard  Him  that  spake  to  me."  Then  the  voice  con- 
tinued, "  Son  of  man,  I  will  send  thee  to  the  children 
of  Israel "  ;  and,  a  little  further  on,  "  Son  of  man,  be 
not  afraid  of  them,  neither  be  afraid  of  their  word 
.  .  .  thou  shalt  speak  My  words  unto  them,  whether 
they  will  hear  or  whether  they  will  forbear."  The 
designation  has  obviously  but  one  meaning  through- 
out the  entire  book ;  and  it  is  not  difficult  to 
gather  from  these  first  instances  of  its  use  what 
this  is.  "  It  expresses  the  contrast  between  what 
Ezekiel  is  in  himself  and  what  God  will  make 
out  of  him,  the  aim  being  not  exactly  to  humble 
the  prophet,  but  to  make  his  mission  appear  to 
him  not  as  his  own,  but  as  the  work  of  God,  and 
thus  to  lift  him  up  whenever  the  flesh  threatens  to 
faint  and  fail.  By  this  form  of  address  God  testifies 
how  well  He  knows  what  His  prophet  is  in  himself, 
and,    therefore,    promises    to    lay    no   burden    upon 


54  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

him  without  accompanying  it  with  the  appropriate 
equipment."  * 

Thus  there  was  one  before  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
who  bore  this  name,  at  least  in  certain  moments 
of  his  life,  and  may  have  derived  from  it  some  of 
the  support  with  which  it  inspired  our  Saviour.  It 
would  not  have  been  surprising  if  other  prophets, 
imitating  Ezekiel,  had  appropriated  it  to  themselves, 
as  a  designation  of  their  office,  since  it  expresses  so 
admirably  the  situation  of  the  prophet,  as  a  man 
weak  in  himself  but  strong  in  the  Lord  ;  and  at 
least  one  young  prophet  betrays  a  disposition  to  do 
so  ;  for  in  Daniel  viii.  1 7  we  read,  "  So  He  came 
near  where  I  stood  ;  and,  when  He  came,  I  was 
afraid  and  fell  upon  my  face  ;  but  He  said  unto  me. 
Understand,  O  son  of  man  "  ;  and  then  follow  words 
calculated  to  restore  the  trembling  prophet's  courage. 
Weizsacker  f  and  others  have  suggested  that  Jesus 
may  at  first  have  used  the  term  to  express  His  claim 
to  be  reckoned  one  of  the  prophetic  line  in  succession 
to  Ezekiel  and  Daniel ;  and  it  has  also  been  sug- 
gested that  His  frequent  employment  of  it  may  have 
led  to  His  being  classed  among  the  prophets  in 
popular  opinion  ;  but  these  suggestions  are  somewhat 


*  Nosgen  :  Christus  dcr  Menschen-  und  Gottessohn,  p.  16. 
t  UntersHchungen  Uber  die  Evangelische  Geschichte,  p.  429. 


THE  SON  OF  MAN  55 

far-fetched,    and    they    have    not    commanded    any 
considerable  amount  of  assent. 

In  the  Book  of  Daniel,  besides  the  passage  just 
quoted,  there  is  another  reference  to  "  the  son  of 
man  "  far  more  famous.  It  occurs  in  the  seventh 
chapter,  in  one  of  the  apocalyptic  visions  common 
in  this  prophet.  He  sees  four  beasts  coming  up  out 
of  the  sea — the  first  a  lion  with  eagle's  wings,  the 
second  a  bear,  the  third  a  four-headed  leopard,  and 
the  fourth  a  terrible  monster  with  ten  heads.  To 
the  distress  of  the  prophet,  in  his  dream,  these  beasts 
bear  rule  over  the  earth  ;  but  at  last  the  kingdom  is 
taken  away  from  them  and  given  to  a  fifth  ruler,  who 
is  thus  described  :  "  I  saw,  and,  behold,  one  like  the 
son  of  man  came  with  the  clouds  of  heaven,  and  came 
to  the  Ancient  of  days,  and  they  brought  him  near 
before  Him  ;  and  there  was  given  unto  him  dominion, 
glory,  and  a  kingdom,  that  all  people,  nations  and 
languages  should  serve  him ;  his  dominion  is  an 
everlasting  dominion,  which  shall  not  pass  away,  and 
his  kingdom  that  which  shall  not  be  destroyed." 

This  chapter  is  not  a  place  where  one  would 
naturally  look  for  the  origin  of  a  name  so  beautiful 
as  "  the  Son  of  man " ;  for  to  many  minds  the 
imagery  of  Daniel  is  anything  but  attractive,  on 
account  of  its  deficiency  in  those  graces  of  plastic 
beauty  which  distinguish  the  Greek  from  the  Hebrew 


THE   CHRI3T0L0GY  OF  JESUS 


imagination  ;  and  even  a  writer  as  near  to  our  own 
time  as  Schleiermacher  speaks  of  the  notion,  that 
Jesus  could  have  derived  His  favourite  designation 
from  this  source,  as  an  odd  fancy.  Yet,  since 
Schleiermacher's  time  the  belief  has  steadily  grown, 
that  this  is  the  classical  passage  to  which  we  must 
go  back,  and  this  opinion  seems  destined  to  become 
universal.  Read  the  words  of  Daniel :  "  Behold,  one 
like  the  son  of  man  came  with  the  clouds  of  heaven 
.  .  .  and  there  was  given  unto  Him  dominion,  glory, 
and  a  kingdom  : "  then  read  the  words  addressed 
by  Jesus  to  the  high  priest  in  the  hour  of  His  con- 
demnation :  "  Hereafter  shall  ye  see  the  Son  of  man 
sitting  on  the  right  hand  of  power,  and  coming  in 
the  clouds  of  heaven  ;  "  and  the  echo  of  the  Old 
Testament  words  is  unmistakable.  It  is  equally 
indubitable  in  the  following,  from  the  great  discourse 
on  the  future  in  the  twenty-fourth  of  St.  Matthew : 
"  Then  shall  appear  the  sign  of  the  Son  of  man  in 
heaven  ;  and  then  shall  all  the  tribes  of  the  earth 
mourn  ;  and  they  shall  see  the  Son  of  man  coming 
in  the  clouds  of  heaven  with  power  and  great  glory  ; 
and  He  shall  send  His  angels  with  a  great  sound  of 
a  trumpet,  and  they  shall  gather  together  His  elect 
from  the  four  winds,  from  one  end  of  heaven  to  the 
other."  There  are  other  passages  in  which  the  echo 
is  distinguishable,  if  not  quite  so  distinct,  such  as 


THE  SON  OF  MAN  5-/ 

Matt.  xiii.  41  :  "The  Son  of  man  shall  send  forth 
His  angels,  and  they  shall  gather  out  of  His  king- 
dom all  things  that  offend,  and  them  which  do 
iniquity,  and  shall  cast  them  into  the  furnace  of  fire  ; 
there  shall  be  wailing  and  gnashing  of  teeth,"  or 
Matt.  xvi.  27,  28  :  "  For  the  Son  of  man  shall  come 
in  the  glory  of  the  Father,  with  His  angels,  and 
then  He  shall  reward  every  man  according  to  his 
works.  Verily,  I  say  unto  you,  there  be  some 
standing  here  which  shall  not  taste  of  death  till 
they  see  the  Son  of  man  coming  in  His  kingdom," 
or  Matt.  xix.  28  :  "Verily,  I  say  unto  you,  that  ye 
which  have  followed  Me,  in  the  regeneration  when 
the  Son  of  man  shall  sit  in  the  throne  of  His  glory, 
ye  also  shall  sit  upon  twelve  thrones,  judging  the 
twelve  tribes  of  Israel." 

In  Daniel  the  kingdom  given  to  "  one  like  unto 
the  son  of  man  "  supersedes  the  kingdom  of  the 
beasts  ;  and  it  is  obviously  the  messianic  kingdom,  for 
it  is  described  as  universal  and  everlasting.  No 
mention  is,  however,  made  of  a  personal  Messiah  : 
on  the  contrary,  thrice  over,  in  the  explanation  of 
the  vision  supplied  in  the  second  half  of  the  chapter, 
the  occupant  of  the  throne  is  described  as  "  the 
people  of  the  saints  of  the  Most  High."  Obviously, 
therefore,  the  "  one  like  unto  the  son  of  man  "  is 
a  symbolical  figure,  representing  Israel,  just  as  the 


58  THE  CHRIST OLOGY  OF  JESUS 

Hon,  the  bear,  the  leopard,  and  the  ten-headed 
monster  represent  the  world-conquering  peoples  of 
that  epoch.  Jesus,  however,  by  assuming  the  title, 
puts  Himself  in  the  place  of  Israel,  no  doubt  on  the 
ground  that  in  Him  its  attributes  culminated  and  its 
kingly  destiny  was  fulfilled. 

If  it  is  a  little  disappointing  to  find  the  place  of 
origin  of  this  beautiful  name  in  one  of  Daniel's  visions, 
it  will  to  some  minds  be  even  more  disappointing 
to  discover  what,  if  this  is  granted,  must  be  its  primary 
signification  ;  for  evidently  it  describes  position,  not 
character :  it  is  an  official,  not  a  personal  designation. 
Nevertheless,  this  is  the  key  which  fits  the  lock. 

The  passages  in  the  Gospels  where  Jesus  calls 
Himself  "  the  Son  of  man,"  are  easily  divisible  into 
three  classes.  First,  there  is  a  large  num.ber,  of 
which  the  verses  last  quoted  are  specimens,  in  which 
functions  are  attributed  to  Him  above  the  range  of 
ordinary  humanity.  These  have  been  explained, 
by  those  who  hold  "  the  Son  of  man "  to  be  the 
ideal  man,  as  describing  functions  of  humanity  in  its 
loftier  aspects ;  but  they  are  much  more  simply 
explained  as  functions  of  the  Messiah.*     There  is  a 

*  How  awkwardly,  on  the  theory  that  "  the  Son  of  man " 
designates  humanity  on  its  humble  and  suffering  side,  comes  in 
the  addition  in  the  first  of  these  quotations,  that  "the  third  day 
He  shall  be  raised  again    J 


THE  SON  OF  MAN  59 

second  large  class  of  passages  referring  to  the 
humiliation,  sufferings  and  death  of  Jesus,  like 
Matt.  xvii.  22  :  "The  Son  of  man  shall  be  betrayed 
into  the  hands  of  men,  and  they  shall  kill  Him, 
and  the  third  day  He  shall  be  raised  again,"  or 
Matt.  xxvi.  24  :  "  The  Son  of  man  goeth,  as  it 
is  written  of  Him  ;  but  woe  unto  that  man  by 
whom  the  Son  of  man  is  betrayed  ;  it  had  been 
good  for  that  man  if  he  had  not  been  born." 
These  have  been  explained,  in  accordance  with 
another  of  the  theories  mentioned  already,  as  de- 
scriptive of  our  Lord's  humanity  on  its  lower  side, 
where  it  was  exposed  to  the  trials  of  the  human  lot ; 
but  they  are  far  more  completely  and  satisfactorily 
explained  as  descriptive  of  what  was  to  fall  to 
His  lot  as  Messiah.  The  point  in  these  numerous 
passages  is  the  contrast  between  the  great  destiny 
of  Jesus  as  Messiah  and  His  actual  experiences 
during  His  earthly  life — a  contrast  the  pathos  of 
which  comes  supremely  out  in  the  saying  that  "  even 
the  Son  of  man  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto 
but  to  minister,  and  to  give  His  life  a  ransom  for 
many."  The  third  class  of  passages  is  miscellaneous, 
and  in  them  different  points  of  view  may  be  con- 
tended for  ;  but  there  is  not  one  of  them  in  which 
the  messianic  view  does  not  yield  a  good  and 
natural  sense. 


6o  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

I  have  discussed  the  possibility  of  Jesus  inventing 
this  name  Himself,  and,  secondly,  that  of  His 
borrowing  it  from  the  Old  Testament ;  but  there 
remains  a  third  possibility — that  He  may  have 
derived  it  from  the  thought  of  the  time  in  which 
He  lived,  or  that,  at  all  events,  its  transference  to 
His  mind  from  the  Old  Testament  may  have  been 
mediated  by  means  of  the  postcanonical  literature 
of  the  Jews. 

I  have  already  pointed  out  that  the  term  "  son 
of  man,"  applied  by  the  prophet  Daniel  to  Israel 
as  a  nation,  is  by  Jesus  applied  to  Himself  as  an 
individual  ;  but  the  question  may  be  raised,  whether 
this  modification  was  entirely  due  to  Jesus,  or 
whether  it  may  not  have  been  made  to  His  hand. 
Daniel  was  a  favourite  book  in  the  interval  between 
its  composition  and  the  commencement  of  the 
Christian  era  ;  and  it  is  conceivable  that  the  religious 
mind,  brooding  on  its  promises,  may  have  trans- 
muted the  prediction  of  a  messianic  kingdom  into 
that  of  a  messianic  king.  By  some  scholars  it  is 
considered  that  remarkable  proof  of  this  having 
taken  place  is  found  in  the  Book  of  Enoch. 

This  book  may  be  roughly  said  to  belong  to  the 
second  century  before  Christ  ;  it  is  apocalyptic  in 
character  and  strongly  influenced  by  the  Book  of 
Daniel  ;   and    "  the    Son    of   man  "    plays    in    it    a 


THE  SON  OF  Man  5 1 

remarkable  role.  To  prove  this,  let  me  make  a 
few  quotations,  which  might  easily  be  multiplied  : — 

"  And  there  I  saw  One  who  had  a  head  of  days, 
and  His  head  was  white  like  wool,  and  with  Him 
was  another  being,  whose  countenance  had  the 
appearance  of  a  man,  and  His  face  was  full  of 
graciousness,  like  one  of  the  holy  angels.  And  I 
asked  the  angel  who  went  with  me  and  showed 
me  all  the  hidden  things  concerning  that  Son  of 
man,  who  He  was,  and  whence  He  was,  and  why 
He  went  with  the  Head  of  days.  And  he  answered 
and  said  unto  me.  This  is  the  Son  of  man,  who 
hath  righteousness,  with  whom  dwelleth  righteous- 
ness, and  who  reveals  all  the  treasures  of  that  which 
is  hidden,  because  the  Lord  of  spirits  hath  chosen 
Him,  and  His  lot  before  the  Lord  of  spirits  hath 
surpassed  everything  in  uprightness  forever.  And 
this  Son  of  man,  whom  thou  hast  seen,  will  arouse 
the  kings  and  mighty  ones  from  their  couches,  and 
the  strong  from  their  thrones,  and  will  loosen  the 
reins  of  the  strong,  and  grind  to  powder  the  teeth 
of  the  sinners.  And  He  will  put  down  the  kings 
from  their  thrones  and  kingdoms,  because  they  do 
not  extol  and  praise  Him,  nor  thankfully  acknow- 
ledge whence  the  kingdom  was  bestowed  on  them." 

"And  in  that  hour  that  Son  of  man  was  named 
in  the  presence  of  the  Lord  of  spirits,  and  His  name 


62  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 


before  the  Head  of  days.  And  before  the  sun  and 
the  signs  were  created,  before  the  stars  of  heaven 
were  made,  His  name  was  named  before  the  Lord 
of  spirits.  He  will  be  a  staff  to  the  righteous,  on 
which  they  will  support  themselves  and  not  fall  ; 
and  He  will  be  the  light  of  the  Gentiles  and  the 
hope  of  those  who  are  troubled  at  heart.  All  who 
dwell  on  earth  will  fall  down  and  bow  the  knee 
before  Him,  and  will  bless  and  laud  and  celebrate 
with  song  the  Lord  of  spirits.  And  for  this  reason 
has  He  been  chosen  and  hidden  before  Him,  before 
the  creation  of  the  world  and  for  evermore." 

"  And  He  sat  on  the  throne  of  His  glory,  and  the 
sum  of  judgment  was  committed  unto  Him,  the 
Son  of  man,  and  He  caused  the  sinners  and  those 
who  have  led  the  world  astray  to  pass  away  and  be 
destroyed  from  off  the  face  of  the  earth." 

According  to  this  book,  "  the  Son  of  man  "  pre- 
exists with  the  Ancient  of  days ;  at  the  critical 
moment  He  is  to  be  sent  forth  to  destroy  the 
unrighteous  and  to  reign  over  the  righteous  for- 
ever ;  and  He  is  the  judge  by  whom  the  destiny  of 
men  is  to  be  decided.  If  these  passages  are  genuine 
products  of  the  period  between  the  Old  Testament 
and  the  New,  they  are  among  the  most  important 
documents  of  the  life  of  Christ  ;  for  their  influence 
upon    His   thought    and    language  is   unmistakable 


THE  SON  OF  MAN  63 


But  the  question  of  their  date  and  origin  is  a  highly 
debatable  one.  The  Book  of  Enoch  used  to  be 
considered  the  work  of  a  single  author,  with  possibly 
a  few  interpolations  ;  but  its  latest  editor,  Mr. 
Charles,  considers  it  to  be  an  extremely  composite 
production,  made  up  of  at  least  five  documents  of 
different  authorship  and  different  dates.  Indeed,  he 
says,  it  is  rather  a  collection  of  the  fragments  of  an 
Enoch  literature  than  a  literary  unity.  The  passages 
about  "  the  Son  of  man  "  all  occur  in  a  portion  of  it 
known  as  the  Book  of  Similitudes,  which  is  a  docu- 
ment of  peculiar  character  and  uncertain  origin.  It 
abounds  with  acknowledged  interpolations,  and  the 
passages  about  "  the  Son  of  man  "  have  been  regarded 
by  trustworthy  authorities  as  Christian  additions. 

At  the  present  moment,  indeed,  the  trend  of 
criticism  is  rather  in  the  opposite  direction  ;  and 
this  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  ;  because  it  falls  in 
with  the  tendencies  of  a  school,  claiming  several 
very  able  and  zealous  adherents,  which  is  taking  a 
prominent  part  in  the  discussion  of  the  teaching 
of  Jesus,  and  the  watchword  of  which  is,  that  He  is 
to  be  understood  by  studying  the  conditions  of 
thought  and  life  in  the  midst  of  which  He  grew 
up.*     The    old   way,  they    say,    was    to    approach 

*  Baldensperger's  Das   Selbsibewusstsein  Jesii  is   the   ablest 
production  of  this  school. 


64  THE  CHRI5T0L0GY  OF  JESUS 

Jesus  from  the  side  of  St.  Paul  and  the  other 
apostolic  writers  and  to  see  Him  in  the  light  which 
these  cast  upon  Him  ;  but  this  was  not  the  light  in 
which  He  actually  lived  and  moved.  The  true  way  is 
to  approach  Him  from  the  opposite  direction,  coming 
down  to  Him  through  the  society  in  which  the 
presuppositions  of  His  life  are  to  be  found.  No 
doubt  the  older  theology  approached  Him  in  this 
way  too,  for  it  developed  with  peculiar  zeal  the 
Christology  of  the  Old  Testament  ;  but,  they  would 
say,  it  leaped  from  Malachi  to  St.  Matthew  without 
taking  any  account  of  the  centuries  lying  between. 
Yet  this  interval  was  as  long  as  from  the  Reformation 
to  the  present  day,  and  the  human  spirit  was  not 
dead  then  :  on  the  contrary,  in  Palestine  and  the 
other  homes  of  the  Jews  the  keenest  intellectual 
activity  was  going  on  ;  changes  were  taking  place 
in  the  beliefs  and  the  language  of  religion  from 
generation  to  generation  ;  and  a  literature  exists 
in  which  the  course  of  this  history  can  still  be 
traced.  Jesus,  like  every  other  human  being,  was 
a  product  of  His  age  ;  and  it  is  to  the  ideas  and 
customs  of  the  age  we  must  look,  if  we  desire  to 
understand  Him. 

The  adherents  of  this  school  speak  of  their  method 
in  the  tone  of  discoverers,  and  unfold  remarkable 
enthusiasm  and  assiduity  in  exploring   the   records 


THE  SON  OF  MAN  65 

of  the  two  or  three  centuries  immediately  before 
Christ.  It  is  not  to  such  noble  productions  of  this 
period,  however,  as  T/ie  Wisdom  of  Solomon  or 
Ecclesiasticus  that  they  chiefly  turn  their  eyes,  but  to  a 
series  of  apocalyptic  writings,  imitations  of  the  spirit 
and  style  of  the  Book  of  Daniel,  lying  for  the  most 
part  outside  of  the  collection  known  to  the  common 
man  as  the  Apocrypha ;  *  and  among  these  the 
largest  and  most  important  is  the  Book  of  Enoch. 

Unquestionably  there  is  a  true  idea  in  this  move- 
ment ;  and,  if  in  some  minds  a  great  deal  too  much 
is  expected  from  it,  this  also  belongs  to  the  nature 
of  the  case  ;  for  it  is  by  such  illusions  that  nature 
gets  the  necessary  work  done  in  unremunerative 
fields  of  inquiry.  One  is  reminded  of  a  literary 
parallel — the  sensation  created  at  one  time  in  the 
region  of  Shakspeare  criticism  by  the  discovery  of 
the  sources  from  which  the  poet  derived  the  materials 
of  his  plays.  For  a  moment  it  seemed  as  if  the 
very  secret  of  Shakspeare  had  been  found  out ;  and 
to  this  day  no  one  can  read  without  astonishment 
for  the  first  time,  in  the  introductions  of  Mr.  Aldis 

*  Mr.  Charles,  in  Hastings'  Dictionary  of  the  Bible  gives  the 
following  as  the  leading  products  of  Apocalyptic  Literature: 
Apocalypse  of  Baruch,  Book  of  Enoch,  Book  of  the  Secrets  of 
Enoch,  Ascension  of  Isaiah,  Book  of  Jubilees,  Assumption  of 
Moses,  Testament  of  the  Twelve  Patriarchs,  Psalms  of  Solornon, 
Sibylline  Oracles, 

5 


66  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

Wright  or  other  able  editors,  the  old  plays,  the 
stories  from  Boccaccio,  the  extracts  from  Plutarch, 
and  the  other  rough  materials  with  which  the 
dramatist  worked  ;  for  he  adheres  to  them,  often 
for  pages  at  a  time,  with  extraordinary  closeness. 
On  second  thoughts,  however,  everyone  perceives 
that  the  copiousness  of  such  borrowing  only  enhances 
the  marvel  of  that  genius  which  was  able  to  trans- 
mute whatever  it  touched  into  a  product  entirely 
its  own.  The  secret  of  Shakspeare  no  more  lies 
in  his  sources  than  does  the  secret  of  the  Parthenon 
in  the  quarry  out  of  which  it  was  built.  Of  late 
certain  editors  have  been  making  similar  discoveries 
about  Burns,  and  have  been  so  surprised  at  them 
as  to  express  the  fear  lest  the  general  diffusion  of 
their  knowledge  might  impair  the  popular  faith  in 
the  poet's  originality  ;  and  it  certainly  does  give 
a  shock  of  surprise  to  compare,  for  example,  The 
Cotter's  Saturday  Night  for  the  first  time  with 
The  Farmer's  Ingle  of  Ferguson.  But  they  may 
spare  their  fears  ;  for  authors  who  can  make  of 
foreign  materials  what  Shakspeare  and  Burns  have 
made  of  theirs  may  borrow  wherever  they  can  and 
on  any  scale  they  please.  It  may  be  that  Jesus 
was  more  the  child  of  His  age  than  we  have  been 
accustomed  to  suppose  ;  and  ideas  or  phrases  may 
be  recovered  from  apocalyptic  literature  which  have 


THE  SON  OF  MAN  67 

entered  into  His  teaching  ;  but  these  are  no  more 
than  the  particles  of  inorganic  matter  which  the 
plant  takes  up  into  its  own  substance  and  trans- 
mutes into  forms  of  beauty.  Indeed,  the  more  the 
apocalyptic  literature  is  unearthed,  the  more  is  the  in- 
comparable originality  of  Jesus  enhanced  ;  for  nothing 
else  in  the  whole  range  of  human  records  is  more 
utterly  wearisome  and  worthless.  The  sneer  of  the 
great  scholar,  Lightfoot,  about  rabbinical  literature 
might  be  applied  to  it  with  at  least  equal  justice — 
Lege,  si  vacat,  et  si  per  tcedium  et  nauseam  potes.* 

*  Those  who  insist  so  much  more  than  is  meet  on  the  influence 
of  the  later  Judaism  on  the  teaching  of  Jesus  might  ponder,  with 
profit  to  themselves,  some  words  of  Carlyle  on  a  kindred  subject : 
— "  Show  our  critics  a  great  man,  they  begin  to,  what  they  call, 
'account  for  him.'  He  was  'the  creature  of  the  time,'  they  say; 
the  time  called  him  forth  ;  the  time  did  everything,  he  nothing. 
This  seems  to  me  but  melancholy  work.  The  time  call  forth? 
Alas,  we  have  known  times  call  loudly  enough  for  their  great  man, 
but  not  find  him  when  they  called.  He  was  not  there.  Providence 
had  not  sent  him.  The  time,  calling  its  loudest,  had  to  go  down 
to  confusion  and  wreck  because  he  would  not  come  when  called. 
I  liken  common  times,  with  their  unbelief,  distress,  perplexity, 
their  languid  doubting  character,  impotently  crumbling  down 
through  even  worse  distress  to  final  ruin,  all  this  I  liken  to  dry, 
dead  fuel,  waiting  for  the  lightning  out  of  heaven  that  shall 
quicken  it.  The  great  man,  with  his  free,  direct  force  out  of 
God's  own  hand,  is  the  lightning.  All  blazes  now  around  him. 
The  critic  thinks  the  dry,  mouldering  sticks  have  called  him 
forth.  They  wanted  him  greatly,  no  doubt.  But  as  to  calling 
him  forth  !  They  are  critics  of  small  vision  who  think  that  the 
dead  sticks  have  created  the  fire,'' 


t)8  THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

As  for  the  Book  of  Similitudes,  my  belief,  after 
many  readings,  is,  that  the  passages  on  "  the  Son  of 
man "  are  derived  from  Christianity.  The  whole 
book  is  strewn  with  interpolations,  and  must  always 
have  invited  interpolation  on  account  of  the  exces- 
sive looseness  of  its  texture.  Whatever  definite 
connexion  it  has  is  interrupted  by  these  passages, 
which  bear  a  stamp  of  their  own  quite  different 
from  the  adjacent  materials.  At  all  events  their 
literary  character  is  too  doubtful  to  permit  of  any 
really  scientific  conclusions  being  built  upon  them.* 
Those  who  champion  their  genuineness  suppose  that 
the  Enoch  literature  enjoyed  an  extensive  circulation 
and  was  well-known  in  the  circles  in  which  Jesus 
grew  up  ;  one  proof  of  which  is  that  his  brother, 
St.  Jude,  quotes  one  of  the  opening  verses  of  the 
Book  of  Enoch — "  And  Enoch  also,  the  seventh 
from  Adam,  prophesied  of  these,  saying,  Behold,  the 
Lord  Cometh  with  ten  thousands  of  His  saints,  to 
execute  judgment  upon  all ;  and  to  convince  all 
that  are  ungodly  among  them  of  all  their  ungodly 
deeds  which  they  have  ungodly  committed,  and  of 
all  their  hard  speeches  which  ungodly  sinners  have 
spoken  against  Him."  The  name  of  "  the  Son  of 
man,"   as   a   messianic   title,  was,   therefore,    in    the 

•  See  Appendix  B. 


THE  SON  OF  MAN  6g 

atmosphere  which  Jesus  breathed  ;  and  it  may  have 
been  thence,  rather  than  directly  from  the  Book  of 
Enoch,  that  He  derived  it.  But  the  phenomena  of 
the  Gospels  are  not  in  harmony  vi'ith  these  assump- 
tions. In  the  book  called  by  his  name  Enoch  is  a 
heroic  figure  ;  he  is  the  prophet  of  prophets  ;  once, 
at  least,  he  is  even  identified  with  the  Messiah. 
But  in  the  Gospels  he  is  never  once  mentioned,  and, 
even  when  all  kinds  of  conjectures  are  being  made 
as  to  who  Jesus  is,  it  is  never  once  suggested  that 
He  is  Enoch,  though  this  might  have  been  expected 
to  be  the  very  first  suggestion,  if  Enoch  had  held 
the  position  supposed  in  the  popular  mind.  That 
"  the  Son  of  man "  was  in  any  degree  a  current 
name  for  the  Messiah  is  contradicted  by  the  fact, 
which  lies  on  the  very  surface  of  the  Gospels,  that, 
while  Jesus  called  Himself  "the  Son  of  man  "  in  all 
audiences.  He  continued,  almost  to  the  very  end, 
to  forbid  His  disciples  to  make  Him  known  as  the 
Christ.  And  the  form  of  His  question  to  the 
Twelve  in  the  critical  interview  at  Caesarea  Philippi, 
"  Whom  do  men  say  that  I,  the  Son  of  man,  am  "  .? 
shows  that  the  knowledge  of  Him  as  "  the  Son  of 
man  "  was  not  identical  with  the  knowledge  of  Him 
as  the  Messiah.  To  His  own  mind  this  was  the 
meaning  of  the  title  ;  and  it  was  destined  sometime 
to  convey  the  same  meaning  to  others  ;  but  it  more 


70  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

than   half  concealed   the   secret   till  it  was  ripe  for 
disclosure.* 

Thus  we  have  passed  in  review  the  possible 
sources  of  this  name,  with  the  result  that  the  indica- 
tions point  strongly  to  the  passage  in  Daniel.  And 
the    place    of   origin    determines    the    sense    to   be 

*  Baldensperger  speaks  with  so  much  assurance  of  the  sayings 
about  the  Son  of  man  as  original  parts  of  the  Enoch  literature 
that  in  this  country  also  some  are  affecting  to  take  this  for 
granted ;  but  I  am  glad  to  find  that  Bousset,  one  of  the  younger 
and  certainly  one  of  the  ablest  members  of  the  same  school, 
in  his  work  entitled  Jesu  Predigt  in  ihrem  Gegensaiz  zum 
Judenthum,  takes  the  same  view  as  I  have  done ;  and  the  general 
tone  in  which  he  speaks  of  the  postcanonical  literature  is 
identical  with  that  which  I  have  used.  His  reasons  for  looking 
upon  the  passages  in  question  as  interpolations  are  three.  First, 
they  interrupt  the  connexion,  which  is  restored  when  they  are 
removed ;  secondly,  the  view  of  the  Son  of  man  which  they 
represent  is  non-Jewish,  such  an  uplifting  of  the  Messiah  to 
equality  with  God  and  to  the  position  of  Judge  of  the  world 
being  totally  unlikely  on  Jewish  soil  ;  thirdly,  in  the  development 
of  Jewish  Apocalyptic  there  is  no  tendency  towards  giving  such 
a  prominence  to  tlie  Messiah  :  the  tendency  is  rather  the  contrary 
way  :  the  Messiah  retreats  more  and  more  into  the  background, 
God's  own  infinite  power  alone  being  looked  to  as  the  agency 
by  which  the  changes  of  the  future  are  to  be  brought  about ;  so 
that  the  divine  figure  of  the  Messiah  in  this  part  of  the  Book  of 
Enoch  is  neither  preceded  by  anything  similar  to  itself,  leading 
up  to  it,  nor  followed  by  anything  which  it  has  produced. 
VVellhausen  also  declares  it  to  be  incredible  that  Jesus  can 
have  picked  up  His  favourite  title  in  the  Book  of  Enoch  :  see 
Israeltttsche  und  Jildische  Geschkhte,  p.  312,  note. 


THE  SON  OF  MAN  ^\ 

messianic  ;  though  it  does  not  seem  to  me  at  all 
unlikely,  but  the  reverse,  that  the  other  Old 
Testament  passages  in  which  it  occurs  may  have 
contributed  to  enrich  its  significance  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  Jesus. 

Our  conclusion  is  established  by  the  linguistic 
structure  of  the  phrase.  The  Greek  is  full-sounding 
— 6  vto9  Tov  apdpcoTTOv — with  the  definite  article 
before  each  of  the  nouns,  literally  "  the  son  of  the 
man."  The  Fathers  used  to  discuss  the  question, 
who  "  the  man  "  was  of  whom  He  was  the  son.  It 
was  frequently  held,  that  the  reference  was  to  the 
Virgin  Mary,  because  of  course  "  man  "  is  equivalent 
to  "  human  being."  Other  suggestions  were  David, 
Abraham,  Adam.  But  some  even  of  the  Fathers 
were  aware,  that  in  the  circle  of  thought  in  which 
Jesus  moved  "  man "  and  "  son  of  man "  were 
synonymous,  and  that,  therefore,  the  article  before 
"  man "  is  generic  ;  and  this  is  now  the  accepted 
opinion.  The  other  article,  before  "  son,"  in  all 
probability  points  directly  back  to  the  passage  in 
Daniel,  indicating  that  the  "  son  of  man  "  intended 
is  the  famous  one  referred  to  there.* 

*  A  very  thorough  discussion  of  the  Greek  words  will  be 
found  in  Holsten's  famous  article  on  Die  Bedeutiing  der  Aus- 
drucksfonn  6  vlos  tov  av6pu>irov  im  Bcwusstseiti  Jesu  in  Zeiischrift 
fUr  wissenschaftliche   Theologie   1891,   pp.   46   ff,     Beyschlag, 


72  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

The  force  of  such  linguistic  deductions  has  been 
entirely  called  in  question  on  the  ground  that  the 
language  spoken  by  Jesus  was  Aramaic,  in  which, 
it  is  argued,  no  phrase  exists,  or  can  have  existed, 
equivalent  to  this  Greek  one.  It  is  assumed,  that 
the  phrase  employed  by  Jesus  was  barnash,  which, 
instead  of  being  a  definite  and  dignified  phrase  like 
6  V109  rov  avOpcoTTOv,  is  in  the  highest  degree 
vague  and  indefinite,  meaning  only  "  man  "  in  the 
most  general  sense,  or  rather  "  anyone."  Wide 
attention  has  been  drawn  to  this  suggestion  through 
Wellhausen  having  lent  it  the  support  of  his  great 
name  ;  and  a  young  scholar,  Hans  Lietzmann,  has 
recently  devoted  an  entire  book  to  the  development 
of  the  theory.  His  conclusions  are,  that  Jesus 
never  made  use  of  the  phrase  at  all,  but  that  it 
came  into  use  as  a  messianic  title  in  Asia  Minor 
not  later  than  the  middle  of  the  second  century. 
To  English-speaking  people  such  a  theory  will 
hardly  appear  serious  enough  for  discussion,  but 
will  be  thought  one  of  those  ifottrs  de  force  by  which 
the  German  Privatdocent  seeks  to  attract  public 
attention.  It  may,  however,  be  worth  while  to 
show    wherein    its    weakness    lies.       One    point    of 

following  a  hint  derived  from  Hupfeld,  explains  the  second  article 
from  the  Hebrew  practice  of  placing  the  article  before  the  second 
noun  in  such  a  compound  phrase  as  "  the  son  of  man." 


THE  SON  OF  MAN  73 


weakness  is  the  dogmatic  assertion,  that  the  Aramaic 
language  was  incapable  of  supplying  an  equivalent 
to  the  Greek  phrase.  Evidently,  barnash  is  no 
equivalent ;  but  this  only  proves  that  a  mistake  has 
been  made  in  assuming  this  to  have  been  the  phrase 
employed  by  Jesus.  The  Greek  words  have  all  the 
appearance  of  an  effort  to  render  something  which 
was  not  Greek  ;  and  the  task  of  scholarship  is  to 
find  out  what  this  was.  But  a  still  greater  difficulty 
is  to  account  for  the  introduction  of  the  phrase, 
on  so  extensive  a  scale,  into  the  Gospels,  if,  as  is 
presupposed,  these  did  not  originally  contain  it. 
To  begin  to  call  Jesus  "  the  Son  of  man "  would 
have  excited  the  strongest  suspicion  at  a  time  when 
belief  in  His  godhead  was  everywhere  diffused ; 
and  Lietzmann  has  not  allowed  himself  to  realise 
the  difficulty  of  getting  such  a  form  of  speech, 
arising  in  Asia  Minor,  introduced  so  extensively 
into  the  Gospels  that  no  copies  have  remained 
without  it.  The  author  adduces,  as  one  of  his 
strongest  arguments,  the  absence  of  the  name  from 
the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul  and  the  other  New 
Testament  writings  ;  for  it  occurs  only  once  in  the 
Book  of  Acts,  in  Stephen's  speech,  and  twice  in 
the  Book  of  Revelation.*     But  there  may  be  other 

•  The  writer  of  the  Revelation  seems,  however,  to  go  back  not 
to  the  use  of  the  term  by  Jesus,  but  to  its  use  by  Daniel. 


74  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

reasons  for  this.  For  example,  the  name  "  Christ  " 
itself  had  become  so  universal  as  to  make  other 
equivalents  for  the  Messiah  unnecessary.  Very 
likely  the  chief  reason  was  the  fear,  just  alluded 
to,  of  throwing  doubt  on  our  Lord's  divinity.  At 
all  events,  if  the  name  had  been  introduced  into 
the  Gospels  in  the  way  suggested  by  Lietzmann, 
is  it  not  perfectly  certain  that  it  would  have  been 
inserted  in  the  other  New  Testament  writings  as 
well  ?  * 

*  Wellhausen's  statement  occurs  in  a  footnote,  p.  312,  of  his 
Geschichte  Israels,  He  assumes  that  Jesus  simply  said  "  man  " 
where  the  Gospels  make  Him  say  "  the  Son  of  man."  Krop,  in 
his  book  entitled  Le  Royaimte  de  Dieu,  has  shown  that  this 
theological  novelty  is  nothing  more  than  the  resurrection  of  a 
notion  of  the  old  rationalist  Paulus.  Great  confusion  is  intro- 
duced into  Lietzmann's  book  by  the  fact  that  he  seems  often 
to  be  arguing  for  this  hypothesis  too.  This,  however,  is  not 
really  his  drift.  He  sees  that  a  splendid  phrase  like  6  vlos  rov 
dvOpaynov  cannot  have  been  a  rendering  of  barnash.  But  he 
is  rash  in  affirming  that  it  cannot  have  had  any  equivalent  in 
Aramaic.  Dalman,  who,  I  suppose,  is  the  most  eminent  Aramaic 
scholar  living,  sees  no  such  difficulty,  and  he  regards  the  discovery 
of  Wellhausen  as  a  mare's  nest — "  Holtzmann  nennt  es  eine 
'  Entdeckung,'  dass  in  Jesu  Muttersprache  Menschensohn  der 
einzige  zu  Gebote  stehende  Ausdruck  fiir  Mensch  sci. 
Wellhausen  behauptet  '  Die  Aramaer  haben  keinen  anderen 
Ausdruck  fiir  den  Begriff,'  und  Lietzmann  in  Uebereinstimmung 
mit  Eerdmans  begriindet  darauf  seine  These,  'Jesus  hat  sich 
selbst  nie  den  Titel  Menschensohn  beigelegt,  weil  derselbe  im 
AramSischen  nicht  existiert  und  aus  sprachlichen  Griinden  nicht 
existieren   kann.'      Gleichwohl  ist    es    ein   schlimmer    Irrtum, 


The  son  op  man  7s 

We  hold  "it,  then,  to  be  established  that  the 
passage  in  Daniel  is  the  source  of  this  title,  and 
that  its  meaning  is  messianic.  But  a  question  of 
great  importance  still  remains :  Why  did  Jesus 
appropriate  this  name  as  His  favourite  from  among 
all  those  which  were  offered  by  the  Old  Testament 
or  which  might  have  occurred  to  His  own  mind  ? 
It  was  not,  as  we  have  seen,  thrust  upon  Him  by 
its  popularity  among  His  contemporaries  ;  nor,  if  it 
had,  would  this  alone  have  determined  His  choice  :  a 

welcher  bei  gewissenhafter  Beachtung  auch  nur  des  biblisch- 
aramaischen  Sprachgebrauchs  unmoglich  gevvesen  ware.  Wenn 
der  zusammangesetzte  Ausdruck  ii^^ii  13  Menschensohn  deter- 
miniert  werden  sollte,  konnte  die  Determination  nur  zu  EJ'3^ 
treten,  vvie  bei  hebr.  DIX  13  zu  DIN.  So  entsteht  N^":X  13, 
DINH  )|  was  ebennicht  'der  Mensch'(sodeLagarde,Wellhausenj 
Lietzmann)  sondern  nur  mit  '  der  Menschensohn'  iibersetzt  wer- 
den darf,  wenn  man  nicht  die  Eigenart  des  Ausdrucks  vollig 
verwischen  will."  Mrs.  Lewis  informs  me  that  in  Old  Syriac 
the  rendering  of  "  the  Son  of  man  "  is  generally  darek  de  ansha 
(in  Cureton's  MS.  42  times,  in  her  own  palimpsest  65  times), 
though  it  is  a  few  times  bareh  de  gabra.  She  does  not,  how- 
ever, suppose  that  this  was  the  form  of  words  used  by  Jesus ; 
but  she  adds,  with  much  point,  "  It  seems  to  me  that  the 
Evangelists  and  the  copyists  of  their  text  must  have  been 
perfectly  well  acquainted  with  Syriac  idioms  and,  therefore, 
could  not  have  translated  barnash  by  6  vtor  rov  dfdpoojrov,  and 
that  some  more  definite  phrase  must  have  been  behind  the 
Greek."  I  am  indebted  to  Mrs,  Lewis  and  her  sister,  Mrs. 
Gibson,  for  their  kind  courtesy  in  examining  manuscrijits  and 
interviewing  experts  for  mc  on  this  ticklish  point. 


76  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

self-designation  so  intimate  must  have  had  its  chief 
reason  in  His  own  mind. 

The  suggestion  has  been  made,  that  it  commended 
itself  to  Him  because  the  figure  in  Daniel,  being  of 
heavenly  origin  and  engaged  in  high  and  solemn 
fellowship  with  the  Ancient  of  days,  before  descend- 
ing to  engage  in  his  earthly  task,  would  correspond 
with  His  consciousness  of  pre-existence.  Again,  the 
practical  reason  has  been  hinted  at  already,  that  the 
name  suited  His  purpose  of  concealing  His  messianic 
claims,  while  it  expressed  them  to  Himself  and 
hinted  them  to  His  disciples.  But,  it  seems  to  me, 
the  deepest  reason  for  His  choice  of  this  name  must 
have  been  the  admirable  expression  which  it  gives 
to  His  connexion  with  the  human  race.  That  the 
sense  of  His  identity  with  all  mankind  was  one  of 
His  master-sentiments  requires  no  demonstration. 
With  whatever  is  high  and  noble  in  man's  nature  or 
destiny  He  was  in  intimate  sympathy ;  and  His 
compassion  reached  down  to  everything  that  is 
painful  or  pathetic  in  the  human  lot.  He  is  the 
Brother  of  all,  the  Man  of  men.  This  is  one  of 
the  two  poles  on  which  His  messiahship  rests. 
Without  this  connexion  with  the  race  and  this 
universality  of  sympathy  He  could  not  have  been 
the  Messiah. 

It  must  be  confessed,  hcvever,  it  is  surprising  in 


THE  SON  OF  MAN  77 

how  few  of  the  passages  in  which  "  the  Son  of  man  " 
occurs  there  is  direct  and  undeniable  reference  to 
this.*  It  has  even  been  argued,  that  there  is  no 
such  reference  in  any  of  them  at  all.  But  this  is  an 
exaggeration.  When  He  says,  "  The  Sabbath  was 
made  for  man,  and  not  man  for  the  Sabbath,"  and 
then  adds,  "Therefore  the  Son  of  man  is  Lord  also 
of  the  Sabbath,"  the  force  of  the  inference  lies  partly 
in  the  identity  of  the  Speaker  with  all  the  children 
of  men  and  partly  in  His  supremacy  above  them. 
He  is  the  head  and  representative  to  whom  it  belongs 
to  guard  and  vindicate  their  rights.f  When  He 
contrasted  Himself  with  the  Baptist  by  saying  that 
"  the  Son  of  man  came  eating  and  drinking,"  He 
was  pointing  to  His  sympathy  with  all  simple  and 
natural  human  enjoyments.  Even  when  He  says, 
"  The  Son  of  man  is  come  to  seek  and  to  save  that 
which  was  lost,"  while  He  may  be  describing  a 
function  of  the  Messiah,  the  great  saying  gains 
immeasurably  in  depth  and  pathos,  if  we  consider 
it  to  express  His  sense  of  brotherhood  with  all  men, 


*  Of  course  there  is  abundant  reference  to  it  in  His  sayings  in 
general ;  and  nearly  every  incident  of  His  life  could  be  quoted 
in  illustration. 

+  Lietzmann  and  others  take  the  inference  to  be  that  man 
collectively  is  Lord  of  the  Sabbath.  But  would  Jesus  have  made 
this  assertion  ?    I  do  not  think  so, 


78  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

even  the  worst.  Indeed,  even  if  it  be  allowed  that 
the  primary  reference  in  every  saying  about  "  the 
Son  of  man "  is  to  messiahship,  yet,  on  the  other 
hand,  everyone  of  them  gains  in  point  and  power, 
if  this  under-sense  be  also  remembered. 

There  must  have  been  a  moment  in  the  experi- 
ence of  Jesus  when  the  text  in  Daniel,  so  often 
referred  to,  suddenly  shone  forth  upon  Him  as  the 
guiding-star  of  His  career  ;  and,  if  only  a  record  of 
this  incident  had  been  vouchsafed  to  us,  much  that 
is  dark  would  have  been  made  clear.  Where  did  it 
take  place  .-*  Was  it  in  Nazareth,  some  Sabbath, 
when  in  the  synagogue  the  Prophets  were  being 
read  .''  or  was  it  later,  during  one  of  the  nights  of 
communion  with  His  Father  on  some  mountain-top 
of  Galilee,  when  the  words  of  the  sacred  Book  stood 
out  on  the  sky  of  His  imagination  in  letters  of  fire  ? 
To  those  His  experience  will  not  be  altogether 
foreign  to  whom,  in  some  great  spiritual  crisis,  a 
word  of  God,  detaching  itself  from  the  rest  of 
Scripture,  has  been  given  as  a  pledge  of  the  divine 
choice,  to  be  kept  forever.  I  have  expressed  a  certain 
regret  and  disappointment  that  our  Lord's  favourite 
name  is  official  rather  than  personal  ;  but  I  take 
this  back  ;  because  I  now  see,  that,  when  He  was 
standing  before  the  Word  of  God,  to  receive  the 
message  of  destiny,   it   was   meet   that  this  should 


THE  SON  OF  MAN 


79 


come  to  Him  not  as  a  reflection  upon  His  own 
qualities  and  attributes,  but  as  a  summons  to  a 
grand  work,  which  was  to  carry  Him  out  of  Himself 
and  absorb  all  His  powers.  Or  if,  in  any  degree, 
in  that  solemn  hour  there  was  the  consciousness 
of  self,  it  was  the  consciousness  of  His  identity  with 
all  the  children  of  men,  whom  He  was  to  seek  and 
to  save  * 

Identity — and  yet  at  one  essential  point  there  is 
no  evidence  of  participation  by  Jesus  in  the  experi- 
ence of  humanity ;  for  He  betrays  no  consciousness 
of  sin. 

The  proof  of  the  sinlessness  of  Jesus  is  not  derived 
exclusively  from  the  Gospels  ;  and  in  the  Gospels 
it  is  not  proved  exclusively  by  His  own  words  ;  nor 
are  the  most  forcible  even  of  such  words  in  the 
Synoptists.  The  Synoptists,  indeed,  draw  frequent 
attention  to  the  impression  of  His  perfection  made 
on  both  friends  and  foes.  Thus  they  tell  us,  how 
the  centurion  at  the  cross  declared,  evidently  with 


*  During  the  passage  of  this  book  through  the  press  an  impor- 
tant essay  on  "  The  Son  of  Man  "  has  appeared  in  the  sixth  volume 
of  Wellhausen's  Skizzen  mid  Vorarbeiten.  It  adds  little  to  the 
arguments  advanced  by  Lietzmann  for  eliminating  the  phrase 
from  the  words  of  Jesus ;  but  it  is  much  more  cautious  about 
determining  when  and  where  the  name  was  given  to  our  Lord. 


So  THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

deep  emotion,  that  Jesus  was  "  a  righteous  man  "  ; 
how  Pilate  and  Pilate's  wife  acknowledged  His 
innocence  ;  how  the  Baptist  affirmed,  "  I  have  need 
to  be  baptized  of  Thee,  and  comest  Thou  to  me  ? " 
how  St.  Peter,  in  the  boat,  dazzled  with  the  proximity 
of  perfect  moral  purity,  cried  out,  "  Depart  from  me, 
for  I  am  a  sinful  man,  O  Lord "  ;  and  how  even 
Judas  confessed  that  he  had  betrayed  "innocent 
blood."  *  But  they  do  not  record  sayings  in  which 
He  lays  claim  to  sinlessness. 

They  even  narrate  incidents  which  might  be  inter- 
preted as  acknowledging  the  reverse.  Such  is  His 
baptism.  Was  not  the  baptism  of  John  the  baptism 
of  repentance  .-*  Such  it  was  to  others  ;  but  it  need 
not  necessarily  have  been  so  to  Him  ;  for,  besides 
this  negative  side,  it  had  also  a  positive  side  :  it  not 
only  symbolized  the  washing  of  the  nation  from  sin, 
but  its  consecration  to  a  new  career  of  holiness. 
Jesus  knew  Himself  to  be  the  Leader  ot  this  new 
movement ;  and,  knowing  this,  He  might  choose, 
in  His  humility,  to  go  through  the  common  door, 
although  the  negative  virtue  of  the  ordinance  was 
not  a  necessity  to  Him.  Then,  there  is  His  state- 
ment to  one  who  hailed  Him  as  "Good  Master": 
"  Why  callest  thou  Me  good  .-'  there  is  none  good 

*  Luke  xxiii.  47,    4;    Matt,  xxvii.    19;   iii.    14;   Luke  v.   8; 
Matt,  xxvii.  4. 


THE  SON  OF  MAN  «i 

but  One,  that  is  God."  Is  not  this  a  confession  of 
imperfection  ?  It  is  an  acknowledgment  of  a  certain 
kind  of  imperfection — the  imperfection  of  a  character 
that  is  growing,  and  has  to  realise  its  goodness  on 
every  fresh  stage  of  advancement — but  this  does  not 
necessarily  imply  a  guilty  imperfection  at  any  stage. 
It  is  not,  however,  for  anything  which  they  make 
Him  say  positively  about  His  sinlessness  that  the 
Synoptists  are  remarkable,  but  for  the  things  they  do 
not  make  Him  say.  A  recent  writer  has  adduced 
as  a  fresh  proof  of  His  sinlessness,  that  He  never 
prayed  in  company  with  others :  He  taught  the 
Twelve  to  pray,  but  He  did  not  pray  even  with 
them,  the  reason  being  that  prayer  requires  the 
confession  of  sin,  which  He  could  not  make.*  On 
this  I  lay  no  stress,  because  I  am  doubtful  of  the 
fact.  It  seems  to  me  that  He  did  pray  with  others 
when  He  gave  thanks  in  their  name  ;  and  may  there 
not  be  prayer  without  confession  ?  But  the  broad 
fact  remains,  that  Jesus  did  not  confess  sin.  His 
habits  of  prayer  are  commemorated  in  the  Gospels, 
and  specimens  of  His  prayers  are  given  ;  but  these 
include  no  acknowledgments  of  personal  transgression. 
This   is   in   striking   contrast   with   the  other   great 

*  Forrest,  The  Christ  of  History  and  of  Experience,  c.  I. 
The  chapter,  as  a  whole,  is  an  admirable  statement  on  the 
sinlessness  ot  Jesus. 

6 


82  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

figures  of  the  Jewish  race.  Isaiah  confesses,  "  Woe 
is  me,  for  I  am  undone,  for  I  am  a  man  of  unclean 
lips,  and  I  dwell  among  a  people  of  unclean  lips." 
David  says,  "  I  was  shapen  in  iniquity,  and  in  sin  did 
my  mother  conceive  me."  Job  says,  "  I  abhor  myself, 
and  repent  in  dust  and  ashes."  Ezra  says,  "  O  my 
God,  I  am  ashamed  and  blush  to  lift  up  my  face  to 
Thee,  my  God,  for  our  iniquities  are  increased  over 
our  heads,  and  our  trespass  is  grown  up  unto  the 
heavens."  Our  Lord's  own  apostles  make  similar 
acknowledgments.  Thus  St.  Paul  groans,  "  Oh 
wretched  man  that  I  am  !  who  shall  deliver  me  from 
the  body  of  this  death  }  "  And  even  the  saintly 
St.  John  confesses,  "  If  we  say  that  we  have  no  sin, 
we  deceive  ourselves,  and  the  truth  is  not  in  us." 
Such  is  the  tone  of  all  the  men  of  religious  genius 
who  were  either  the  teachers  of  Jesus  or  His  disciples. 
If  He  was  merely  the  supreme  religious  genius  among 
them  all,  it  would  be  natural  to  expect  from  Him 
still  more  agonizing  cries  of  penitence.  But  nothing 
of  the  kind  is  ever  heard  from  His  lips.  What  is 
the  explanation  of  this  singular  phenomenon  }  It 
will  hardly  be  interpreted  as  a  defect.  Could  it  be 
so  understood,  it  would  lower  Him  far  beneath  such 
figures  as  have  just  been  quoted  ;  for  what  quality 
of  saintliness  is  more  essential  than  humility  ?  But, 
if  it  was  not  a  defect,  the  only  alternative  is,  that 


THE  SON  OF  MAN  83 


He  confessed  no  sin  because  He  had  none  to  confess 
but  was  "holy,  harmless,  undefiled,  separate  from 
sinners.' 


"* 


*  The  proof  of  the  sinlessness  of  Jesus  rests  primarily  on  His 
own  testimony  in  St.  John  (see  especially  iv.  34 ;  viii.  29,  46)  and 
the  Synoptists,  secondly  on  that  of  the  apostles  (see,  for  example, 
Heb.  iii.  15;  vii.  26;  Acts  iii.  14;  i  Peter  iii.  18;  I  John  iii.  5  ; 
2  Cor.  V.  21),  and  thirdly  on  the  prevalence  in  Christendom  of 
the  ideal  of  holiness.  Wherever  Christianity  exists,  holiness 
exists.  Remarkable  holiness  may  be  a  rare  phenomenon  ;  but 
in  every  Christian  community  there  are  many  striving  after  it, 
and  there  are  few  places  in  Christendom  where  there  cannot  be 
found  some  whose  holiness  impresses  others  as  distinctly  a 
divine  creation.  Not  infrequently  the  effect  is  overawing  in 
a  high  degree — a  vision  of  unearthly  beauty.  And  Christian 
holiness,  which  is  a  well  proportioned  mixture  of  religion  and 
morality,  traces  itself  back  to  Christ.  Its  communion  with  God 
is  founded  on  reconciliation  through  Him ;  it  knows  itself  to 
spring  from  a  Hfe  rooted  in  Him  ;  it  is  a  never-ending  imitation 
of  Him  ;  and  it  knows  Him  to  be  infinitely  above  itself.  But,  if 
He  is  far  above  the  holiest,  must  He  not  have  been  perfectly 
holy  ?  The  Christian  movement  towards  holiness  must  have  as 
its  fons  et  origo  One  whose  holiness  was  perfect.  Ullmann's 
book  on  the  Sinlessness  of  Jesus  is  one  of  the  most  artistic 
and  enduring  products  of  German  theology. 


THE   SON   OF   GOD 


i| 


Passages  in  which  Jesus  is  called  "the  Son  of  God"  by 
OTHERS,  Himself  sometimes  adopting  the  name  : — 

Matthew  ii.  15  ;   iii.  17;   iv.  3,  6;   viii.  29;  xiv.  33;   xvi.  16;  xvii.  5; 

xxi.  37,  38;  xxvi.  63,  64;  xxvii.  40,  43,  54. 
Mark  i.  [i],  11  ;  iii.  11  ;  v.  7  ;  ix.  7  ;  xiv.  61,  62  ;  xv.  39. 
Luke  i.  32,  35  ;   iii.  22  ;   iv.  3,  9,  41 ;   viii.  28  ;  ix.  35  ;  xx.  9  ;  xxii.  70. 

Passages  in  which  Jesus  calls  Himself  "the  Son": — 

Matthew  xi.  27  (thrice) ;  xxii.  2  ;  xxvii.  43  ;  xxviii.  19. 
Mark  xiii.  32. 
Luke  X.  22  (thrice). 

Passages  in  which  Je^'S  calls  God  His  Father  : — 
Matthew  vii.  21  ;  x.  32,  33  ;  xi.  25,  26,  27 ;  xii.  50  ;  xxv.  13 ;  xvi.  17, 

27  ;  xviii.  10,  19,  35  ;  xx.  23  ;  xxiv.  36  ;  xxv.  34  ;  xxvi.  29,  39,  42, 

53 ;  xxviii.  19. 
Mark  viii.  38  ;  xiii.  32  ;  xiv.  36. 
Luke  ii.  49 ;  ix.  26 ;  x.  21,  22 ;  xxii.  29,  42  ;  xxiii.  34,  46  j  xxiv.  49. 


w 


III. 

THE   SON  OF  GOD* 

THE  Other  self-designation  of  our  Lord  is  "  the 
Son  of  God."  Jesus  does  not  make  use  of  it 
Himself  in  the  Synoptists  ;  but  it  is  frequently  applied 
to  Him  by  others,  when  He  accepts  it  in  such  a  way 
as  to  appropriate  it  to  Himself.  He  makes  use 
sparingly  on  His  own  initiative  of  the  abbreviated 
form,  "  the  Son,"  evidently  with  the  same  force  ;  and 
He  often  speaks  of  God  as  "  the  Father,"  or  "  My 
Father,"  or  "  My  Father  who  is  in  heaven,"  in  a  way 

*  Weiss:  Neutestanientliche  Theologie,  §  17. 
Beyschlag  :  Neiitestamentliche  Theologie,  I.  54  ff. 
HoLTZMANN :  A^.  T.  Theologie,  I.  265  ff. 
Stevens  :  The  Theology  of  the  New  Testament,  Chapter  V, 
BovoN  :  Theologie  dii  Noiiveau  Testament,  pp.  412  ff. 
NosGEN :  Christus  der  Menschen-  nnd  Gotiessohn. 
NosGEN  :  Geschichte  Jesii  Chrlsti,  pp.  290  ff.,  470  ff. 
Grau:  Das  Selbstbewtisstsein  Jesit,  cap.  VIII. 
Beyschlag  :  Die  Christologie  des  Neuen  Testaments,  pp.  40  ff. 
Dalman  :  Die  Worte  Jesu,  cap.  X. 
Gore:  Bampton  Lecttcres,  1891. 
Gore  :  Dissertations. 
Wendt  :  Die  Lehre  Jesu,  II.  428  ff, 

«7 


88  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

that  involves  the  consciousness  that  He  is  the  Son 
of  God. 

The  terms  "  Son  of  man  "  and  "  Son  of  God " 
appear  to  form  a  pair ;  and  they  describe  so  aptly 
the  two  sides  of  our  Lord's  person  that  it  is  no 
wonder  that  this  should  have  been  taken  to  be  their 
original  meaning.  So  they  have  been  interpreted 
from  very  early  times ;  and  so  they  are  understood 
by  ordinary  readers  of  the  Bible  to  this  day.  As, 
however,  we  found  reason  to  modify  this  assumption 
in  the  case  of  "  the  Son  of  man,"  so,  in  investigating 
this  other  term,  we  must  not  rashly  yield  to  the 
impression  conveyed  by  the  mere  sound  of  the 
words. 

At  all  events  there  is  no  likelihood  that  Jesus 
invented  this  phrase  ;  for  it  occurs  frequently  in  the 
Old  Testament,  and  it  has  a  wide  range  of  application 
in  the  Bible. 

Thus,  first,  it  is  applied  to  angels.  In  the  Book  of 
Job  we  read  that  at  the  creation  of  the  world  "  the 
morning  stars  sang  together,  and  all  the  sons  of  God 
shouted  for  joy."  In  the  same  book  an  occasion  is 
mentioned  when  "  the  sons  of  God  came  to  present 
themselves  before  the  Lord,  and  Satan  came  also 
among  them,"  where  it  is  not  quite  clear  whether 
Satan   is   reckoned   as   one  of  the  sons  of  God,  or 


THE  SON  OF  GOD  89 

whether  he  is  an  intruder  forcing  himself  in  where 
he  has  no  right  to  be.*  The  reason  why  the  angels 
are  called  by  this  name  may  only  be  that  they  are 
creatures  of  God,  as  we  call  a  poet's  works  the 
children  of  his  imagination  ;  or  it  may  more  probably 
be  that,  as  spiritual  beings,  they  bear  a  resemblance 
to  God,  who  is  a  spirit. 

Secondly,  the  term  is  applied  to  the  first  man. 
In  the  third  chapter  of  St.  Luke  the  genealogy  of 
our  Lord  is  traced  back  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion, each  member  of  the  series  being  described  as 
the  son  of  his  father,  till  Adam  is  reached,  "  who,"  it 
is  added,  "  was  the  son  of  God."t  This  may  mean 
simply  that  God  was  the  Author  of  his  being  ;  though 
it  is  more  likely  that  there  is  also  a  reference  to  the 
fact,  mentioned  so  impressively  in  the  first  chapter 
of  Genesis,  that  Adam  was  made  in  the  image  of 
God.  This  raises  the  question,  whether  all  the 
children  of  Adam  might  not  be  called  by  this  name. 
It  would  seem  to  be  in  the  spirit  of  Scripture  to 
answer  this  question  affirmatively ;  and,  if  many 
passages  cannot  be  quoted  in  favour  of  this  applica- 
tion, there  is  at  least  one  which  weighs  very  heavily 
— the  Parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son.  The  prodigal  in 
the  far  country  is  still  a  son,  though  a  lost  one. 

*  Job  xxxviii.  7  ;  i.  6  ;  ii.  i. 

f  Luke  iii.  38 :  'ASa/x  tov  Qeov. 


90  THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

Thirdly,  the  term  is  applied  to  the  Hebrew  nation 
as  a  whole.  For  example,  Moses  was  sent  to 
Pharaoh  with  this  message,  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord, 
Israel  is  My  son,  even  My  firstborn,  and  I  say  unto 
thee,  Let  My  son  go."*  And  in  Hosea  ii.  i  Jehovah 
says,  "  When  Israel  was  a  child,  then  I  loved  him, 
and  called  My  son  out  of  Egypt."  These  quotations 
show  very  clearly  the  idea  at  the  root  of  this  desig- 
nation :  Israel  was  the  son  of  God  as  the  object  of 
His  special  love  and  gracious  choice.  The  entire 
Old  Testament,  however,  is  pervaded  by  the  cor- 
relative idea,  that  sonship  implies  likeness,  or  at  all 
events  the  obligation  to  be  like  the  Father.  Thus 
in  Malachi  i.  6,  Jehovah  says,  "  A  son  honoureth  his 
father,  and  a  servant  his  master ;  if  I  then  be  a 
Father,  where  is  mine  honour  }  and,  if  I  be  a  Master, 
where  is  My  fear?"  It  would  be  a  natural  transition 
from  the  application  of  the  term  to  Israel  as  a  whole 
to  apply  it  to  individual  Israelites;  and  this  appears  to 
have  been  effected  at  least  in  New  Testament  times ; 
for,  in  argument  with  Jesus,  the  Jews  affirmed  (John 
viii.  41),  "  We  have  one  Father,  even  God  " ;  and  Jesus 
Himself  said  of  the  Jews  to  the  Syrophoenician 
woman,  "  Let  the  children  first  be  filled." 

Fourthly,  the  kings  of  Israel,  or  at  least  some  of 

*  |5xod.  iv.  22. 


THE  SON  OF  GOD  9^ 

them,  bore  this  title.  Thus  Jehovah  said  of  Solomon, 
"  I  will  be  his  Father,  and  he  shall  be  to  Me  a  son."* 
In  Psalm  Ixxxix.  an  ancient  oracle  is  quoted  in 
which  Jehovah  says  of  King  David,  "  He  shall  cry 
unto  Me,  Thou  art  my  Father,  my  God,  and  the 
rock  of  my  salvation.  Also  I  will  make  him  My 
firstborn,  higher  than  the  kings  of  the  earth."  But 
the  most  remarkable  expression  of  this  idea  is  to  be 
found  in  the  second  Psalm,  where  the  king  of  Israel 
is  represented  as  surrounded  by  a  combination  cf 
enemies  threatening  his  throne  ;  whose  machinations, 
however,  are  interrupted  by  an  oracle,  probably 
conceived  as  uttered  in  thunder  from  the  sky,  which 
proclaims  "  Thou  art  My  son,  this  day  have  I 
begotten  thee  ; "  and,  before  this  angry  and  irresistible 
declaration  of  the  divine  will,  the  confederated 
heathen  melt  away.  In  this  psalm  two  names  occur 
which  were  destined  to  have  an  extraordinary  history 
— "  the  Messiah  "  and  "  the  Son  of  God  " — and  the 
king  appears  in  the  closest  connexion  with  God,  as 
joint-ruler  with  Him  and  as  the  object  of  His  love 
and  choice.  His  figure  is  highly  idealized,  and  it 
may  be  doubted  whether  it  could  ever,  as  Hupfeld 
asserts  it  did,  have  represented  the  Israelitish  king- 
ship in  general.    Applied  to  most  of  the  actual  kings 

*  2  Sam.  vii.  14. 


92  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

it  would  have  been  gross  and  hyperbolic  flattery  ;  * 
and,  if  any  rules  of  sobriety  are  to  be  observed  in 
interpretation  at  all,  it  is  more  natural  to  understand 
it  only  of  an  excellent  actual  king  or,  still  better,  of 
someone  whom  the  best  of  the  actual  kings  typified. 
The  reason  for  designating  the  kings  by  this  title 
was,  that  the  nation  culminated  in  them,  and  perhaps 
that  the  great  position  they  held  was  one  in  the 
bestowal  of  which  there  was  specially  manifested 
the  electing  love  of  God. 

Fifthly,  in  the  New  Testament  believers  in  Jesus 
Christ  are  everywhere  described  by  this  name — "  To 
as  many  as  received  Him,  to  them  gave  He  power 
to  become  the  sons  of  God,  even  to  them  that 
believe  in  His  name."  One  reason  in  their  case  is 
that  they  have  been  born  of  God — "  Being  born 
again  not  of  corruptible  seed,  but  of  incorruptible,  by 
the  Word  of  God,  which  liveth  and  abideth  for  ever." 
A  further  reason  is  that  they  are  like  God.  On  this 
Jesus  Himself  lays  the  greatest  stress  :  "  Love  your 
enemies,  and  pray  for  them  that  persecute  you  ;  that 
ye  may  be  sons  of  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven  ; 
for  He  maketh  His  sun  to  rise  on  the  evil  and  the 
good,  and  sendeth  rain  on  the  just  and  on  the  unjust."f 
And  to  these  two  has  to  be  added  the  third  reason, 

*  So  Nosgen  :  Der  Mensche?i-  and  Gottessohn,  p.  144. 
+  John  i.  12;  I  Peter  i.  23;  Matt.  v.  44,  45,  R.V. 


THE  SON  OF  GOD  93 


that  they  are  objects  of  God's  special  and  dis- 
tinguishing love — "  Behold,  what  manner  of  love  the 
Father  hath  bestowed  upon  us,  that  we  should  be 
called  the  sons  of  God  ;  therefore  the  world  knoweth 
us  not,  because  it  knew  Him  not."* 

Thus,  the  term  is  applied  to  angels,  to  men,  to  the 
Jewish  nation  as  a  whole,  to  the  Jewish  kings,  and 
to  all  saints  ;  and  the  principal  ideas  which  it  em- 
bodies are,  that  those  bearing  the  name  are  derived 
from  God  as  their  Author,  that  they  are  the  objects 
of  His  love  and  choice,  and  that  they  are  like  Him 
in  character  and  conduct. 

Such  being  the  wide  and  varied  application  of  the 
term,  the  question  arises,  from  which  of  these  points 
it  was  that  the  title  was  transferred  to  our  Lord. 
And  the  almost  universal  verdict  of  scholarship  is 
that  its  application  to  Jesus  arose  from  its  applica- 
tion to  the  kings  of  Israel,  He  being  the  King  to 
whom  these  all  pointed  forward.  In  short,  this  term, 
like  "  the  Son  of  man,"  is  messianic.  Such  is  the 
accepted  view,  which,  however,  I  wish  to  submit  to 
a  thorough  examination. 

It    is    commonly    asserted    that    the    term    is    a 
synonym  for  the  Messiah  in  the  apocryphal  books  ; 

*  I  John  iii.  i. 


94  The  christology  of  jesus 

but  for  this  the  evidence  is  slender.  There  is  a 
passage  in  the  end  of  the  Book  of  Enoch  where  God 
is  made  to  say  "  I  and  My  Son  "  will  do  some- 
thing ;  but  it  occurs  in  one  of  the  most  meaningless 
paragraphs  of  that  incoherent  production.  Two  or 
three  references  are  also  usually  given  to  4  Esdras  ; 
but  the  value  of  these  may  easily  be  estimated  from 
the  following  specimens  :  "  For  My  Son  Jesus  shall 
be  revealed  with  those  who  are  with  Him,  and  they 
that  remain  shall  rejoice  for  four  hundred  years;" 
"  And  it  shall  come  to  pass  after  these  years  that  My 
Son  Christ  shall  die,  and  all  men  that  have  breath."  * 

It  has  already  been  remarked  that  in  the 
Synoptists  the  term  is  for  the  most  part  applied  to 
Jesus  not  by  Himself  but  by  others  ;  and  from  this 
circumstance  it  has  been  argued  that  its  sense  must 
be  messianic,  because  it  is  manifest  that  the  phrase 
was  diffused  among  the  people  as  a  title  of  the 
expected  deliverer.! 

A  close  study  of  the  instances  does  not,  however, 
lend  this  conclusion  very  clear  support. 

*  Enoch  cv.  2  ;  4  Esdras  vii.  28,  29. 

t  Beyschlag,  Neutestamentliche  Theologie,  I.  66:  "Dieses 
Vorkommen  im  Munde  anderer  zeigt  von  vornherein,  dass  der 
Name  ein  im  Alten  Testamente  vvurzelender,  in  Israel  bereits 
gangbarer  war,  und  so  ist  auch  fiir  den  Sinn,  in  vvelchem  Jesus 
ihn  fiir  sich  selbst  in  Anspruch  nimmt,  aufs  Alte  Testament 
zuriickzugehen." 


THE  SON  OF  GOD  95 

In  the  first  chapter  of  St.  Luke  the  angel  of  the 
Annunciation  calls  the  Child  to  be  born  of  Mary  by 
this  name,  not  because  He  is  to  be  the  Messiah, 
but  for  the  reason  stated  in  these  words  :  "  The 
Holy  Ghost  shall  come  upon  thee,  and  the  power 
of  the  Highest  shall  overshadow  thee  ;  therefore  also 
that  Holy  Thing  which  shall  be  born  of  thee  shall 
be  called  the  Son  of  God."  *  The  derivation  of  His 
human  nature  from  the  special  creative  act  of  God 
is  here  the  reason  of  the  name — a  reason  akin  to 
that  on  account  of  which  it  is  also  given  by  St. 
Luke  to  Adam.  I  do  not  remember  any  other 
place  in  Scripture  where  this  precise  point  of  view 
recurs. 

When  the  centurion  at  the  foot  of  the  cross  said, 
"  Truly  this  was  the  Son  of  God,"  f  the  likelihood 
is,  that  he,  a  heathen,  was  thinking  of  a  hero  like 
the  sons  of  divine  fathers  and  human  mothers  of 
whom  there  were  many  in  the  mythology  of  Greece 
and  Rome. 

Demoniacs  are  reported  to  have  cried  out  to 
Jesus  as  "  the  Son  of  God " ;  and  it  might  be 
supposed  that  in  their  mouths  this  was  a  popular 
name  for  the  Messiah,  especially  as  they  sometimes 
addressed   Him  in  so  many  words  as  the  Messiah. 

*  Luke  i.  35. 

t  Or,  more  correctly,  "  a  son  of  God,"  Mark  xv.  39 


96  THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

But  there  is  something  peculiar  about  their  testimony. 
The  Evangelists  evidently  look  upon  their  exclama- 
tions as  proceeding  not  so  much  from  the  possessed 
human  beings  as  from  the  demons  by  whom  they 
were  possessed,  and  we  are  no  judges  of  the  meaning 
which  would  be  attached  to  this  term  by  such 
intelligences,  except  that  Jesus  was  dreaded  by  them 
as  the  Strong  One  by  whom  their  power  was  to  be 
broken.  Still  less  can  we  narrow  down  the  meaning 
attached  to  the  name  by  the  prince  of  devils,  when 
he  played  with  it  in  our  Lord's  temptation.* 

"  They  that  were  in  the  ship "  on  the  occasion 
when  Jesus  stilled  the  tempest  and  rescued  St.  Peter 
from  the  waves,  "  came  and  worshipped  Him,  saying, 
Of  a  truth  Thou  art  the  Son  of  God."  f  If  by 
this  they  meant  that  He  was  the  Messiah,  it  was  a 
remarkable  anticipation  of  the  confession  at  Caesarea 
Philippi ;  but  it  looks  more  like  an  involuntary  re- 
cognition of  the  divine  in  Jesus,  extorted  by  the 
overwhelming  impression  produced  by  the  miracle. 

In  the  confession  at  Csesarea  Philippi,  which 
St.  Matthew  records  two  chapters  later,  St.  Peter 
says,  "  Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living 
God  "  ;  and  it  is  contended  that  the  second  phrase 
is  only  a  variation  of  the  first,  without  the  addition 

*  Matt.  viii.  29  ;  Mark  iii.  1 1 ;  Luke  iv.  41 ;  Matt.  iv.  3,  6. 
t  Matt.  xiv.  33. 


THE  SON   OF  GOD  97 

of  anything  new  such  as  is  involved  in  the  meaning 
attached  by  theology  to  the  name.  This  is  rendered 
the  more  probable  by  the  fact  that  St.  Mark  and 
St.  Luke  omit  the  second  title  altogether  ;  for  is 
it  conceivable  that  they  would  have  done  so  if 
St.  Peter  had  proclaimed  his  faith  not  only  in 
the  messiahship  of  Jesus  but  in  His  deity  }  This 
passage  is  the  strongest  support  of  the  view  that 
the  name  is  messianic.  Yet  many  instances  might 
be  quoted  to  prove  that  arguments  based  on 
omissions  in  one  or  even  two  Evangelists  are  far 
from  trustworthy.* 

Analogous  is  our  Lord's  confession  before  the 
high  priest.  According  to  St.  Matthew  the  high 
priest  asked,  "  I  adjure  thee  by  the  living  God  that 
Thou  tell  us,  whether  Thou  be  the  Christ,  the  Son 
of  God.  Jesus  saith  unto  him,  Thou  hast  said. " 
Here,  it  is  contended,  the  very  collocation  of  the 
words  proves  that  the  phrases  are  equivalent ;  and, 
besides,  a  Jewish  high  priest  could  have  used  the 
Old  Testament  phrase  in  no  other  sense.  On  the 
other  hand,  St.  Luke  describes  this  scene  in  a  way 
that  excites  dubiety.  Jesus  is  asked,  "  Art  Thou 
the  Christ  ^  tell  us.  And  He  said  unto  them.  If  I 
tell  you,  ye  will  not  believe  ;  and,  if  I  also  ask  you, 

*  Matt.  xvi.  16;  Mark  viii.  29;  Luke  ix.  2C. 


98  THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 


ye  will  not  answer  Me  nor  let  Me  go.  Hereafter 
shall  the  Son  of  man  sit  on  the  right  hand  of  the 
power  of  God.  Then  said  they  all,  Art  Thou  then 
the  Son  of  God  ?  And  He  said  unto  them,  Ye  say 
that  I  am,"  Here  the  question,  "  Art  Thou  the  Son 
of  God  ? "  is  separated  from  the  question,  "  Art  Thou 
the  Christ  ?  "  and  it  is  not  obvious  that  it  means  the 
same  thing.  Perhaps  it  does  ;  but  it  looks  more 
as  if  the  reply  of  Jesus  to  the  first  question  had 
suggested  to  His  interrogators  that  He  made  a  claim 
beyond  even  that  of  being  the  Messiah.  Accordingly 
they  asked,  in  angry  curiosity,  if  He  was  the  Son  of 
God  ;  and  how  great  was  the  shock  caused  by  His 
affirmative  answer  is  shown  by  their  instant  and 
unanimous  decision,  that  He  had  committed 
blasphemy.  If  the  claim  to  be  "  the  Son  of  God  " 
implied  nothing  more  than  a  human  messiahship, 
wherein  consisted  the  blasphemy  ?  *  Holtzmann, 
a  passionate  denier  of  the  traditional  theology,  says, 
"  The  blasphemy  can  only  have  been  found  in  this, 
that  a  man  belonging  to  the  lower  classes,  one  openly 
forsaken  of  God,  and  going  forward  to  a  shameful 
death,  should  have  dared  to  represent  Himself  as 
the  object  and  fulfilment  of  all  the  divine  promises 
given  to  the  nation.     Such  a  claim  smote  in  the  face 

•  RJatt.  xxvi.  63,  64  ;  Luke  xxii.  66-71. 


THE  SON  OF  GOD  99 

all  the  presuppositions  and  the  conclusions  of  the 
Jewish  faith  and  irritated  the  national  susceptibilities 
to  the  uttermost."  *  This  is  admirable  special 
pleading,  yet  everyone  must  recognise  that  the 
blasphemy  was  far  more  obvious  if  the  phrase 
meant  what  this  scholar  denies. 

Besides,  it  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  St.  John 
says,  "  The  Jews  sought  the  more  to  kill  Him, 
because  He  not  only  had  broken  the  Sabbath,  but 
said  also  that  God  was  His  Father,  making  Himself 
equal  with  God  "  ;  and  again,  "  The  Jews  answered 
Him,  saying,  For  a  good  work  we  stone  Thee  not  ; 
but  for  blasphemy  ;  and  because  that  Thou,  being  a 
man,  makest  Thyself  God."  f  These  statements 
are  not,  properly  speaking,  portions  of  the  Johannine 
theology  :  they  are  historical  testimonies  as  to  the 
sense  attached  by  the  Jews  to  their  own  charge  of 
blasphemy  and  as  to  the  claim  of  Jesus  to  be  the  Son 
of  God  ;  of  course  they  may  be  misrepresentations, 
but  there  is  no  ambiguity  about  them  ;  and  it  is  not 
a  departure  from  our  plan  in  the  present  lectures  of 
deriving  the  teaching  of  Jesus  from  the  Synoptists 
alone  to  quote  them  here  for  what  they  are  worth.  | 

*  N.  T.  Theologie,  I.  266. 
+  John  V.  18  ;  x.  33. 

X  Dorner    has   the  weighty   words  {Lehre  von  dcr  Person 
Christi,  p.  79) :  "  Das  Wort  Sohn  Gottes  bei  den  Synoptikern 


THE   CHRIST OLOGY  OF  JESUS 


To  sum  up  :  the  meaning  attached  to  this  title 
when  applied  to  Jesus  by  others  is  not  uniform. 
In  some  cases  it  may  be  messianic  ;  but  the  common 
element  seems  rather  to  be  the  recognition  in  our 
Lord  of  something  above  the  level  of  ordinary 
humanity. 

The  use  of  the  name  by  Jesus  Himself  is  naturally 
what  interests  us  most. 

From  whence  did  He  derive  it  ?  Are  we  to 
suppose  that,  like  those  who  applied  it  to  Him, 
He  picked  it  up  from  the  religious  vocabulary  of 
the  period  or  borrowed  it  from  the  Old  Testament  ? 
Another  source  is  conceivable — namely,  the  voice 
from  heaven  at  His  baptism,  repeated  in  the  Trans- 
figuration. In  some  minds  there  may  exist  doubt 
as  to  the  objectivity  of  this  occurrence  ;  but,  even 
were  it  supposed  to  be  purely  subjective,  it  would 
be  an   accurate   indication  of  what  were  the   senti- 

lasst  sich  nicht  zuriickfiihren  auf  die  Bedeutung  dieses  Wortes 
im  A.  T. ;  er  ist  nicht  bloss,  vvie  David,  oder  andere  Konige 
Israels,  oder  wie  Fromme  dieses  Volkes  oder  Propheten,  Sohn 
Gottes :  er  erscheint  iiberhaupt  nicht  vvie  einer  unter  andern, 
nicht  als  einer  der  Sohne  Gottes,  sondern  als  der  Sohn,  der 
Einzige,  der  Geliebte.  Ihm  gegeniiber  stehen  die  grOssten 
Manner  und  Propheten  vvie  SovXoi  vor  dem  vldy."  He  goes  on  to 
describe  His  sonship  as  threefold— physical,  ethical  and  official ; 
and  of  these  the  second  depends  on  the  first,  and  the  third  on 
the  first  and  second. 


The  son  of  god  lot 

ments  of  Jesus  at  the  time.  What  it  most  em- 
phasizes is  His  consciousness  of  being  the  object  of 
the  divine  love.  Even  if  "  My  Son  "  means  nothing 
else  than  "  Messiah,"  yet  the  adjective  "  beloved  " 
is  added,  together  with  the  phrase,  "  in  whom  I 
am  well  pleased."  Thus  the  personal  predominates 
over  the  official. 

This  is  the  phenomenon  which  encounters  us 
everywhere,  when  we  take  a  survey  of  His  own 
language  ;  and,  it  will  be  observed,  it  is  precisely 
the  reverse  of  what  we  found  upon  a  detailed 
examination  of  His  use  of  the  term  "  Son  of 
man."  The  official  meaning  of  that  term  is  the 
one  which  makes  everything  clear,  whereas  the 
personal  sense  is  rarely  prominent,  even  if  it  can 
with  certainty  be  traced  at  all ;  but  in  the  use 
of  this  term,  while  the  reference  to  messiahship 
is  sometimes  present  as  a  suggestive  undersense, 
the  reference  to  an  interior  relation  between  person 
and  person  is  uniform.  So  it  manifestly  is  in  the 
very  first  recorded  saying  of  Jesus,  "  Wist  ye  not 
that  I  must  be  in  My  Father's  house  } "  ;  and  in 
the  last,  "  Father,  into  Thy  hands  I  commend  My 
spirit."  * 

*  Luke  ii.  49 ;  xxiii.  46.  In  the  latter  passage  Jesus  is  quoting 
from  the  Old  Testament;  but  He  adds  "Father"  to  the 
quotation — a  very  significant  addition. 


THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 


There  is  one  passage  in  which  this  intense 
consciousness  of  personal  relationship  to  God  comes 
out  with  peculiar  clearness  and  force,  as  the  sense 
denoted  by  Jesus  when  calling  God  "  the  Father  " 
and  Himself  "  the  Son."  It  occurs  in  a  scene 
commemorated  by  both  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke  ; 
and  the  two  accounts  combined  enable  us  to  bring 
the  circumstances  vividly  before  our  eyes.* 

Jesus  had  been  discoursing  sadly  on  the  reception 
He  had  met  with  at  the  hands  of  His  generation, 
and  reproaching  the  cities  in  which  most  of  His 
mighty  works  were  done,  v/hen  the  Seventy  re- 
turned overflowing  with  gladness  at  the  success 
of  their  mission.  And  "  in  that  hour  Jesus  rejoiced 
in  spirit  "j*  and  said,  I  thank  Thee,  O  Father,  Lord 
of  heaven  and  earth,  because  Thou  hast  hid  these 
things  from  the  wise  and  prudent,  and  hast  revealed 
them  unto  babes.  Even  so,  O  Father  ;  for  so  it 
seemed  good  in  Thy  sight."  He  had  been  looking 
back  with  bitter  disappointment  to  the  refusal  of  the 
learned  and  the  influential  to  have  anything  to  do 
with  His  cause  ;  but  the  appearance  of  the  Seventy, 
with  their  enthusiastic  report,  so  brought  home  to 
Him  the  success  of  His  confidence  in  the  honest 
and  good  hearts  which   He  had  attracted  from  the 

*  Matt.  xi.  25-30;  Luke  x.  21,  22. 
t  "  In  the  Holy  Spirit "  (R.V.). 


THE  SON  OF  GOD  103 

ranks  of  the  common  people  that  He  was  able 
completely  to  rise  above  His  depression  and  rejoice 
in  the  whole  course  of  His  ministry  as  the  dis- 
position of  God.  Then  He  added,  as  if  sunk  in 
a  beatific  soliloquy — and  these  are  the  words  which 
express  so  wonderfully  the  intimacy  of  His  relation 
to  God — "All  things  are  delivered  unto  Me  of 
My  Father ;  and  no  man  knoweth  the  Son  but 
the  Father,  neither  knoweth  any  man  the  Father 
save  the  Son,  and  he  to  whomsoever  the  Son  will 
reveal  Him." 

The  opening  words,  "All  things  are  delivered 
unto  Me  of  My  Father,"  have  been  very  variousl)^ 
interpreted.  Some  have  given  them  the  widest 
possible  scope,  understanding  Jesus  to  be  claiming 
lordship  and  government  over  the  universe.  Modern 
interpreters  restrict  them  as  much  as  possible — 
Weiss  to  the  control  of  all  things  essential  to  His 
messianic  work,  while  Holtzmann  thinks  they  only 
express  the  claim  that  His  doctrine  is  of  God. 
The  meaning  most  consistent  with  the  context 
seems  to  be,  that  all  His  fortunes  are  of  divine 
appointment — the  disagreeable  as  well  as  the 
agreeable — all  are  working  together  for  good  ;  and 
in  this  assurance  His  spirit  finds  rest.  But  the 
next  words  are  those  which  carry  us  into  the 
sanctuary   of    His   secret  life:    "No   man    knoweth 


I04  THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

the  Son  but  the  Father,  neither  knovveth  any  man 
the  Father  save  the  Son,  and  he  to  whomsoever 
the  Son  will  reveal  Him."  *  These  words  may 
be  a  continuation  of  the  thought  just  hinted  at  : 
God  alone  knows  the  course  of  the  Son's  career, 
seeing  clearly  its  glorious  issues  beyond  its  present 
intricacies  ;  and  the  Son  alone  knows  the  Father's 
design,  and,  therefore.  He  can  bear  without  repining 
the  disappointments  of  apparent  failure.  But  this 
is  only  the  minimum  of  meaning  which  can  belong 
to  the  words  ;  and  their  full  meaning  is  probably 
much  more  comprehensive.  At  all  events  the 
impressiveness  of  the  parallel  between  the  Father's 
knowledge  of  the  Son  and  the  Son's  knowledge  of 
the  Father  can  escape  no  one  ;  and  the  saying  is 
an  incomparable  expression  of  mutual  intimacy, 
serene  trust  and  perfect  love.  No  wonder  that 
Jesus  burst  out  of  His  soliloquy  with  the  memorable 
words  on  His  lips,  "  Come  unto  Me,  all  ye  that 
labour  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you 
rest."  He  felt  in  Himself  a  joy  great  enough  to 
satisfy  the  whole  world.  He  held  the  secret  of 
peace,  and  could  invite  all  to  come  and  receive  it 
from  Him.f 

t  Keim  thinks  that  tlie  great  passage  must  have  ended  thus : 
•'  and  he  to  whom  the  Father  will  reveal  Him  "  (tlie  Son).     But 


THE  SON  OF  GOD  105 


Even  the  least  enthusiastic  writers  kindle  into 
unwonted  warmth  in  speaking  of  this  utterance  ;  but 
they  hasten  to  add,  that  of  course  the  sonship  of 
Jesus  was  not  specifically  different  from  that  of  all 
believers.  Sonship  is  the  highest  expression  for  the 
relation  to  God  to  which  He  raises  those  who  receive 
Him,  and  it  places  them  on  the  same  platform  with 
Himself.  This  dogmatic  assertion  is,  however, 
confronted  by  the  fact,  that  in  all  the  Gospels  Jesus 
carefully  distinguishes  His  own  sonship  from  that  of 
His  disciples.  He  speaks  constantly  of  "My  Father" 
and  of  "  your  Father,"  but  never  of  "  Our  Father." 
Feeble  attempts  have  been  made  to  break  down  this 
distinction,  but  totally  without  avail.  The  fact,  if 
substantiated,  is  a  cardinal  one,  and  it  is  useless,  in 
face  of  it,  to  assert  that  obviously  His  sonship  must 
be  the  same  as  ours. 

A  similar  piece  of  dogmatism,  very  common  at 
present,  is  the  assertion  that  of  course  the  sonship 
of  Jesus  was  ethical,  not  metaphysical.  Certainly  it 
was  ethical,  consisting  in  the  harmony  of  His  mind 
and  will  with  the  thoughts  and  purposes  of  God, 
and   in  the  affection  and   delight  felt  by  Jesus  for 

surely  this  also  is  implied.  Kcim's  long  exposition  of  this 
passage,  which  he  considers  the  loftiest  utterance  of  the  self- 
consciousness  of  Jesus,  is  very  fine.  Holtzmann  also  calls  it 
the  pinnacle  of  Jesus'  testimony  to  nimself. 


io6  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

God  and  of  God  for  Jesus.  But  it  docs  not  follow 
in  the  least  that,  because  ethical,  it  was  not  meta- 
physical. On  the  contrary,  the  ethical  always  rests 
on  the  metaphysical  ;  and  ethical  unity  becomes  less 
po?;sible  the  farther  any  two  beings  are  metaphysically 
separated  from  each  other.  The  sympathy  between 
a  beast  and  a  man  is  imperfect,  because  they  are 
metaphysically  so  far  apart  ;  on  the  contrary,  the 
union  of  man  and  woman  is  capable  of  such  com- 
pleteness because,  though  between  them  there  exists 
the  difference  of  sex,  yet  both  partake  in  the  same 
human  nature.  Men,  as  we  have  seen,  may  be 
called  the  sons  of  God  for  a  variety  of  reasons  ;  yet 
the  union  between  God  and  man  is  a  distant  one  ; 
and  this  not  only  for  ethical  reasons,  but  for  the 
metaphysical  one  that  their  natures  are  distinct. 
Angelic  nature  is  nearer  the  divine  ;  yet  even  here 
sonship  is  a  figure  of  speech.  No  doubt  the  question 
whether  any  higher  sonship  is  possible — a  sonship 
as  perfect  in  the  divine  region  as  sonship  is  in  the 
human — is  metaphysical  ;  but  to  deny  this  is  as 
pure  a  piece  of  dogmatism  as  to  affirm  it. 

We  must  rid  ourselves  of  all  such  preconceptions, 
if  we  wish  to  receive  on  our  minds  the  simple  and 
natural  impression  made  by  the  testimony  of  Jesus 
about  Himself 

In  the   parable  of  the  Wicked   Husbandman   He 


THE  SON  OF  COD  lO/ 


describes  the  owner  of  the  vineyard  as  sending  first 
servant  after  servant  to  receive  the  fruits,  but  then, 
after  much  premeditalion,  as  sending  his  own  son,  his 
well-beloved  *  ;  and  by  this  figure,  the  peculiarity  of 
which  consists  not  in  his  office,  but  in  his  relation  to 
the  sender,  Jesus  obviously  intended  Himself  It 
reminds  us  of  His  claim  elsewhere  to  be  above  the 
kings  and  the  prophets—"  A  greater  than  Solomon 
is  here,"  "  A  greater  than  Jonah  is  here."  t 

This  again  recalls  the  well-known  passage  where 
He  demands  of  the  scribes,  whose  son  the  Messiah 
is,  and,  when  they  reply,  "The  son  of  David," 
immediately  demands,  why,  then,  David  calls  Him 
Lord.J  We  shall  have  to  deal  on  a  subsequent 
page  with  the  notion  that  Jesus  raised  this  question 
in  order  to  deny  the  Davidic  origin  of  the  Messiah  ; 
but  what  we  are  here  concerned  with  is  the  subtle 
insinuation  that  the  Messiah  is  the  Son  of  God  in 
such  a  sense  that  He  is  rightly  styled  David's  Lord. 
What  must  this  sense  be  .? 

There  is  a  saying  of  Jesus  about  His  own  sonship 
which  is  frequently  quoted  as  the  final  refutation  of 
the  Church  doctrine  on  the  subject,  because  in  it  He 
confesses  His  ignorance  of  the  date  of  His  second 
coming— "Of  that  day  and  that  hour  knoweth  no 


*  Mark  xii.  6.         t  Matt.  xii.  41-42-  %  Mark  xii.  35-37. 


loS  THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

man,  no,  not  the  angels  which  are  in  heaven,  neither 
the  Son,  but  the  Father."*  This  saying  does  not 
stand  alone  :  it  is  akin  to  many  other  statements  in 
the  Gospels,  made  by  Jesus  or  about  Him,  in  which 
His  true  and  proper  manhood  is  clearly  brought  out ; 
but  perhaps  there  is  no  other  passage  which  has 
done  so  much  to  keep  the  mind  of  the  Church 
sound  on  this  great  doctrine  and  to  restrain  it  from 
extravagance  in  the  statement  of  the  opposite  one. 
It  has  not  by  any  means  been  overlooked.  On  the 
contrary,  in  recent  times  especially  it  has  attracted 
the  attention  of  theologians  ;  and  the  most  interest- 
ing contributions  to  modern  Christology — the  so- 
called  Kenotic  theories — have  been  founded  on  this 
more  than  any  other  text  of  Scripture,  except  the 
saying  of  St.  Paul  that  the  Son  of  God  "  emptied  " 
Himself.f     That  by  these   efforts  the    mystery  has 

■"■  Mark  xiii.  32. 

t  Of  the  teaching  of  Jesus  on  this  subject  we  can  hardly 
speak,  as  He  offered  no  explanation  of  His  ignorance.  Stated 
dogmatically,  the  question  is  this :  How  can  the  omniscience  of 
the  Second  Person  of  the  Trinity  be  reconciled  with  the  ignorance 
of  Jesus  ?  The  answer  of  theology  is,  that  there  took  place  at 
the  incarnation  a  kenosis  (from  iavTov  iKtvaxrev,  Phil.  ii.  7),  by 
which  the  Second  Person  of  the  Trinity  emptied  Himself  of 
certain  of  His  attributes,  till  the  period  of  His  humiliation  was 
completed.  Great  diversity  of  opinion  has,  however,  prevailed 
as  to  the  manner  in  which  this  kenosis  ought  to  be  conceived ; 
and  all  the  Kenotic  theories,  as  they  are  called,  have  been  rejected 
by  some  eminent  theologians.     Full  information  will  be  found  in 


THE  SON  OF  GOD  109 

been  cleared  away  I  do  not  say  ;  but  the  Church  has 
been  anew  convinced  by  them  that  no  theory  of  our 

Bruce's  Humiliation  of  Christ.  The  problem  has  recently 
received  a  remarkable  access  of  interest  in  English  theology  in 
connexion  with  the  burning  question  of  our  Lord's  relation  to  the 
criticism  of  the  Old  Testament.  The  weightiest  utterance  is  that 
of  Gore  in  the  book  entitled  Dissertations,  where  the  second 
dissertation  is  on  "The  Consciousness  of  our  Lord  in  His  Mortal 
Life."  There  is  an  American  book  just  published— Hall :  27ie 
Kenotic  Theory.  See  also  Mason,  The  Conditions  of  our  Lord's 
Life  on  Earth,  and  Adamson,  Studies  of  the  Mind  in  Christ ; 
also  the  books  on  the  Incarnation  by  Ottley,  Powell  and  Gifford. 
During  recent  discussions  a  word  of  Tholuck  has  often  recurred 
to  my  mind  :  "Nun  ist  das  menschliche  Wissen  ein  zwiefaches— 
das  welches,  unter  grosserer  oder  geringerer  aussercr  Anregung, 
rein  innerlich  sich  entwickelt,  denkend  oder  anschauend,  und  das 
welches  nur  menschlich  gelernt  und  dem  Gedachtniss  eingepragt 
werden  kann.  Ist  die  Entwicklung  des  ErlOsers  die  allgemein 
menschliche,  so  kann  dasjenige  Wissen  innerhalb  der  religios- 
sittlichen  Sphare,  insbesondere  das  zur  Auslegung  erforderliche, 
welches  nur  auswendig  zu  lernen  ist,  ihm  nur  bekannt  und 
zuganglich  gewesen  sein  gemass  der  Biidungstufe  seiner  Zeit  und 
den  Bildungsmitten  seiner  Erzichung,  seines  Umgangs.  Es  liessen 
sich  Belege  beibringen,  dass  auch  in  solchen  der  gelehrten  Exegese 
angehorenden  Fragen,  wie  nachdem  historischen  Zusammenhange 
einer  Stelle,  nach  Verfassung  und  Zeitalter  eines  Buches,  ein 
originaler  Geistesblick  auch  ohne  Schulbildung  das  Richtige  zu 
diviniren  vermag,— das  hochste  Maass  dieses  divinatorischen 
Blickes  lasst  sich  dem  Erloser  zuschreiben,  immer  aber  wird 
derselbe  das  eigentliche  wissenschaftliche  Studium  nichtersetzen. 
Nicht  Wissenschaft,  auch  theologische  nicht,  der  Welt  zu 
ofTenbaren,  war  der  ErlOser  erschienen,  sondern  die  religiOs- 
sittliche  Wahrheit  der  Menschheit  auszusprechen  und  der 
Menschheit  darzuleben.— Z?aj  alte  Testament  im  neuen  Testa- 
ment, p.  60, 


THE    CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 


Lord's  person  can  be  correct  which  does  not  recognise 
that  there  is  a  mystery.  In  fact,  there  is  no  saying 
of  Jesus  which  makes  this  more  indubitable  ;  for  He 
evidently  states  it  as  an  astonishing  thing  that  He 
does  not  know.  He  specifies  four  planes  of  being 
and  of  knowledge — that  of  men,  that  of  angels,  that 
of  Himself,  and  that  of  God.  "  Of  that  day  and 
that  hour,"  He  says,  "  knoweth  no  man,  no,  not  the 
angels,  neither  the  Son,  but  the  Father,"  Evidently 
the  Son  is  above  not  only  men  but  angels,  and 
knows  more  than  they. 

The  conclusion  would  seem  to  be  that  He  is  a 
being  intermediate  between  the  angels  and  God. 
But  this  impression  is  corrected  by  the  greatest  of 
all  the  sayings  in  which  He  calls  Himself  the  Son: 
"  Go  ye,  therefore,  and  teach  all  nations,  baptizing 
them  in  the  name  of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son  and 
of  the  Holy  Ghost" — where  the  Son  is  named  with  the 
Father  and  the  Holy  Ghost  in  a  way  that  suggests 
the  equality  of  all  three,  and  an  act  of  worship  is 
directed  to  them  jointly.*'     This  is  the  verse  next 

*  "  It  has  of  course  often  been  made  an  objection  against  the 
originality  of  this  formula,  that  it  is  only  once  mentioned  in  the 
New  Testament,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  phrase  '  to  be 
baptized  in  (or  into)  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus'  occurs  more 
than  once  in  the  Acts  of  tlie  Apostles.  But,  whatever  force  such 
an  objection  may  have  been  supposed  to  have,  has  been  greatly 
weakened  since  the  discovery  of  The  Teaching  of  the  Twelve 


THE  SON  OF  GOD  MI 


the  last  of  the  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew  ;  and  of  course 
to  those  to  whom  the  bodily  resurrection  of  our 
Lord,  with  all  that  follows,  is  mythical,  such  words 
will  carry  no  conviction  ;  but  to  those  who  believe  in 
His  risen  glory,  they  will  appear  perfectly  congruous 
with  the  great  occasion  on  which  they  were  uttered. 

Thus  it  would  appear  that,  while  Jesus  took  this 
title  into  His  mind  either  from  His  religious  environ- 
ment or  from  the  voice  from  heaven,  it  became  to 
Him  mainly  an  expression  for  His  own  relation  to 
God ;  and  this  relationship  was  not  only  unique, 
but  reached  up  beyond  the  competency  of  men  or 
angels,  till  He  named  Himself  in  the  same  breath 
with  the  Father  and  the  Holy  Ghost  as  an  object  of 
worship.  It  has,  I  venture  to  avow,  been  no  effort 
of  mine  to  find  in  the  name  the  meaning  at 
which  we  have  arrived.  Had  the  evidence  led  to  a 
different  conclusion,  I  would  have  accepted  it  without 
hesitation.  But  I  have  been  led  on  step  by  step  by 
the  sheer  force  of  Christ's  own  testimony.      It  remains 

Apostles.  For  that  early  document,  which  is  sometimes  referred 
to  as  if  it  represented  a  Christianity  more  original  than  that  of 
the  New  Testament,  mentions  twice  over  the  formula  of  baptism 
into  the  threefold  name,  and  thus  interprets  the  expression  which 
it  also  uses  in  common  with  St.  Luke,  that  of  being  '  baptized 
into  the  name  of  the  Lord.'"— Gore,  The  Incar7iation  of  the 
Son  of  God,  p.  84. 


THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 


to  enquire  what  other  testimony  on   the  point  His 
words  contain  apart  from  this  particular  name. 

I.  There  is,  in  connexion  with  our  Lord's  miracles, 
a  long  series  of  remarkable  utterances,  in  which  He 
commands  the  paralyzed  to  arise,  the  blind  to  open 
their  eyes,  the  demons  to  depart  out  of  the  pos- 
sessed, the  stormy  sea  to  be  calm,  and  so  on.  Most 
of  them  are  extremely  concise,  as,  "  I  will,  be  thou 
clean,"  "  Peace,  be  still,"  "  Ephphatha,"  and  the  like  ; 
but  in  this  very  brevity  there  is  a  sublime  impressive- 
ness,  like  that  of  the  words  in  the  first  chapter  of 
Genesis  :  "  Let  there  be  light,  and  there  was  light." 
Even  more  impressive  are  the  passages  where  He 
conveys  the  same  powers  to  His  disciples,  as  He 
sends  them  forth  to  preach  and  heal  in  His  name — 
such  as  Matt.  x.  7,  8  :  "  As  ye  go,  preach,  saying, 
The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand  ;  heal  the  sick, 
cleanse  the  lepers,  raise  the  dead,  cast  out  devils  ; 
freely  ye  have  received,  freely  give."  The  fact, 
indeed,  that  such  powers  were  exercised  by  the 
disciples  proves  that  the  working  of  miracles  was 
not  in  itself  evidence  of  anything  superhuman  in  the 
miracle-worker.  Some  of  the  Old  Testament  pro- 
phets worked  miracles  too.  Yet  there  is  a  difference. 
The  scale  on  which  Jesus  acted  entirely  threw  the 
prophets  who  were  before  Him  into  the  shade ;  and 
the   power   of  the  disciples  was  entirely  derivative. 


THE  SON  OF  GOD  113 


In  the  Book  of  Acts  we  have  an  apostolic  miracle 
described  which  must  have  been  typical ;  and,  in 
performing  it,  St.  Peter  says  to  the  subject  on  whom 
it  took  place,  "  ^neas,  Jesus  Christ  maketh  thee 
whole;  arise,  make  thy  bed,"*  Words  could  not 
betray  more  clearly  that  the  power  with  which  the 
apostles  acted  proceeded  from  their  Master.  It 
may  be  said  that  He,  in  like  manner,  was  only  the 
organ  of  the  power  of  God  working  through  Him  ; 
and  this  would  be  true.  Yet  would  it  be  the  whole 
truth  }  His  miracles  frequently  produced  an  over- 
whelming impression  of  the  divine  glory  embodied 
in  His  person.  The  exclamation  of  "  those  in  the 
ship,"  when  He  stilled  the  storm,  has  been  already 
quoted  ;  and  the  terror  of  St.  Peter,  when  he  cried, 
"  Depart  from  me  ;  for  I  am  a  sinful  man,  O  Lord," 
must  have  been  repeated  in  many  a  sensitive  mind 
on  similar  occasions.  Remarking  on  the  state  ot 
mind  which  prompted  St.  Peter's  exclamation,  an 
enlightened  modern  commentator  says  :  "  It  burst 
upon  his  perception  that  the  Lord  God  of  Israel  was 
beside  him  in  that  boat.  The  claims  of  Jesus  sud- 
denly rose  upon  Peter's  conviction  to  those  of  the 
Highest.  He  is  proved  to  be  both  God  and  Lord."t 
And,  although  this  may  go  too  far  in  the  way  of 

*  ix.  34. 

+  Laidlaw :  The  Miracles  of  our  Lord,  in  loco. 

8 


114  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

formulating  the  apostle's  thought,  yet  it  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  the  apostle  received  vague  and 
vast  impressions  which  were  equivalent  to  this 
thought,  and  were  destined  in  the  course  of  time 
to  condense  into  it. 

2.  Another  series  of  sayings  in  which  our  Lord's 
superhuman  self-consciousness  betrays  itself  is  that 
in  which  He  comes  forward  as  the  supreme  and 
final  Revealer  of  truth.  Frequently  such  sayings 
commence  with  the  formula,  "  I  say  unto  you,"  or, 
"Verily  I  say  unto  you."  This  phrase  occurs  more 
than  thirty  times  in  St.  Matthew  alone  ;  and  every- 
one will  recall  instances  in  which  it  falls  on  the  ear 
with  an  extraordinary  weight  of  authority.  He  not 
only  sets  up  His  own  word  in  opposition  to  the 
authority  of  the  scribes  of  His  time  and  the  tradi- 
ditions  of  the  past,  but  even  to  the  authority  of 
Moses.  With  sovereign  freedom  He  declares  one 
law  of  Moses  to  be  only  a  concession  to  the  hardness 
of  heart  of  his  contemporaries  ;  and  by  His  great 
statement,  that  not  that  which  goeth  into  the  man 
defiles  but  that  which  cometh  out  of  him,  He 
sweeps  away  at  one  stroke  whole  pages  of  Mosaic 
legislation.*  It  may  be  said  that  this  was  only  the 
prophetic  function  in  its  most  perfect  development. 

*  Mark  vii.  19.     Obsene  the  R.V.  translation  :  "  This  He  said, 
making  all  meats  clean." 


THE  SON  OF  GOD  liS 

And  this  is  true  ;  but  is  it  all  the  truth  ?  The 
greatest  of  the  prophets  prefaced  their  oracles  with, 
"  Thus  saith  the  Lord,"  but  Jesus  deliberately  sub- 
stitutes for  this  formula  the  simple  claim,  "  I  say 
unto  you."  When  the  most  intricate  moral  and 
religious  questions  are  submitted  to  Him,  He  does 
not  hesitate  a  moment,  because  the  will  of  God  is 
perfectly  familiar  to  Him.  It  is  often  said  that  one 
of  the  peculiarities  of  the  Johannine  Christ  is  that 
He  is  intimate  with  the  secrets  of  the  unseen  world  ; 
but  this  characteristic  is  far  from  being  confined  to 
the  Fourth  Gospel.  In  the  Synoptists,  too,  Jesus 
speaks  like  one  to  whom  the  scenery  of  the  other 
world  is  native  and  familiar.  Thus  He  says,  that  a 
sparrow  does  not  fall  but  God  marks  it ;  and  that 
the  hairs  of  those  whom  He  is  dissuading  from 
carefulness  are  all  numbered.  The  angels  of  children 
do  always  behold  the  face  of  the  heavenly  Father. 
When  surrounded  by  those  sent  to  arrest  Him,  He 
declared  that,  had  He  but  asked  it,  His  heavenly 
Father  would  have  sent  to  His  rescue  twelve  legions 
of  angels.*  He  assured  the  thief  on  the  cross, 
"  To-day  shalt  thou  be  with  me  in  Paradise." 
Many  similar  sayings  might  be  adduced  to  show 
His    acquaintance    with    both    the    near    and    the 

*  Matt.  X.  29,  30;  xviii.  10;  xxvi.  53. 


ii6  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  Op-  /ESUS 

remote   future  ;    but   these  are  reserved  for  a  later 
lecture. 

3.  A  third  remarkable  series  of  sayings  consists 
of  those  in  which  He  lays  His  claims  upon  the  con- 
science, and  states  what  will  be  the  consequences  of 
acknowledging  or  of  rejecting  these.  One  of  the 
great  and  characteristic  words  of  His  ministry  was, 
"  Follow  Me,"  which  He  employed  with  remarkable 
effect  in  instances  known  to  all,  and  which  He  must 
have  employed  in  many  more  that  have  not  been 
recorded.  The  power  of  this  form  of  address 
doubtless  lay  in  the  indescribable  charm  of  His 
personality  and  in  the  attraction  with  which  a  life 
in  His  company  drew  those  who  were  capable  of 
aspiration  ;  but  there  lay  in  it,  also,  an  authority 
of  a  more  sovereign  description  which  He  never 
attempted  to  conceal.  When  one  whom  He  had 
called  asked  to  be  allowed  to  go  first  and  bury  his 
father.  He  said,  "  Let  the  dead  bury  their  dead." 
He  warned  those  who  might  be  disposed  to  follow 
Him  that  they  must  not  only  sacrifice  the  prizes  of 
the  world,  but  even  hate  father  and  mother,  wife 
and  children  ;  and  He  did  not  hesitate  to  forewarn 
His  disciples  that  they  would  be  brought  before 
principalities  and  powers,  would  be  stripped  and 
maltreated,  and  would  even  lose  their  lives.*  The 
*  Matt.  viii.  22 ;  Luke  xiv.  26. 


HIE  SON  OF  GOD  n? 


one  sufficient  compensation,  however,  for  every 
hardship  would  be  that  they  suffered  for  His  sake. 
These  claims  are  not  embodied  in  one  or  two  ex- 
ceptional sayings  :  they  were  the  daily  language  of 
Jesus.  Who  was  He  who  dared  to  make  such 
claims  ?  He  repeated  in  every  form  of  expression, 
that  the  eternal  destiny  of  His  hearers  would  depend 
on  their  attitude  to  Himself.  Even  His  disciples, 
when  they  went  forth  in  His  name,  carried  in  their 
persons  the  fate  of  those  with  whom  they  came  into 
contact,  for  whosoever  received  them  received  Him, 
and  whosoever  received  Him  received  the  Father  who 
had  sent  Him  ;  but  whosoever  rejected  them  brought 
down  the  contrary  doom  upon  his  soul.* 

4.  A  very  remarkable  series  of  sayings,  though 
not  an  extended  one,  is  that  in  which  He  claims 
to  forgive  sins.  The  most  outstanding  case  was 
that  of  the  man  borne  of  four  who  was  let  down 
through  the  roof  to  be  healed.  When  Jesus  pro- 
nounced this  man's  sins  forgiven,  a  charge  of 
blasphemy  was  instantly  raised.  The  opponents 
did  not  believe  that  the  man's  sins  were  forgiven 
or  that  Jesus  could  forgive  them.f  Of  course, 
however,  anyone  can  pretend  to  forgive  sins,  because 
forgiveness  belongs  to  a  region  which  is  beyond  the 


*  Matt.  X.  14,  40- 

t  Luke  V.  21  ;  vii.  49. 


Il8  THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

control  of  human  observation.  The  reply  of  Jesus 
was,  that  He  would  do  something  within  the  sphere 
of  human  observation  which  He  could  not  do  if  He 
was  capable  of  lying  ;  but,  if  His  word  took  effect 
in  the  visible  sphere,  this  would  prove  that  it  had 
taken  effect  in  the  world  invisible.  Thereupon  He 
healed  the  man.  Against  the  supposition  that 
Jesus  in  this  transaction  claimed  anything  super- 
human the  argument  has  been  advanced,  that  He 
subsequently  empowered  the  apostles  to  do  the 
same  thing.  Obviously,  however,  the  forgiveness 
of  sins  by  them  rested  on  His  authority  :  it  was 
purely  declaratory  and  ministerial.  And  it  may  be 
said  that  in  the  same  way  His  forgiveness  was  no 
more  than  the  declaration  that  God  had  forgiven. 
He  did  not  say  so,  however — not  even  when  He  was 
accused  of  blasphemy  and  might,  by  such  an 
explanation,  have  escaped  from  the  charge.  The 
natural  sense  of  His  words  undoubtedly  is,  that  the 
authority  rested  in  His  own  person. 

5.  There  remain  a  few  very  great  sayings  which  I 
need  not  attempt  to  include  under  any  rubric.  They 
are  well  entitled  to  stand  alone  and  to  be  separately 
pondered.     They  need  little  exposition  or  remark. 

In  the  exaltation  of  mind  produced  by  St.  Peter's 
great  confession,  Jesus  said  to  him,  "Thou  art  Peter, 
and  upon  this  rock   I  will  build  My  church  ;    and 


THE  SON  OF  GOD  119 


the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it.  And  I 
will  give  unto  thee  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  :  and  whatsoever  thou  shalt  bind  on  earth 
shall  be  bound  in  heaven  :  and  whatsoever  thou  shalt 
loose  on  earth  shall  be  loosed  in  heaven."  *  It  is 
with  a  kind  of  bewilderment  that  one  thinks  of  the 
claims  implied  here  in  every  line.  No  wonder  that 
those  who  look  upon  Jesus  as  no  more  than  a  man 
try  to  make  out  that  He  never  uttered  the  words. 
But  their  magnificent  assurance  fits  Him  well. 

Is  there  not  the  same  superhuman  greatness  in 
the  appeal,  "O  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,  thou  that 
killest  the  prophets,  and  stonest  them  which  are  sent 
unto  thee,  how  often  would  I  have  gathered  thy 
children  together  as  a  hen  gathereth  her  chickens 
under  her  wings,  and  ye  would  not }  "  f  Is  not  this 
the  same  voice  as  that  which  of  old  claimed  to 
have  borne  Israel  through  the  wilderness  as  an  eagle, 
fluttering  over  her  nest,  carries  her  young  upon  her 
wings  ^ 

Repeatedly  He  promised  to  be  with  His  own  in 
the  future,  when  in  bodily  presence  He  would  be 
far  away.  Thus,  when  they  were  confronted  with 
the  opposition  of  the  great  and  powerful,  "  I  will 
give  you    a    mouth    and    wisdom,    which    all    your 

•  Matt.  xvi.  18,  19. 
t  Matt,  xxiii.  37. 


THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 


adversaries  shall  not  be  able  to  gainsay  nor  resist  "  ; 
and  again,  when,  escaping  from  the  persecution  of 
society,  they  should  meet  for  fellowship  and  prayer, 
"  Where  two  or  three  are  gathered  together  in  My 
name,  there  am  I  in  the  midst  of  them."  * 

The  greatest  saying  of  all  is,  appropriately,  the 
last  :  "  All  power  is  given  unto  Me  in  heaven  and 
in  earth  .  .  .  and,  lo,  I  am  with  you  alway,  even  unto 
the  end  of  the  world."  f  Many  attempts  have  been 
made  to  define  and  confine  these  extraordinary 
words,  but,  like  Samson's  strength,  they  burst  the 
withes  of  definition ;  and  those  only  know  what 
they  mean  who,  in  prayer  with  their  fellow-Christians, 
have  felt  the  personal  nearness  of  Him  whom,  having 
not  seen,  they  love. 

It  is  possible  to  take  such  great  sayings  one  by 
one  and  either  discredit  them  as  unauthentic  or 
deplete  them  of  their  meaning.  The  former  is 
habitually  done,  for  example,  by  Holtzmann,  the 
latter  by  Wendt.  According  to  Holtzmann  such 
words  are  the  rudimentary  beginnings  of  dogma  : 
that  is  to  say,  they  did  not  proceed  from  the  lips  of 
Christ,  but  were  crystallized  from  the  consciousness 
of  the  primitive   Christians. J     But   our   knowledge 

•  Luke  xxi.  15  ;  Matt,  xviii.  20.        +  Matt,  xxviii.  18-20. 
X  N.T.  TJieologie,  I.  352  £F. 


THE  SON  OF  GOD  I2I 

of  primitive  Christianity  dates  very  far  back  ;  the 
earliest  epistles  of  St.  Paul,  as  dated  by  the  latest 
scholarship,  stand  at  but  an  inconsiderable  distance 
from  the  death  of  Christ  ;  and  not  only  is  the 
Christ  of  St.  Paul's  earliest  writings  the  very  same, 
in  all  essentials,  as  the  Christ  of  his  later  writings — 
the  same,  for  example,  as  He  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Philippians,  who,  "  being  in  the  form  of  God  thought 
it  not  robbery  to  be  equal  with  God,"  and  has  "  a 
name  which  is  above  every  name,  that  at  the  name 
of  Jesus  every  knee  should  bow  of  things  in  heaven 
and  things  in  earth  and  things  under  the  earth,  and 
that  every  tongue  should  confess  that  Jesus  Christ  is 
Lord  to  the  glory  of  God  the  Father  " — but  St.  Paul's 
Christ  was  the  Christ  of  primitive  Christianity. 
On  other  subjects  there  was  fierce  controversy  in 
the  primitive  Church,  but  on  this  there  was  none. 
Now,  is  it  credible  that  there  should  have  been  such 
unanimity  about  a  cardinal  belief  like  this,  if  Christ's 
own  words  had  contained  no  hint  of  it,  but  rather 
the  reverse  .-'  Wendt  takes  each  saying  by  itself, 
and  having  laboriously  shown  the  very  least  it  can 
possibly  have  meant,  then  assumes  this  to  have 
been  the  original  meaning.  But  it  is  often  not  the 
natural  meaning ;  and  one  gets  tired  of  this  con- 
tinual shallowing  of  everything  that  Jesus  said. 
The  truth   is,  if  Jesus  meant  no  more  than  Wendt 


THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 


makes  Him  say,  He  was  the  most  paradoxical  and 
hyperbolical  teacher  that  has  ever  appeared,  and  He 
alienated  His  hearers  by  mystifications,  when  a  few 
words  of  common  sense,  such  as  Wendt  now  speaks 
for  Him,  would  have  cleared  away  all  difficulties 
and  conciliated  the  minds  of  men. 

These  divine  sayings  of  our  Lord  do  not  look  like 
fragments  of  a  different  formation,  but  are  congruous 
with  all  His  words,  of  which  they  form  the  natural 
completion.  You  may  attempt  to  take  them  from 
Him  and  assign  them  to  other  minds,  or  you  may 
suppose  that  in  some  way,  without  the  agency  of 
any  actual  minds,  they  were  crystallized  from  the 
atmosphere  of  the  apostolic  age  ;  but  this  is  force- 
work  ;  and,  when  the  hand  of  violence  is  removed, 
they  revert  to  their  Author  and  fill  out  the  linea- 
ments of  the  great  personality  which  rises  upon  us 
in  the  Gospels.  I  do  not  attribute  to  Jesus  dogmatic 
statements  or  make  Him  responsible  for  the  phrase- 
ology of  the  creeds.  His  utterances  were  of  a  totally 
different  character :  they  were  remarks  made  in 
passing,  hints  dropped  of  which  He  may  sometimes 
hardly  have  been  conscious,  impressions  rayed  forth 
from  his  personality  on  the  minds  of  others,  and 
fitted  at  first  to  produce  states  of  feeling  rather  than 
definite  beliefs.  But  what  I  cannot  credit  is,  that 
by  the  time   of  the  earliest    Christian  records  His 


THE  SON  OF  GOD  123 


followers  had  already  distorted  and  mistaken  Him 
altogether,  so  that  the  history  of  Christianity  was 
built  from  the  very  foundation  on  a  misunderstanding 
and  a  misrepresentation,  behind  which  we  must, 
after  two  thousand  years,  get  back,  if  we  are  to 
have  a  real  Christ  and  a  genuine  Christianity. 
"  Back  to  Christ "  is  the  watchword  of  theology  in 
this  generation  ;  and  I  will  repeat  it  with  an  en- 
thusiasm born  of  a  lifelong  study  of  His  words  ; 
but,  when  I  go  back  to  Him,  I  do  not  find  a  Christ 
who  puts  to  shame  the  highest  which  His  Church 
has  taught  about  Him  He  is  different  indeed — 
far  more  simple,  actual  and  human — yet  in  all  that 
is  most  essential  He  is  the  same  Son  of  God  as  for 
nineteen  centuries  has  inspired  the  lives  of  the  saints 
and  evoked  the  worship  of  the  world. 


THE    MESSIAH 


i«S 


Passages    in    which   Jesus    refers    to    Himself    as    the 
Christ  : — 
Matthew  xvi.  20,  22,  42  ;  xxiii.  [8],  10 ;  xxiv.  5,  23,  24 ;  xxvi.  64. 
Mark  ix.  41  ;  xii.  35  ;  xiii.  6,  21  ;  xiv.  61. 
Luke  iv.  18,  19,  21  ;  xx.  41  :  xxi.  8  ;  xxii.  67,  68  ;  xxiv.  26,  46. 

Passages  in  which  others  refer  to  Him  as  the  Christ, 
He  sometimes  assenting  : — 
Matthew  i.  i,  16,  17,  18 ;  ii.  4  ;  xi.  2,  3  ;  xvi.  16  ;  xxvi.  68  ;  xxvii.  17,  22. 
Mark  i.  i  ;  viii.  29  ;  xiv.  61 ;  kv.  32. 
Luke  ii.  11,  26;  iii.  15;  iv.  41  ;  vii.  19  ;  ix.  20;  xxiii.  2,  35,  39. 

Passages  in  which  Jesus  is  called  the  So.x  of  David:— 
Matthew  i.  i,  6,  17,  20  ;  ix.  27  ;  xii.  23  ;  xv.  22  ;  xx.  30,  31  ;  xxi.  9, 15  ; 

xxii.  42,  45. 
Mark  x.  47,  48 ;  xi.    10;  xii.  35,  37. 
Luke  i.  27,  32  ;  iii.  3  ;  xviii.  38,  39  ;  xx.  41,  44. 

Passages    in    which    "the    Kingdom"    is    mentioned,    or 

"the   Kingdom    of    Heaven,"   or    "the    Kingdom    of 

God "  :— 

Matthew  iv.  17,  23  ;  v.  3,  10,  19,  20  ;  vi.  ID,  [13],  33;  vii.  21 ;  viii.  II, 

I2;ix.  35;  X.  7,  II,  12;  xii.  28  ;  xiii.  II,  19,  24,  31,  33,  38,41,43, 

44.  4S»  47.  52;  xvi.  19,  28;   xviii.  3,  4,  23;  xix.    12,  14,  23,  24; 

xx.  I,  21  ;  xxi.  31,  43;  xxii.  2;  xxiii.  13  ;  xxiv.  14  ;  xxv.  I,  14,  34; 

xxvi.  39. 

Mark  i.  [14],  15;  iv.  Ii,  16,  30;  ix.  I,  47  ;  x.  14,  15,23,24,  25  ;  xii.  34  ; 

xiv.  25  ;  XV.  43. 
Luke  i.  32,  33;  iv.  43  ;  vi.  20;  vii.  28  ;  viii.  I,  ID;  ix.  2,  11,  27,  62  ; 
X.  9,   11;  xi.  2,  20;  xiL  31,  32;   xiii.  18,  20,  28,  29;  xiv.   15; 
xvi.  16;  xvii.  20,  21  ;  xviii.   16,   17,  24,  25,  29;  xix.  11,  12,  15; 
xxi.  31 ;  xxii.  16,  18,  29,  30 ;  xxiii.  42. 


136 


IV. 

THE   MESSIAH* 

/'~\F  all  the  names  of  our  Lord,  with  the  exception 
^-^  of  His  birth-name,  "  Jesus,"  the  one  which 
has  stuck  most  firmly  in  the  memory  of  the  world 
is  "  Christ,"  which  is  the  Greek  equivalent  for 
"  Messiah,"  and  in  English  is  correctly  rendered  by 
the  word  "  Anointed."  Indeed,  this  name  may  be 
said  to  dispute  the  foremost  place  with   the  name 

•  Weiss  :  Lehrbuch  der  Biblischen  Theologie  des  A'eiien  Testa- 
ments, cap.  I.  etc. 

Beyschlag  :  Netctestatnentliche  Theologie,  I.  pp.  39  ft. 

HoLTZMANN  :  KctitestdJncntliche  Theologie,  I.  pp.  188  ff. 

Stevens  :  The  Theology  of  the  New  Testament,  Cliapter  III. 

Baldensperger  :  Das  Selbstbeiviisstseiii  Jesu,  cap.  V. 

Grau  :  Das  Selbstbewitsstseiii  Jesu,  cap.  V. 

Wendt  :  Die  Lehre  Jesu,  II. 

Dalman  :  Die  Worte  Jesti,  capp.  I.,  XI. 

Candlish  :  The  Kingdom  of  Goa. 

Bruce  :  The  Kingdo?n  of  God. 

Stanton  :  The  Jewish  a?id  the  Christian  Messiah,  1886. 

IssEL  :  Die  Lehre  vo7n  Reiche  Gottes  im  Neuen  Testament,  1891. 

ScHMOLLER  ;  Die  Lchre  vom  Reiche  Gottes  iti  den  Schriften  des 
Neuen  Testatnents,  1891. 

Johannes  Weiss  :  Die  Predigt  Jesu  vom  Reiche  Gottes,  1892. 

127 


128  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

"  Jesus "  itself.  Why  the  ordinary  man  sometimes 
says  "Jesus"  and  sometimes  "Christ,"  he  could 
hardly  tell ;  though  there  appear  to  be  peculiar  states 
of  religious  feeling  which  incline  towards  the  one 
or  the  other.  Of  course  the  original  name  was 
"  Jesus "  :  this  was  what  His  mother  called  Him, 
and  what  He  was  called  in  the  streets  and  the 
workshop  of  Nazareth  ;  whereas  "  Christ "  was 
originally  a  title.  Some  preachers  seem  to  them- 
selves to  be  imparting  freshness  to  their  sermons 
by  saying  "  the  Christ "  instead  of  simply  "  Christ "  ; 

BoussET :  Jesu  Predigt  in  ihrent   Gegensatz  ziim  Judenthu7n, 

1892. 
Paul  :  Die  Vorstellufigen  voni  Messias  und  voni  Gottesreich  bei 

den  Synopiikcffi,  1895. 
Ehrhardt  ;  Der  Grundcharakter  der  Ethik  Jesu  im  Verhdliniss 

zu  der  messianischen  Hoff7it0igen  seines    Volkes  und  zu 

seinem  eigenen  messianischen  Bewtisstsein,  1895. 
TiTius  :  Die  neutesiamentlichc  Lehre  von  der  Seligkeit.    Erster 

Theil :  Jesu  Lehre  voni  Reiche  Goites,  1895. 
ScHNEDERMANN  :  Die  Israelitische  Voi'stellung  vom  Konigreiche 

Goties  als  Voraussetzung  der  Verkiindigung  und  Lehre  Jesu, 

1896. 
ScHNEDERMANN :    Jesu     Verkiindigung    tmd   Lehre   in    ihrer 

geschichtlichen  Bedeutung.     i.  Hdlfte :  Die  Verkiindigung 

Jesu  vom  Kommen  des  Konigreiches  Gottes,  1 893.     2.  Hdlfte  : 

Die  Lehre  Jesu  von  den  Geheim7iissen  des  Konigreiches 

Go  ties,  1895. 
Krop  :  La  Pensc'e  de  Jesus  sur  la  Royainne  de  Dieu  d'afires  les 

Evangiles  Synoptiques,  1897.      The  author  prefixes  to  his 

work  a  very  full  bibliography  of  the  subject. 


THE  MESSIAH  129 


and  undoubtedly  this  was  the  original  form  ;  but 
already  in  the  New  Testament  "  Christ,"  without  the 
article,  is  a  proper  name.  Very  frequently  the  two 
names  are  combined  in  the  form  "  Jesus  Christ "  or 
"  Christ  Jesus "  ;  and  even  the  Evangelists  St. 
Matthew  and  St.  Mark  announce  that  they  are  going 
to  write  the  memoirs  of  "  Jesus  Christ."  * 

In  the  Old  Testament  "  the  Lord's  anointed  "  is  a 
synonym  for  "  the  king  ; "  and  in  poetical  passages 
the  two  stand   in    parallelism,  as   Psalm  xviii.  50, 

"  Great  deliverance  giveth  He  to  His  king, 
And  sheweth  mercy  to  His  anointed." 

The  king  was  called  "  the  anointed  "  because  at  his 
coronation  the  sacred  oil  was  poured  upon  his 
head,  by  which  he  was  consecrated  to  his  office. 
This  oil  was  a  symbol  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  from 
whom  the  young  monarch  was  supposed  to  receive 
the  wisdom,  dignity  and  other  gifts  necessary  for 
the  discharge  of  his  functions ;  as  is  beautifully 
brought  out  in  Isaiah  xi.  1-4:  "And  there 
shall  come  forth  a  Rod  out  of  the  stem  of 
Jesse,  and  a  Branch  shall  grow  out  of  his  roots. 
And  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  shall  rest  upon  Him,  the 

*  On  the  N.  T.  use  there  are  interesting  statistics  in  Nosgen's 
Der  Menschen- und  Gottessohn,  pp.  118  ff.  The  combinations 
"  Jesus  Christ "  and  "  Christ  Jesus "  are  formed  exactly  as 
"  Emin  Pasha  "  and  "  Queen  Victoria." 

9 


130  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

Spirit  of  wisdom  and  understanding,  the  Spirit  of 
counsel  and  might,  the  Spirit  of  knowlege  and  the 
fear  of  the  Lord ;  and  shall  make  Him  of  quick 
understanding  in  the  fear  of  the  Lord  ;  and  He  shall 
not  judge  after  the  sight  of  His  eyes,  neither  reprove 
after  the  hearing  of  His  ears  ;  but  with  righteousness 
shall  He  judge  the  poor  and  reprove  with  equity 
for  the  meek  of  the  earth  ;  and  He  shall  smite  the 
earth  with  the  rod  of  His  mouth,  and  with  the  breath 
of  His  lips  will  He  slay  the  wicked  ;  and  righteous- 
ness shall  be  the  girdle  of  His  loins  and  faithfulness 
the  girdle  of  His  reins."  This  perfect  description 
of  a  king  may  well  be  quoted  in  full,  because, 
although  it  does  not  contain  the  name  "  Messiah," 
it  had  a  great  deal  to  do  with  shaping  the  meaning 
ultimately  attached  to  the  term  ;  which  was  that  of 
an  ideal  king,  who  should  embody  in  himself  all  the 
attributes  and  achievements  proper  to  the  kingly 
office  and  thereby  conduct  the  nation  to  the  full 
realisation  of  its  destiny. 

For  this  ideal  personage  the  title  "  Messiah  "  is 
already  used  in  the  second  Psalm,  though  not  else- 
where in  the  Old  Testament ;  in  the  postcanonical 
writings  of  the  Jews  there  occur  more  frequent 
instances    of   its    use    in   this   sense  ;  *  and  in    our 

*  Cf.  Dalman,  Die  Worte  Jesu,  p.  239 ;  Schiirer,  The  History 
of  the  Jewish  People  in  the  time  of  our  Lord,  II.  ii.  158. 


THE  MESSIAH  131 


Lord's  time  "  the  Messiah  "  was  the  regular  term  for 
the  expected  deliverer,  as  is  manifest  from  the  pages 
of  the  Gospels.  In  the  palmy  days  of  the  ministry 
of  John  the  Baptist  "  all  men,"  St.  Luke  informs  us, 
"  mused  in  their  hearts  of  John,  whether  he  were  the 
Christ,  or  not,"  *  The  same  Evangelist  tells  us,  a 
little  later,  that  "  devils  came  out  of  many,  crying 
out,  and  saying.  Thou  art  Christ ;  and  He,  rebuking 
them,  suffered  them  not  to  speak  ;  for  they  knew 
that  He  was  Christ."  f  That  our  Lord  should  have 
disliked  testimony  coming  from  such  a  quarter,  and 
have  tried  to  check  it,  need  occasion  no  surprise  ;  for, 
even  when  the  same  testimony  came  from  unexcep- 
tionable quarters,  He  was  slow  to  accept  it.  Yet 
this  does  not  prove,  as  some  extreme  critics  ot 
the  Gospel  history  have  contended,  that  He  never 
claimed  to  be  the  Messiah  of  the  Jews  at  all.  The 
evidence  to  the  contrary  is  as  strong  as  it  can  be. 
First  there  is  His  declaration  in  the  synagogue  of 
Nazareth  : 

''  The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is  upon  Me, 
Because  He  hath  anointed  Me  to  preach  good  tidings  to  the 

poor  ; 
He  hath  sent  Me  to  proclaim  release  to  the  captives. 
And  recovering  of  sight  to  the  blind, 
To  set  at  liberty  them  that  are  bruised, 
To  proclaim  the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord."  \ 

*  iii.  15.  t  iv.  41.  t  Luke  iv.  18,  19,  R.V. 


132  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

Because  these  words  in  their  original  setting  describe 
the  inspiration  of  a  prophet,  it  may  be  argued  that 
they  express  no  more  than  prophetic  consciousness  ; 
but  they  are  elastic  terms,  capable  of  embodying 
much  more  than  Isaiah  put  into  them,  and  capable, 
in  fact,  of  embodying  more  than  even  Jesus  put  into 
them  at  Nazareth  ;  because  they  contain  the  entire 
programme  of  the  ripest  Christianity.  And,  if  they 
be  compared  with  the  expectations  of  the  time,  as 
we  find  them  in  the  hymns,  in  the  first  chapters  of 
St.  Luke,  emitted  by  those  who  were  waiting  for  the 
kingdom  of  God,  and  if  the  exalted  and  solemn  tone 
be  considered  in  which  Jesus  uttered  them,  it  can 
scarcely  be  doubtful  that  they  are  an  expression  of 
messianic  consciousness.  Still  less  questionable  is 
the  reply  of  Jesus  to  the  deputation  from  the  Baptist, 
whose  inquiry  was,  "  Art  Thou  He  that  should  come, 
or  do  we  look  for  another  ?  "  Can  there  be  any 
reasonable  question  either  which  personage  was 
intended  by  the  Baptist  or  what  was  the  force  of  our 
Lord's  reply  ?  And  with  this  we  may  join  the  fact, 
that  more  than  once  Jesus  designated  the  Baptist  as 
EHas  * — the  figure  in  the  popular  creed  who  was  to 
be  the  forerunner  of  the  Christ.  Next  there  is  the 
great  crisis  at  Caesarea  Philippi,  when  He  drew  from 

*  Matt.  xi.  14;  xvii.  12. 


THE  MESSIAH  133 


the  Twelve  the  acknowledgment  that  He  was  the 
Christ,  and  manifestly  rejoiced  in  their  testimony. 
Finally,  on  His  trial,  "  the  high  priest  asked  Him  and 
said  unto  Him,  Art  Thou  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the 
Blessed  ?  and  Jesus  said,  I  am."  *  And  a  little  later 
Jesus  "  stood  before  the  governor,  and  the  governor 
asked  Him,  saying.  Art  Thou  the  King  of  the  Jews  .? 
And  Jesus  said  unto  Him,  Thou  sayest."  f  Around 
the  head  of  Jesus,  when  He  was  hanging  on  the 
cross,  these  names,  all  meaning  the  same  thing — 
"  the  Christ,"  "  the  King  of  Israel,"  "  the  King  of  the 
Jews " — flew,  being  shot  like  angry  missiles  from 
the  mouths  of  His  enemies,  till  He  breathed  His 
last ;  and  the  inscription  above  His  head  ran  thus, 
"  This  is  Jesus,  the  King  of  the  Jews."  J 

Another  name  applied  still  more  frequently  by 
others  to  Jesus — "  the  Son  of  David  " — means  pre- 
cisely the  same  as  "  the  Messiah."  It  was  the 
unanimous  testimony  of  Old  Testament  prophecy 
that  the  messianic  king  was  to  be  of  David's  line. 
So  far  does  this  feature  enter  into  the  conception 
that  He  is  even  called  "  David  "  pure  and  simple  ; 

*  Mark  xiv.  61,  62. 

t  Matt,  xxvii.  li.  On  the  reply  Sv  eiTras  see  Dalman,  Die 
Worte  Jesu,  pp.  253  ff.,  who  repUes  to  tlie  doubt  which  has  been 
started  as  to  whether  this  was  an  affirmative  answer. 

X  Mark  xv.  32 ;  Matt,  xxvii.  42,  37. 


134  THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

not  as  if  it  were  supposed  that  the  son  of  Jesse  was 
to  rise  from  the  dead  and  ascend  the  throne  of  the 
country  again,  but  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  the 
new  king,  being  of  David's  seed,  was  to  reproduce 
the  spirit  and  glory  of  the  original. 

Only  once  did  Jesus  of  His  own  accord  allude  to 
this  circumstance,  when,  on  the  great  day  of  con- 
troversy at  the  close  of  His  life,  after  replying  to  all 
the  entangling  questions  of  His  enemies  and  reducing 
Pharisees  and  Sadducees  to  confusion,  He  propounded 
to  them  the  problem,  how  it  could  be  that  in  the 
hundred-and-tenth  Psalm  David  called  the  Christ 
"  Lord  "  who  was  at  the  same  time  his  son.  The 
school  of  interpreters  who  happen  at  the  present 
moment  to  be  most  conspicuous  in  Germany  make 
this  out  to  be  an  announcement  by  Jesus  that  He  did 
not  claim  Davidic  descent  or  attach  any  importance 
to  it.  But,  if  Jesus  had  declared  Himself  not  to  be 
of  David's  line,  He  would  have  run  counter  not  only 
to  the  tradition  of  the  Jewish  parties,  but  to  the 
testimony  of  the  prophets,  as  well  as  to  the  con- 
victions held  both  then  and  subsequently  by  the 
most  intimate  of  His  own  friends  ;  for  His  descent 
from  David  is  much  insisted  on  by  the  writers  of  the 
New  Testament.*     Why,  if  this  was  the  intention 

*  Rom.  i.  3  ;  2  Tim.  ii.  8 ;  Rev.  v.  5 ;  xxii.  16. 


THE  MESSIAH  135 


of  Jesus,  should  He  have  raised  the  question  at 
all  ?  It  could  only  be  because  His  descent  from 
David  was  called  in  question  by  His  enemies  ;  but 
of  this  there  is  not  a  hint  in  the  evangelic  records  ; 
and  yet  nothing  can  be  more  certain  than  that  it 
would  have  been  a  prominent  and  often  repeated 
charge,  if  it  had  ever  been  made  at  all.  The  truth 
is,  the  question  propounded  by  Jesus  had  a  totally 
different  drift :  it  was  one  of  the  most  significant 
indications  ever  thrown  out  by  Him  of  His  conscious- 
ness of  divine  sonship  in  a  unique  sense  ;  and  the 
only  effect  of  twisting  the  point  of  His  question  in 
another  direction  is  to  obscure  the  glory  of  this 
sublime  claim. 

We  may  look  upon  it,  then,  as  proved  that  Jesus 
claimed  to  be  the  Messiah,  the  Son  of  David  ;  and 
this  turns  our  attention,  which  has  hitherto  been 
fixed  on  the  Person,  to  the  Work  of  the  Saviour ; 
because  His  messiahship  denotes  the  function  which 
He  came  to  fulfil.  Not  that  these  two  topics  lie 
far  apart ;  for  the  loftiness  of  the  person  points  to  a 
correspondingly  important  work,  and,  the  grander 
the  work,  the  greater  must  the  person  be  who 
undertakes  it.  But  we  have  now  before  us  the 
inquiry.  What,  according  to  His  own  teaching,  was 
the  object  of  our  Lord's  earthly  mission  .'* 


136  TtiE  CHRtSTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

The  immediate  answer  to  this  question  is,  The 
Kingdom  of  God.*  If  Jesus  was  the  Messiah,  the 
kingdom  of  God  was  the  realm  in  which  He  was  to 
rule  t  ;  and  He  habitually  made  use  of  the  phrase 
for  the  purpose  of  describing  succinctly  all  the 
blessings  which  He  had  come  to  bestow. 

The  ordinary  reader  of  the  Gospels  hardly  realises 
how  prominent  in  them  is  the  idea  of  the  kingdom 
of  God.  A  little  attention,  however,  reveals  the 
fact  that  it  is  omnipresent :  it  is  the  name  for  the 
contents  of  the  Gospel — the  name  habitually  given 
by  Jesus  to  His  own  message.  If  the  average  man 
were  asked  what  Jesus  spoke  and  preached  about, 
he  would  answer  without  hesitation,  "  The  Gospel "  ; 
and  in  this  he  would  not  be  wrong  ;  for  Jesus  did 
characterize  His  message  as  the  Gospel,  or  Evangel, 
or  Glad  Tidings.  But,  if  he  were  further  asked 
what  the  Gospel  which  Jesus  taught  was  about,  he 
would   answer  with    equal    confidence    that    it   was 

*  "  The  idea  of  the  /SacriXe/a  is  found  in  Matthew  53  times,  in 
Mark  16,  in  Luke  39,  in  John  5,  in  Acts  8,  in  the  Epistles  18,  in 
Revelation  7.  It  is  absent  from  Philippians,  i  Timothy,  Titus, 
Philemon,  i  Peter,  1-3  John  and  Jude." — Issel :  Das  Reich 
Gottes,  p.  27. 

t  There  has  been  a  good  deal  of  discussion  as  to  whether 
^aaiKeia  in  the  mouth  of  Jesus  means  the  domain  in  which  the 
Messiah  was  to  rule  or  the  sovereignty  which  he  was  to  exercise 
within  this  domain.  It  has  both  meanings,  sometimes  the  one 
and  sometimes  the  other  idea  being  prominent. 


THE  MESSIAH  I37 


about  Salvation  ;  and  in  this  he  would  not  be  so 
right  ;  because,  although  "  the  Gospel  of  Salvation  " 
is  a  phrase  found  in  the  writings  of  St.  Paul,  it  never 
occurs  in  the  records  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus.  What 
we  find  in  place  of  it  is  "  the  Gospel  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God."  Sometimes  it  is  merely  said  that  He 
preached  "  the  Kingdom  "  ;  or  to  this  name  may  be 
added  the  qualifying  phrase,  "of  God,"  or  "of 
heaven."  We  find  all  these  phrases :  that  Jesus 
preached  "  the  Kingdom,"  "  the  Kingdom  of  God," 
"  the  Kingdom  of  heaven,"  "  the  Gospel  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God,"  and  "  the  Gospel  of  the  Kingdom 
of  heaven."*  In  St.  Mark  i.  14  the  commencement 
of  His  ministry  is  described  in  these  terms  :  "  Now, 
after  that  John  was  put  in  prison,  Jesus  came  into 
Galilee  preaching  the  gospel  of  the  kingdom  of 
God."  Referring  to  a  period  a  little  later,  St. 
Matthew  thus  describes  His  activity  :  "  Jesus  went 
about  all  Galilee,  teaching  in  their  synagogues  and 
preaching  the  gospel  of  the  kingdom."t  Later  still 
St.  Luke  says,  "  It  came  to  pass  afterward,  that  He 
went  through  every  city  and  village,  preaching  and 
shewing  the  glad  tidings  of  the  kingdom  of  God."jI 

*  Matt.  iv.  23 ;  ix,  35  ;  Luke  iv.  23  ;   Matt,  x,  7  ;  iv,  23  ;  Mark 
i.  15. 
t  iv.  23. 
t  viii.  I. 


THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 


When  the  Twelve  are  sent  forth,  their  mission  is 
described  in  these  words  :  "  He  sent  them  to  preach 
the  kingdom  of  God."  *  The  parables  of  Jesus, 
which  form  so  large  a  portion  of  His  teaching,  are 
collectively  denominated  "  the  mysteries  of  the  king- 
dom ot  heaven  "  ;  f  and,  it  will  be  remembered,  how 
many  of  them  begin  with  the  phrase,  "  The  kingdom 
of  heaven  is  like." 

Thus  it  is  evident  that  "  the  kingdom  of  God " 
formed  the  watchword  of  Jesus.  J  But,  although  it 
occupied  so  prominent  a  place  in  His  teaching,  it 
was  not  a  phrase  of  His  own  invention.  John  the 
Baptist,  before  Him,  summed  up  his  message  in  the 
same  phrase.  In  the  First  Gospel  he  is  thus  intro- 
duced :  "  In  those  days  came  John  the  Baptist, 
preaching   in    the  wilderness  of  Judaea,  and  saying, 

*  Matt.  ix.  2. 

+  Matt.  xiii.  ll. 

X  In  St.  Matthew  in  the  majority  of  passages  where  it  occurs 
it  is  called  "  the  kingdom  of  heav^en  "  ;  but  this  is  only  a  variation 
of  phraseology  without  alteration  of  sense,  for  '*  Heaven  "  appears 
to  have  been  in  the  time  of  Jesus  a  not  unusual  synonym  for 
"  God."  It  is  thus  used  by  Jesus  in  the  parable  of  the  Prodigal 
Son — "I  have  sinned  against  Heaven  and  before  thee,"  says  the 
returning  prodigal — and  we  use  it  to  this  day  in  the  same  sense 
in  such  phrases  as  "  Heaven  help  them."  Of  course  the  phrase 
may  also  mean  the  kingdom  which  comes  from  heaven,  or  which 
is  like  heaven,  or  which  will  be  consummated  in  heaven.  It 
cannot  always  be  determined  with  certainty  which  of  these  shades 
of  meaning  the  word  expresses. 


(I 


THE  MESSIAH  139 


Repent  ye  ;  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand."* 
Indeed,  the  phrase  is  far  older.  In  the  Book  of 
Daniel,  the  influence  of  which  is  known  to  have  been 
great  in  the  generations  immediately  before  the 
Advent,  the  young  prophet  explains  to  the  monarch 
the  image  of  gold,  silver,  iron  and  clay  which,  in  his 
dream  he  has  seen  shattered  by  "  a  stone  cut  out  of 
the  mountain,"  as  a  succession  of  world-kingdoms 
to  be  destroyed  by  "  a  kingdom  of  God,"  which  will 
last  forever  ;  and  in  his  other  famous  vision  of  the 
Son  of  man,  referred  to  on  a  previous  page,  it  is 
said,  '•  There  was  given  Him  dominion,  glory  and  a 
kingdom  ;  and  all  people,  nations  and  languages 
shall  serve  Him  ;  His  dominion  is  an  everlasting 
dominion  which  shall  not  pass  away,  and  His  kingdom 
that  which  shall  not  be  destroyed."! 

This  is  the  proximate  Biblical  source  of  the  phrase; 
but  the  idea  it  represents  mounts  far  higher  in 
history.  It  will  be  remembered  that  at  the  very 
origin  of  the  monarchy  in  Israel  the  proposal  to 
appoint  a  king  was  condemned  on  the  ground  that 
Jehovah  was  King,  and  the  appointment  of  Saul  was 
only  acquiesced  in  as  a  compromise,  on  account  of  the 
difficulty  of  getting  the  ideal  to  work.  In  David 
ideal  and   reality   became   approximately  identical  : 

*  Matt.  iii.  2. 

t  Dan.  ii.  44 ;  vii.  14. 


I40  THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

God  was  King,  and  David  was  His  vicegerent, 
governing  in  accordance  with  His  will  and  purposes, 
and,  therefore,  able  to  make  the  kingdom  great  and 
prosperous  in  Jehovah's  name.  In  Solomon  the 
approximation  was  still  tolerable ;  but  in  the  long 
succession  of  kings  that  followed  there  were  few 
who  did  not  cause  the  better  spirits  of  the  nation 
to  sigh  for  the  kingdom  of  God  as  something  still 
unrealised.  Never,  however,  did  the  conviction  die 
out  that  Jehovah  was  the  real  King,  and  that  the 
only  right  and  stable  kingdom  would  be  that  in  and 
through  which  His  will  was  done  on  earth  as  it  is 
done  in  heaven.  When  at  last  even  the  form  of 
earthly  sovereignty  was  swept  away,  on  account  of 
its  deflection  from  the  ideal  having  become  in- 
tolerable, the  old  faith,  so  far  from  perishing, 
flourished  more  and  more  vigorously  ;  and  the  one 
hope  of  the  dark  days  of  exile  and  oppression  was 
that  God  would  yet  restore  the  kingdom  to  Israel.* 
That  He  would  do  so,  the  pious  never  doubted  ;  for 
to  doubt  this  would  have  been  to  doubt  His  existence, 

*  When  Israel  lay  beneath  the  shadow  of  the  great  world- 
powers,  the  pious  recognised  in  these  the  diabolical  counterfeit 
of  what  the  kingdom  of  God  was  to  be.  In  the  relation  of  subor- 
dinate rulers,  like  their  own,  to  the  Roman  central  authority,  for 
example,  they  saw  a  dim  image  of  wliat  the  relation  of  the  heathen 
princes  and  peoples  would  be  to  the  Messiah,  when  he  should 
appear. 


I 


THE  MESSIAH  141 


or  at  all  events  His  character  and  His  promises. 
All  the  prophets  predicted  that  He  would  soon  take 
to  Himself  His  great  power  and  reign  ;  and  they 
vied  with  one  another  in  painting  the  picture  of  the 
blessings  which  would  ensue  under  His  government. 
To  us,  with  our  modern  habits  of  thought,  it  is 
astonishing  that  religious  hope  should  have  been  so 
closely  associated  with  political  change.  But  the 
sense  of  the  value  of  a  well-ordered  state  to  secure 
the  safety  and  happiness  of  human  life  was  universal 
in  the  ancient  world  ;  and  there  were  times  when 
this  was  felt  to  be  the  one  thing  needful.  Even 
"  salvation  " — a  word  which  we  associate  with  the 
most  interior  experiences  of  the  individual — was 
a  term  the  significance  of  which  was  social  and 
national,  and  the  realisation  of  which  was  to  take 
place  through  political  means.  Only  get  your  state 
right,  it  was  thought — with  perfect  laws  and  a  perfect 
administration — and  everything  will  be  right :  even 
sin  will  disappear ;  for  all  injustice  will  be  smitten 
to  the  ground,  and  righteousness  will  flourish  under 
the  protection  of  authority.  The  grand  difficulty 
was  to  find  an  earthly  king — or  a  succession  of 
kings — pious,  able  and  stedfast  enough  to  be  the 
organ  through  which  the  divine  wisdom  and  power 
might  act.  At  this  point  failure  had  constantly 
taken  place ;  and  it  was  always  becoming  more  and 


142  THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

more  evident  that  the  only  vicegerent  of  God  who 
could  ensure  the  perfect  and  enduring  prosperity  for 
which  pious  and  patriotic  hearts  sighed  must  be 
One  who,  while  earthly,  shared  in  the  perfection  and 
everlastingness  of  the  supreme  Ruler.  If  they  never 
actually  put  this  conclusion  into  words,  it  lay  in  the 
line  of  their  hopes  to  do  so. 

These  messianic  hopes  continued  after  the  date 
of  the  latest  Old  Testament  writings  and  on  to 
the  time  of  Jesus.  The  rumour  of  them  spread 
so  far  that  its  echoes  are  heard  even  in  the  Roman 
historians,  Tacitus  and  Suetonius  ;  *  and  the  post- 
canonical  writings  of  the  Jews  themselves  abound 
with  descriptions,  ranging  from  the  driest  prose  up 
through  all  degrees  to  the  most  highly-coloured 
poetry,  of  the  blessings  to  be  anticipated  when 
the  kingdom  of  God  begins. "I"  Schiirer,  the  latest 
historian  of  this  period,  putting  these  passages 
together,  has  constructed  a  kind  of  messianic  creed, 
which  he  attributes  to  the  contemporaries  of  Jesus. 
Its  articles  are  eleven  in  number,  and  the  following 
order  indicates  also  the  chronological  sequence  in 
which  the  different  phases  of  the  messianic  epoch 

*  Quoted  by  Schurer,  II.  ii.  149. 

t  See  the  valuable  texts  from  postcanonical  Jewish  literature 
printed  as  an  appendix  to  Dalman's  Die  Worte  Jesu,  and  also 
published  separately. 


THE  MESSIAH 


143 


were  expected  to  develop  themselves  : — (i)  The  last 
tribulation  and  perplexity  (the  night  of  humiliation 
and  oppression  being  darkest  just  before  the  dawning) ; 
(2)  Elijah  as  the  forerunner  ;  (3)  The  advent  of  the 
Messiah  ;  (4)  The  final  attack  of  the  hostile  powers  ; 
(5)  The  destruction  of  the  hostile  powers  ;  (6)  The 
renovation  of  Jerusalem  ;  (7)  The  gathering  together 
of  the  dispersed ;  (8)  The  kingdom  of  glory  in 
Palestine  ;  (9)  The  renovation  of  the  world  ;  (10) 
The  general  resurrection  ;  (11)  The  last  judgment: 
eternal  condemnation  and  salvation.* 

It  remains  doubtful,  however,  how  far  this  creed 
extended,  or,  at  least,  to  how  many  it  was  a  living 
creed.  Many  Jews  were,  no  doubt,  too  immersed 
in  the  world  and  too  well  pleased  with  their  actual 
condition  to  care  for  such  dreams.  This  was  the 
attitude  of  the  Sadducees.  Others,  imbibing  these 
hopes  in  a  narrow,  nationalist  spirit,  indulged  in 
fantastic  imaginings  as  to  the  miraculous  agencies 
through  which  Jehovah  would  destroy  His  enemies 
and  bestow  felicity  on  His  favourites.  Such 
were  the  Pharisees,  and  especially  the  Zealots. 
But  the  true  repositories  of  the  messianic  hopes 
v/ere  those  who,  regarding  them  from  the  spiritual 
and     moral     side,    cultivated     them    with    religious 


*  Schurer,  II.  ii.  126  ff. 


H4  THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

enthusiasm.*  Of  Joseph  of  Arimathea  it  is  said 
that  "  he  waited  for  the  kingdom  of  God  "  ;  and 
the  same  was,  in  all  likelihood,  true  of  Nicodemus 
and  of  other  persons  of  rank  and  influence.  The 
majority,  however,  of  those  to  whom  waiting  for 
the  kingdom  of  God  was  a  portion  of  living  piety, 
belonged    to  the  humbler   ranks  of   society.*      To 

*  These  were  "  die  Stillen  im  Lande  " — a  beautiful  name  for 
the  cultivators  of  a  piety  of  this  type.  Another  name  is  ol 
7rpo(r8ex°Mf  0*'  Schnedermann  frequently  directs  attention  to 
the  importance  of  this  class  in  his  work  on  the  Kingdom  of 
God.  He  devotes  three  volumes  (see  page  128,  supra)  to  the 
repetition,  ot  the  single  proposition  that  the  Kingdom  ot  God 
of  Jesus  was  fundamentally  identical  with  the  same  idea  as 
cherished  by  God's  ancient  people.  His  volumes  form  amusing 
reading  to  a  foreigner,  because  he  considers  himself  not  only 
the  owner  but  even  the  martyr  of  this  proposition,  and  warns 
off  all  other  writers  from  participation  in  his  property.  He 
appears,  however,  to  excite  strong  feeling  in  the  scholars  of  his 
own  country,  who  resent  his  claims  to  originality.  His  vwiting 
is  diffuse  and  paradoxical,  yet  he  makes  a  number  of  good 
points.  Such,  for  example,  is  his  distinction  between  the 
"  Israelite  "  and  "  Jewish  "  elements  in  the  intellectual  atmosphere 
in  which  Jesus  grew  up  :  though  Judaism  reigned  in  the  schools 
of  the  scribes  and  held  the  field  to  outward  appearance,  yet  an 
"  Israelite  "  strain  of  piety  and  conviction  prevailed  in  a  certain 
section  of  religious  society.  Those  who  walked  in  the  green 
pastures  and  beside  the  still  waters  of  this  faith  of  the  heart 
were  in  touch  with  the  Prophets  and  understood  all  that  is 
deepest  in  the  Old  Testament.  That  this  is  true  and  valuable 
I  have  no  doubt.  Another  of  his  striking  sayings  is  that  "  the 
kingdom  of  God  "  is  of  fundamental  but  not  of  central  importance 
in  the  teaching  of  Jesus 


THE  MESS/AH  1 45 


their  delightful  circle  we  are  introduced  in  the 
opening  pages  of  the  Gospel,  which  tell  of  Simeon 
and  Anna,  the  Shepherds  of  Bethlehem,  and  other 
kindred  spirits.  In  this  circle  were  born  both  John 
the  Baptist  and  Jesus ;  and  it  is  in  the  songs 
which,  at  the  time  of  their  birth,  burst  from  the 
inspired  lips  of  Mary  and  Elizabeth,  Zechariah  and 
Simeon,  that  we  discover  the  truest  image  of  what 
the  messianic  hope  actually  was.  It  is  infinitely 
deeper  than  the  creed  compiled  by  Schiirer.  It  is 
redolent  not  of  the  schools  of  the  scribes,  but  of 
the  inspiration  of  the  prophets.  Above  all,  it  is 
instinct  with  the  humility  of  broken  hearts  and  of 
souls  passionately  longing  for  salvation.  It  reflects 
precisely  the  state  of  mind  to  which  our  Lord 
subsequently  addressed  Himself  when  He  said, 
"  Come  unto  Me,  all  ye  that  labour  and  are  heavy 
laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest." 

This  circle  of  receptive  and  prepared  souls  may 
have  been  wider  than  is  generally  supposed  ;  for 
piety  of  this  type,  though  exercising  great  influence, 
makes  little  noise  and  receives  little  notice  from 
contemporary  chroniclers.  At  all  events,  it  would 
be  the  whole  world  to  Jesus  in  the  years  during 
which  His  mind  was  forming.  He  may  even,  on 
this  account,  have  taken  long  to  realise  how  widely 
the  spliit  and  views  of  the  Jewish  world  at  large 

10 


146  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

differed  from  His  own  ;  and  this  may  partly  account 
for  what  is  a  difficulty  of  no  inconsiderable  magni- 
tude— that  He  should  have  given  such  prominence 
in  His  preaching  to  a  term  understood  so  differently 
by  Himself  and  His  hearers. 

His  use  of  it  has  sometimes  been  spoken  of 
as  an  accommodation  to  the  usages  and  the 
capacities  of  His  contemporaries  ;  but  it  was  the 
very  form  in  which  He  thought  His  own  thoughts. 
It  was,  indeed,  a  borrowed  garment,  and  it  may 
from  the  first  have  been  too  scanty  for  Him  ;  or 
perhaps  His  mind  eventually  outgrew  it ;  yet  it 
was  native  to  Him,  and  He  moved  in  it  without 
the  sense  of  incongruity.  It  was,  besides,  a  noble 
form.  As  the  prophets  had  conceived  it,  and  as 
it  had  shaped  itself  in  the  pious  minds  in  whose 
midst  He  grew  up,  it  was  an  ideal  in  which  a  young 
soul  could  revel  and  rejoice. 

It  was,  therefore,  with  a  great  rush  of  emotion 
that  He  first  announced  the  coming  of  the  kingdom. 
His  message  was  emphatically  the  "  Gospel "  of  the 
kingdom  of  God.  He  commenced,  like  John,  with 
announcing  simply  that  the  kingdom  was  at  hand  ;  * 
and  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  there  existed 
in  the  public  mind  a  sufficient  amount  of  messianic 

*  Mark  i.  14. 


J 


THE  MESSIAH  147 


sentiment  to  make  this  announcement  attract  atten- 
tion and  excite  enthusiasm.  At  first  everyone 
would  interpret  it  according  to  his  own  ideas  of 
the  expected  kingdom  ;  and  so  the  rumour  of  the 
preaching  of  John  and  Jesus  rang  through  the  land, 
and  all  men  were  in  expectation  as  to  the  shape 
in  which  the  promised  kingdom  would  appear. 

As  soon,  however,  as  Jesus  began  to  explain 
Himself,  it  became  manifest  that  the  majority  of 
His  countrymen  and  He  were  expecting  the  fulfil- 
ment of  the  promise  in  totally  different  forms. 
Both  employed  the  same  phrase — "  the  kingdom 
of  God  " — but  His  countrymen  laid  the  emphasis 
on  the  first  half  of  it — "  the  kingdom  " — while  He 
laid  it  on  the  second — "  of  God."  They  were 
thinking  of  the  external  benefits  and  glories  of  a 
kingdom,  such  as  political  emancipation,  a  throne, 
a  court,  a  capital  and  tributary  provinces,  while 
He  was  thinking  of  the  character  of  the  subjects  of 
the  anticipated  realm  and  of  the  doing  in  it  of  the 
will  of  God  as  it  is  done  in  heaven. 

Jesus  had,  indeed,  Himself  felt  at  one  time  the 
glamour  of  their  point  of  view  ;  for  this  was  the 
meaning  of  the  Temptation.  The  account  of  this 
experience  preserved  in  the  Gospels  may  be  an 
imaginative  rendering  of  the  actual  facts ;  and  it 
is    highly    instructive    as    embodying    a    variety    of 


148  THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

reflections  on  temptation  in  general,  as  all  men  have 
to  encounter  it  ;  but  it  is  also  the  record  of  a  crisis 
in  the  life  of  Jesus  at  a  particular  point,  and  it 
exhibits  Him  in  conflict  with  the  messianic  pre- 
conceptions of  His  countrymen.  This  is  clearest 
in  the  temptation  in  which  He  was  offered  the 
kingdoms  of  the  world  on  condition  of  compromising 
with  evil  ;  for  manifestly  this  was  a  temptation  to 
begin  at  the  outside  instead  of  the  inside — to  begin 
with  the  nation  instead  of  the  individual — to  get 
the  shell  of  mere  appearance  first  and  to  fill  it  with 
reality  afterwards.  The  temptation  to  turn  stones 
into  bread  is  generally  interpreted  as  referring  to 
the  use  of  His  miraculous  power  for  His  own  behoof, 
but  it  was  also,  in  all  probability,  directed  towards 
the  winning  of  popularity  by  creating  the  necessaries 
and  luxuries  of  life  on  a  lavish  scale — by  becoming, 
in  short,  a  bread-king,  like  those  who  in  another 
country  courted  the  popular  favour  by  giving  paitevi 
et  circenses.^  The  temptation  to  cast  Himself  from 
the  pinnacle  of  the  temple  is  the  one  the  messianic 
drift  of  which  is  least  certain.  It  obviously  refers 
in  general  to  the  fanatical  faith  which  scorns  the 
use  of  means,  but  it  probably  also  has  reference  to 

*  Sec  a  remarkable  series  of  papers  on  our  Lord's  Temptation 
in  The  Expositor;  3rd  series,  vol.  iii.,  p.  369  ff.,  by  the  Kev.  W. 
W.  Peyton. 


THE  MESSIAH  149 


a  contemporary  expectation  that  the  Messiah  would 
make  His  appearance  in  a  sudden  and  striking 
manner.  He  was  supposed  to  be  hidden  till  the 
hour  of  fulfilment  should  strike,  and  then  He  would 
appear  suddenly,  it  was  believed,  in  the  midst  of 
the  nation  assembled  in  the  temple  on  some  such 
public  occasion  as  one  of  the  annual  festivals.* 
Probably  if  we  knew  more  completely  than  we  do 
the  details  of  contemporary  messianic  belief,  we 
should  be  able  to  see  the  historical  application  of 
each  of  the  temptations  still  more  clearly  ;  but  at 
all  events  Jesus  left  the  wilderness  steeled  against 
the  worldly  and  fantastic  conception  of  the  coming 
kingdom  entertained  by  His  fellow-countrymen  and 
determined  to  insist  upon  one  which  was  moral  and 
spiritual. 

It  is  impossible,  as  one  reads  the  Gospels,  to  help 
pitying  the  Jews,  who  expected  a  Messiah  so  different 
from  Jesus  ;  but  we  must  remember  three  things. 
First,  His  conception  was  that  of  the  Old  Testament 
prophets,  and,  therefore,  it  might  have  been  theirs 
too,  since  the  writings  of  the  prophets  were  in 
their  hands.  It  was  because  they  were  unable  to 
appreciate  the  depth  and  spirituality  of  their  own 
sacred   books  that  they  failed  to  understand   Him. 

•  Schijrer,  II.  ii,  16. 


ISO  THE   CHRISTOLOGY   OF  JESUS 

Secondly,  it  was  His  part  to  teach  and  theirs  to 
learn.  He  would  have  been  no  Messiah,  not  even 
a  prophet  of  the  Lord,  if  He  had  simply  fallen  in 
with  popular  opinions  and  expectations.  Thirdly, 
the  way  prescribed  by  Him  was  the  true  path  even 
to  the  objects  desired  by  them.  If  they  had  con- 
sented to  His  leading  and  faced  the  lowly  road 
of  penitence  and  humiliation,  can  there  be  any 
doubt  that  He  would  have  led  them  up  to  glory 
in  the  long-run  ?  What  the  history  of  Judaea  would 
have  been,  and  what  the  history  of  the  world,  if 
they  had  accepted  Him  on  His  own  terms,  is, 
indeed,  a  question  which  defies  human  calculation  ; 
but  we  cannot  hesitate  to  answer  it  at  least  so  far 
as  to  say,  that  all  the  happiness  and  the  glory 
predicted  by  the  prophets  would  have  been  realised. 
These  predictions,  however,  as  well  as  the  conduct 
of  Jesus,  were  conditioned  on  the  response  of  faith 
made  by  the  people.  This  response  was  never 
forthcoming  ;  and  so  the  possibilities  could  never 
be  fulfilled. 

For  a  time,  indeed,  it  looked  as  if  Galilee  were 
to  respond  to  the  appeal  of  Jesus,  whose  opening 
ministry  was,  therefore,  full  of  hope  and  enthusiasm. 
But  the  response  never  came  from  a  deep  enough 
place  ;  so  that  He  could  not  commit  Himself  to 
the  multitude,  but  had  to  fall  back  on  the  work  of 


I 


f 


I 


THE  MESSIAH  151 


preparation.  This  is  the  explanation  of  the  fact, 
that,  while  everywhere  throughout  His  ministry 
speaking  with  perfect  freedom  of  the  kingdom  of 
God,  He  was  astonishingly  reticent  about  the 
Messiah.*  The  Messiah  was  not,  in  every  mind, 
an  absolutely  essential  feature  of  the  kingdom. 
This  is  seen  even  in  the  prophets  of  the  Old 
Testament ;  for  some  of  them,  while  predicting  in 
glowing  colours  the  messianic  age,  have  no  vision 
of  the  messianic  King ;  and  the  same  may  be  said 
of  the  postcanonical  writers.  From  the  reticence  of 
Jesus  on  this  point  some  scholars  have  been  disposed 
to  draw  the  inference  that  He  Himself,  at  first  at 
least,  was  not  aware  that  He  was  the  Messiah,  but 
was  only  conscious,  like  the  Baptist,  of  being  a 
forerunner  ;  and  the  intelligent  reader  of  the  Gospels 
may  sometimes  feel  a  doubt  whether  Jesus  was  not 
bound,  if  He  knew  Himself  as  the  Messiah,  to 
impart  this  knowledge  more  freely  to  those  whose 
duty  it  was  to  acknowledge  Him.  But  Jesus  pre- 
ferred to  act  as  the  Messiah  rather  than  to  bear 
witness    to     Himself ;     and    He    was     not    unduly 


*  The  question  of  the  Reticence  of  Jesus  is  one  on  which  the 
last  word  has  not  yet  by  any  means  been  spoken.  It  does  not 
concern  His  messiahship  alone,  as  anyone  can  see  for  himself 
who  will  look  up  the  following  references  in  a  single  Gospel — 
Mark  i.  44 ;  iii.  12 ;  v,  43 ;  vii.  36  ;  viii.  26,  30 ;  ix.  9,  25,  30. 


IS2  THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

reticent  where  any  disposition  was  shown  to  look 
upon  Him  and  His  actions  with  an  unprejudiced 
eye.  But  He  could  not  entrust  Himself  to  the 
multitude  :  their  expectations  were  too  impure. 
St.  John  mentions  an  occasion  when  they  tried  to 
take  Him  by  force  and  make  Him  a  king  ;  but 
of  such  zealotic  enthusiasm  He  could  take  no 
advantage  :  it  only  drove  Him  more  and  more  in 
upon  Himself. 

At  last,  however,  He  did  break  through  His 
reserve  and  cease  to  make  any  secret  of  His  claims. 
His  triumphal  entry  into  Jerusalem  was  an  offer  of 
Himself  to  His  countrymen  as  their  Messiah,  the 
do7ia  fides  of  which  it  would  be  unreasonable  to 
doubt.  Yet  it  is  an  incident  surrounded  with  tragic 
mystery.  He  Himself  can  have  had  little  hope. 
In  fact,  He  had  so  little  that  in  the  midst  of  His 
triumph  He  burst  into  tears  ;  and,  after  entering  the 
city,  He  allowed  the  crowd  to  disperse  with  nothing 
done.  It  was,  indeed,  only  a  crowd  of  Galileans, 
whose  shouts  of,  "  Blessed  be  the  Son  of  David, 
who  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  ! "  awakened 
no  echo  in  the  cold  and  sullen  heart  of  Jerusalem. 
Still  Jesus  had  given  to  His  hard-hearted  and  guilty 
countrymen  their  last  chance,  leaving  no  mistake  as 
to  the  character  in  which  He  claimed  their  homage ; 
and  it  was  by  them,  not  by  Him,  that  the  nation's 


THE  MESSIAH  i53 

charter  of  promise  was  torn  up  and  nailed  to  a  tree — 
an  act  to  which,  however,  destiny  affixed  its  seal, 
when,  a  few  years  afterwards,  the  Jewish  state  finally 
perished  and  Jerusalem  was  razed  to  the  ground. 

Such  was  the  issue  of  laying  the  emphasis  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God  on  the  first  member  of  the  phrase. 
Meantime,  however,  Jesus  had  been  working  out 
His  own  conception  of  it,  laying  the  accent  on  the 
second  member. 

In  the  first  place.  He  insisted  on  Repentance  as 
a  preparation  for  the  kingdom.  This  was  the  very 
first  word  of  His  preaching ;  and  it  was  a  word 
which  never  disappeared.  A  great  proportion  of 
His  recorded  sayings  consists  of  denunciations  of 
sin.  He  denounced  especially  the  sins  of  the 
upper  and  ruling  classes ;  and,  if  He  did  not  in 
an  equal  degree  denounce  the  sins  of  the  poor 
and  the  outcast,  it  was  because  it  was  unnecessary, 
as  these  came  weeping  to  His  feet,  confessing  their 
own  sins. 

To  such  penitents  He  conveyed  the  assurance  of 
Pardon,  claiming  that  He  had  power  on  earth  to 
forgive  sins.  And  undoubtedly  His  meaning  was 
that  forgiveness  was  even  more  needed  by  the 
hard  and  haughty  hearts  of  Pharisees  and  scribes. 
Indeed,  He  told  such  that,  unless  they  came  down 


IS4  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

from  their  arrogance  and  became  as  little  children, 
they  could  not  enter  the  kingdom  of  God, 

Inwardly  the  kingdom  is  one  of  Righteousness  : 
this  is  its  outstanding  character.  The  greatest 
discourse  of  Jesus  is  wholly  occupied  with  this 
theme,  developing  the  conception  of  righteousness 
in  contrast  not  only  with  current  habits  of  living, 
but  also  with  traditional  maxims,  and  even  the 
commandments  of  Moses.*  Through  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount,  from  first  to  last,  there  runs  a  strain 
of  the  most  passionate  moral  earnestness.  Never 
elsewhere  in  the  world  has  there  been  taught  so 
inward  or  difficult  a  morality  ;  but  it  was  to  be  the 
high  prerogative  of  the  kingdom  of  God  to  realise  it. 

The  kingdom  had,  however,  another  side  besides 
this  stern  one :  it  was  Blessedness  as  well  as 
righteousness.  This  side  of  it  is  developed  with 
a  graciousness  which  charms  the  heart  as  well  as 
an    originality    which    excites    the    intellect   in    the 


*  Matt.  V.  17 — "  Except  your  righteousness  shall  exceed  the 
righteousness  of  the  scribes  and  Pharisees,  ye  shall  in  no  case 
enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven."  The  rest  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  is  an  exposition  of  this  text,  the  righteousness  required 
of  Christians  being  contrasted  first  with  that  prescribed  in  the 
Mosaic  law  and  the  traditional  exposition  of  the  same  (to  the 
end  of  chapter  v.),  secondly  with  contemporary  Pharisaic  custom 
(vi.  1-18),  and  thirdly  with  the  ordinary  course  of  this  world 
(from  vi.   19  to  the  end). 


THE  MESSIAH  155 


Beatitudes.  Each  beatitude  is  a  paradox  ;  because 
that  in  which  blessedness  is  said  to  consist  is  a 
minus  quantity.  This  defect,  however,  is  only  the 
empty  place  into  which  the  positive  blessing  can 
rush ;  and  the  sum  of  the  minus  and  the  plus 
together  is  a  divine  overplus  of  blessedness.  It  is, 
indeed,  happiness  of  a  high  order,  consisting  in 
such  blessings  as  the  vision  of  God  and  divine 
sonship  *  ;  but  it  is  only  of  such  as  are  capable  of 
these  aspirations  that  the  kingdom  of  God  is  to 
be  composed. 

Thus  it  is  manifest  that  the  good  things  of  which 
the  kingdom  of  God  was  the  sum,  as  they  presented 
themselves  to  the  mind  of  Jesus,  were  totally 
different  from  those  dreamed  of  by  political  and 
revolutionary  zealots.  And  this  was  made  still 
more  evident  when  He  summed  them  up,  as  He 
sometimes  did,  in  such  terms  as  "  peace "  and 
"  rest."  Again  and  again,  where  His  ordinary  usage 
would  lead  us  to  expect  "  the  kingdom  of  God " 
in  His  sayings,  there  is  substituted  for  it  "  life "  or 
"  eternal  life."f  And  nothing  could  be  a  more 
significant  indication  of  the  intense  religious  pre- 
occupation of  His  mind.  To  Him  existence  without 
God  was  not  life,  but  death  ;  but  to  live  in  God — 

*  Matt.  V.  8,  9. 

t  Luke  xix.  42 ;  Matt.  xi.  28,  29  ;  Mark  ix.  47  ;  x.  30. 


156  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 


thinking  His  thoughts,  doing  His  will,  enjoying  His 
fellowship — was  the  sum  of  blessedness  ;  and  such 
was  to  be  the  blessedness  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 

In  short,  the  thought  of  Jesus  is  prevailingly 
moral  and  religious.  He  began  with  the  conceptions 
and  the  phraseology  of  the  time,  but  He  naturally 
and  gradually  drew  away  from  them,  out  into  the 
broad  ocean.  A  glance  at  His  parables  makes  this 
manifest.  While  some  of  them,  like  the  Barren  Fig 
Tree  and  the  Wicked  Husbandman,  have  a  strongly 
Jewish  flavour,  others,  like  the  Talents  and  the  Rich 
Fool,  belong  to  the  realm  of  religion  pure  and 
simple ;  and  many  of  the  greatest,  like  the  three  of 
the  fifteenth  of  Luke,  while  retaining  marks  of  their 
Jewish  original,  have  the  most  obvious  application  to 
the  whole  of  humanity.  So,  when  Jesus  says  that 
He  has  come  to  seek  and  to  save  that  which  is  lost, 
we  remember,  indeed,  that  there  is  an  allusion  to 
the  prodigal  and  abandoned  classes  of  His  own  day, 
but  the  glory  of  the  saying  lies  in  its  application  to 
lost  men  everywhere.  When  He  says,  "  Come  unta 
Me,  all  ye  that  labour  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I 
will  give  you  rest,"  He  has,  no  doubt,  in  view  His 
contemporaries  groaning  under  the  traditions  of  the 
elders,  but  His  words  have,  beneath  this  surface 
meaning,  a  universal  application  to  all  forms  of 
spiritual    unrest  and  anxiety.      In    short,    as    Jesus 


tllE  MESSIAH  157 


followed  the  guidance  of  His  genius  along  this  line, 
He  passed  from  being  the  Messiah  of  the  Jews  to  be 
the  Saviour  of  the  world. 

The  entrance  to  the  kingdom  is,  according  to  the 
mind  of  Jesus,  a  strait  gate.  Indeed,  it  admits  only 
one  at  a  time  :  everyone,  be  he  Pharisee  or  publican, 
must  go  through  the  ordeal  of  repentance.  Jesus 
was  well  aware  how  unattractive  such  a  rule  would 
be  ;  and  much  of  His  teaching  is  occupied  with  the 
difficulties  of  those  who,  for  one  reason  or  another, 
found  it  hard  to  take  His  yoke  upon  them.  This 
was  undoubtedly  the  chief  offence  to  the  contem- 
porary Jews,  who  expected  to  enter  the  kingdom  in 
a  body,  without  questions  asked,  and  disdained  to 
do  so  in  the  company  of  sinners.  But  this  in- 
dividualism of  Jesus  was  at  bottom  identical  with 
universalism ;  because  the  conditions  which  He 
imposed  might  be  accepted  by  anyone,  whatever 
his  previous  history.  They  concerned  man  as  man, 
not  man  as  belonging  to  any  race,  caste  or  creed. 
The  gate,  though  narrow,  excludes  no  child  of  Adam 
who  is  willing  to  repent.  During  His  earthly  career, 
indeed,  Jesus  felt  Himself  restricted  to  the  lost  sheep 
of  the  house  of  Israel ;  but  the  mission  work  of 
St.  Paul  and  the  other  apostles  was  in  the  direct 
line  of  His  principles  ;  and  it  is  entirely  credible 
that    He   foresaw  a  time  when   many  would   come 


158  THE  CHklSTOLOGY  OF  JESVS 

from  the  east  and  the  west,  to  sit  down  with 
Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven, 
while  the  children  of  the  kingdom  would,  through 
their  own  impenitence,  be  doomed  to  outer  darkness. 

A  point  about  which  there  has  of  late  been  hot 
discussion,  and  which  is  more  important  than  it 
looks,  is  the  question,  whether  or  not  Jesus  thought 
and  spoke  about  the  kingdom  as  already  come.  It 
is  allowed  that,  when  He  began  to  preach,  He 
announced  it  as  on  the  point  of  coming ;  and  He 
often  spoke  of  it  as  lying  in  the  future — perhaps  in 
heaven — but  did  He  look  upon  it  as  already  estab- 
lished on  earth  by  means  of  His  ministry? 

In  support  of  the  position  that  He  did.  His  saying 
may  be  quoted,  "  If  I  by  the  finger  of  God  cast  out 
devils,  then  is  the  kingdom  of  God  come  upon  you."* 
Jesus  regarded  the  coming  ot  the  kingdom  of  God 
as  an  invasion  of  the  realm  of  evil,  over  which  Satan 
rules  ;  and,  when  the  strong  man  armed  was  driven 
out  in  the  cases  of  dispossession,  the  invading 
kingdom  occupied  the  ground.  In  the  same  sense, 
when  the  Twelve  returned  and  reported  that  they 
had  cast  out  devils  on  a  large  scale,  Jesus  exclaimed, 
"  I  beheld  Satan  as  lightning  falling  from  heaven."t 

*  Luke  xi.  20. 
t  Luke  X.  18. 


THE  MESSIAH  159 


He  meant  that  the  frequent  dispossessions  were 
equivalent  to  the  downfall  of  the  prince  of  the 
empire  of  evil.  It  was  the  empire  of  sin,  not  the 
empire  of  Rome,  that  stirred  the  heart  of  Jesus — a 
striking  proof  of  the  spirituality  of  His  aims,  but  also 
no  doubt  a  cause  of  offence  to  those  who  thought 
that  the  first  duty  of  every  patriot  was  to  get  rid  of 
the  foreign  yoke. 

Another  remarkable  saying,  "  The  kingdom  of 
God  is  within  you,"*  would  be  more  conclusive  if 
it  were  certain  that  the  preposition  meant  "within" 
and  not  "  among."  But  probably  it  does  mean 
"  within " ;  for,  apart  from  purely  linguistic  con- 
siderations, this  meaning  agrees  well  with  the 
context:  "When  He  was  demanded  of  the  Pharisees, 
when  the  kingdom  of  God  should  come,  He  answered 
them  and  said.  The  kingdom  of  God  cometh  not 
with  observation  ;  neither  shall  they  say,  Lo  here,  or, 
Lo  there  ;  for,  behold,  the  kingdom  of  God  is  within 
you."  They  evidently  expected  it  to  come  apoca- 
lyptically, at  a  certain  moment  and  at  a  certain 
place,  and  in  full-grown  completeness,  like  a  city 
let  down  to  the  earth  out  of  heaven  ;  but  He  taught 
that  the  methods  of  God  are  the  very  reverse — 
inward,  unobserved,  gradual.     Very  similar   is    His 

*  Luke  xvii.  21. 


i6o  THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

parable  of  the  Seed  Growing  Secretly,  "  first  the 
blade,  then  the  ear,  afterwards  the  full  corn  in  the 
ear," — one  of  the  most  characteristic  of  His  sayings. 
And  of  kindred  import  are  such  parables  as  the 
Leaven  and  the  Mustard  Seed,  both  describing  the 
growth  of  the  kingdom  from  small  beginnings  to 
the  perfect  form. 

In  spite  of  such  testimonies  there  are  those  who 
hold  that  Jesus'  own  view  was  apocalyptic.  He 
believed,  they  contend,  that  the  kingdom,  being 
entirely  a  divine  creation,  was  to  appear  in  a 
moment,  and  He  was  waiting  for  it  all  the  time. 
But  this  is  simply  an  importation  into  modern 
scholarship  of  the  view  of  the  kingdom  which 
deceived  the  Jews  ;  and  it  converts  Jesus  Himself 
into  a  fantastic  and  disappointed  dreamer,  whom  it 
would  be  impossible  to  accept  as  the  Saviour  of 
mankind.* 

Jesus  Himself  was  there  ;  and  the  kingdom  had 
already  come  in  His  person,  even  if  it  had  had  no 
other  embodiment.  But  round  Him  there  sprang 
up   a  body,  consisting  first   of  the  Twelve,  then  of 

*  This  applies  to  the  work  of  Schmoller  entitled  Das  Retch 
Gottes  and  to  that  of  Johann  Weiss  entitled  Die  Predigt  Jesii 
"vom  Reiche  Gottes.  In  spite  of  the  cleverness  of  Weiss'  exegesis 
in  detail,  the  picture  of  Jesus  which  he  draws  is  an  unintentional 
caricature.  This  fantastic  figure  is  not  the  Saviour  and  Lord  of 
men,  but  only  "  a  dreamer  of  the  ghetto." 


THE  MESSIAH  i6i 


larger  numbers,  in  whom  all  the  blessings  which 
the  kingdom  comprised,  such  as  repentance, 
righteousness,  sonship,  rest  and  life,  were  realised 
in  growing  measure. 

In  the  Gospels  nothing  is  more  remarkable  than 
the  perseverance  with  which,  in  spite  of  the 
solicitation  of  other  kinds  of  work,  Jesus  devoted 
Himself  to  the  Twelve,  evidently  looking  upon  their 
training  as  one  of  the  prime  objects  of  His  ministry.* 
But  the  organization  of  the  wider  circle  of  His 
disciples  cannot  but  have  also  held  a  prominent 
place  in  His  thoughts.  The  statements  on  this 
subject  attributed  to  Him  in  the  Gospels  have  been 
much  called  in  question  ;  f  but  it  is  more  likely 
that  He  both  thought  and  spoke  more  on  the 
Church  and  the  sacraments  than   He  is  represented 

*  "  Unabtrennbar  von  seinem  Lebensbilde  ist  die  Thatsache 
dass  Jesus  Jiinger  um  sich  sammelte.  Das  ist  zunachst  keine 
Besonderheit,  auch  von  einigen  Propheten  und  von  dem  Taufer 
vvird  dasselbe  berichtet.  Aber  durchaus  etvvas  neues  und 
eigenthiimliches  ist  as,  dass  diese  Seite  des  Lebens  Jesu  so 
stark,  ja  fast  ausschliesslich  hervortritt.  In  der  That  in  diesem 
kleineren,  bescheidenen  Kreise,  in  der  Enge  und  Stille,  hat  sich 
die  Hauptsumme  der  Wirksamkeit  Jesu  voUzogen,  in  dieser 
direkten,  unmittelbaren  Arbeit  von  Person  zu  Person  hat  er  sein 
Leben  gelebt. — Bousset,  Jesu  Predigt  in  ihreni  Gegensatz  zum 
JucieHthum,  p.  55. 

t  That  Jesus  can  ever  have  spoken  of  the  Church  is  denied  by 
Holtzmann ;  but  Ritschl,  Beyschlag,  KostHn  are  on  the  opposite 
side.     Cf.  Holtzmann  N.  T.  Tkeologie,  p.  210,  note. 

I  I 


i62  THE  CHRISTOLVGY  OF  JESiJS 

to  have  done  than  that  He  spoke  less.  The  history 
of  religious  movements  proves  that,  with  whatever 
energy  and  spirituality  they  may  be  initiated,  they 
soon  disappear,  unless  channels  are  provided  in  which 
their  currents  may  be  carried  down  to  subsequent 
times  ;  and  a  religious  genius  of  the  first  order  must 
be  an  organizer  as  well  as  a  thinker.*  It  is  certain 
that  Jesus  did  not  work  out  the  details  of  the  creed, 
doctrine  or  discipline  of  the  Church  ;  but  it  is  just 
as  certain  that  the  institution  itself  is  His  creation. 

When  Jesus  was  crucified,  the  Jews,  no  doubt, 
believed  that  His  movement,  which  had  seemed 
to  them  moonshine,  was  at  an  end  ;  but,  fifty  years 
afterwards,  when  their  political  existence  was  blotted 
out,  there  had  sprung  up,  all  over  the  known  world, 
countless  communities,  which,  without  any  earthly 
centre — without  capital,  court  or  army — yet  acknow- 
ledged one  heavenly  King,  obeyed  the  same  code 
of  laws,  partook  of  the  same  blessings,  pursued  the 
same  objects,  and  were  united  among  themseh'es 
more  closely  than  the  subjects  of  any  earthly 
sovereign.  And  from  that  day  to  this  the  kingdom 
of  God  has  never  ceased  to  grovv.f 

•  Contrast,  as  respects  permanency,  the  influence  of  Whitfield, 
the  orator,  and  Wesley,  the  organizer. 

t  Several  chapters  of  Ecce  Homo  are  occupied  with  showing 
in  what  sense   Christ  is  a  King  and  Christianity  a  Kingdom, 


THE  MESSIAH  163 


Robert  Browning,  in    the   opening   pages   of  The 
Ring  and  the  Book,  compares  the  poet's  art  to  that 
of  the  goldsmith,  who,  when  he  is  working  with  the 
finest   gold,  has  to  make  use  of  an  alloy,  in  order 
to  give  the  precious  metal  sufficient  consistency  to 
enable  it  to  stand  the  action  of  his  tools  and  assume 
the  shapes  which  he   desires.     But,  when  the  form 
is   complete,  he  applies  an   acid,  which  evaporates 
the  alloy  and  leaves  nothing  but  the  pure  gold  of 
the  perfect  ring.     The  poet's  ingenious  application 
of  this  image  to  his  own  art  we  need  not  follow  at 
present  ;  but   the   image  seems   to   admit  of  being 
applied   to  the  difficult  subject  which  we  have  on 
hand.     The  popular  conception  of  the  kingdom  of 
God   was   the  alloy  with  which   Jesus  had   to  mix 
His  teaching,  in  order  to  make  it  fit  to  mingle  with 
the  actual  life  of  the  world  of  His  day.     Without  it 
His  thought  would  have  been  too  ethereal  and  too 
remote   from    the    living   hopes  of  men.      He    had 
to  take  men  where  He  found  them,  and  lead  them 
step  by  step  to  the  full  appreciation  of  His  sublime 
purpose   for    the   world.       He    was   not   to   be   the 
king  of  the  Jews,  but  King  of  an   infinitely  diviner 
realm,  yet   it   was   by  aiming  at  the  throne  which 

What  they  offer  is  the  speculation  of  a  modern  philosopher 
rather  than  a  transcript  from  the  mind  of  Christ ;  yet  they  are 
full  of  su"gestiveness. 


i64  THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

He  missed  that   He  reached  the  throne  which  He 
now  occupies. 

And  shall  we  say  that  in  His  case,  when  the  ring 
was  perfected,  the  alloy  was  blown  away  ?  was  it 
fated  that  the  idea  and  the  name  of  the  kingdom 
of  God  should  fade  from  the  minds  of  men  ?  It 
looks  as  if  this  had  been  the  intention  ;  for,  whereas 
in  the  Synoptists  we  find  the  phrase  everywhere,  it 
is  infrequent  in  the  Gospel  of  St.  John,  and  it  does 
not  appear  at  all  in  his  Epistles  ;  in  all  St.  Paul's 
Epistles  it  does  not  occur  as  often  as  in  the  briefest 
of  the  Gospels ;  and  in  St.  Peter's  Epistles  it  is 
found  but  once.  This  is  a  remarkable  phenomenon. 
Does  it  indicate  that  the  apostles  had  forgotten  the 
doctrine  of  their  Master  1  or  is  it  an  instance  of 
the  freedom  with  which  in  that  creative  age  the 
ideas  of  religion  were  grasped  and  its  phraseology 
altered  }  The  apostles  were  too  thoroughly  alive 
to  repeat  the  words  of  others,  even  those  of  their 
Master,  by  rote.  Each  of  them,  according  to  his 
own  genius  and  his  own  circumstances,  expressed 
what  the  Holy  Spirit  had  revealed  to  him  in 
language  of  his  own.  After  the  fall  of  Jerusalem, 
Christianity  had  to  go  away  among  peoples  to 
which  a  phrase  like  "  the  kingdom  of  God  "  would 
have  been  novel  and  confusing  ;  and,  therefore,  the 
missionaries  wisely  avoided  it,  finding  more  appro- 


THE  MESSIAH  ,6? 


priate  phrases  to  take  its  place.  Even  Jesus,  before 
the  close  of  His  life,  outgrew  it ;  and  His  teaching 
seems  always  striving  to  escape  from  it  as  from  a 
fetter.  It  is  impossible  to  subsume  under  it  the 
very  finest  of  His  sayings.  The  phrase  belongs,  in 
short,  to  the  "  body  of  humiliation  "  *  which  for  a 
time  He  had  to  bear,  but  from  which  He  was 
destined  to  be  liberated. 

This     is     not,    however,    an    opinion    universally 
accepted.     Far  from  it.     Some  of  the  most  vigorous 
thinking  of  our  century  is  associated  with  the  pro- 
posal to  revive  the  phrase  as  the  supreme  category 
of  theology,  as  it  was  the  title  of  the  teaching  of 
Jesus.     In   Germany   it  has  long  been  a  favourite 
expression.      The    Pietists    spoke    of   their    philan- 
thropic and  missionary  endeavours  as  work   for  the 
kingdom  of  God  ;  and  the  Ritschlians  at  the  present 
day  have  given  it  as  supreme  a  place  in  the  realm 
of  thought.!     Among  ourselves  some  are  disposed 
to   follow   in    the    same   track   for  various    reasons. 
Among  English  Nonconformists  the  phrase  finds  a 
welcome,  as  a  rival  to  "  the  Church,"  on  which,  it 
seems    to    them,    too    much     emphasis    is    laid    by 


*  To  (Tafia  TTis  TaireivaOeas — Phil.  iii.  21. 

t  I  sometimes  wonder  whether  the  force  of  this  tendency  has 
been  due  in  any  degree  to  the  imperial  ideas  dominant  in  that 
country  since  the  great  victories  ot  the  Franco-Prussian  War 


i66  THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

churchmen.  But  the  strongest  influence  is  the 
growth  among  us  of  social  and  patriotic  sentiment 
in  connexion  with  religion.  To  be  a  Christian  is 
not  merely  to  save  one's  own  soul,  but  to  discharge 
one's  duty  to  the  world  ;  it  is  to  be  part  of  an 
organism,  with  which  we  suffer  and  with  which  we 
triumph  ;  it  is  to  be  an  adherent  of  a  great  cause 
and  to  prove  loyal  to  a  divine  Leader.  It  is  evident 
that  many  such  ideas  and  aspirations  may  be  con- 
veniently gathered  together  within  such  a  phrase  as 
the  kingdom  of  God.  Indeed,  I  have  known  those 
to  whom  this  name  has  appeared  to  make  everything 
new  ;  and,  when  a  watchword  is  capable  of  doing 
this,  it  cannot  be  looked  upon  with  anything  but 
respect.  On  the  whole,  however,  the  attempt  to 
revive  this  term  seems  to  be  mistaken.  We  are 
very  remote  now  from  the  world  to  which  it 
belonged.  To  many  Christians,  living  under  repub- 
lican forms  of  government,  the  very  name  of  a  king 
or  a  kingdom  is  something  foreign  and  out  of  date. 
Whatever  may  be  the  case  in  Germany,  to  our  ears 
the  phrase  as  a  name  for  Christianity  has  a  sound 
of  preciosity  and  make-believe ;  and  there  are  far 
better  names  for  the  same  thing.  The  attempt  to 
revive  it  is  due  to  a  mistaken  reverence  for  Christ, 
as  if  the  repetition  of  His  mere  words  were  obli- 
gatory   upon    Christians ;    it  is  a   return    from    the 


THE  MESSIAH  167 


spirit  to  the  letter,  an  attempt  to  force  thought  back 
into  a  form  which  it  has  long  outgrown. 

Nevertheless,  there  are  two  words  of  our  Lord 
which  will  always  keep  this  phrase  fresh  and  sweet 
in  the  mouth  of  Christendom :  the  one  the  second 
petition  of  the  Lord's  Prayer— "  Thy  kingdom 
come"— and  the  other  the  text,  "Suffer  the  little 
children  to  come  unto  Me,  and  forbid  them  not; 
for  of  such  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven." 


THE  REDEEMER 


»«9 


Passages  in  which  Jesus  refers  to  His  own  death  : — 

Matthew  ix.    15;  xvi.  21  ;  xvii.  9,   12,  22,  23;  xx.  17-19,  22,  23,  28 
xxi.  39,  42 ;  xxvi.  2,  12,  18,  24,  26,  28,  31,  38,  39,  42,  45. 

Mark  ii.  20;  viii.  31  ;  ix.  9,  12,  31,  x.  32-34,  38,  39,  45  ;  xii.  8,  10; 
xiv.  8,  21,  22-24,  36,  39,  41. 

Luke  V.  35  ;  ix.  22,  31,  44  ;  xii.  50  ;  xiii.  32,  33;  xvii.  25  ;  xviii,  31-33  ; 
XX.  9-18 ;  xxii.  14-22  ;  xxiv.  7,  26,  46. 


V 

THE  REDEEMER* 

T  T  is   well   known    that,   after   the    death  of  our 

A       Lord,    the    later    scenes   of    His    career    took 

peculiar  possession  of  the  mind  of  the  Church,  and 

•  Weiss:  Lehrbuch  derbiblischen  Theologie  des  neuen  Testaments 

§  22. 
Beyschlag:  Neutestaynentliche  Theologie,  I.  pp.  126  if. 
HoLTZMANN  :  Neutestante?iiliche  Theologie,  I.  284  ff. 
Stevens:  The  Theology  of  the  New  Testament,  Chapter  X. 
Bruce  :  The  Kittgdofn  of  God,  Chapter  X. 
Wendt:  Die  Lehre  Jesu,  II.  504  ff. 
Baldensperger  :  Das  Selbstbewusstsein  Jesic,  c.  VI. 
Smeaton  :  Our  Lord's  Doctrine  of  the  Atonement. 
RiTSCHL:    Die   Christliche  Lehre  von  der  Rechtfertigung  und 

Versohnung,  1882,  especially  vol.  II,  cap.  II. 
Kahler:  Zur  Lehre  von  der  Versohmmg,  1899. 
Dale:  The  Atonement,  1 881,  especially  Lecture  III. 
Denney:  Studies  in  Theology,  1895,  cc.  V.,  VI. 
Fairbairn  :    Christ's  Attitude   to  His  own  Death,  a  series  of 

articles  in  The  Expositor,  beginning  October,  1896. 
Schaefer  :  Das  Herrenfnahl  nach  Urspriing  und  Bedeutung, 

1897 
Babut  :  La  Pensee  de  Jesus  stir  Sa  Mort,  \  897. 
For  the  literature  of  the  Atonement  see  the  article  in  Hastings' 

Dictionary  of  the  Bible. 


172  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

that  in  the  apostolic  writings  His  death  and  re- 
surrection figure  far  more  prominently  than  His 
miracles  or  His  teaching.  In  fact,  the  apostolic 
theory  of  Christianity  is  built  upon  His  death, 
resurrection  and  ascension.  His  death,  especially, 
occupies  a  vast  space  in  the  apostolic  field  of  vision : 
it  is  by  His  death  that  He  is  the  Saviour  of  the 
world.  Now,  it  is  sometimes  contended  that  in  this 
respect  there  is  a  striking  discrepancy  between  the 
teaching  of  the  apostles  and  that  of  Christ  Himself ; 
because  in  the  Synoptists  there  are  not  more  than 
a  couple  of  sayings  of  His  about  His  death  which 
are  of  capital  importance;  and  He  builds  Christianity 
upon  a  totally  different  foundation.  It  is  with  the 
truth  or  falsehood  of  this  contention  that  we  have  to 
occupy  ourselves  in  the  present  lecture. 

It  must  be  confessed,  that,  at  first  sight,  there 
does  not  seem  to  be  much  in  common  between  the 
announcement  of  Jesus,  that  the  object  of  His 
earthly  mission  was  to  set  up  the  kingdom  of  God, 
and  the  statement  of  the  apostles,  that  He  came  to 
die  for  the  sin  of  the  world.  But  in  the  last  chapter 
we  saw,  that,  while  starting  from  the  political 
hopes  of  His  countrymen,  Jesus,  as  soon  as  He 
began  to  speak  what  was  distinctively  His  own 
language,  employed  "  the  kingdom  of  God  "  as  a 
comprehensive  term  for  the  noblest  blessings  of  life, 


THE  REDEEMER  1 73 


such  as  repentance,  forgiveness,  the  vision  of  God, 
communion  with  God  and  eternal  life  ;  and  between 
this  circle  of  ideas  and  the  benefits  associated  by 
the  apostles  with  the  death  of  Christ  the  interval 
is  not  appreciable. 

The  impression  that  Jesus  referred  but  little  to 
His  own  death  is  due  to  a  superficial  reading  of  the 
Gospels.  A  closer  acquaintance  with  them  reveals 
the  fact,  that  at  no  period  of  His  ministry  was  the 
thought  of  His  death  foreign  to  Him,  and  that 
during  the  last  year  of  His  life  it  was  an  ever- 
present  and  absorbing  preoccupation.* 

In  spite  of  the  joy  springing  from  His  own 
enthusiasm  and  His  early  successes,  His  career  was 
from  the  very  commencement  crossed  by  dark 
shadows.  From  the  first  the  religious  authorities 
were  against  Him,  and  it  could  not  be  long  before 
He  had  forebodings  of  how  far  their  malevolence 
might  be  carried.  He  reckoned  Himself  to  be  in 
the  line  of  the  prophets,  and  He  knew  too  well  what 
kind  of  fate  they  had  encountered  at  the  hands  of 
Jerusalem.  The  premature  end  of  His  forerunner 
was  a  prophecy  of  what  His  own  was  likely  to  be. 

*  I  have  not  anywhere  else  seen  the  extent  of  space  which  this 
subject  occupied  in  the  consciousness  of  Jesus  so  finely  brought 
out  as  in  the  articles  by  Principal  Fairbairn  referred  to  above. 


174  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

He  never  spared  his  would-be  followers  the  know- 
ledge, that  their  adherence  to  him  would  imply 
sacrifice — perhaps  even  the  sacrifice  of  life  itself — 
and  He  adopted  as  a  kind  of  technical  term  for 
what  they  would  have  to  endure  for  His  sake  the 
significant  name  of  "  the  cross."  But,  if  even  the 
disciples  were  to  excite  to  this  extent  the  hostility 
of  the  world,  what  could  the  Master  expect  for 
Himself?  He  kept  back  as  long  as  He  could  from 
the  Twelve  His  anticipations  of  His  own  fate  ;  but, 
when  He  did  begin  to  speak,  it  was  manifest  that 
what  He  had  to  communicate  had  long  been  in  His 
mind,  craving  for  utterance. 

It  was  not  till  they  had  confessed  at  Caesarea 
Philippi,  that  he  was  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  that 
He  considered  them  mature  and  established  enough 
to  be  able  to  bear  the  terrible  secret ;  but  "  from 
that  time  forth  began  Jesus  to  show  unto  His 
disciples,  how  that  He  must  go  unto  Jerusalem,  and 
suffer  many  things  of  the  elders  and  chief  priests 
and  scribes,  and  be  killed,  and  be  raised  again  the 
third  day."  Having  once  broken  the  ice.  He 
returned  again  and  again  to  the  subject.  Thus  : 
"  And  Jesus,  going  up  to  Jerusalem,  took  the  twelve 
disciples  apart  on  the  way,  and  said  unto  them, 
Behold,  we  go  up  to  Jerusalem,  and  the  Son  of  man 
shall  be  betrayed  unto  the  chief  priests  and  unto  the 


The  redeemer  175 


scribes,  and  they  shall  condemn  Him  to  death,  and 
shall  deliver  Him  to  the  Gentiles,  to  mock  and  to 
scourge  and  to  crucify  Him ;  and  the  third  day  He 
shall  rise  again."  As  occasion  offered,  He  added 
trait  after  trait,  to  sharpen  the  outline  of  the  tragic 
picture ;  and  all  the  Synoptists  mark  with  the 
utmost  care  the  steps  of  this  gradual  unveiling  of 
the  future.* 

But,  although  He  pressed  the  subject  home  so 
deliberately  on  the  attention  of  the  apostles,  they 
were  totally  unable  to  receive  it.  The  first  time 
He  broached  it  St.  Peter  "took  Him  and  began 
to  rebuke  Him,"t  as  if  He  were  losing  His  mental 
balance,  through  melancholy,  and  allowing  Himself 
to  say  things  which  would  be  injurious  to  the  cause 
— a  reply  which  appeared  to  Jesus  such  an  immediate 
suggestion  of  the  spirit  of  evil  that  He  turned  on 
St.  Peter  with  "Get  thee  behind  Me,  Satan."  Indeed, 
between  all  the  disciples  and  their  Master  there 
sprang  up  at  this  time  an  alienation  such  as  had 
never  previously  existed.  They  continued  to  dream 
of  the  thrones  which  they  were  about  to  ascend,  and 
they  disputed  with  one  another  which  should  be  the 

*  See  these  series  of  texts  in  the  different  Gospels— Matt, 
xvi.  21;  xvii.  22,  23;  XX.  17-19;  xxvi.  2,  21-24;  Mark  viii.  31  j 
X.  32-34 ;  Luke  ix.  22,  44 ;  xvii.  25  ;  xviii.  31-33. 

t  Matt.  xvi.  22. 


176  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

greatest  in  the  forthcoming  kingdom,  while  clouds  of 
disaster  were  accumulating  on  the  horizon  of  His 
mind  in  darker  and  darker  masses.  Their  minds 
were  distracted  with  ominous  suspicions,  and  He 
was  tragically  alone — "  They  were  in  the  way  going 
up  to  Jerusalem  ;  and  Jesus  went  before  them  ;  and 
they  were  amazed,  and  as  they  followed,  they  were 
afraid."*  The  misunderstanding  on  their  side 
culminated  in  the  treachery  of  Judas,  and  the  loneli- 
ness on  His  in  Gethsemane. 

That  the  subject  which  occupied  His  thoughts  in 
these  solitary  musings  was  His  death  admits  of  no 
doubt.  It  grew  upon  Him  from  day  to  day  and 
from  month  to  month.  He  had  to  master  the 
mystery  and  penetrate  its  secret.  Sometimes  it 
rose  upon  Him  as  an  overwhelming  horror,  at  other 
times  He  saw  beyond  it  and  could  almost  welcome 
it.  This  double  point  of  view  is  expressed  in  a 
characteristic  saying  of  the  period  :  "  I  have  a 
baptism  to  be  baptized  with,  and  how  am  I 
straitened  till  it  be  accomplished."  Many  features 
of  the  approaching  catastrophe — as,  for  example, 
that  it  was  to  take  place  through  the  treachery  of  an 
apostle,  that  it  was  to  be  at  the  hands  of  His  own 
countrymen,  that  it  was  to  interrupt   His  mission  in 

*  Mark  x.  32. 


1 


THE  REDEEMER 


177 


the  midst  of  happy  labour,  that  it  was  to  bring  ruin 
to  H,s  native  land-were  revolting,  and  could  not  be 
contemplated  without  torture;  yet,  on  the  other  hand 
He  knew  that  the  dark  providence  must  conceal  a 
divine    purpose-a    purpose    all    the  more   charged 
with   concentrated   and   complicated  good    to    both 
Himself  and   others,   the   darker  was   the  shape  in 
which  It  was   enveloped.     His   enemies   might   kill 
H.m,  but  He  could  say  to  them,  "Did  ye  never  read 
in^  the    Scriptures.    The   stone    which    the  builders 
rejected  is  become  the  headstone  of  the  corner  •  this 
IS    the    Lord's    doing    and   it  is  marvellous  in    our 
eyes"?* 

What  was   this  prospect  of  ulterior  good  which 
enabled    Jesus    to    triumph    over   the   prospect    of 
sufienng  ?     To  discover  this,  we  must  scrutinise  the 
sayings  in  which  He  most  distinctly  gives  expression 
to  His  consciousness  of  what  His  death  was  to  effect 
for  mankind.     Of  these  there  are  only  two  in  the 
Synoptists  ;  but  they  well  deserve  the  most  careful 
and  exhaustive  study  we  are  able  to  bestow  upon 
them.     The  one  is  the  saying,  "Even  the  Son   of 
man  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister 
and  to  give  His  life  a  ransom  for  many;"  and  the 
''_^!^!J^_^^-'j^j^c^^MA^^  instituted  the 
*  Luke  XX.  17. 


12 


178  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

last  Supper,  "  This   is  the  New  Testament  in   My 
blood." 

The  first  of  these  sayings  sprang  out  of  one  of 
the  most  characteristic  incidents  of  the  tragic  period 
just  described.  Two  of  the  Twelve  came  to  Him 
requesting  through  their  mother,  Salome,  that  they 
might  sit  the  one  on  His  right  hand  and  the  other 
on  His  left  in  His  kingdom.  Nothing  could  show 
more  nakedly  how  far  apart  from  His  were  at  that 
time  the  thoughts  of  His  followers  than  the  fact 
that  these  two,  belonging  to  the  very  innermost 
circle,  should  have  made  such  a  request  ;  and  the 
indignation  aroused  by  their  conduct  in  the  rest  of 
the  Twelve  betrayed  too  clearly  that  they  had  only 
given  expression  to  ambitions  with  which  all  were 
palpitating.  Jesus  did  not,  in  His  reply,  deny  that 
there  was  to  be  any  earthly  kingdom,  but  He  showed 
them  how  diametrically  opposite  to  His  was  their 
estimate  of  what  it  was  to  be  like.  Their  thoughts 
were  frankly  those  of  the  world — that  to  be  a  king 
was  to  lord  it  over  numerous  subjects,  and  that  to 
be  great  was  to  be  served  by  many  slaves — but  His 
conception  was  precisely  the  reverse — "  Whosoever 
will  be  great  among  you,  let  him  be  your  minister ; 
and  whosoever  will  be  chief  among  you,  let  him  be 
your   servant."     Such  was    to   be  the   rule   in    His 


I 


THE  REDEEMER 


179 


kingdom  ;  but  the  first  to  obey  it  was  Himself,  and  He 
was  to  obey  it  to  the  uttermost — "  For  even  the  Son 
of  man  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister 
and  to  give  His  life  a  ransom  for  many."  Here 
was  the  key  to  His  entire  career  :  He  had  always 
found  His  happiness  and  His  honour  in  serving 
others  and  doing  them  good ;  but  the  supreme 
illustration  of  the  principle  on  which  he  conducted 
His  life  was  still  to  come — His  final  service  was 
to  consist  in  giving  His  life  a  ransom  for  many. 

This  image  of  a  ransom  does  not  appeal  to  our 
minds  as  forcibly  as  it  would  to  those  of  the  disciples, 
because  the  experience  of  being  ransomed,  in  the 
natural  sense,  is  much  rarer  in  modern  than  it  was 
in  ancient  times.*  In  the  British  Isles  at  present 
there  do  not  probably  exist  a  hundred  persons  who 
have  ever  been  ransomed,  whereas  in  the  ancient 
world  there  would  be  such  wherever  two  or  three 
were  met  together.  War  was  never  a  rare  experience 
to  the  countrymen  of  Jesus,  and  in  war  the  process 
of  ransoming  was  occurring  continually,  when 
prisoners  were  exchanged  for  prisoners,  or  captives 
were  released  on  the  payment  by  themselves  or 
their  relatives  of  a  sum  of  money.     Similarly,  slavery 

*  My  friend,  Dr.  John  C.  Gibson,  of  Swatovv,  has  told  me  that 
it  is  very  common  at  the  present  day  in  China  ;  he  has  himself 
ransomed  a  man. 


i8o  THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

was  a  universal  institution,  and  in  connexion  with  it 
the  process  of  ransoming  was  common,  when,  for  a 
price  paid,  slaves  received  their  liberty.  The  Jews 
had,  besides,  numerous  forms  of  ransoming  peculiar 
to  their  own  laws  and  customs.  For  example,  the 
firstborn  male  of  every  household  was,  in  theory, 
liable  to  be  a  priest,  but  was  redeemed  by  a  pay- 
ment of  so  many  shekels  to  the  actual  priesthood, 
which  belonged  exclusively  to  a  single  tribe.  A 
person  whose  ox  had  gored  a  man  to  death  was  in 
theory  guilty  of  murder,  but  was  released  from  the 
liability  to  expiate  his  guilt  with  his  life  by  a 
payment  to  the  relatives  of  the  dead  man.* 

Such  cases  show  clearly  what  ransoming  was  :  it 
was  the  deliverance  of  a  person  from  some  misery  or 
liability  through  the  payment,  either  by  himself  or 
by  another  on  his  behalf,  of  a  sum  ot  money  or  any 
other  equivalent  which  the  person  in  whose  power 
he  was  might  be  willing  to  accept  as  a  condition  of 
his  release.  It  was  a  triangular  transaction,  in- 
volving three  parties — first  the  person  to  be  ransomed, 
secondly  the  giver,  and  thirdly  the  receiver  of  the 
ransom. 

As  regards  the  first  of  these  parties,  in  the  case 
of  the  ransom  of  Christ,  the  most  important  question 

*  Num.  xviii.  15  ;  Exod.  xxi.  30. 


THE  REDEEMER  ,8i 


is,  what  they  are  ransomed  from.  What  is  the  nature 
of  the  misery  or  h'ability  in  which  they  are  involved, 
and  from  which  they  require  to  be  delivered  ? 

Our  Lord  seems  to  have  had  in  His  mind  a 
passage  in  the  forty-ninth  psalm.*  This  psalm  is 
one  of  those,  of  which  there  are  several  in  the  Psalter, 
dealing  with  the  mystery  of  life,  especially  as  this  is 
exhibited  in  the  inequalities  of  the  human  lot.  For 
the  purpose  of  lightening  the  burden  of  this  mystery, 
it  sets  forth,  with  rare  poetic  power,  the  things 
which  wealth  cannot  do  ;  and  the  chief  of  these  is, 
that  it  cannot  keep  off  the  approach  of  death — 

"None  of  them  can  by  any  means  redeem  his  brother, 
Nor  give  to  God  a  ransom  for  him: 
(For  the  redemption  of  their  soul  is  costly, 
And  must  be  let  alone  forever:) 
That  he  should  still  live  alway, 
That  he  should  not  see  corruption. 

On  account  of  this  reference  it  has  been  argued 
that  the  evil  from  which  Christ  redeems  us  is  death, 
or  the  fear  of  death.  But,  in  point  of  fact.  He 
does  not  redeem  from  physical  death. 

There  is  another  saying  of  Jesus,  also  apparently 
occasioned  by  the  same  passage  of  the  same  psalm, 
by  which  we  are  led  nearer  to  His  meaning.  It  is 
the  well-known  question,  "  What  shall  a  man  give  in 

*  Especially  vv.  7,  8,  9,  15.     I  quote  from  the  Revised  Version. 


i82  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

exchange  for  his  soul  ? "  As  "  soul "  is  the  same 
as  "  life,"  Jesus  may  seem  in  this  saying  simply 
to  be  supplementing  the  statement  of  the  psalm, 
that  none  can  redeem  his  brother's  life  from  death, 
with  the  further  reflexion,  that  no  man  can  redeem 
his  own  ;  but  it  is  proved  by  the  connexion  that 
He  means  more.  Between  the  date  of  the  psalm 
and  the  date  of  our  Lord's  utterance,  the  whole 
conception  of  death,  and  of  what  ensues  after  death, 
had  deepened  ;  and  this  deeper  note  enters  into 
our  Lord's  words.  The  connexion  in  which  the 
verse  occurs  is  this  :  "  And  when  He  had  called 
the  people  unto  Him,  with  His  disciples  also,  He 
said  unto  them.  Whosoever  will  come  after  Me,  let 
him  deny  himself  and  take  up  his  cross  and  follow 
Me  ;  for  whosoever  will  save  his  life  shall  lose  it ; 
but  whosoever  shall  lose  his  life  for  My  sake  and 
the  gospel's,  the  same  shall  save  it  ;  for  what  shall 
it  profit  a  man,  if  he  gain  the  whole  world  and 
lose  his  own  soul  ?  or  what  shall  a  man  give  in  ex- 
change for  his  soul .-'  Whosoever,  therefore,  shall  be 
ashamed  of  Me  and  of  My  words  in  this  adulterous 
and  sinful  generation,  of  him  also  shall  the  Son  of 
man  be  ashamed,  when  He  cometh  in  the  glory 
of  His  Father,  with  the  holy  angels."  Here  we 
are  among  a  far  more  solemn  order  of  ideas  than 
that  of  the  psalm.     The  death  contemplated  is  not 


THE  REDEEMER  183 


that  of  the  body  but  of  the  soul,  and  the  danger 
is  tliat  of  an  unfavourable  verdict  at  the  final 
judgment.  That  from  which  Christ  ransoms  may 
be  called  the  fear  of  death,  but,  if  so,  it  is  the  fear 
of  death  eternal ;  and  the  only  method  of  taking 
this  away  is  to  take  away  sin,  which  lends  to  death 
its  terror.  From  this  no  man  can  ransom  himself, 
neither  can  any  man  ransom  his  brother,  but  the 
Son  of  man  came  to  give  His  life  a  ransom 
for  many. 

Turning  now  to  Him  who  pays  the  ransom,  we 
observe  that  Jesus  describes  the  payment  of  this 
ransom  as  the  culminating  purpose  of  his  whole 
life — He  "  came  "  to  minister  and  to  give  His  life 
a  ransom.  In  the  circumstances  in  which  this  was 
spoken  the  reference  could  only  be  to  a  violent 
death — in  fact,  to  the  shedding  of  His  blood.  But 
it  is  to  be  observed  that  He  does  not  here  say, 
as  He  does  elsewhere,  that  they  would  take  His 
life,  but  that  He  would  give  it.  His  death  was 
to  be  His  own  voluntary  act.  Service  extorted  by 
force  is  not  greatness,  but  slavery.  It  was  not  as 
a  slave  that  Jesus  lived,  and  it  was  not  as  a  slave 
that  He  died.  No  doubt  wicked  men  took  his  life, 
as  they  had  previously  taken  His  ease,  comfort  and 
honour ;  but  He  put  so  much  magnanimity,  at  every 
crisis,  into  the  surrender  that  the  sacrifice  was  His 


i84  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

own  act,  and  He  remained  master  of  His  fate. 
When  He  was  nailed  to  the  tree,  He  was  not  a 
mere  martyr  suffering  what  others  inflicted  on  Him, 
but  He  was  paying  a  ransom. 

The  dignity  of  the  act  is,  however,  chiefly  brought 
out  in  the  claim  that  He  gave  His  life  "  for  many." 
When  prisoners  were  bartered  at  the  conclusion 
of  a  war,  the  exchange  was  not  always  simply  man 
for  man.  An  officer  was  of  more  value  than  a 
common  soldier,  and  several  soldiers  might  be 
redeemed  by  the  surrender  of  one  officer.  For  a 
woman  of  high  rank  or  extraordinary  beauty  a  still 
greater  number  of  prisoners  might  be  exchanged  ; 
and  by  the  giving  up  of  a  king's  son  many  might 
be  redeemed.  So  the  sense  of  His  own  unique 
dignity  and  His  peculiar  relation  to  God  is  implied 
in  the  statement  that  His  life  would  redeem  the 
lives  of  many.  St.  Paul  expresses  the  truth  still 
more  boldly  when  he  says  that  Jesus  gave  His  life 
a  ransom  "  for  all  "  ;  *  but  the  two  phrases  come 
to  the  same  thing  ;  because  the  "  many  "  spoken  of 
by  Jesus  really  include  "  all "  who  are  willing  to 
avail  themselves  of  the  opportunity. 

The  third  party  to  the  transaction  is  the  one  to 
whom  the  ransom  is  paid.     It  is  obvious  that  in  any 

*  I  Tim,  ii.  6. 


THE  REDEEMER  185 


transaction  deserving  the  name  of  ransom  this  third 
party  was  in  some  respects  the  most  important  of 
all.  He  held  the  prisoner  in  custody,  and,  while 
others  might  offer  a  ransom,  it  was  his  to  say 
whether  or  not  he  would  accept  of  any,  and  whether 
he  was  satisfied  with  the  terms  proposed.  In  spite 
of  these  considerations,  there  are  interpreters  of  this 
great  saying  of  our  Lord  who  ignore  this  aspect  of 
the  truth  altogether,  holding  that  only  two  things 
are  essential  in  the  case — namely,  the  misery  of 
those  who  need  to  be  redeemed  and  the  price  paid 
by  the  Redeemer.  Everyone,  however,  can  judge  for 
himself  whether  or  not  this  satisfies  the  conditions  of 
the  metaphor.  For  a  situation  in  which  only  the  two 
things  just  mentioned — misery  and  deliverance — 
require  to  be  considered,  there  are  many  other  meta- 
phors which  might  have  been  employed  ;  but  this 
one,  of  a  ransom,  naturally  suggests  something  more. 
And  that  Jesus  was  thinking  of  something  more 
seems  to  me  to  be  especially  implied  in  the  words 
"  tor  many."  In  whose  eyes  is  it  that  Jesus  be- 
lieves His  life  will  be  regarded  as  an  equivalent 
for  the  lives  of  many  ?  Not  His  own  merely — in 
that  case  His  claim  would  be  a  vainglorious  boast — 
but  primarily  God's.  Unforgiven  sinners  may  no 
doubt  be  said  to  condemn  themselves  to  death  and 
to  descend  to  their  doom  with  the  force  of  natural 


1*6  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

law ;  yet  they  are  in  the  hands  of  a  just  and  holy 
God,  and  their  doom  is  His  sentence.  It  was  to 
avert  this  and  to  turn  it  into  a  sentence  of  acquittal 
that  Jesus  gave  His  life. 

It  is  true  the  death  of  Christ  has  a  profound  and 
manifold  effect  on  the  mind  of  man.  The  tranquillity 
with  which  He  met  a  death  of  unparalleled  atrocity 
has  set  an  example  fitted  to  soothe  the  feelings  of 
all  who  in  the  last  agony  remember  Him,  and  to 
deliver  them  from  the  fear  of  death  ;  *  His  faith, 
that  death  was  not  the  end  of  existence  but  only  a 
stage  of  transition  to  a  higher  form  of  life,  breathes 
into  our  hearts  also  the  assurance  that  death  is  the 
gateway  of  life  ;  f  and  the  sight  of  what  sin  inflicted 

*  This  is  Wendt's  explanation. 

t  "Est  kann  nicht  gemeint  sein,  dass  dieselben  von  dem  Tode 
als  dem  Schicksal  aller  geschaffenen  Wesen  ausgenommen 
werden  sollen ;  denn  die  Untervverfung  unter  dieses  Geschick 
fordert  Jesus  im  bestimmten  Falle  gerade  als  die  Probe  der 
Anhanglichkeit  an  ihn  (8 :  35).  Also  ist  die  Meinung  die,  dass 
indem  auch  die  Genossen  der  Gemeinde  Jesu  dem  Tode  verfallen, 
sein  freiwilliges  von  dem  bestimmten  Zweck  geleitetes  und 
zugleich  unverschuldetes  Sterben  ihnen  zum  Schutze  dagegen 
dient,  dass  sie  im  Tode  die  voile  Vernichtung  und  Zvvecklosigkeit 
erfahren  ;  vielmehr  soil  ihnen  jene  Leistung  Jesu  dazu  dieuen, 
dass  sie  aus  dem  bisber  geltenden  gottlichen  Verhangniss  der 
endgiltigen  Lebensvernichtung  eriost  werden,  dass  sie  eine 
andere  Beurtheilung  des  Todes  gewinnen,  als  unter  dem  Alten 
Testament  mOglich  war,  uiiJ  dass  sie  den  Tod  nicht  mehr 
fiirchten." — Ritschl,  Rc-'.ilfertigtiug  nnd  VersdJmufig,  II.  87,  88. 


THE  REDEEMER  187 


on  the  Holiest  and  the  Noblest  is  fitted  to  arouse  in 
the  mind  a  revulsion  from  sin  and  a  passion  of 
indignation  against  it.  But  by  far  the  most  im- 
portant effect  of  the  death  of  Christ  was  its  effect 
on  the  mind  of  God.*  To  define  precisely  what 
this  was  may  be  impossible,  and  theologians  may 
have  made  great  mistakes  in  attempting  to  define  it ; 
yet  we  are  safe  in  saying  that  it  altered  the  relation 
of  God  to  sinners.  It  did  not  make  Him  love  them, 
for  this  He  had  always  done;  indeed,  it  was  His 
immemorial  love  which  gave  Christ  to  His  mission  ; 
but  it  removed  an  obstacle  to  the  free  outflow  of  the 
divine  love.  It  effected  this  by  annihilating  sin ; 
and  this  is  what  is  implied  in  the  idea  of  ransom. 

I  am  very  desirous  not  to  put  anything  into  this 
saying  which  docs  not  belong  to  it  ;  but  I  find  it 
hard  to  believe  that  in  the  "  many  '  here  mentioned 
there  is  not  an  echo  of  the  phrases  of  the  last  two 
verses  of  the  fifty-third  chapter  of  Isaiah,  "  He  bare 
the  sin  of  many,"  and,  "  By  His  knowledge  shall 
my  righteous  servant  justify  many."  So,  "to  give 
His    life    a    ransom"    sounds    uncommonly    like    a 

*  Nine-tenths  of  the  modern  books  on  the  Atonement  are 
occupied  with  its  effects  on  the  mind  of  man,  but  nine-tenths  of 
the  Bible  statements  are  concerned  with  its  effects  on  the  mind 
of  God.  All  modern  writers  are  aware  that  Jesus  came  to  make 
good  men  better,  but  comparatively  few  have  any  idea  that  He 
came  to  make  bad  men  good.     Yet  this  is  the  Gospel. 


THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 


reminiscence  of  the  words  in  the  same  chapter, 
"  Thou  shalt  make  His  soul  an  offering  for  sin."  If 
this  be  correct,  Jesus  must  have  thought  of  Himself 
as  the  Servant  of  the  Lord,  about  whose  substitution 
for  sinners  such  wonderful  things  are  said  by  Isaiah  ; 
and,  in  that  case,  we  need  not  have  any  doubt  what 
is  intended  when  we  are  told  that  after  His  resurrec- 
tion. He  expounded  unto  the  disciples  in  all  the 
Scriptures  "  the  things  concerning  Himself."  *  At 
all  events  the  earliest  Christian  preaching  applied 
Isaiah's  picture  of  the  Man  of  Sorrows  to  Jesus,  and 
it  did  so  expressly  because  the  subject  of  the 
prophetic  picture  took  away  the  sin  of  others  by  the 
sacrifice  of  Himself.f  It  is  beyond  question  that 
this  was  the  faith  of  the  Church  immediately  after 
our  Lord's  departure.  St.  Paul  mentions  as  the  very 
first  article  of  the  common  tradition  of  Christianity, 
that  "  Christ  died  for  our  sins  according  to  the 
Scriptures  ;  "  ^  so  that  the  doctrine  was  no  invention 
of  his.  He  made  it  his  own,  indeed,  by  the  intense 
conviction  with  which  he  grasped  it  and  the  thorough- 
ness with  which  he  expounded  it  ;  but  it  was  equally 
the  doctrine  of  St.  Peter,  St.  John  and  the  author  ol 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews. 

I  am  sticking  rigidly,  in  this  course  of  lectures,  to 

*  Luke  xxiv.  27.  t  Acts  viii.  32-35. 

X  I  Cor.  XV.  3. 


THE  REDEEMER  189 


the  exposition  of  the  words  of  Jesus  Himself,  without 
adding  or  subtracting  ;  and  yet  there  are  points  at 
which  we  cannot  escape  the  question,  whether  the 
best  guide  to  the  meaning  of  His  words  be  not  the 
central  beliefs  of  His  first  followers.  When  the  first 
Christians  knew  that  their  Lord  was  risen  and 
glorified,  they  knew  also  that  their  conception  of 
His  death,  as  the  mere  act  of  wicked  men  and  as 
the  termination  of  His  career  and  His  cause,  was 
mistaken.  They  had  still,  however,  to  find  an 
explanation  of  the  mystery,  and  they  found  it  in  the 
belief  that  His  death  was  a  sacrifice  by  which  He 
expiated  the  sin  of  the  world.  This  was  a  concep- 
tion of  incomparable  originality  and  grandeur,  revo- 
lutionising the  whole  doctrine  of  both  man  and  God. 
Is  it   likely   that  it   was  an    invention   of  theirs  ?  * 

*  This  is  powerfully  put  by  Principal  Fairbairn  : — "  We  have 
to  consider  both  the  apostles  and  the  theory.  It  was  a  belief 
of  stupendous  originality ;  they  were  persons  of  no  intellectual 
attainments  and  of  small  inventive  faculty.  So  far  as  the  Gospels 
enable  us  to  judge,  they  were  curiously  deficient  in  imagination 
and  of  timid  understanding.  They  were  remarkable  for  their 
inability  to  draw  obvious  conclusions,  to  transcend  the  common- 
place, and  comprehend  the  unfamiliar,  or  to  find  a  rational  reason 
for  the  extraordinary.  Such  men  might  dream  dreams  and  see 
visions,  but  to  invent  an  absolutely  novel  intellectual  conception 
as  to  their  Master's  person  and  death — a  conception  that  changed 
man's  view  of  God,  of  sin,  of  humanity,  of  history,  in  a  word,  of 
all  things  human  and  divine — was  surely  a  feat  beyond  them." — 
Expositor,  1896,  p.  282. 


I90  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

Is  it  not  far  more  likely,  that  this  was  the  way 
which  Jesus  Himself  found  of  solving  the  dark 
problem  of  His  death  and  of  seeing  beyond  it  into 
regions  of  illimitable  hope  ;  and  that  He  found  it 
because  it  was  true  ? 

The  other  great  saying  of  Jesus  on  this  subject 
is  the  one  emitted  at  the  Last  Supper.  It  is  given 
by  St.  Paul,  in  the  account  of  the  scene  which,  he 
says,  he  "received  of  the  Lord,"  in  the  following 
form,  "  This  cup  is  the  new  testament  in  My  blood  "  ; 
St.  Mark's  form  is,  "  This  is  My  blood  of  the  new 
testament,  which  is  shed  for  many " ;  and  St. 
Matthew's,  "  This  is  My  blood  of  the  new  testament, 
which  is  shed  for  many  for  the  remission  of  sins." 
These  different  accounts  have  of  late  been  not  so 
much  tested  as  tortured  for  the  purpose  of  bringing 
out  discrepancies  and  eliciting  a  meaning  free  from 
distinct  theological  colouring ;  but  at  least  these 
three  are  substantially  identical ;  that  of  St.  Luke 
being  less  definite.*     Whatever  St.  Paul  may  mean 

*  Since  1891  a  controversy  on  the  Lord's  Supper,  which  has 
swelled  to  extraordinary  dimensions,  has  been  going  on  in 
Germany.  It  was  begun  by  Harnack,  who  published  an  essay 
on  "  Bread  and  Water  the  Eucharistic  Elements  according  to 
Justin,"  in  which  he  contended  that  the  institution  was  originally 
so  understood  that  its  blessing  was  not  legally  confined  to 
bread   and  wine,  but  only  to   eating   and   drinking,   that   is,  a 


THE  REDEEMER  191 


by  saying  that  he  "  received  "  the  account  which  he 
gives  "  from  the  Lord,"  he  may  at  least  be  trusted 
to  have  satisfied  himself  that  his  report  was  accurate. 
It  is  contended  that  the  theological  colouring  of  the 
phrases  is  due  to  him  ;  but  may  the  influence  not 
have  acted  in  the  opposite  direction  ?  The  apostle 
quotes  the  words  of  his  Master  remarkably  seldom  ; 
but  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  he  was  either 
ignorant  of  them  or  indifferent  to  them ;  and  a 
saying  of  Christ's  like  this,  embodied  in  the  most 
distinctive  rite  of  His  religion,  was  one  likely  to 
receive  the  keenest  attention  from  such  a  mind.  If 
the  meaning  of  the  death  of  Christ  is  a  leading 
element  of  St.  Paul's  theology,  it  may  very  well  be, 
that  we  are  here  at  the  fountain-head  from  which 
this  element  of  his  doctrine  was  derived. 

It  is  nothing  less  than  a  calamity  to  the  English- 
simple  meal.  This  was  opposed  by  Th.  Zahn  and  Jiilicher, 
the  latter  of  whom,  however,  gave  the  controversy  a  new  start 
by  raising  the  question  whether  Jesus  was  really  the  Author  of 
the  institution,  or  whether  He  merely,  in  a  moment  of  genial 
inspiration,  conjured  up  the  beautiful  situation,  without  any 
ulterior  design.  The  subsequent  contributions  to  the  contro- 
versy have  come  from  Spitta,  Haupt,  Brandt,  Grafe  and  many 
more ;  and  every  conceivable  phase  of  the  subject  has  been 
brought  into  view.  An  ample  account  of  the  whole  will  be 
found  in  the  work  of  Schaefer  cited  at  the  head  of  this  chapter, 
and  brief  accounts  in  The  Expositor  for  July  and  August,  1898, 
by  the  Rev.  G.  W.  Stewart,  and  in  the  second  number  of  Samt 
Andrew  by  Professor  Menzies. 


192  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

speaking  world  that  this  saying  of  our  Lord,  heard 
at  every  celebration  of  the  communion,  is  marred 
by  a  serious  mistranslation — Jesus  being  made  to 
say,  "  This  is  the  blood  of  the  new  testament,"  when 
what  He  did  say  was,  "  This  is  the  blood  of  the  new 
covenant."*  It  is  the  same  mistake  which  makes 
us,  to  our  loss,  call  the  two  halves  of  the  Bible  the 
Old  and  the  New  Testaments — names  which  have 
scarcely  any  meaning — instead  of  the  Old  and  the 
New  Covenants — names  which  are  full  of  meaning. 

A  covenant  is  a  transaction  between  two  parties, 
each  of  which  gives  something  to  the  other  and 
receives  something  in  return.  This  exchange  is  the 
essence  of  a  covenant ;  and  covenants  are  ot  all 
degrees  of  dignity  according  to  the  value  of  the 
objects  exchanged.  The  most  ordinary  bargain,  in 
which  the  buyer  hands  a  coin  across  the  counter 
and  the  seller  an  article  of  merchandise,  is  a 
covenant ;  but  the  word  is  generally  reserved  for 
transactions  of  greater  moment,  such  as  leagues  or 
alliances  between  nations.  The  most  solemn  cove- 
nant between  human  beings  is  marriage  ;  and  the 
solemnity  consists  in  this,  that,  whereas  in  other 
covenants  the  parties  exchange  things  more  or  less 
valuable,  in  marriage    they   give  themselves.     This 

*  The  Revised  Version  corrects  this. 


THE  REDEEMER  193 


instance   flashes   light  on    the   reh'gious    use   of  the 
term  ;  for,  as  in  marriage  man  and  woman,  so  in 
religion    God    and    man    give    themselves    to    each 
other.     This  is  the  essence  of  religion,  and  the  v^oxd 
"  religion "    itself,    though    of   uncertain    derivation, 
signifies  in  all  probability  nothing  else.     This,  at  all 
events,  is  the  signification  of  the  word  "  covenant " 
in    Scripture,   where    it    is    often    explained   by  the 
words  of  Jehovah,  "  I  will  be  their  God  and  they 
shall  be  My  people."     It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that 
in   the   Old  Testament  the   word  "  religion "  never 
occurs.     Its   absence  can  only  be  due  to   the  fact 
that  other  equivalents  are  employed  in  place  of  it : 
and  of  these  the  commonest  is  "  covenant,"  which 
occurs  about  three  hundred  times.     This  shows  how 
near   to   the  very   heart  of  Biblical  thought  Jesus 
was  when  He  called  the  Last  Supper  a  covenant, 
indicating  that  the  essence  of  this  ordinance  is  the 
same  as  that  of  all  religion — God  giving  Himself  to 
man  and  man  giving  himself  to  God. 

Another  unhappy  result  of  the  mistranslation 
above  referred  to  is,  that  it  obliterates  the  reference 
in  this  communion  formula  to  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  predictions  of  the  Old  Testament — that 
in  which  Jeremiah  says  :  "  Behold  the  days  come, 
saith  the  Lord,  that  I  will  make  a  new  convenant 
with    the  house    of   Israel,  and  with  the  house    of 

13 


194  THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

Judah  :  not  according  to  the  covenant  which  I  made 
with  their  fathers  in  the  day  that  I  took  them  by 
the  hand  to  bring  them  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt ; 
which  My  covenant  they  brake,  although  I  was  an 
husband  unto  them,  saith  the  Lord  :  but  this  shall 
be  the  covenant  that  I  will  make  with  the  house  of 
Israel  :  After  those  days,  saith  the  Lord,  I  will  put 
My  law  in  their  inward  parts,  and  write  it  in  their 
hearts  ;  and  will  be  their  God,  and  they  shall  be  My 
people.  And  they  shall  teach  no  more  every  man 
his  neighbour,  and  every  man  his  brother,  saying, 
Know  the  Lord  :  for  they  shall  all  know  Me,  from 
the  least  of  them  unto  the  greatest  of  them,  saith 
the  Lord  :  for  I  will  forgive  their  iniquity,  and  I 
will  remember  their  sin  no  more."*  When  our 
Lord,  lifting  the  cup  in  the  upper  room,  said,  "  This 
is  the  new  covenant,"  His  meaning  was,  that  this 
prediction  of  Jeremiah  was  fulfilled. 

If  it  be  remembered,  that  in  the  Old  Testament 
the  word  "  covenant "  is  equivalent  to  "  religion," 
it  will  be  felt  how  daring  was  the  prediction  of 
Jeremiah — nothing  less  than  the  abolition  of  the 
religion  under  which  he  himself  lived  and  the  sub- 
stitution of  a  new  one  in  its  place — and  the  same 
reflexion   brings   out   the  fundamental  character   of 

*  Jer.  xxxi.  31-34. 


THE  REDEEMER  195 


the  statement  of  Jesus  ;  for  He  was  designating 
Himself  as  the  founder  of  a  new  reh'gion.  Of 
course  the  new  was  not  to  be  wholly  new — neither 
Jeremiah  nor  Jesus  intended  this.  The  Deity  was 
not  to  be  changed  ;  for  Jehovah  was  the  one  living 
and  true  God  ;  and  there  were  to  be  innumerable 
other  points  of  connexion.  Still  the  changes  were 
to  be  great  enough  to  justify  the  designation  of  the 
principal  rite  of  Christianity  as  a  new  covenant. 

The  points  of  difference  are  indicated  by  Jeremiah 
with  singular  precision.  First,  the  law  was  to  be 
written  on  the  heart.  In  the  old  religion  the 
law  was  written  on  stone.  It  was  external.  It 
was  the  commandment  of  a  distant  Deity,  imposed 
from  without  on  the  human  will.  Therefore,  it  was 
a  yoke,  harsh  and  hard  to  bear.  But  a  law  written 
on  the  heart  is  a  light  burden  and  an  easy  yoke. 
It  is  obedience  to  the  will  of  One  who  is  loved  ; 
and  love  makes  duty  easy.  But  how  was  love  to 
be  evoked  more  fully  under  the  new  covenant  than 
the  old  }  It  could  only  be  by  a  fuller  revelation 
of  the  nature  of  God.  This,  therefore,  is  the  next 
member  of  the  promise — "  They  shall  teach  no  more 
every  man  his  neighbour  and  every  man  his  brother, 
saying,  Know  the  Lord  ;  for  they  shall  all  know 
Me,  from  the  least  of  them  to  the  greatest  of  them." 
At  first  sight,  this  seems  to  refer  to  the  universality 


196  THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

of  the  knowledge  of  God  ;  and  it  might  be  sup- 
posed to  be  a  prediction  of  the  extension  of  the 
knowledge  of  God  to  all  men,  Gentile  as  well  as 
Jew,  which  was,  indeed,  to  be  one  of  the  prominent 
features  of  the  new  religion.  But  it  refers  rather  to 
the  thoroughness  of  the  new  knowledge  than  to  its 
universal  diffusion.  It  is  not  a  prediction  that  there 
will  be  no  need  of  religious  education,  but  that  there 
will  be  no  need  of  urgency  in  pressing  it  on  the 
unresponsive,  because  God  will  appear  in  an  aspect 
so  attractive  as  to  draw  the  hearts  of  small  and  great. 
In  short.  He  will  be  revealed  as  the  God  of  love. 
The  love  of  God  would,  however,  reveal  itself  specially 
in  one  way — in  a  much  more  thorough  removal  of  sin 
than  was  possible  through  the  sacrifices  of  the  old 
covenant.  And,  therefore,  the  prophet  gives  this 
as  the  climax  of  the  promise,  "  I  will  forgive  their 
iniquity,  and  I  will  remember  their  sins  no  more."* 

*  "  Observandum,  ilia  tria  apud  prophetam  proponi  inverse 
ordine.  Naturalis  autem  ordo  hie  est,  quod  primo  omnium 
Deus  electis  reraittit  peccata  propter  satisfactionem  Christi, 
deinde  donat  eis  Spiritum  Sanctum,  qui  primum  illuminat 
mentes  eorum  cognitione  gratlae  Dei  per  satisfactionem  Christi 
acquisitae,  deinde  vero  renovat  voluntatem  ad  studium  grati- 
tudinis  pro  beneficio  liberationis  seu  redemptionis  per 
Christum.  Etsi  enim  remissionem  peccatorum  postremo  loco 
commemorat,  tamen  illam  praecedentibus  annectit  per  conjunc- 
tionem  causalem.'' — Piscator,  qvioted  by  Smeaton,  Our  Lord's 
Doctrine  of  the  Atonement. 


THE  REDEEMER  197 


This  brings  us  to  tlie  most  mysterious  phrase  in 
our  Lord's  saying — "  the  blood  of  the  covenant." 

If  our  Lord's  words  about  the  new  covenant 
carry  us  irresistibly  back  to  Jeremiah,  the  words  of 
Jeremiah  carry  us  back  as  irresistibly  far  beyond  his 
day;  for,  if  there  is  to  be  a  new  covenant,  there 
must  have  been  an  old  one,  and  we  naturally  ask 
when  and  where  the  old  one  was  made.  As  to  this 
we  are  left  in  no  doubt ;  because  in  the  very  opening 
of  his  prediction,  the  prophet  introduces  Jehovah  as 
saying,  "  I  will  make  a  new  covenant  with  the  house 
of  Israel,  and  with  the  house  of  Judah  :  not  accord- 
ing to  the  covenant  that  I  made  with  their  fathers, 
in  the  day  that  I  took  them  by  the  hand  to  bring 
them  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt."  So  that  it  was  at 
the  era  of  the  Exodus  that  the  first  covenant  was 
made. 

The  scene  is  given  in  the  twenty-fourth  chapter 
of  the  Book  of  Exodus  ;  and  there  is  no  more 
fundamental  passage  in  the  entire  Old  Testament  ; 
though,  perhaps,  its  details  are  not  stamped  as 
distinctly  as  its  importance  would  render  natural  on 
the  memory  of  even  careful  students  of  the  Bible.* 

*  "And  He  said  unto  Moses,  Come  up  unto  the  Lord,  thou, 
and  Aaron,  Nadab  and  Abihu,  and  seventy  of  the  elders  of  Israel ; 
and  worship  ye  afar  off:  and  Moses  alone  shall  come  near  unto 
the  Lord ;  but  they  shall  not  come  near ;  neither  shall  the 
people  go  up  with  him.    And  Moses  came  and  told  the  people 


THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 


What  is  popularly  remembered  about  the  Exodus  is 
the  deliverance  at  the  Red  Sea  or  the  giving  of  the 
law  at  Sinai ;  but  both  of  these  were  only  pre- 
liminaries to  the  making  of  the  covenant.  The 
formation  of  this  union  between  Jehovah  and  His 
people  was  the  real  purpose  for  which  the  enslaved 
nation  was  delivered  from  bondage ;  and  the  law 
was  only  the  enumeration  of  the  conditions  laid 
down  by  Jehovah  with  a  view  to  this  transaction. 
In  the  passage  quoted  from  Jeremiah  Jehovah  says, 
"  I  was  an  husband  unto  them  "  ;  and  this  is  looked 

all  the  words  of  the  Lord,  and  all  the  judgements :  and  all  the 
people  answered  with  one  voice,  and  said,  All  the  words  which 
the  Lord  hath  spoken  will  we  do. 

"  And  Moses  wrote  all  the  words  of  the  Lord,  and  rose  up  early 
in  the  morning,  and  builded  an  altar  under  the  mount,  and  twelve 
pillars,  according  to  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel.  And  he  sent  young 
men  of  the  children  of  Israel,  which  offered  burnt  offerings,  and 
sacrificed  peace  offerings  of  oxen  unto  the  Lord.  And  Moses 
took  half  of  the  blood,  and  put  it  in  basons ;  and  half  of  the 
blood  he  sprinkled  on  the  altar.  And  he  took  the  book  of  the 
covenant,  and  read  in  the  audience  of  the  people  :  and  they  said. 
All  that  the  Lord  hath  spoken  will  we  do,  and  be  obedient. 
And  Moses  took  the  blood,  and  sprinkled  it  on  the  people,  and 
said.  Behold  the  blood  of  the  covenant,  which  the  Lord  hath 
made  with  you  concerning  all  these  words. 

"Then  went  up  Moses  and  Aaron,  Nadab  and  Abihu,  and 
seventy  of  the  elders  of  Israel :  and  they  saw  the  God  of  Israel ; 
and  there  was  under  His  feet  as  it  were  a  paved  work  of  sapphire 
stone,  and  as  it  were  the  very  heaven  for  clearness.  And  upon 
the  nobles  of  the  children  of  Israel  He  laid  not  His  hand :  and 
they  beheld  God,  and  did  eat  and  drink."— Exodus  xxiv.  i-l  I  (R.V). 


THE  REDEEMER  i^9 


upon  as  the  occasion  when  this  relationship,  so 
fundamental  and  so  familiar  to  all  the  prophets,  was 
formed. 

In  examining  more  closely  the  details  of  the 
grand  historical  picture  unfolded  in  Exodus,  we 
must  fix  attention  specially  on  the  part  played  in  it 
by  blood  ;  for  therein  is  to  be  found  the  key  to  the 
phrase  of  Jesus,  "  the  blood  of  the  new  covenant." 

As  a  preliminary  observation  it  may  be  remarked, 
that  blood  has  always  played  a  prominent  part  in 
the  formation  of  covenants.*  When  those  who  are 
remembered  in  our  own  history  by  the  name  of 
the  Covenanters  signed  the  solemn  league,  in  the 
Greyfriars  Church  at  Edinburgh,  by  which  they 
were  banded  together,  numbers  of  them  opened  a 
vein  and  subscribed  the  document  with  their  own 
blood  instead  of  with  ink.  What  led  them  to  do 
so  was  the  natural  conviction  or  instinct  of 
man,  that  his  blood  is  his  life  :  they  meant  to  say, 

*  "  An  absolute  merging  of  two  personalities  into  one,  in  this 
union  of  friendship,  has  been  sought,  among  primitive  peoples 
everywhere,  by  tlie  intermingling  of  the  blood  of  the  two,  through 
its  mutual  drinking  or  its  inter-transfusion  ;  with  the  thought 
that  blended  blood  is  blended  Hfe.  Traces  of  this  custom  are 
found  in  the  traditions  and  practices  of  the  aborigines  of  different 
portions  of  Asia,  Africa,  Europe,  North  and  South  America,  and 
the  Islands  of  the  Sea.  Nor  is  there  any  quarter  of  the  globe 
where  traces  of  this  rite,  in  one  form  or  another,  are  not  to  be 
found  to-day." — Trumbull  :  Friendship,  p.  70. 


THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 


that  they  would  stand  to  what  they  had  done  with 
their  Hfe,  This  principle,  which  is  at  the  root  of  all 
the  solemn  statements  of  Scripture  about  blood,  is 
put  into  words  in  the  Mosaic  law  :  "  The  life  of  the 
flesh  is  in  the  blood  ;  and  I  have  given  it  to  you 
upon  the  altar,  to  make  an  atonement  for  your 
souls  ;  for  it  is  the  blood  that  maketh  an  atonement 
for  the  soul."*  In  Homer,  at  the  making  of  an 
agreement  between  the  rival  armies  beneath  the  walls 
of  Troy,  king  Agamemnon  recites  the  terms  of  the 
compact,  and  then  the  story  proceeds  as  follows  : — 

"  He  said  and  pierced  the  victims  ;  ebbing  life 
Forsook  them  soon ;  they  panted,  gasped  and  died. 
Then,  pouring  from  the  beaker  to  the  cups. 
They  filled  them,  worshipped  the  immortal  gods 
In  either  host,  and  thus  the  people  prayed : 
All  glorious  Jove,  and,  ye,  the  powers  of  heaven, 
Whoso  shall  violate  this  contract  first. 
So  be  their  blood,  their  children's  and  their  own, 
Poured  out,  as  this  libation,  on  the  ground."  t 

Here  the  blood  to  be  shed  in  case  of  unfaithfulness 
is  compared  to  the  wine  which  accompanied  the 
offering  ;  but  in  Livy,  the  Roman  historian,  we  find 
the  more  original  idea,  that  the  shedding  of  the 
victim's  blood  was  the  symbol  of  what  was  to  be 
done  with  the  life  of  the  violator  of  the  compact. 
He  mentions,  that  at  the  ratifying  of  a  treaty  the 

*  Lev.  xvii.  ll.  f  Iliad,  III.  292  ff. 


THE  REDEEMER 


priest  used  to  pray  as  follows: — "Hear,  O  Jupiter, 
that  the  Roman  people  will  not  under  any  circum- 
stances first  swerve  from  this  treaty  ;  and,  if  they  do, 
then  strike  them  on  that  day  as  I  here  strike  this 
animal."*  In  terms  extremely  similar  Jeremiah  men- 
tions that,  when  a  treaty  was  formed,  the  sacrifices 
were  divided  into  two  halves,  between  which  the  con- 
tracting parties  walked,  offering,  as  they  did  so,  the 
prayer  that  the  same  fate  as  had  befallen  the  victims 
might  be  the  lot  of  the  one  that  broke  the  covenant 
first.  The  idea  at  the  root  of  all  these  customs 
is  the  same  ;  but  in  the  making  of  the  covenant 
between  Jehovah  and  Israel  at  Sinai  it  received  a 
still  more  graphic  and  pointed  application. 

Early  one  morning,  after  the  giving  of  the  Law, 
the  people  were  assembled,  by  the  divine  command, 
round  a  conspicuous  plateau,  on  which  was  erected 
an  altar,  with  twelve  standing  stones  round  about 
it.  The  altar  suggested  the  divine  presence,  and, 
of  course,  the  twelve  stones  stood  for  the  twelve 
tribes  ;  so  that  the  objects  before  their  eyes  re- 
minded the  people  that  they  were  standing  in 
the  presence  of  Jehovah,  with  whom  they  were 
about  to  enter  into  covenant.  The  union  did  not, 
however,  take  place  forthwith  ;  because  the  people 


1.24, 


202  The  CHRiSTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

were  not  yet  fit  to  be  united  to  the  Most  Holy. 
On  this  account  victims  were  sacrificed  ;  the  work 
being  done  by  the  hands  of  chosen  young  men, 
because  as  yet  there  were  no  priests.  The  young 
men  typified  the  fresh  strength  of  the  community  ; 
for  the  act  in  which  they  were  engaged  had  to  be 
performed  with  their  whole  soul.  The  blood,  thus 
shed,  was  caught  in  basons  and  divided  into  two 
parts.  The  one  half  was  thereupon  sprinkled  on 
the  altar.  That  is  to  say,  it  was  given  to  God, 
as  an  acknowledgment  that  their  life  had  been 
forfeited  to  Him.  This  was  a  symbolical  con- 
fession, that,  as  the  blood  of  the  victims  had  been 
shed,  their  own  life  might,  in  strict  justice,  have 
been  taken.  When,  thus,  by  sacrifice  and  by  the 
confession  which  it  symbolized,  they  were  purged 
from  sin,  they  were  fit  for  union  with  God  ;  and, 
accordingly,  at  this  point  the  law  was  recited,  which 
Moses  had  written  in  a  book,  and  the  people,  having 
heard  it,  responded,  "  All  that  Jehovah  hath  said 
will  we  do  and  be  obedient."  That  is,  they 
accepted  and  subscribed  the  conditions  of  union. 
Then,  the  other  half  of  the  blood,  which  had 
meantime  been  kept  in  readiness  for  the  purpose, 
was  sprinkled  upon  the  people — whether  on  their 
persons,  or  on  the  stones  surrounding  the  altar, 
which    represented    them,   is   not   made   clear.       In 


THE  REDEEMER  203 


either  case  the  meaning  was,  that  the  life  which 
they  had  given  away  to  God,  as  lost  and  forfeited 
on  account  of  sin,  was,  now  that  sin  had  been 
removed,  given  back  to  them  purified  and  re- 
invigorated,  to  serve  as  the  force  with  which 
they  should  pursue  a  new  career  of  obedience  and 

fellowship. 

Such,  as  nearly  as  we  can  make  it  out — though, 
in  trying  to  reproduce  experiences  so  ancient,  it  is 
easy  to  stumble— were  the  thoughts  and  emotions 
of  this   remarkable   occasion  ;    and    they  bring  out 
the  force  and    meaning   of   the   blood   of   the   new 
covenant.     When,  in  the  communion,  we  approach 
God,  seeking  union  and  alliance  with  Him,  we  have 
to  pause;    for  we  are  not  fit  to  come  so  close  to 
the  Most   Holy.      We  have   to   turn    our    eyes    to 
the  cross  of  Christ  and  fix  them  on   Him.     And, 
as  we  do  so,  we  feel,  as  they  felt  that  day,  when 
they  saw  the  blood  of  the  sacrificial  victims  poured 
on    the   altar,  that,    in   strict   justice,   we   ought   to 
be   in   His  place  :    we   deserve  to  die,  because   we 
have  forfeited  our  life  through  sin.     The  moment, 
however,  we  make   this   confession   from  the  heart, 
we  are  freely  and  fully  forgiven,  and  are  ready  for 
union   with   God.      And,   as   the   other  half   of  the 
blood  was  sprinkled  on  the  people,  to  signify  that 
their    lost   life   was    restored,  so    is    our  life   given 


204  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

back,    potentiated    with     the    virtue     necessary    for 
communion,  holiness  and  usefuhiess. 

Wendt,  while  admitting  that  the  reference  in 
our  Lord's  words,  "  in  My  blood  "  is  to  this  scene 
at  Sinai,  denies  that  the  sacrifice  offered  on  that 
occasion  had  any  reference  to  sin.  But  how  does 
this  harmonize  with  the  description  in  Exodus  of 
the  sacrificial  feast  with  which  the  making  of  the 
covenant  wound  up  ?  Moses  and  Aaron,  Nadab 
and  Abihu,  and  seventy  of  the  elders  of  Israel — 
that  is,  a  large  and  dignified  delegation  representing 
the  whole  people — went  up  to  the  knoll  where  the 
altar  stood,  and  there  they  did  eat  and  drink.  No 
doubt  their  food  was  the  flesh  of  the  sacrifices, 
the  blood  of  which  had  been  disposed  of  as  we 
have  seen  ;  but  the  peculiarity  of  the  feast  was 
that  it  was  a  feast  with  God.  Not  that  He  partook 
of  their  food  :  no  such  crude  idea  is  hinted  at  : 
but  in  some  mysterious  way  they  were  made 
overwhelmingly  certain  of  His  nearness.  It  is 
said,  "  They  saw  the  God  of  Israel,  and  there  was 
under  His  feet  as  it  were  a  paved  work  of 
sapphire  stone,  and  as  it  were  the  very  heaven 
for  clearness."  As  they  ate,  the  cloud  opened 
above  them,  and  the  view  upward  became  clear — 
up  to  the  blue  sky.  But  it  was  more  than  sky — 
a  deeper,  yet  more  pellucid  blue  than  mortal  eye 


THE  REDEEMER  205 


had  ever  beheld — a  pavement  of  sapphire,  like 
the  very  heaven  for  clearness  ;  and  above  it,  using 
it  as  the  footstool  of  His  throne,  a  Presence 
ineffable  made  itself  felt,  not  visible  to  the  bodily 
eye,  yet  thrilling  the  soul  with  the  consciousness 
of  its  proximity.  "  And,"  it  is  added,  "  on  the 
nobles  of  Israel  He  laid  not  His  hand."  This 
is  the  word  which  shows  the  heart  of  the  whole 
transaction.*  That  no  man  can  see  God  and  live, 
is  a  principle  of  the  Old  Testament  throughout  ; 
yet  here  the  divine  presence  was  so  shrouded  in 
love  and  reconciliation  that,  instead  of  producing 
annihilating  horror,  it  communicated  only  peace 
and  delight.  The  picture  is  highly  symbolical  ; 
but  its  intention  is  not  difficult  to  trace.  It 
describes  the  experience  of  consciences  at  peace 
with  God  through  the  blood  of  atonement,  and  of 
patriots  rejoicing  in  the  new  career  on  which 
their  nation  had  been  launched  through  the  re- 
ception of  a  new,  purified  and  consecrated  life.f 

*  "  The  sacrifice,  being  an  offering  to  Jehovah,  was  piacular, 
atoning  for  and  consecrating  the  people  on  their  entering  upon 
their  new  relation  to  Jehovah." — Professor  A.  B.  Davidson, 
D.D.,  article  "  Covenant,"  in  Hastings'  Dictionary  of  the  Bible, 
1898. 

t  The  above  exposition  is  the  result  of  long  pondering  on  a 
scene  the  importance  of  which  I  discovered  for  myself;  but  it 
agrees  closely  with  that  given  by  Kurtz  in  his  History  of  the  Old 
Covenant  and  his  Sacrificial  Worship  of  the  Old  Testament. 


2o6  THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

Thus  I  have  endeavoured  to  analyze  the  words 
of  our  Lord  on  this  great  subject  ;  and,  although 
they  are  fewer  in  number  than  might  have  been 
anticipated,  yet,  if  we  weigh  instead  of  counting 
them,  we  cannot  complain  that  He  has  said  too 
little.  He  speaks  like  Himself — not  in  abstract 
terms  and  doctrinal  propositions,  but  in  metaphors 
and  images  borrowed  from  life  and  histor}'.  But 
His  figures  of  speech  are  the  imaginative  equivalents 
of  the  doctrines  of  the  apostles  and  the  dogmas  of 
the  Church.*  Perhaps,  indeed^  the  Church  might 
have    remembered    with    advantage    the   proportion 

*  Compare  the  weighty  words  of  Kahler :  Der  sogcnaimte 
historische  Jestts  und  der  geschichtliche,  biblische  Christus, 
p.  94 :  "  Wir  fassen  die  Surame  unseres  Glaubens,  die  Summe 
der  neutestamentlichen  Offenbarung  gem  in  das  Wort  zusam- 
men  :  '  Gott  ist  Liebe.'  Wann  hat  man  das  bekennen  gelemt  ? 
Nicht  durch  die  Predigt  welche  vom  Berge  am  See  erscholl  und 
von  den  Boten  durch  die  Stadte  Israels  getragen  wurde,  durch 
die  Predigt  vom  Reiche  Gottes,  soviel  in  ihr  auch  davon  enthalten 
sei ;  jenes  dunkle  Bildwort  sollte  erst  durch  Christi  Thun  und 
Erleben  seine  voile  Deutung  erhalten.  '  Darum  preiset  Gott 
seine  Liebe  gegen  uns,  dass  Christus  fiir  uns  gestorben  ist' 
(Rom.  V.  8,  vgl.  viii.  32-39),  erinnert  Paulus.  Und  woher  Johannes 
jene  Erkenntnis  gewonnen,  sagt  er  sehr  deutlich :  '  Darinnen 
stehet  die  Liebe :  nicht  dass  wir  Gott  geliebet  haben,  sondern 
dass  er  uns  geliebet  hat  und  gesandt  seinen  Sohn  zur  Suhne  fur 
unsre  Siinden.  Daran  haben  wir  erkannt  die  Liebe,  dass  er  sein 
Leben  fiir  uns  gelassen  hat  (i  Joh.  iv.  10;  iii.  16.).'"  The  whole 
book  is  a  defence  of  the  thesis  that  not  the  Jesus  of  the  Gospels, 
but  the  Christ  of  the  whole  Bible  is  the  true  object  of  faith. 


THE  REDEEMER  207 

observed  by  her  Master  in  the  teaching  of  this  side 
of  the  truth  ;  for  there  has  sometimes  been  a 
disposition  to  speak  as  if  the  death  of  Christ  were 
the  whole  of  Christianity,  to  the  neglect  of  His  life 
— His  earthly  life,  which  is  our  example,  and  His 
present  mystic  life  in  believers  through  His  Spirit. 

On  the  other  hand  we  shall  not  estimate  correctly 
the  place  which  Jesus  intended  such  subjects  as  sin, 
repentance  and  justification  to  hold  in  our  thoughts, 
unless  we  bear  in  mind  the  place  He  has  given  in 
Christian  worship  to  the  sacraments  of  Baptism  and 
the  Lord's  Supper,  both  of  which  are  intended  to 
keep  these  solemn  facts  continually  before  the 
consciousness  of  His  people. 


THE  JUDGE 


MS  14 


The  Prophecies  of  Jesus  :— 

Matthew  vii.  21-23  '>  ^"iii-  12,  13  ;   x.  15,  23,  32-42  ;  xi.  20-24  ;   xii.  32, 

36,  40-42;  xiii.  30,  37-43,  49,  50  ;  xvi    18,  21,  27,  28  ;  xvii.  9,  22, 

23  ;  xviii.  8,  9  ;  xix.  28-30  ;   xx.  19,  23  ;   xxi.  43,  44  ;    xxii.  1-14  ; 

xxiii.  34-39;  xxiv. ;  xxv.  ;    xxvi.  12,  13,  29,  31,  32,  34,  64  ;  xxvii. 

63  ;  xxviii.  10. 
Mark  iii.  29  ;  vi.  il  ;  viii.  31,  38 ;  ix.  i,  9,  31,  41-49  ;  x.  30,  31,  34,  40 ; 

xii.  9 ;  xiii. ;  xiv.  8,  9,  18,  27,  28,  30,  62. 
Luke  vi.  22,23;   ix.  26,  27;   x.  12-1$;   xi.  29-32,  49-51;    xii.  8-12, 

35-59  ;  xiii.  23-35  ;   xiv.  15-24  ;  xvii.  22-37  ;  xviii.  8,  29,  30,  33  ; 

xix.  11-27,  41-44;    XX.  9-18;    xxi.  S-36;   xxii.  18,  21,  29,  30,  34, 

69 ;  xxiii.  43  ;  xxiv.  49. 


I 


VI 

THE  JUDGE* 

T  TP  to  this  point  I  have  said  nothing  of  a  possible 
^^  development  in  the  mind  of  Jesus.  Did  His 
views  alter  as  His  life  went  on  ?  The  declaration 
about  His  childhood,  that  He  increased  in  vi^isdom 
and    stature    and    in    favour    with    God    and    man, 

*  Weiss  :  Lehrbiich  der  biblischeti  Theologie  des  neuen  Testaments, 

§33- 

Beyschlag:  Netitestamentliche  Theologie,  I.  183  ff. 

HoLTZMANN  :  NeutestamefitUche  Theologie,  I.  305  ff. 

Stevens:  The  Theology  of  the  New  Testament,  chapter  XII. 

Bruce  :  The  Kingdom  of  God,  cc.  XII  and  XIII. 

Wendt  :  Die  Lehre  Jesic,  II.  542  ff. 

Baldensperger  :  Das  Selbstbewusstsein  Jesii,  cc.  VIII.  and  IX. 

Weiffenbach  :  Der  Wiedcrkunftsgedanke  Jesu,  1873, 

Russell:  The  Parous ia,  1887,  pt.  I. 

Haupt  :  Die  eschatologischen  Aussagen  Jestc  in  den  synoptischen 
Evangelien,  1895. 

ScHWARTZKOPFF :  Die  WeissagU7igen  Jesii  Christi  von  seinem 
Tode,  seiner  Auferstehung  und  Wiederkunft,  1895. 

McCheyne  Edgar:   The  Gospel  of  a  Risen  Saviour,  1892. 

S ALMOND  :  The  Christian  Doctrine  of  hnmortality,  1898. 

Mackintosh  :  Essays  towards  a  New  Theology,  1889.  Second 
Essay :  The  Biblical  Doctrines  of  Judgment  and  Immor- 
tality. 


THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 


justifies  us  in  looking  out  for  the  signs  of  such  a 
development.  Time  and  circumstances  acted  on 
Him  as  they  do  on  all  men,  widening  the  horizon 
of  knowledge  and  making  clear  the  path  of  duty. 
Even  His  comprehension  of  Himself  had  its  human 
limitations. 

I  do  not,  indeed,  believe  that  it  is  possible  to  fix 
definite  points  in  His  life  and  to  say,  that  up  to 
these  junctures  He  had  never  thought  or  spoken 
about  certain  aspects  of  His  person  or  work,  and 
that  everything  which  the  Evangelists  represent 
Him  as  saying  on  these  topics  before  the  assumed 
dates  must  be  treated  as  misplaced.  By  such 
arbitrary  assumptions  not  only  have  the  records 
been  cruelly  distorted,  but  an  image  of  Jesus  has 
been  constructed  as  untrue  to  psychology  as  it  is 
unjust  to  the  testimony  of  those  who  knew  Him 
best.  All  we  can  do  is  to  note  the  great  turning- 
points  of  His  experience  and  the  predominant 
characteristics  of  the  sections  of  His  life  thereby 
marked  out.  We  can  say  for  certain  that  at  such- 
and-such  a  period  His  mind  was  possessed  with  this 
or  that  aspect  of  His  mission  ;  but  to  affirm  that 
anything  essential  was  at  any  stage  altogether 
absent  from  His  consciousness  is  to  abandon  the 
terra  finna  of  evidence  and  let  ourselves  go  adrift 
on  a  sea  of  mere  speculation. 


THE  JUDGE  213 

There  are  five  conspicuous  summits  of  His  ex- 
perience, with  which  we  may  connect  the  different 
epochs  of  His  internal  history — His  First  Visit  to 
Jerusalem,  His  Baptism,  the  Great  Confession  of 
the  Twelve  at  Cajsarea  Philippi,  the  Transfiguration, 
and  the  Agony  of  Gethsemane. 

I.  The  first  epoch  is  that  of  His  first  thirty 
years.  It  lies  beneath  a  thick  covering  of  silence, 
but  it  must  have  contained  everything.  Like 
musical  genius,  the  religious  faculty  matures  early. 
"  Heaven  lies  about  us  in  our  infancy,"  it  has  been 
said  ;  but  it  lies  far  more  about  us  in  boyhood  and 
youth.  The  intuition  of  God  in  the  opening  dawn 
of  intelligence  is  extraordinarily  clear,  as  is  also  the 
intuition  of  right  and  wrong  ;  there  is  no  problem 
of  religion  which  has  not  presented  itself  to  the 
questioning  mind  of  a  sharp-witted  lad  ;  there  is 
no  criticism  of  the  world's  institutions  and  practices 
so  keen  as  that  of  youth,  before  its  own  time  for 
action  has  arrived  ;  and  every  possibility  of  subse- 
quent achievement  is  dreamed  about  by  a  man 
before  he  is  thirty.  "  What  is  a  great  life  ?  It  is 
a  thought  conceived  in  the  enthusiasm  of  youth  and 
carried  out  with  the  strength  of  maturity."  * 

Only  one   incident  of  this   period   in   the   life  of 

*  Alfred  de  Vigny. 


214  T^tiE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

Jesus  has  been  preserved  ;  but  it  is  sufficient  to 
suggest  all.  It  reveals  a  mind  happy,  on  the  one 
hand,  in  the  consciousness  of  God  and,  on  the  other, 
reverently  inquisitive  at  the  oracles  of  human 
authority.  Already  Jesus  called  God  "My  Father"; 
and,  although  we  must  beware  of  reading  too  much 
into  this  primary  confession,  there  lies  in  it  the 
germ  of  all  that  was  most  original  in  His  subsequent 
doctrine.  On  the  other  hand.  His  ardent  attachment 
to  the  temple  and  His  thirst  for  instruction  from 
the  custodians  of  the  oracles  of  God  were  fore- 
shadowings  of  the  opposite  quality  of  His  mind — 
His  reverence  for  the  institutions  and  traditions  of 
the  past.  Thus,  in  miniature,  are  the  two  outstanding 
features  of  His  ministry  already  discernible — His 
incomparable  originality  and  His  adherence  to  all 
that  was  true  and  sacred  in  the  history  of  His 
native  land. 

2.  The  second  epoch  is  introduced  by  the  three- 
fold crisis  of  the  preaching  of  John,  the  baptism  of 
Jesus,  and  the  temptation.  It  is  generally  assumed 
that  at  His  baptism  Jesus  first  became  aware  of 
His  messiahship ;  but  of  this  it  is  impossible  to 
be  sure.  The  only  thing  certain  is,  that  He  then 
received  the  signal  that  the  time  was  fulfilled,  along 
with  the  final  qualification  for  His  public  work 
imparted  through  the  descent  on  Him  of  the  Holy 


THE  JUDGE  215 

Spirit.*  But  He  may  long  have  been  waiting  for 
the  striking  of  the  hour  of  destiny.  At  all  events, 
when  it  came,  it  produced  a  prolonged  access  of 
emotion  and  thought,  as  is  indicated  by  His  being 
driven  by  the  Spirit  into  the  wilderness.  The 
struggle  which  there  took  place  in  His  soul  was  a 
conflict  between  traditionalism  and  originality  ;  but 
it  ended  in  the  clear  and  unalterable  resolution  to 
follow  His  own  genius.  This,  He  well  knew,  would 
arouse  the  opposition  of  the  representatives  of 
religious  and  political  authority  ;  but  He  was  far 
too  full  of  divine  enthusiasm  for  His  great  task 
to  stand  in  dread  of  obstacles.  It  was  with  a  rush 
of  joy  and  hope  which  carried  all  before  it  that  His 
ministry  began.  His  own  state  of  mind  at  this 
period  stands  forever  embodied  in  the  Beatitudes, 
which  are  a  description  not  only  of  the  character 
which  He  desired  to  produce  in  others  but  first  of 
all  of  His  own.  They  betray  a  mind  so  full  of  a 
blessedness  springing  from  inexhaustible  sources  that 
it  longs  to  assemble  round  itself  the  whole  world  of 
weary  and  suffering  humanity,  in  order  to  make  it 
happy  by  the  communication  of  its  own  secret. 
Such  was  the  character  of  the  opening  months  of 

*  It  is  astonishing  how  the  best  results  of  modern  inquiry  into 
this  crisis  in  the  experience  of  Jesus  are  anticipated  in  Owen's 
great  work  on  The  Holy  Spirit, 


2i6  THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

His  ministry  :  He  was  happy  in  proclaiming  the 
message  with  which  He  was  charged  and  in  per- 
forming the  works  of  mercy  which  the  Father  had 
given  Him  to  do  ;  and  the  images  which  floated 
before  the  eyes  of  His  spirit  were  irradiated  with 
the  hues  of  hope. 

3.  This  epoch  was  followed  by  one  of  a  totally 
different  character,  when  the  opposition  which  He 
had  to  encounter  assumed  such  dimensions  that 
He  was  compelled  to  see,  rising  to  block  His 
pathway  in  the  distance,  the  image  of  the  cross. 
In  the  Evangelists  this  third  epoch  is  dated  from 
the  great  confession  at  Ceesarea  Philippi,  although 
that  event  only  brought  to  light  a  condition  of  the 
mind  of  Jesus  which  must  already  have  been  for 
some  time  in  existence.  The  great  confession  was, 
indeed,  much  more  an  epoch  in  the  development 
of  the  disciples  than  in  that  of  Christ  Himself ;  and 
the  failure  to  note  this  has  led  to  much  confusion 
of  thought.  It  has  even  been  contended  that  up  to 
this  point  He  was  not  fully  conscious  Himself  of 
His  messiahship  ;  and  it  is  assumed  that  at  least 
He  cannot  have  mentioned  it  before  this,  even  to 
the  extent  of  calling  Himself  the  Son  of  man. 
Much  more  is  it  held  to  be  evident  that  the  disciples 
can  never  previously  have  acknowledged  His 
messiahship    in    any   shape    or    form.     To    support 


^ 


I 


THE  JUDGE  217 

these  assumptions  the  most  violent  measures  have 
to  be  taken  with  the  evangelic  records  ;  and  the 
true  nature  of  the  great  confession  is  mistaken. 

It  was,  in  the  first  place,  in  the  fullest  sense  the 
testimony  of  the  Twelve  themselves.  Herein  lay 
its  value.  It  was  not  something  which  others  had 
suggested  to  them  and  which  they  accepted  on 
external  authority,  whether  from  the  Baptist,  or  from 
the  demoniacs,  or  even  from  Jesus  Himself,  but  the 
spontaneous  expression  of  their  own  conviction, 
matured  by  long  association  with  Him  and  by  daily 
observation  of  His  life.  The  suggestion,  that  He 
was  the  Messiah,  had  long  been  in  the  air ;  they 
had  heard  it  from  several  quarters  ;  but  to  every 
such  witness  they  could  have  said  at  Czesarea 
Philippi,  as  the  Samaritans  did  to  their  country- 
woman, "  Now  we  believe,  not  because  of  thy  saying  ; 
for  we  have  heard  Him  ourselves,  and  know  that 
this  is  indeed  the  Christ,  the  Saviour  of  the  world." 
Secondly,  it  was  a  great  religious  act.  It  was  not 
the  cold  drawing  of  a  logical  conclusion,  but  an 
uprising  of  conviction  and  devotion,  in  which  they 
avowed  that  they  would  stand  by  the  truth  in  face 
of  contradiction,  whatever  might  happen  ;  and, 
therefore,  Jesus  traced  it  back  to  immediate  in- 
spiration from  above.  Such  an  act  is  a  totally 
different  thing  from  a  mere  expression  of  opinion, 


2i8  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

and  does  not  of  itself  determine  whether  or  not 
the  same  persons  may  have  previously  held  the 
opinion  now  transmuted  into  an  act  of  witness- 
bearing.  Jesus  had  not  imposed  His  belief  on  the 
disciples :  He  waited  patiently  till  the  conviction 
should  arise  in  themselves  of  its  own  accord  ;  and 
it  was  because  this  stage  of  maturity  had  been 
reached  that  He  considered  it  judicious  to  com- 
municate to  them  the  conclusion  at  which  He  had 
arrived  as  to  His  own  fate — '•'  From  that  time 
forth  began  Jesus  to  show  unto  His  disciples,  how 
that  He  must  go  unto  Jerusalem  and  suffer  many 
things."  * 

4.  I  have  said  that  the  great  confession  was 
more  an  epoch  in  the  experience  of  the  disciples 
than  of  their  Master ;  yet  to  Him  also  it  must 
have  been  an  event  full  of  satisfaction  and  joy ; 
and  it  paved  the  way  for  the  next  epoch  of  His 
development,  which  consisted  in  the  victory  of 
His  mind  over  the  awful  prospect  of  death.  The 
maturity  of  the  faith  of  the  disciples,  which  ex- 
pressed itself  in  their  confession,  caused  Him  to 
feel  that  He  had  something  solid  beneath  His  feet, 
which  would  not  give  way,  whatever  might  be 
the   changes   or    chances   of   the   future,    because   it 


*  Matt.  xvi.  21, 


THE  JUDGE  219 

was  the  work  of  God  in  the  hearts  of  the  disciples. 
An  early  death  seemed,  indeed,  to  be  the  end 
of  everything  for  one  who  professed  to  be  the 
Messiah  ;  because  the  Messiah  was  not  to  die  but 
reign  for  evermore.  It  seemed  the  complete  falsifi- 
cation of  His  faith  in  Himself.  Certainly  it 
appeared  so  to  every  Israelite,  even  to  the  most 
instructed  of  the  Twelve.  But  Jesus  saw  over  and 
beyond  the  awful  terror ;  and  the  event  which 
discloses  the  definite  surmounting  of  this  stage 
of  development  is  the  Transfiguration.  On  the 
Holy  Mount  joy  and  insight  had  obviously  over- 
come all  obscuration  and  eclipse  ;  in  the  brightness 
in  which  His  person  was  enveloped  His  glorification 
was  anticipated  ;  and  again  the  voice  from  heaven, 
which  had  sounded  at  His  baptism,  ratified  His 
consciousness  of  Himself.  We  now  know  the 
solution  of  the  enigma  :  His  death  was  to  be  the 
atonement  for  the  sin  of  the  world  ;  and,  as  a 
reward  for  His  uttermost  humiliation,  God  was  to 
raise  Him  to  the  throne  which  He  now  occupies. 
And  that  this  was  the  solution  presented  to  Himself 
is  indicated  by  the  representation  that  Moses  and 
Elias  talked  with  Him  about  the  decease  which 
He  was  to  accomplish  at  Jerusalem.  These  were 
the  representatives  of  law  and  prophecy  ;  and  the 
death  of  Christ  was  to  be  the  glorious  end  of  the 


THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 


law,  as    His    exaltation   was    to    be    the   fulfilment 
of  all  prophecy.* 

5.  The  victory  of  the  Transfiguration  was  not, 
however,  a  final  and  conclusive  one.  It  astonishes 
us  to  come,  so  long  afterwards,  upon  the  scene  of 
Gethsemane,  with  which  we  connect  the  fifth  and 
last  stage  of  His  development.  Gethsemane  looks 
like  a  lapse  back  into  the  darkness  of  the  third 
stage,  out  of  which  in  the  Transfiguration  He  had 
emerged.  It  may  be  taken  to  indicate  that  during 
the  later  months  of  His  life  there  had  been 
alternations  in  His  soul  between  the  terror  of  death 
and  the  sense  of  victory ;  and  many  things  indicate 
that  this  supposition  is  not  mistaken.  Especially 
as  death  itself  drew  near  and  the  horrors  of 
desertion  and  betrayal,  injustice  and  hatred,  with 
which  it  was  to  be  accompanied,  began  to  accumulate 
before  His  eyes ;  as  human  sin,  directed  against 
Himself,  disclosed  its  uttermost  malignity  and 
hideousness ;  and  as  the  iron  of  his  position,  in 
the  character  of  representative  before  God  of  this 
guilty  humanity,  entered  into  His  soul,  the  darkness 

*  The  presence  of  these  two  may  also  be  intended  to  suggest 
the  means  by  which  His  mind  attained  to  the  position  of 
mastery  over  His  fate ;  as,  after  His  resurrection,  in  His 
intercourse  with  the  disciples,  "beginning  at  Moses  and  the 
prophets,  He  expounded  to  them  in  all  tlie  Scriptures  the  things 
concerning  Himself,'' 


THE  JUDGE  ^21 

enveloping  His  mind  intensified,  till  the  sense  of 
it  grew  to  be  an  agony.  But  it  must  not  be 
forgotten  that  Gethsemane  was  a  victory  and  not 
a  defeat.  He  overcame  the  horror  and  despair, 
and  emerged  calm  and  confident,  ready  to  face 
the  very  worst.  Once  again,  indeed,  as  He  hung 
on  the  cross,  the  refluent  wave  swept  over  His  soul, 
till  He  cried  out,  "My  God,  My  God,  why  hast 
Thou  forsaken  Me.?"  but  again  the  access  of 
troubled  feeling  was  transitory;  and  it  was  with 
a  strong  voice  and  in  perfect  peace  that  at  last 
He  gave  up  the  ghost.  He  knew  that  He  was 
not  dying  in  vain  ;  nor  were  wicked  men  merely 
taking  His  life  from  Him  :  but,  with  prophetic  eye. 
He  already  saw  of  the  travail  of  His  soul  and 
was  satisfied. 

Both  the  interest  and  the  difficulty  of  the 
development  of  the  thoughts  of  Jesus  about  Himself 
concentrate  themselves  in  His  utterances  about  the 
portion  of  His  destiny  which  was  to  come  after 
His  death.  Those  of  His  contemporaries  who 
waited  for  the  kingdom  of  God  never  thought  of 
more  than  one  appearing  of  the  Messiah.  The 
conceptions  of  the  immediate  followers  of  Jesus 
were  similar  ;  and  during  the  first  period  of  His 
ministry  it  seemed  as  if  His  destiny  were  to  consist 


222  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

in  a  continuous  and  culminating  series  of  successes. 
But  gradually  there  disclosed  itself,  lying  across 
His  path,  a  dark  gulf  of  misfortune,  defeat  and 
death,  into  which  He  and  His  fortunes  were  to 
be  precipitated.  To  all  others  this  disappointment 
was  final ;  even  His  disciples  could  not  understand 
that  it  was  possible  for  His  cause  to  disappear  at 
this  point  and  ever  emerge  again.  But  His  eye 
saw  farther,  and  He  was  able  to  accept  death  as 
the  will  of  God,  and  yet  look  forward  to  a  new 
career  on  the  opposite  side  of  it. 

He  foresaw  and  foretold  especially  three  events 
— His  Resurrection,  His  Coming-again,  and  the 
Judgment. 

That  He  foretold  His  rising  from  the  dead  the 
third  day  is  one  of  the  facts  most  distinctly  and 
unanimously  testified  by  the  Evangelists.  They 
connect  His  announcement  of  this  event  with  the 
first  announcement  of  His  death,  and  on  every 
occasion  when  the  latter  occurs  the  former  occurs 
likewise.  Nor  is  there  any  chance  in  this  :  it 
belongs  to  the  reason  of  the  case  ;  for  what  a 
dismal  and  meaningless  prediction  would  His  death 
have  been,  unless  He  had  been  able  to  accompany 
it  with  the  assurance  that  He  was  to  rise  again. 

In  the  whole  field  of  the  modern  interpretation  of 


THE  JUDGE  223 

the  past  I  do  not  remember  anything  less  creditable 
than  the  manner  in  which  this  prediction  is  dealt  with 
by  large  sections  of  contemporary  scholarship. 
Fixing  on  a  prophecy  of  Hosea  in  the  mere  sound  of 
which  there  is  a  superficial  resemblance  to  the  words 
of  Jesus — "  After  two  days  will  He  revive  us ;  in 
the  third  day  He  will  raise  us  up  ;  and  we  shall  live 
in  His  sight " — they  assume  that  Jesus  had  this 
passage  in  His  mind,  and  that,  as  Hosea  meant  by 
"the  third  day"  a  brief  but  indeterminate  period, 
therefore  Jesus  intended  no  more  than  to  intimate 
that  after  a  vague  but  brief  interval  of  eclipse  His 
cause  would  revive.  The  supposed  reference  to 
Hosea  is  so  dubious,  and  the  ignoring  of  the  actual 
place  which  this  prediction  holds  in  the  history  of 
Christianity  is  so  complete,  that  it  is  difficult  to 
treat  such  an  interpretation  seriously. 

The  "  third  day  "  may  be  objected  to  because  it  is 
a  specific  prediction.  Prophecy,  it  is  contended,  is 
not  of  events  or  dates,  but  of  general  principles,  the 
view  of  prophecy  being  antiquated  and  exploded 
which  found  in  the  prophetic  writings  history  written 
beforehand.  This  is  very  true ;  and  it  applies 
specially  to  the  prophecies  of  Jesus,  beneath  which 
there  lie  always  deep  and  broad  religious  principles ; 
even  this  prophecy  of  His  own  resurrection  is  founded, 
as  we  have  just  seen,  in  the  nature  of  the  case.     Yet 


224  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

there  is  another  aspect  of  prophecy  which  ought  not 
to  be  forgotten,  and  which  is,  indeed,  at  the  present 
moment  successfully  challenging  the  attention  of  Old 
Testament  students  :  *  wherever  there  is  prophecy 
of  the  more  general  kind,  there  is,  though  in  much 
smaller  quantity,  prediction  of  the  specific  kind. 
This  can  easily  be  proved  in  the  books  of  the  Old 
Testament ;  and  it  is  conspicuous  in  the  words  of 
Christ.  Towards  the  close  of  His  life  especially  we 
find  such  specific  predictions  as  the  treachery  of 
Judas  and  the  fall  of  Peter  ;  and  the  day  of  His 
own  resurrection  is  a  prophecy  of  the  same  kind. 

The  real  objection,  however,  to  the  third  day  is 
the  disbelief  that  any  such  event  as  the  bodily 
resurrection  of  our  Lord  actually  happened.  The 
spread  of  scepticism  on  this  point  in  the  theological 
schools  of  the  Continent  is  by  far  the  most  serious 
feature  of  the  history  of  religious  opinion  during  the 
last  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century ;  and,  as  it 
has  become  the  fashion,  it  may  spread  much  farther. 
Its  fruits  have  still  to  be  seen  in  the  practical  life  of 
the   Church.       My  own  belief  is,  that,  were    it    to 

*  See  Giesebrecht,  Die  Bcrufsbcgabung  der  Prophcten,  1898, 
where  the  author,  who  was  an  adherent  of  the  more  extreme 
school  of  Old  Testament  criticism,  gives  a  most  interesting  account 
of  the  process  by  which  he  was  convinced  of  the  presence,  in 
considerable  quantities,  in  the  Prophets  of  specific  predictions 
which  were  fulfilled. 


THE  JUDGE  225 

become  general,  Christianity  would  wither  at  its  very 
root. 

What  is  maintained  is,  that  Jesus  only  foretold  in 
a  vague  and  general  way  that  His  cause  would 
revive  in  a  short  time.  And  this,  it  is  held,  was 
what  happened.  After  the  first  stupefaction  was 
over,  the  disciples  awoke  to  realise  that  their  Master, 
though  His  body  was  in  the  grave,  still  existed  in 
another  state  of  being ;  and  so  by  degrees  they  got 
over  their  depression  and  resumed  the  work  which 
He  had  dropped.  Of  course  this  is  in  open  and 
violent  contradiction  to  the  story  which  the  apostles 
told  and  which  from  their  day  to  this  has  been  at  the 
heart  of  the  creed  of  Christendom.  Though  their 
story  is  beset  with  many  difficulties,  yet  it  has  a 
wonderful  verisimilitude.  It  is  supernatural,  and 
yet  most  natural.  Could  anything  bear  the  print  of 
nature  more  legibly  than  the  interview  between  Mary 
and  Jesus  at  the  sepulchre,  or  the  twin  scenes  in 
which  St.  Thomas  appears  first  as  a  violent  doubter 
and  then  as  a  believer  crying,  "  My  Lord  and  my 
God"?  Yet  it  is  not  by  its  contradiction  to  the 
evangelic  record  that  the  theory  is  condemned,  so 
much  as  by  its  failure,  from  the  psychological  and 
historical  point  of  view,  to  give  an  adequate  explana- 
tion of  the  origin  of  Christianity.  By  those  who 
deny  the   facts   of  the  resurrection  it  is  constantly 

15 


^26  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

taken  for  granted  that  the  apostolic  circle  was  in 
tremulous  expectation  of  something  extraordinary 
happening,  and  that  the  miracle  was  believed  to 
have  taken  place  because  it  answered  to  this  ex- 
pectatiMi.  Nothing,  however,  could  be  more  com- 
pletely the  reverse  of  the  truth,  if  any  credit 
whatever  is  to  be  given  to  the  records;  for,  according 
to  them,  the  faith  of  the  disciples  had  been  stricken 
dead.  The  two  travellers  to  Emmaus  spoke  of  their 
hope  as  something  which  the  death  of  their  Master 
had  utterly  destroyed.  The  tale  of  the  holy  women 
seemed  "  idle "  to  those  who  heard  it,  "  and  they 
believed  them  not."  Even  of  the  five  hundred 
who  saw  Jesus  on  the  mountain  of  Galilee  "some 
doubted."*  To  all  appearance,  in  short,  the  move- 
ment of  Jesus  was  completely  at  an  end  ;  His 
pretensions  had  been  falsified  by  death — the  last 
of  all  arguments — and  nothing  was  left  to  His 
followers  but  to  return  to  Galilee  and  hide  their 
heads  in  shame  and  sorrow  as  mistaken  and  dis- 
appointed men.  Such  was  the  condition  of  the 
disciples  when  their  Master  died  ;  yet  within  six 
weeks  they  were  completely  transformed :  their  faith 
in  Christ  and  Christianity  had  revived  ;  they  were 
united    and    resolute,    overflowing    with    enthusiasm 

*  Luke  xxiv.  21,  11  ;  Matt,  xxviii.  17. 


THE  JUDGE  227 

and  eager  for  action  ;  and  they  were  ready  to  lay 
down  their  lives  for  the  testimony  which  they  bore 
to  Jesus.  Between  the  death  of  Jesus  and  the  day 
of  Pentecost  some  event  must  have  happened  sufficient 
to  account  for  such  a  transformation  ;  they  say 
themselves  that  it  was  the  bodily  resurrection  and 
the  ascension  of  their  Master,  and  this  would  account 
for  it ;  but  the  wit  of  man  will  never  be  able  to 
devise  another  explanation  which  has  even  the 
appearance  of  likelihood.  If  Jesus  had  not  risen, 
there  would  never  have  been  a  resurrection  of 
Christianity. 

The  second  event  predicted  by  Jesus  was  His 
coming-again ;  and  it  is  in  connexion  with  this  that 
we  meet  with  the  most  perplexing  of  His  sayings. 
These  are  seized  upon  with  avidity  by  unbelievers 
as  affording  conclusive  disproof  of  His  authority ; 
and  many  who  love  Him  have  felt  with  pain  how 
difficult  it  is  to  reconcile  them  with  absolute  faith  in 
His  wisdom.  The  latest  commentator  on  them, 
indeed,  Dr.  Erich  Haupt,  of  Halle,  concludes  a 
detailed  and  careful  examination  with  the  assertion, 
that  "  we  do  not  require  to  excuse  Christ  for  His 
eschatology :  in  this  region  also  He  stands  above 
His  age,  and  what  He  has  said  fully  participates  in 
the  authority  of  His  words  as  well  as  of  His  person"; 


THE   CHRIST OLOGY  OF  JESUS 


but  he  reaches  this  result  only  by  the  use  of  critical 
processes  of  elimination  to  which  in  this  country  we 
are  not  accustomed  ;  and  most  of  his  readers  will 
probably  feel  that  he  carries  a  figurative  method  of 
interpretation  somewhat  to  excess. 

There  is  one  saying  of  Jesus  on  this  subject  to 
which  we  cannot  be  wrong  in  attributing  cardinal 
importance.  It  is  that  in  which  He  says  that  He 
is  Himself  ignorant  of  the  day  and  the  hour.*  So 
utterly  unlike  is  this  to  anything  which  a  dogmatic 
Christianity  would  have  been  likely  to  attribute  to 
Him,  if  He  had  not  said  it,  that  it  may  not  only  be 
reckoned  among  the  most  certain  of  His  utterances, 
but  allowed  a  regulative  authority  in  the  interpreta- 
tion of  others. 

The  chief  difficulty  is,  that  in  other  passages  He 
does  seem  to  fix  the  day  and  the  hour.  In  His 
address  to  the  Twelve,  as  He  sends  them  forth  on 
their  mission,  He  says,  that  they  will  not  have  gone 
over  the  cities  of  Israel  before  the  Son  of  man  be 
come  ;  on  another  occasion  He  says,  "  There  be  some 
standing  here  which  shall  not  taste  of  death,  till  they 
see  the  Son  of  man  coming  in  His  kingdom  ; "  and 
— most  important  of  all — in  the  great  eschatological 
discourse  of  the  twenty-fourth  of  St.  Matthew,  after 


*  Matt.  xxiv.  36. 


THE  JUDGE  229 

describing  what  appears  to  be  the  end  of  the 
world,  He  adds,  "  Verily,  I  say  unto  you,  This 
generation  shall  not  pass  till  all  these  things  be 
fulfilled."*  Such  passages  appear  to  stand  in  direct 
contradiction  to  the  one  already  quoted  as  cardinal 
and  regulative  ;  but,  unless  we  are  to  suppose  either 
that  Jesus  contradicted  Himself  or  that  He  has 
been  misreported  by  the  Evangelists,  a  meaning 
must  be  found  which  does  not  involve  the  fixing  of 
the  day  and  the  hour. 

Haupt  contends  that  the  "  coming "  of  which 
Jesus  speaks  is  not  always  to  be  understood  as  the 
final  one.  Any  conspicuous  event  in  the  history  of 
Christianity  may  be  spoken  of  under  this  designa- 
nation  ;  which  might,  for  example,  be  applied  to 
His  own  resurrection,  or  to  Pentecost,  or  to  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem.  The  destruction  of 
Jerusalem,  especially,  bulked  largely  in  Christ's  view 
of  the  future  ;  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  He 
foretold  it ;  and  there  were  very  good  reasons  why 
He  should  even  predict  its  date.  To  one  or  other, 
therefore,  of  these  events  His  references  to  the 
immediate  future  must  belong.f  The  most  difficult 
passage    to    reconcile    with     this    view    is    the    one 


*  Matt.  X.  23  ;  xvi.  28  ;  xxiv.  34. 

t  Russell,  in  The  Paroiisia,  argues  ably  that  all  the  prophecies 
of  Jesus  were  fulfilled  in  a  single  generation. 


230  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

already  mentioned  in  the  twenty-fourth  chapter  of 
St.  Matthew  ;  but  it  is  worth  noting  that  this  verse 
is  almost  identical  with  one  in  the  preceding 
chapter,*  where  the  reference  manifestly  is  to  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem  ;  and  it  is  possible  that 
there  may  have  occurred  an  accidental  reduplication. 
It  cannot  be  denied  that  in  the  twenty-fourth  of 
St.  Matthew,  and  the  corresponding  passages  in  the 
second  and  third  Gospels,  there  is  a  strange  mixing- 
up  of  what  looks  like  the  prediction  of  the  destruc- 
tion of  Jerusalem  with  what  looks  like  the  description 
of  the  end  of  the  world  ;  and  the  one  is  represented 
as  ensuing  immediately  upon  the  other.  Beyschlag 
proposes  here  to  apply  the  law  of  what  is  known  in 
the  interpretation  of  prophecy  as  Timelessness,  the 
meaning  of  which  is,  that  in  the  Prophets  the  sheet 
of  the  future  is  not  outspread  in  such  a  way  that 
the  distance  from  point  to  point  can  be  measured 
upon  it,  but  is  folded  up  in  such  a  way  that  only  a 
few  successive  outstanding  events  appear,  while  the 
spaces  of  time  that  are  to  intervene  between  them 
disappear.f  Weiss  applies  the  still  more  important 
principle,  that  prophecy  is  always  conditional.  God 
never  says,  through  the  lips  of  any  prophet,  what  is 

*  xxiii.  36. 

t  Compare  Salmond,  The  Christian  Doctrine  of  Immorfalitf, 
P-  304. 


THE  JUDGE  231 

to  happen,  whether  in  the  form  of  weal  or  woe, 
without  a  reference  either  expressed  or  understood 
to  human  conduct.  On  the  contrary.  He  even  runs 
the  risk  of  appearing  to  contradict  Himself  by 
leaving  prophecies  of  good  unfulfilled,  when  men 
sin,  and  of  evil  unfulfilled,  when  they  repent.  The 
great  purpose  of  Jesus  in  all  He  says  about  the 
future  is  not  to  satisfy  curiosity  but  to  direct 
conduct,  the  sum  of  His  teaching  being  an  urgent 
admonition  to  watchfulness.  Whether  or  not  He 
represented  the  end  as  near.  He  certainly  never 
intended  it  to  be  thought  of  as  distant  ;  and  He 
does  not  intend  it  to  be  ever  thus  thought  of. 
Christians  can  hasten  it  by  their  activity  or  post- 
pone it  by  their  negligence  ;  and,  however  long  He 
may  delay  His  coming,  the  proper  attitude  of  the 
Church  will  always  be  to  be  ready  to  receive  Him 
every  moment. 

There  are,  besides,  many  other  sayings  of  Jesus 
about  the  future  which  seem  to  reveal  His  deeper 
mind,  and  in  which  He  appears  to  contemplate  for 
Christianity  a  prolonged  earthly  history.  Such  is 
the  passage  in  which  He  says  that,  before  the  end 
come,  the  Gospel  shall  be  preached  through  all  the 
world  as  a  witness  unto  all  nations  ;  and  side  by 
side  with  it  may  be  placed  the  saying  about  the 
woman  who  anointed  His  feet,  that  wheresoever  the 


THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 


Gospel  was  preached  in  the  whole  world,  her  act 
would  be  repeated  as  a  memorial  of  her  love.* 
There  is  a  whole  series  of  parables  in  which  He 
speaks  of  His  kingdom  as  passing  through  a  gradual 
development ;  and  there  are  others  in  which  He 
speaks  about  it  as  being  taken  from  the  Jews  and 
given  to  a  nation  bringing  forth  the  fruits  thereof. 
Those  who  were  first  invited  to  the  banquet  of  the 
Gospel  refused  the  King's  invitation  with  scorn,  and 
on  their  heads  had  to  descend  the  retribution  they 
deserved  ;  but  still  the  wedding  was  to  be  furnished 
with  guests  :  the  servants  of  the  king  were  to  be 
sent  into  the  streets  and  lanes  of  the  city,  and, 
when,  after  that,  there  still  was  room,  they  were  to 
be  sent  farther  off,  to  the  highways  and  hedges. 
These  parables  reveal  the  most  profound  conscious- 
ness both  of  the  real  nature  of  the  Gospel  and  of 
the  actual  course  of  human  history,  as  time  has 
revealed  it ;  and  it  is  not  fair  to  the  record  either 
to  leave  them  out  of  account  or  to  attenuate  their 
importance.! 

The  method  of  interpreting  the  consciousness  of 


*  Matt.  xxiv.  14;  xxvi.  13. 

t  Titius  draws  attention  to  the  fact  that  Jesus'  views  of  married 
life,  riches  and  poverty,  and  similar  matters,  are  not  influenced 
by  reference  to  the  nearness  of  the  end  of  the  world. — Die 
N.  T.  Lehrc  von  der  Seligkett,  I.  72,  75,  80. 


THE  JUDGE  233 

Jesus  which  has  of  late  secured  most  favour  among 
the  younger  theologians  of  Germany  is  that  which 
accords  a  predominant  influence  in  the  formation 
of  His  ideas  to  the  environment  in  which  He 
grew  up  ;  and  the  account  given  by  this  school  of 
the  development  of  His  thoughts  about  Himself  is 
determined  by  this  point  of  view.  The  knowledge 
that  He  was  the  Messiah  came  to  Him,  it  is  sup- 
posed, suddenly  at  His  baptism ;  and,  as  His 
conception  of  what  the  destiny  of  the  Messiah 
was  to  be  agreed  in  general  outline  with  that 
entertained  by  His  contemporaries,  He  expected 
the  will  of  God  to  be  fulfilled  for  Himself  in  the 
catastrophic  forms  of  the  Jewish  apocalyptic  lite- 
rature, one  grand  event  succeeding  another  as  in 
the  popular  programme.  The  city  of  God  would 
descend  from  heaven  in  a  visible  shape  ;  all  opposi- 
tion would  be  swept  out  of  the  way  by  omnipotent 
force  ;  and  the  end  of  the  world  would  ensue.  As 
the  miracles  of  Jesus  are  not  estimated  highly  by 
this  school,  being  supposed  to  have  consisted  in  a 
few  simple  cures,  it  is  held  that  they  cannot  have 
answered  to  the  expectations  entertained  by  Him 
of  what  the  Father  was  to  do  for  His  chosen  agent. 
All  the  time,  accordingly.  He  was  waiting  for  a 
manifestation  of  omnipotent  power  which  never 
came.     At  length  His  popularity  declined,  opposition 


234  THE   CH HISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

grew  irresistible,  and  death  stared  Him  in  the 
face.  How  was  the  mystery  of  delay  to  be  inter- 
preted ?  At  this  point  occurred  to  Him  the  solution 
offered  by  a  division  of  the  messianic  programme 
into  two  parts :  die  He  must,  but  after  death  He 
would  return  again,  when  all  the  glory  would  be 
given  Him  which  He  had  waited  for  in  vain  ;  and 
this  second  coming  He  believed  would  take  place 
within  a  generation. 

Fascinating  as  this  reading  of  the  history  is, 
especially  when  set  forth  with  the  literary  skill  of 
a  writer  like  Baldensperger,  it  does  not  present  an 
image  of  Christ  which  can  satisfy  those  who  seriously 
accept  Him  as  the  final  Revealer  of  truth  and  the 
Saviour  of  the  world  ;  for  it  is  the  picture  of  One 
who  lived  in  an  atmosphere  of  illusion  and  bequeathed 
to  His  followers  something  very  like  a  delusion.  It 
is  not  so  intended,  but  it  really  revives  the  situation 
in  which  Jesus  was  placed  by  His  enemies  when 
they  applied  to  Him  the  standard  of  their  own 
messianic  programme  and  rejected  Him  because 
He  did  not  fulfil  it.  So,  this  modern  theory  imputes 
to  Him  a  programme  which  was  not  fulfilled,  and 
the  inevitable  inference  against  Him  will  not  fail  to 
be  drawn  by  the  general  mind,  however  scholars  may 
attempt  to  ignore  the  logic  of  their  own  position. 

No  doubt  all  the  thoughts  of  Jesus  were  coloured 


THE  JUDGE  *3S 

by  the  atmosphere  in  which  He  grew  up  ;  but  it 
was  not  by  apocryphal  literature  but  by  the  Law 
and  the  Prophets  that  the  substance  of  them  was 
determined  ;  and  His  whole  life,  from  the  tempta- 
tion in  the  wilderness  to  the  death  on  the  cross, 
was  a  polemic  against  contemporary  Jewish  thought. 
Rejecting  the  popular  Messianic  ideals,  He  remained 
true,  at  the  risk  of  His  life,  to  His  own  deep  and 
spiritual  conception  of  His  vocation.  And,  since  in 
life  He  so  severely  adhered  to  His  own  vision,  is  it 
credible  that  in  His  hopes  for  the  future  He  aban- 
doned Himself  to  the  fantastic  and  deceptive  imagery 
of  Jewish  apocalyptic  .''  This  would  lower  Him  to 
the  level  of  His  contemporaries,  and  would  be  a 
fatal  flaw  in   His  character. 

There  is  one  circumstance  the  bearing  of  which 
on  this  question  is  of  great  importance,  though  it  has 
been  little  adverted  to.  It  is  not  denied  that  Jesus 
had  in  His  mind  a  somewhat  extended  programme 
of  what  was  to  happen  to  Himself  after  his  death. 
Not  only  was  He  to  rise  again,  but  a  number  of 
other  events  were  to  follow  one  another,  to  the 
extent  of  at  least  a  single  generation.  Now,  if  the 
catastrophic  conception  of  His  second  coming  was 
the  one  which  He  entertained,  it  is  not  easy  to  see 
any  reason  for  thus  lengthening  out  the  programme 
of  the  future.     The  natural  thing  would  have  been 


236  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

that  the  resurrection  and  all  the  other  items  should 
be  compressed  into  a  single  event.  Why  should 
there  be  any  delay  ?  He  had  been  tried  by  delay 
too  long  already.  Had  His  thoughts  of  the  future 
been  shaped  by  His  own  disappointment,  the 
stupendous  hope  of  His  resurrection  would  have 
been  identified  with  the  complete  realisation  of  all 
His  hopes.  But  the  fact  that  in  His  prophecies  of 
the  future  His  resurrection  is  to  be  followed  by  the 
ascension,  and  that  His  second  coming  is  to  take 
place  from  heaven,  points  strongly  to  the  conclusion, 
that  His  expectations  of  the  future  were  of  the  same 
sober  and  spiritual  order  as  His  thoughts  about  the 
present. 

The  third  and  final  prophecy  of  Jesus,  as  far  as 
His  doctrine  concerning  Himself  is  concerned,  is 
that  of  the  last  judgment. 

Although  the  catastrophic  ideas  of  the  Jewish 
Messianic  programme  were  alien  to  the  mind  of 
Christ,  He  yet  looked  forward  to  one  catastrophe  :  in 
all  His  teaching  about  the  future  the  terminus  is  a 
final  judgment,  by  which  men  are  to  be  separated 
according  to  character  and  assigned  their  respective 
destinies.  Thus  in  the  parable  of  the  Tares  and  the 
Wheat,  after  the  long  period  of  uncertainty  during 
which  they  grow  together,  there  comes  a  day  when 


THE  JUDGE  237 

the  field  is  reaped  and  the  tares  are  bound  in  bundles 
to  be  burnt ;  and  in  the  parable  of  the  Drag-net  after 
the  long  labour  of  enclosing  the  fishes,  there  comes 
the  moment  when  they  are  separated  into  good 
and  bad.  The  most  grandiose  tableau  of  the  judg- 
ment is  the  scene  in  the  twenty-fifth  of  St.  Matthew, 
in  which  the  nations  of  men  are  represented  as  sheep 
and  goats,  which  are  to  be  separated  into  two  vast 
flocks.  So  marked  a  feature  in  the  teaching  of 
Jesus  is  this  final  day  of  decision  that  He  refers  to 
it  as  "  that  day,"  without  considering  it  necessary 
to  specify  the  purpose  to  which  it  is  devoted. 

Now,  in  this  scene  of  sublime  and  universal 
judgment  Jesus  is  Himself  the  Judge.  There  is  no 
thought  in  His  teaching  more  frequent  than  this. 
Across  the  dim  and  conflicting  images  evoked  by 
His  other  teaching  about  the  future  this  one  point 
shines  with  a  steady  and  unchanging  light.  The 
writers  of  the  New  Testament  repeat  the  fact ;  but 
it  has  its  original  seat  in  His  own  words.  Even  in 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  from  which,  it  is  supposed 
by  the  ignorant,  all  reference  to  the  dogmas  of 
Christianity  is  excluded,  He  says,  "  Many  will  say 
to  Me  in  that  day.  Lord,  Lord,  have  we  not 
prophesied  in  Thy  name?  and  in  Thy  name  have 
cast  out  devils ;  and  in  Thy  name  done  many 
wonderful   works  ?     And   then   will   I   profess  unto 


238  THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

ihem,  I  never  knew  you:  depart  from  i\Ie,  ye  that 
work  iniquity."  In  the  parable  of  the  Tares  it  is 
the  Son  of  man  who  sends  forth  "  His  angels  to 
gather  out  of  His  kingdom  all  things  which  offend, 
and  them  which  do  iniquity."  On  another  occasion 
He  says,  "  The  Son  of  man  shall  come  in  the  glory 
of  His  Father  with  His  angels  ;  and  then  shall  He 
reward  every  man  according  to  his  works;"  and  in 
yet  another,  "Whosoever  shall  be  ashamed  of  Me  and 
of  My  words,  in  this  adulterous  and  sinful  genera- 
tion, of  him  also  shall  the  Son  of  man  be  ashamed, 
when  He  cometh  in  the  glory  of  His  Father  wnth 
the  holy  angels."*  Nowhere,  however,  is  His 
position  in  this  great  scene  so  imposingly  set  forth 
as  in  the  passage  of  the  twenty-fifth  of  St.  Matthew 
already  alluded  to — "  When  the  Son  of  man  shall 
come  in  His  glory,  and  all  the  holy  angels  with 
Him,  then  shall  He  sit  upon  the  throne  of  His 
glory:  and  before  Him  shall  be  gathered  all  nations; 
and  He  shall  separate  them  one  from  another,  as  a 
shepherd  divideth  his  sheep  from  the  goats  :  and  He 
shall  set  the  sheep  on  His  right  hand,  but  the  goats 
on  the  left."  The  next  words  of  this  description 
are  "  Then  shall  the  King  say  "  ;  and  this  description 
of  Jesus   as  "King" — which  is  unique  among  His 

♦  Matt.  vii.  21-23  ;  xiii.  41  ;  xvi.  27;  Mark  viii.  38. 


THE  JUDGE  239 

utterances,  though  the  designation  is  closely  akin  to 
"Messiah" — rises  spontaneously  out  of  the  situation; 
for  the  royal  glory  of  the  Saviour  is  nowhere  else  so 
impressively  revealed.  The  presence  of  the  angels 
is  especially  deserving  of  notice.  They  attend  Him 
as  a  king  is  surrounded  by  his  courtiers,  and  they 
are  obviously  subordinate ;  in  fact,  as  they  are 
called  in  another  passage  just  cited,  they  are  "  His  " 
angels. 

An  important  question  is,  the  relation  which,  in 
the  position  of  Judge,  Jesus  is  conscious  of  holding 
to  the  Father.  The  doctrine  of  the  whole  Bible  is 
that  God  is  Judge  ;  and  certainly  it  would  be  in 
accordance  with  the  general  body  of  Christ's  teaching 
to  assume  that  He  thought  of  Himself  in  this 
character  as  the  Vicegerent  of  God  ;  for  in  all  His 
works  it  was  His  pride  to  perform  what  the  Father 
had  given  Him  to  do.  This  point  of  view,  however, 
retreats  into  the  background  in  these  descriptions 
of  the  judgment,  and  no  pains  are  taken  to  cause  it 
to  be  remembered.  Much  more  prominence  is  given 
to  the  fact  that  it  is  through  Him  that  God  judges 
the  world  than  to  the  fact  that  it  is  God  who  judges 
the  world  through  Him,  In  short,  Jesus  as  Judge 
occupies  a  position  of  relative  independence  ;  and  the 
spirit  of  the  synoptic  representations  corresponds 
exactly  with   the   statement  in   St.  John,  that  "the 


THE  CHRtSTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 


Father  judgeth   no   man,   but    hath    committed    all 
judgment  unto  the  Son."  * 

Dr.  Wendt,  following  his  usual  habit  of  reducing 
the  grander  utterances  of  Jesus  to  the  lowest  possible 
terms,  attempts  to  destroy  the  force  of  these  state- 
ments by  referring  to  the  fact,  that  the  apostles  are 
also  said  to  judge  :  "  In  the  regeneration,  when  the 
Son  of  man  shall  sit  in  the  throne  of  His  glory,  ye 
also  shall  sit  upon  twelve  thrones,  judging  the  twelve 
tribes  of  Israel."  f  Manifestly,  however,  no  relative 
independence  is  ascribed  to  them  ;  their  presence  is 
entirely  subordinate  and  ministerial.  What  is  said 
about  them  has  its  counterpart  in  a  statement  like 
that  of  St.  James,  "  Brethren,  if  any  of  you  do  err 
from  the  truth  and  one  convert  him,  let  him  know, 
that  he  which  converteth  the  sinner  from  the  error  of 
his  way  shall  save  a  soul  from  death,  and  shall  hide 
a  multitude  of  sins"  J — where  the  ordinary  Christian 
is  spoken  of  as  if  he  could  convert  and  save  the  soul, 
although  the  Scripture  is  unanimous  in  ascribing 
salvation  to  God  alone.  It  may  even  be  questioned 
whether  in  what  is  said  about  the  apostles  there  is 
any  reference  to  the  last  judgment  at  all.  In  ancient 
times  to  judge  was  one  of  the  recognised  functions 
of  the  king,  and  in  the  Old  Testament  it  is  frequently 

*  V.  22.  t  Matt.  xix.  28. 

J  V.  19,  20. 


THE  JUDGE  2\\ 

used  as  equivalent  to  kingship,  the  part  being  put 
for  the  whole.  When,  therefore,  it  is  said  that  in 
the  regeneration  the  apostles  will  sit  on  thrones  and 
judge,  this  may  only  mean  that  they  will  be  the 
rulers  of  the  future  ;  as  we  say  of  other  great  figures 
of  the  past,  that  they  now  rule  the  world  from  their 
thrones. 

The  place  assigned  in  the  last  judgment  to  Him- 
self in  the  words  of  Jesus  is  recognised  by  all 
interpreters  to  imply  that  the  ultimate  fate  of  men 
is  to  be  determined  by  their  relation  to  Him.  He  is 
the  standard  by  which  all  shall  be  measured  ;  and 
it  is  to  Him  as  the  Saviour  that  all  who  enter 
into  eternal  life  will  owe  their  felicity.*  But  the 
description  of  Himself  as  Judge  implies  much 
more  than  this  :  it  implies  the  consciousness  of 
ability  to  estimate  the  deeds  of  men  so  exactly  as 
to  determine  with  unerring  justice  their  everlasting 
state.  How  far  beyond  the  reach  of  mere  human 
nature  such  a  claim  is,  it  is  easy  to  see.  No  human 
being  knows  another  to  the  bottom ;  the  most 
ordinary  man  is  a  mystery  to  the  most  penetrating 
of  his  fellow-creatures  ;  the  greatest  of  men  would 
acknowledge  that  even  in   a  child  there  are  heights 

*  This  is  most  remarkably  emphasized  in  the  twenty-fifth  of 
St.  Matthew,  where  even  the  deeds  by  which  the  fate  of  the 
heathen  is  determined  are  reckoned  as  done  to  Him. 

l6 


242  THE   CHRISTOLOGY  OF  JESUS 

which  he  cannot  reach  and  depths  which  he  cannot 
fathom.  Who  would  venture  to  pronounce  a  final 
verdict  on  the  character  of  a  brother  man,  or  to 
measure  out  his  deserts  for  a  single  day  ?  But 
Jesus  ascribed  to  Himself  the  ability  to  determine 
for  eternity  the  value  cf  the  whole  life,  as  made  up 
not  only  of  its  obvious  acts  but  of  its  most  secret 
experiences  and  its  most  subtle  motives.  The 
sublime  consciousness  of  Himself  which  this  involves 
is  not  to  be  mistaken.  Yet  it  is  no  more  than  is 
implied  in  the  daily  necessities  of  the  Christian  life. 
If  anything  is  Christian,  it  is  the  habit  of  praying  to 
the  Son  of  God.  As  soon  as  the  Church  began  to 
live,  it  began  to  pray  to  its  ascended  Lord.  St. 
Paul  speaks  of  the  whole  body  of  believers  as  those 
who  call  upon  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  ; 
and  in  the  Book  of  Revelation  glory  and  dominion 
are  ascribed  by  all  saints  to  Him  who  hath  loved 
them  and  washed  them  from  their  sins  in  His  own 
blood.  Even  the  heathen  identified  the  early 
Christians  by  this  mark,  that  they  met  to  sing  hymns 
to  Jesus  as  God  ;  and,  in  every  century  since, 
Christians  have  been  the  more  distinguished  by  the 
same  practice  the  more  they  have  been  Christian. 
Everyone  remembers  how  the  heart  of  Samuel 
Rutherford  pours  itself  out  to  the  "  sweet  Lord 
Jesus "  ;  but  a    cavalier   like  Jeremy  Taylor   prays 


THE  JUDGE  243 

directly  to  Christ  with  not  a  whit  more  of  reserve. 
The  finest  hymns  of  Christendom  are  nothing  but 
prayers  to  Christ  clothed  in  the  forms  of  poetry  ; 
and  in  these,  every  day,  tens  of  thousands  confide 
the  secrets  of  their  hearts  to  what  they  believe  to 
be  a  comprehending  and  sympathetic  ear.  Does  He 
hear  these  prayers  .-'  does  He  know  His  worshippers  } 
is  He  acquainted  with  the  griefs  they  lay  before 
Him  and  with  the  raptures  occasioned  by  His  love  } 
The  very  existence  of  Christianity  depends  on  the 
answer  given  to  this  question  ;  and  nowhere  is  it 
answered  more  convincingly  than  in  those  sayings 
in  which,  by  calling  Himselt  the  Judge  of  men, 
Jesus  claims  to  have  a  perfect  acquaintance  with 
the  secrets  of  every  human  heart. 


APPENDICES 


245 


APPENDIX    A 

WENDT'S  UNTRANSLATED  VOLUME  ON  THE 
TEACHING  OF  CHRIST 

WENDT'S  well-known  book  is  at  present  our 
most  detailed  and  handy  account  of  the 
teaching  of  Jesus.  But,  in  true  German  fashion, 
the  author  began  with  a  thorough  investigation  of 
the  record  of  our  Lord's  teaching  in  the  Gospels, 
proceeding  on  the  maxim  that  you  cannot  be  sure 
what  ideas  are  to  be  attributed  to  anyone  till  you 
have  ascertained  the  amount  of  credit  due  to  the 
documents  in  which  these  are  contained.  This  pre- 
liminary volume  has  not  been  translated — the  pub- 
lishers apparently  believing,  perhaps  with  wisdom, 
that  it  would  not  be  acceptable  to  the  British  public. 
But  it  is  a  book  of  three  hundred  and  fifty  closely 
printed  pages,  and  a  sketch  of  its  contents  will 
show,  perhaps  more  clearly  than  anything  else,  where 
advanced  scholarship  stands  at  present  in  relation 
to  this  question. 

Wendt  begins  with  a  description  of  what  he 
obviously  believes  to  have  been  the  course  of  the 
life  of  Jesus.  He  says  it  forms  the  framework  of 
St.  Mark,  the  oldest  of  our  Gospels. 


248  IVEKDTS   UNTRANSLATED   VOLUME 

It  is  as  follows  ;  Jesus  at  first  was  neither  recog- 
nised by  others  as  the  Messiah  nor  expressly  known 
to  be  such  by  Himself.  He  deliberately  held  back 
the  public  proclamation  of  His  messianic  title,  and 
only  at  a  comparatively  late  period  of  His  career 
received  from  His  disciples  an  acknowledgment  of 
His  dignity.  Not  till  the  very  end  was  at  hand  did 
He  permit  the  open  acknowledgment  of  the  fact  or 
come  forward  with  a  claim  to  it  Himself  St.  Mark 
gives  no  hint  that  the  Baptist  knew  or  pointed  out 
Jesus  as  the  Messiah.  According  to  his  account, 
John  indeed  made  known  that  the  Messiah  was 
about  to  appear,  but  not  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah  ; 
and  at  the  Baptism  the  vision  of  the  dove  was  seen 
by  Jesus  alone,  as  He  alone  heard  the  voice  by 
which  he  was  designated  the  Son  of  God.  St.  Mark 
then  describes  how,  on  commencing  His  public  work, 
Jesus  was  recognised  as  the  Son  of  God — that  is, 
the  Messiah — only  by  the  demoniacs,  whom,  how- 
ever, He  sternly  forbade  to  make  Him  known. 
The  rest  of  the  people,  on  the  contrary,  when  they 
beheld  His  extraordinary  works,  at  first  inquired 
in  bewilderment  what  was  the  significance  of  His 
activity  and  His  person  ;  and  then,  when  they  had 
had  time  to  think,  formed  and  uttered  their  opinions 
about  Him — these,  however,  being  such  as  involved 
a  complete  denial  of  His  messianic  dignity  or,  while 
acknowledging  that  He  was  sent  of  God,  yet  with- 
held the  full  acknowledgment.  St.  Mark  gives 
prominence  to  the  scene  in  which,  in  contrast  with 
this  behaviour  of  the  multitude,  the  apostles,  through 


O^V   THE   TEACHING  OF  CHRIST  249 

the  mouth  of  St.  Peter,  gave  expression  to  their 
conviction  that  He  was  the  Messiah  ;  and  he  sets  in 
the  fullest  light  his  sense  of  the  importance  of  this 
epoch-making  incident  by  making  Jesus,  from  this 
point  onwards,  introduce  a  new  element  into  His 
teaching — the  prediction,  namely,  of  His  own  suffer- 
ings and  the  sufferings  of  those  who  confessed  Him. 
Meantime,  however,  he  sternly  forbade  the  Twelve 
to  make  known  the  conclusion  at  which  they  had 
arrived  ;  and,  in  accordance  with  this,  the  first  out- 
side the  circle  of  the  Twelve  who  publicly  named 
Jesus  the  Son  of  David — the  blind  beggar,  Bartimaeus, 
at  Jericho — was  commanded  by  the  apostles  to  hold 
his  peace.  At  this  point,  however,  Jesus  withdrew 
the  seal  of  silence  and  immediately  thereafter  ac- 
cepted the  messianic  homage  of  the  pilgrims,  as 
He  entered  Jerusalem.  This  decided  His  fate  with 
the  hierarchy  ;  and  at  last,  in  presence  of  the  high 
priest,  Jesus  solemnly  claimed  the  messianic  dignity. 
St.  Mark  closes  his  account  of  the  life  of  Christ  with 
the  story  of  how  the  heathen  centurion,  seeing  His 
behaviour  on  the  cross,  exclaimed,  "  Truly  this  was 
the  Son  of  God." 

This,  according  to  St.  Mark — and  Wendt  enthu- 
siastically adopts  it — was  the  outline  of  Christ's 
life ;  but,  strange  to  say,  the  evangelist  does  not 
adhere  to  it  himself.  It  is  only  by  piecing  certain 
parts  together  from  his  Gospel  that  you  ascertain 
that  this  was  the  real  course  of  events.  These 
pieces,  we  can  yet  see,  were  originally  joined  ;  for 
the  ending  of  one  runs  into  the  opening  of  the  next 


250  IVENDT'S   UNTRANSLATED   VOLUME 

when  what  comes  between  in  the  actual  St,  Mark  is 
removed.  The  evangeh'st  has  allowed  the  historical 
outline  to  be  crossed  and  blurred  by  a  series  of 
accounts  of  conflicts  between  Jesus  and  the  hierarchy. 
This  section  also  is  cut  up  into  fragments,  which  are 
scattered  over  the  Gospel  ;  but  in  the  same  way  we 
can  see,  from  the  endings  and  beginnings  of  the 
different  parts,  that  they  originally  formed  a  single 
whole.  There  is  a  third  series,  treated  in  the  same 
way,  which  consists  of  passages  setting  forth  the 
necessity  and  the  value  of  suffering.  And  there  are 
two  other  smaller  series,  which  need  not  be  further 
particularised. 

Wendt  does  not  hold  that  these  different  series 
of  passages  were  different  documents,  which  St.  Mark 
incorporated  in  his  narrative  :  the  stamp  of  the  same 
authorship  is  too  unmistakably  on  them  all  for  this. 
He  falls  back  on  the  old  statement  of  Papias,  that 
St.  Mark  derived  his  information  from  St.  Peter : 
and  he  believes  that  these  series  represent  different 
discourses  of  St.  Peter,  or  different  groups  of  reminis- 
cences, which  the  apostle  was  in  the  habit  of 
delivering  together  in  St.  Mark's  hearing.  Thus 
there  was  one  discourse  in  which  St.  Peter  used  to 
give  the  historical  framework  of  Christ's  life  ;  then 
there  was  another  in  which  he  used  to  give  a  collec- 
tion of  anecdotes  illustrative  of  the  witty  and  pithy 
replies  wherewith  Jesus  confounded  opponents  ;  and 
there  was  a  series  of  sayings,  enclosed  within  an 
outline  of  incident,  in  which  were  predicted  the 
sufferings  certain  to  follow  the  confession  of  Christ ; 


ON  THE   TEACHING   OF  CHRIST  251 

and  so  on.  St.  Mark  had  these  separately  in 
his  mind,  but  he  had  to  combine  them  into  a 
book  ;  and,  not  being  a  man  of  letters,  he  did  it 
clumsily ;  and  criticism  has  to  take  the  patch- 
work asunder  ai  d  restore  the  pieces  to  the  places 
which  they  occupied  as  they  came  from  the  lips 
of  St.  Peter. 

Observe  this,  however :  these  Petrine  reminis- 
cences do  not  make  up  the  whole  of  St.  Mark's 
Gospel.  The  evangelist  incorporated  other  materials, 
derived  from  sources  to  us  unknown  but  scarcely 
likely  to  be  of  the  same  dignity.  And  it  is  note- 
worthy that  among  the  additions  Wendt  reckons 
some  of  the  greatest  miracles  of  our  Lord — such 
as  the  Stilling  of  the  Storm  and  the  Feeding  of 
the  Five  Thousand. 

Wendt's  treatment  of  the  Gospel  of  St.  John  is  of 
a  startling  character,  but  it  is  carried  through  with 
great  boldness  and  ability.  He  discerns  in  this 
Gospel  two  totally  distinct  hands,  not  to  speak  of 
a  third,  to  which  the  last  chapter  is  due. 

One  of  the  writers  is  St.  John  himself.  Wendt 
believes  that  the  apostle  was  persuaded  in  his  old 
age  to  collect  his  reminiscences,  and  these  form  the 
substance  of  the  present  Gospel.  They  consisted 
chiefly  of  sayings  and  discourses,  perhaps  bound 
together  by  a  few  slight  threads  of  narrative  ;  but 
no  attempt  was  made  by  the  apostle  to  give  a 
connected  life  of  Christ.  This  attempt  was,  how- 
ever, made  and  carried  through  by  a  disciple  of 
St.  John,  who  incorporated   the  reminiscences  of  his 


252  WENDY'S   UNTRANSLATED   VOLUME 

master   with    his    own    ideas  and   fitted    the   whole 
within  a  historical  framework. 

In  proof  that  the  bulk  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  is 
due  to  St.  John,  Wendt  adduces  the  words  of  the 
Prologue — which,  by  the  way,  is  not  the  work  of 
the  editor,  but  the  apostle — "  And  the  Word  was 
made  flesh,  and  dwelt  among  us  (and  we  beheld  His 
glory,  the  glory  as  of  the  only  begotten  of  the 
Father)  full  of  grace  and  truth."  Further,  the 
language  throughout  is  that  of  a  Hebrew,  who  had 
been  brought  up  on  the  Septuagint.  Especially  by 
the  sovereign  way  in  which  he  makes  Jesus  handle 
the  Old  Testament  the  writer  shows  that  he  must 
have  been  in  the  closest  touch  with  the  Lord.  It  is 
true,  there  is  a  wide  discrepancy  between  the 
language  in  which  he  makes  his  Master  speak  and 
that  in  which  Jesus  is  made  to  speak  in  the  Synop- 
tists  ;  but  this  is  sufficiently  accounted  for  by  the 
powerfully  developed  spiritual  individuality  of  the 
apostle  ;  and  the  difference  is  confined  to  the  form 
of  Christ's  words  :  it  does  not  extend  to  the  sub- 
stance, which  is  identical  with  that  found  in  the 
Synoptists.  Of  this  Wendt  has  given  detailed 
proof  in  the  second — that  is,  the  translated — part 
of  his  work.  St.  John  has  a  peculiar  vocabulary  ; 
but  its  leading  catchwords  are  simply  equivalents 
for  the  leading  catchwords  of  the  Synoptists  ;  and 
the  circle  of  Christ's  teaching  in  St.  John,  when  laid 
above  the  circle  found  in  the  Synoptists,  corresponds 
with  it  point  by  point,  although,  of  course,  at  some 
points  St.  John  is  more  expansive  and  goes  deeper. 


ON   THE   TEACHING  Oh    CHRIST  253 


Wendt's  account  of  the  other  writer  whose  hand 
is  discernible  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  a  severe  one. 
He  expressly  exonerates  him,  indeed,  from  deliberate 
falsification  ;  but  short  of  this  there  is  nothing  of 
which  the  bungler  is  not  capable. 

He  has  entirely  obliterated  the  historicity  of  the 
career  of  Jesus,  as  criticism  is  able  to  exhibit  it  by 
judicious  excerpts  from  St.  Mark.  This  career 
began  in  obscurity ;  for  a  long  time  Christ  performed 
His  acts  of  healing  in  secret  and  suppressed  every 
allusion  to  His  messiahship  ;  the  confession  of  the 
Twelve  that  He  was  the  Messiah  was  the  great 
crisis  ;  thereafter,  only,  did  Jesus  venture  to  speak 
of  His  sufferings  and  death  ;  and  only  towards  or  at 
the  very  end  did  He  permit  the  messianic  dignity 
to  be  ascribed  to  Him  or  claim  it  Himself.  The 
author,  however,  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  in  its  present 
form  introduces  allusions  to  Christ's  sufferings  and 
death  from  the  very  first,  and  takes  every  opportunity 
of  asseverating  that  Jesus  knew  from  the  beginning 
that  He  was  to  be  betrayed  by  one  of  the  Twelve. 
In  like  manner  he  makes  the  Baptist  recognise 
Jesus  as  the  Messiah,  clean  against  the  representation 
of  St.  Mark  ;  and  as  early  as  the  fourth  chapter  he 
makes  Jesus  Himself  say  in  so  many  words,  "  I  am 
the  Messiah,"  to  a  Samaritan  woman.  Many,  indeed, 
are  represented  as  denying  that  He  is  the  Messiah  ; 
but  allusions  to  the  fact  that  this  is  His  destiny  are 
numerous  from  the  very  commencement  of  His  career. 

Even  this  total  oblivion  of  the  true  course  of  the 
history  of  Jesus  is.   however,   not  the  worst.     This 


254  IVENDT'S   UNTRANSLATED    VOLUME 

editor's  very  conception  of  Christianity  is  widely 
different  from  that  of  Christ,  which  is  faithfully 
reproduced  in  his  own  peculiar  dialect  by  St.  John. 
The  latter  is  deep,  inward,  mystical  ;  the  editor's 
is  external  and  mechanical.  For  example,  in  the 
portions  of  the  Gospel  due  to  the  apostle  "  eternal 
life"  is  a  present  possession  of  everyone  who  believeth 
on  the  Son  of  God  ;  but  to  the  editor  it  is  a 
possession  which  is  to  begin  in  the  next  world. 
And,  in  the  same  way,  "judgment"  is  in  St.  John's 
mouth  or  Christ's  a  process  which  is  proceeding  now 
— everyone  who  comes  into  contact  with  Christ  is 
ipso  facto  judged — but  to  the  editor  judgment  is  a 
public  scene,  which  will  take  place  at  the  end  of 
time.  The  same  habit  of  mind  is  displayed  in  the 
way  in  which  the  editor  relies  on  external  proofs 
of  the  divine  origin  of  Christianity.  Jesus  Himself 
rebuked  the  desire  of  the  Jews  for  signs  and  refused 
to  give  them  ;  but  to  the  editor  the  miracles  are  the 
commanding  evidence,  and  he  has  a  kind  of  craze 
for  emphasizing  the  importance  of  the  testimony  of 
the  Baptist. 

Unfortunately  the  editor  has  mixed  up  his  own 
additions  with  the  material  derived  from  the  apostle 
so  closely  that  it  is  no  easy  task  to  separate  the 
gold  from  the  alloy.  He  has  even  intruded  into 
the  Prologue,  interrupting  its  glorious  march  with 
two  or  three  irrelevant  remarks  on  his  favourite  topic 
of  the  testimony  of  John.  But  Wendt  is  not  dis- 
couraged. He  goes  resolutely  through  chapter  after 
chapter,    excising    now   a    long    paragraph,   then    a 


ON   THE   TEACHING  OF  CHRIST  255 

verse  or  two,  here  a  line  and  there  a  word  ;  and  he 
seldom  has  any  hesitation.  In  the  first  chapter,  for 
example,  he  cuts  away  the  whole  passage  in  which 
the  Baptist  bears  testimony  to  the  Lamb  of  God 
which  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world,  together 
with  the  passages  thereon  ensuing  in  which  St.  John 
and  others  have  their  first  interview  with  Jesus  amid 
circumstances  which  have  been  supposed  to  bear 
marks,  tender  and  unmistakable,  of  personal  recollec- 
tion. A  curious  specimen  of  the  results  of  Wendt's 
method  is  found  in  the  eleventh  chapter — the  account 
of  the  raising  of  Lazarus.  Something  proceeding 
from  St.  John  is  here  the  substratum,  but  verse  by 
verse  it  has  to  be  disentangled  from  the  editor's 
additions.  Lazarus  had  died,  and  Jesus  came  a  long 
distance  to  console  the  sisters.  He  naturally  talked 
with  them  of  the  certainty  that  their  brother  would 
rise  again  in  the  resurrection  at  the  last  day  ;  and 
out  of  these  remarks  a  story  gradually  span  itself  of 
a  resurrection  effected  by  Jesus  on  the  spot ;  but  no 
such  thing  really  took  place. 

Wendt  is  by  no  means  unaware  of  the  reluctance 
which  will  be  felt  by  all  who  are  acquainted  with 
the  spell  of  St.  John,  which  appears  to  pervade  every 
page  of  the  Gospel  and  lends  it  a  character  so  unique, 
to  accept  the  theory  of  a  twofold  authorship  ;  but 
he  maintains  that  only  on  these  terms  is  it  possible 
to  retain  the  apostolicity  of  the  Gospel  as  a  whole  ; 
for  the  historical  framework  is  such  as  could  have 
been  constructed  by  no  one  acquainted  at  first  hand 
with  the  course  of  Christ's  career. 


256  IVENDTS   UNTRANSLATED   VOLUME 

Perhaps  Wendt's  discussion  of  the  First  and  Third 
Gospels  is  the  most  valuable  part  of  his  book. 

He  holds  that  both  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke 
made  use  of  St.  Mark  as  we  now  have  it — the  last 
few  verses  of  the  last  chapter  of  course  excepted 
— and  on  this  framework  constructed  their  own 
narratives.  Neither,  however,  had  the  discernment 
to  excerpt,  as  criticism  is  now  able  to  do,  the  real 
course  of  the  history  ;  and,  therefore,  they  also,  like 
the  editor  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  let  the  Baptist 
recognise  Jesus  as  the  Messiah  ;  they  make  Jesus 
perform  miracles  from  the  first  in  great  publicity  ; 
and,  while  retaining  the  scene  in  which  the  Twelve 
acknowledged  the  messianic  dignity  of  their  Master, 
and  other  scenes  in  which  He  forbade  them  and 
others  to  make  Him  known,  they  do  not  recognise 
the  true  place  and  import  of  these  incidents. 

St  Matthew  and  St.  Luke,  however,  display  an 
agreement  in  incident  and  expression  in  the  portions 
of  their  narratives  not  derived  from  St.  Mark  which 
requires  explanation  ,  and  this  is  not  to  be  found 
in  the  supposition  that  the  one  borrowed  from  the 
other,  because  St.  Luke,  the  later  of  the  two,  is 
particularly  shy  and  suspicious  of  St.  Matthew.  The 
explanation  then  must  be  that,  besides  the  Gospel  of 
St.  Mark,  they  made  use  of  another  common  source  ; 
and,  going  back  on  the  old  tradition  of  Papias, 
Wendt  supposes  this  to  have  been  the  Logia  of  the 
apostle  Matthew  ;  for  the  author  of  our  First  Gospel 
is  not  this  apostle,  though  it  bears  his  name.  Just 
as  St.  John   made  a  collection  of  the  sayings  of  the 


ON   THE   TEACHING  OF  CHRIST  257 

Master,  his  brother  apostle  had  done  the  same 
before  him  ;  and,  as  St.  John's  editor  trans- 
formed his  reminiscences  into  a  history  of  Christ, 
the  authors  of  the  First  and  Third  Gospels  did 
the  like  with  the  Logia  of  St.  Matthew.  Only, 
while  the  editor  of  St.  John  derived  his  frame- 
work from  the  tradition  of  the  life  of  Christ  current 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Ephesus  at  the  close  of 
the  first  century,  the  other  two  evangelists  derived 
theirs  from  St  Mark. 

The  first  and  third  evangelist  made  their  excerpts 
from  the  Logia  somewhat  differently.  The  writer 
of  the  First  Gospel,  following  his  plan  of  grouping 
miracles,  parables,  etc.,  together,  attached  as  many 
of  them  as  he  could,  on  this  principle,  to  the 
materials  which  he  borrowed  from  St.  Mark.  St. 
Luke,  on  the  contrary,  interpolated  them  in  the 
form  of  two  long  connected  narratives  into  St.  Mark's 
framework.  The  reproduction  was  further  modified 
in  each  case  by  the  pDint  of  view  and  purpose  of 
the  writer ;  and  from  the  fact  that  the  Logia  were 
not  written,  but  handed  down  orally,  it  will  be 
understood  that  both  evangelists  exercised  consider- 
able freedom.  Although,  therefore,  there  is  a  great 
deal  of  agreement  between  them,  yet  there  are 
differences  smaller  and  greater ;  and,  by  comparing 
them  closely,  it  is  possible  to  judge  with  a  good 
deal  of  confidence  in  every  case  which  reproduction 
is  the  more  exact. 

Wendt  undertakes  the  task  of  reproducing  the 
Logia  word  for  word  out  of  St.  Matthew  and  St. 

17 


258  JVENDT'S   UNTRANSLATED   VOLUME 

Luke  ;  and  he  prints  the  entire  document  in  Greek, 
thus  giving  us  what  even  the  apostolic  Church  did 
not  possess.  It  is  a  bold  undertaking,  and,  however 
much  we  may  differ  from  him,  hearty  gratitude  is 
due  to  him  for  it.  He  thinks  he  is  able  in  many 
cases  to  make  one  of  the  evangelists  correct  the 
other  ;  sometimes  both  are  wrong,  but,  having  got 
the  exact  words  and  restored  them  to  their  right 
places,  we  can  correct  them  both.  He  makes  far 
too  little  allowance,  however,  for  modifications  in 
the  sayings  of  Jesus  which  may  have  been  due  to 
His  making  the  same  statements  or  using  the  same 
illustrations  on  different  occasions.  An  itinerant 
preacher  necessarily  repeats  himself ;  but,  if  he  has 
any  genius,  he  does  not  do  so  slavishly  :  he  gives 
his  illustrations  different  applications  and  points 
the  same  truths  in  different  directions  ;  and  there 
is  no  irreverence  in  attributing  to  Jesus  a  thing 
so  natural.  Scholars  constantly  forget  how  brief 
the  Gospels  are,  and  how  meagre  are  the  fragments 
preserved  to  us  of  what  our  Lord  must  have  done 
and  said. 

Although  both  the  First  and  Third  Gospels  are 
thus  mainly  derived  from  St.  Mark  and  the  Logia 
combined,  yet  both  writers  have  added  a  good  deal, 
derived  from  other  sources  to  us  unknown.  This 
is  especially  the  case  at  the  beginning  and  at  the 
end.  The  narratives  of  the  birth,  infancy  and  youth 
of  Jesus  are  found  in  the  First  and  Third  Gospels  ; 
but  Wendt  does  not  believe  that  they  were  in  the 
Logia,    and    evidently    he    attaches    to    them    little 


ON  THE    TEACHING   OF  CHRIST  259 

importance.  The  same  is  true  of  many  details  of 
the  death  and  resurrection.  On  the  resurrection 
the  author  expresses  himself  with  extreme  caution. 
All  the  length  he  is  prepared  to  go  may  be  gathered 
from  these  words  :  "  That  the  disciples  had  the  con- 
viction not  only  that  they  had  seen  the  Risen 
Saviour,  but  that  by  means  of  these  appearances 
they  had  obtained  distinct  knowledge  of  His 
messianic  person  and  their  own  apostolic  vocation, 
appears  to  me,  on  account  of  the  entirely  analogous 
belief  of  St.  Paul,  to  admit  of  no  question." 

To  sum  up,  Wendt's  aim,  it  will  be  seen,  is  to  get 
behind  the  Gospels,  which  are  secondary  or  sub- 
apostolic  formations,  to  the  apostolic  materials  out 
of  which  they  were  constructed  with  additions.  St. 
Mark  is  nearest  to  an  original  document  ;  but  even 
it  contains  secondary  additions,  and  its  scheme  of 
Christ's  life  is  confused  by  the  lack  of  literary  skill. 
Out  of  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke  another  apostolic 
document  can  be  reconstructed  ;  but  to  the  apostolic 
materials  less  trustworthy  information  has  been 
added,  and  already  the  actual  development  cf  Christ's 
life  has  been  forgotten.  In  St.  John,  also,  we  have 
an  apostolic  document  of  unique  value,  but  it  is 
hidden  in  another  document,  which  breathes  an 
entirely  different  spirit  and  has  no  sense  whatever 
for  the  historicity  of  Christ's  career.  Among  the 
secondary  additions  Wendt  would  reckon  a  great 
many  of  the  outstanding  miracles  attributed  to 
Jesus — such  as  the  Changing  of  Water  into  Wine, 


26o  WENDT'S   UNTRANSLATED   VOLUME 

the  Stilling  of  the  Storm,  St.  Peter's  Walking  on  the 
Sea,  the  Resurrection  of  the  daughter  of  Jairus,  of 
the  Widow's  Son  at  Nain  and  of  Lazarus,  and,  I 
suppose,  also  the  bodily  Resurrection  of  Christ 
Himself. 

In  the  German  preface  to  the  second  volume  of 
his  work  Dr.  Wendt  complains  of  the  slight  attention 
bestowed  on  his  first  volume ;  but  this  misfortune 
has  probably  been  a  blessing  in  disguise  ;  because, 
had  the  contents  of  the  critical  volume  been  well 
known  in  this  country,  the  fact  would  probably 
have  modified  the  welcome  with  which  the  translated 
volume  has  been  received. 

There  are  those,  indeed,  to  whom  such  a  presenta- 
tion of  the  life  of  Christ  may  be  a  godsend.  If  a 
man  has  lost  faith  in  the  credibility  of  the  Gospels 
and  thus  had  his  belief  in  the  Son  of  God  shattered 
altogether,  the  notion  may  be  a  highly  welcome  one 
that  it  is  possible  to  get  behind  the  actual  Gospels 
and  find  a  story,  exiguous  indeed  and  lacking  in 
colour,  yet  apostolic  and  true  ;  for  this  may  seem 
to  give  him  Jesus  back  again  and  to  relight  the 
lamp  of  religion.  Accordingly,  this  critical  procedure 
is  lauded  in  certain  quarters  as  being  not  the  destruc- 
tion but  the  restoration  of  belief.  The  meaning, 
however,  of  such  a  claim  requires  strict  definition. 
To  anyone  who  has  a  full-bodied  faith  in  Christ 
and  confidence  in  the  Gospels  such  a  scheme  of  the 
life  of  Christ  as  is  supplied  by  Wendt  is  pure  loss. 
To  the  common   man  it  is  disastrous  in  the  highest 


ON  THE  TEACHING  OF  CHRIST  261 

degree,  because  it  means  that,  when  the  Gospels  are 
opened  and  the  most  affecting  words  of  Christ  read, 
there  cannot  be  the  sh'ghtest  certainty  whether  or 
not  these  sayings  actually  emanated  from  Him  or 
were  secondary  formations  due  to  minds  which  only 
partially  comprehended  His  spirit  ;  this  cannot  be 
decided  before  the  termination  of  a  critical  process, 
in  which  no  two  of  the  learned  entirely  agree.  The 
question  is  not  one  of  whether  or  not  perfect  accuracy 
is  to  be  found  in  every  detail  of  an  incident,  or 
whether  the  precise  force  of  every  saying  of  our 
Lord  has  been  comprehended  by  the  reporter  :  it  is 
whether  the  greatest  of  the  miracles  attributed  to 
Him  were  actually  performed,  and  whether  a  con- 
siderable proportion  of  the  words  put  into  His  mouth 
ever  came  from  His  lips  at  all. 

It  may  be  that  there  lies  before  us  a  period  in 
which  the  whole  question  will  be  thrashed  out  among 
ourselves  on  the  lines  on  which  it  has  been  discussed 
in  Germany.  The  impression,  indeed,  prevails  in 
this  country,  even  among  the  educated,  that,  the 
Tubingen  theory  being  exploded,  the  credibility  of 
the  Gospels  has  been  settled  forever.  This,  how- 
ever, is  an  over-sanguine  view,  and  does  not  at  all 
correspond  with  the  state  of  opinion  abroad.  Wendt, 
on  the  contrary,  is  a  moderate  representative  of  a 
large  and  extremely  able  set  of  German  critics. 
The  growing  familiarity  of  the  public  mind  in  this 
country  with  the  theories  of  Old  Testament  criticism 
may  pave  the  way  for  a  similar  treatment  of 
the    Gospels ;    and    the    theories,    backed    by   great 


262  IVENDTS   UNTRANSLATED   VOLUME 

accumulations  of  learning,  are  ready  to  the  hand  of 
anyone  who  may  wish  to  distinguish  himself  by 
giving  a  shock  to  orthodoxy.  The  process,  once 
begun,  would  not  be  easily  brought  to  a  termination  ; 
for  there  is  no  end  to  the  combinations  which  are 
possible  when  once  it  is  taken  for  granted  that  the 
representations  of  the  Gospels  are  not  the  actual 
facts,  but  creations  of  the  imagination  which  have 
grown  out  of  them. 

Still  there  arc  aspects  of  Wcndt's  performance 
which  are  reassuring,  even  in  view  of  such  con- 
tingencies. Although  to  our  insular  notions  his 
position  appears  extreme,  he  would  be  reckoned  in 
the  circle  to  which  he  belongs  in  a  high  degree  con- 
servative. He  stands  as  the  last  term  of  a  gigantic 
course  of  investigation,  and,  when  his  results  are 
compared  with  the  wilder  ideas  of  the  Tubingen 
school,  the  contrast  is  great.  Even  as  they  stand, 
the  Gospels  all  belong,  according  to  this  author,  to 
the  first  century,  and  in  everyone  of  them  there  is 
a  large  kernel  proceeding  directly  from  the  apostolic 
circle.  Wendt's  detailed  comparison,  in  his  trans- 
lated volume,  of  the  teaching  of  Christ  as  reported 
by  St.  John  with  the  same  teaching  as  reported  by 
the  Synoptists,  in  order  to  prove  their  identity,  is 
one  of  the  most  striking  things  in  recent  theology. 
The  attempt  to  bring  the  Gospels  far  down  and 
away  from  immediate  connection  with  Christ  has 
apparently  failed.  To  use  an  illustration  of  Principal 
Rainy,  the  Gospel  narrative,  like  a  living  creature, 
after  being  forcibly  stretched  away  down  into  the 


ON  THE   TEACHING   OF  CHRIST  263 

second  century,  has  drawn  itself  together  again 
right  back  into  the  heart  of  the  first  century.  The 
question  is  thus  very  much  narrowed.  Was  it 
possible  in  so  short  a  time,  within  the  memory 
of  men  who  had  lived  with  Jesus,  for  the 
history  to  be  so  transformed  ?  Could  the  course 
of  Christ's  career  be  so  speedily  forgotten  ?  Could 
so  many  wonders,  adorned  with  minute  and  lifelike 
details,  be  attributed  to  Him  which  He  never 
performed  ? 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  there  are  some  great 
difficulties  in  the  Gospels,  and  we  are  indebted  to 
Wendt  for  showing  so  clearly  what  these  are.  One 
thing,  however,  which  makes  one  distrust  his  mode 
of  approaching  them  is  the  stupidity  which  he  is 
constantly  attributing  to  the  Evangelists.  They  have 
misunderstood  Christ,  according  to  him,  where  His 
drift  is  perfectly  obvious ;  they  have  overlooked 
the  connexion  of  this  and  that,  when  it  might  have 
been  seen  with  half  an  eye.  This  reaches  a  height 
in  the  case  of  the  Fourth  Evangelist,  who  simply 
peppers  the  noble  narrative  of  St.  John  with 
wrong-headed  remarks  and  disquisitions.  Leaving 
the  reverence  aside  which  may  be  due  to  holy 
men  who  spake  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy 
Ghost,  I  am  always  suspicious  of  any  theory 
which  makes  the  writers  of  Scripture  talk  downright 
nonsense. 

The  truth  is,  Wendt's  work  is  dominated  from 
first  to  last  by  a  theory.  He  makes  no  secret  of  it : 
on  the  contrary,  he  states  it  in  the  very  first  pages 


264  IVENDTS   UNTRANSLATED   VOLUME 

of  the  volume  under  review,  and  he  makes  it  the 
standard  for  judging  every  statement  in  the  Gospels. 
This  theory  is,  that  the  life  of  our  Lord  pur- 
sued the  course,  already  described,  which  he  finds 
indicated  in  St.  Mark — although  even  St.  Mark 
is  not  true  to  it,  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke  are 
unaware  of  it,  and  the  Fourth  Gospel  clean  contra- 
dicts it. 

The  outline  of  the  life  of  Christ,  which  Wendt 
thus  makes  the  standard  for  testing  the  Evangelists, 
contains,  indeed,  a  great  deal  to  which  no  objection 
need  be  taken  ;  but  the  denial  that  the  Baptist 
acknowledged  Jesus  as  the  Messiah  has  very  little 
to  rest  on.  St.  Mark,  indeed,  says  that  at  His 
baptism  Jesus  saw  the  heavens  rent  asunder  and  the 
Spirit  descending  ;  but  he  says  not  a  word  to  indi- 
cate that  He  alone  saw  this  vision  and  heard  the 
voice  which  acknowledged  Him  as  the  Son  of  God. 
The  whole  scene  has  the  appearance  of  being  in- 
tended for  others  rather  than  for  Him — the  con- 
sciousness of  Jesus  did  not  require  such  external 
demonstrations  to  assist  its  operations. 

But,  asks  Wendt,  if  the  Baptist  thus  acknowledged 
the  messiahship  of  Jesus,  and  if  other  testimonies  to 
it  arose  here  and  there  from  the  first,  what  import- 
ance was  there  in  the  great  confession  of  the  Twelve 
through  the  lips  of  St.  Peter  }  This  seems  a  formid- 
able difficulty ;  but,  when  this  question  is  asked,  are 
we  not  overlooking  the  religious  character  of  the 
confession  of  the  Twelve  ?  Their  confession  was 
not  a  dry  inference  from  the  observation  of  facts  :  it 


ON  THE   TEACHING  OF  CHRIST  265 


was  an  outburst  of  religious  conviction,  and  a  solemn 
vow  by  which  they  were  prepared  to  stand.  And 
truth,  when  it  is  realised  and  acknowledged  in  this 
way,  has  all  the  force  of  novelty,  although  it  may 
have  been  heard  long  before  by  the  hearing  of 
the  ear. 

I  have  never  been  able  to  feel  any  force  in  the 
assertion,  which  Wendt  repeats,  that,  if  at  the 
Baptism  John  had  acknowledged  the  messiahship 
of  Jesus,  he  could  not  afterwards  have  sent  his 
message  from  the  prison.  The  most  elementary 
acquaintance  with  the  psychology  of  religion  ought 
to  enable  us  to  understand  how  a  man  who  was  in 
the  Baptist's  circumstances  and  had  passed  through 
all  that  he  had  undergone  might  come  to  doubt 
what  he  had  once  firmly  believed. 

Christ's  practice  of  requesting  those  whom  He 
healed  not  to  make  Him  known,  and  of  enjoining 
His  apostles  not  to  reveal  His  messiahship,  is  a 
perplexing  trait ;  but  I  am  not  satisfied  that  Wendt's 
explanation  is  the  correct  one.  St.  Matthew  quotes 
in  explanation  of  it  an  ancient  prophecy  to  the  effect 
that  the  Messiah  would  not  strive  or  cry  or  cause 
His  voice  to  be  heard  in  the  streets  ;  and  this  may 
be  the  true  explanation — that  it  was  due  not  to 
policy  and  deliberation,  but  to  a  subtle  and  delicate 
peculiarity  of  the  tem.perament  of  Jesus.  When  it 
is  recorded  that  Jesus  enjoined  one  whom  He  had 
cured  to  tell  no  man,  but  that,  in  the  ecstasy  of 
restored  health,  the  man  blazed  abroad  the  matter, 
are  we  quite  certain  that  Jesus  was  displeased  ?     We 


266  tVENDTS   UNTRANSLATED   VOLUME 

ourselves  read  the  statement  with  an  amused  gratifi- 
cation, and  I  am  by  no  means  certain  that  this  was 
not  the  effect  on  Jesus  Hkewise. 

If  Jesus  had  kept  Himself  as  obscure  as  Wendt 
represents  Him  to  have  done,  and  held  back  so  long 
any  hint  of  His  messiahship,  it  is  a  question  how 
far  the  public  and  the  authorities  would  have  been 
responsible  for  at  last  refusing  to  acknowledge  His 
claim. 

But  the  final  question  is,  whether  this  figure  pre- 
sented by  Wendt,  and  presented  confidently  by  an 
increasing  school  in  Germany,  can  be  the  veritable 
picture  of  Christ — the  figure  of  One  who  had  no 
pre-existence,  but  was  the  son  of  Joseph  and  Mary ; 
who  knew  some  secrets  of  the  medical  art  and  by 
means  of  these  healed  the  sick,  but  did  not  raise 
Jairus'  daughter,  or  the  widow's  son,  or  the  brother 
of  the  sisters  of  Bethany  ;  who  taught  the  words  of 
eternal  life,  but  was  not  Himself  rescued  from  the 
power  of  the  grave  ?  Is  this  the  authentic  portrait 
of  Jesus  Christ  ?  It  is  totally  unlike  the  image 
presented  by  the  Gospel  of  St.  Mark  as  a  whole. 
But,  even  if  St.  Mark  did  offer  it — or  any  skilfully 
excerpted  section  of  St.  Mark — would  it  be  credible  .? 
In  my  opinion  it  would  be  utterly  incredible.  We 
do  not  know  for  certain  the  dates  of  the  Gospels  ; 
but  we  do  know,  almost  to  a  year,  the  dates  of  the 
great,  universally  recognised  epistles  of  St.  Paul. 
This  apostle  was  of  almost  the  same  age  as  Jesus, 
and  he  was  at  the  full  height  of  his  powers  when  he 
applied  his  mind  to  the  scrutiny  of  the  life  of  Jesus. 


ON   THE   TEACHING  OF  CHRIST  267 

Now,    what    is    the    image    of   Christ   presented   in 
St.   Paul's    writings  ?     Christ  is  the  Judge  of  men, 
and,  therefore,  he  must  have  a  supernatural  know- 
ledge of  their  hearts  ;   He  is  the  Saviour  of  the  world, 
on  whom  the  burdened  conscience  can  lay  the  whole 
weight  of  its  sin  and  the  immortal  spirit  the  whole 
weight  of  its  destiny  ;   He  was  before  all  things,  and 
He  now   lives   as   the  ascended  Lord  at  the   right 
hand  of  God  ;   His  name  is  above  every  name,  and 
to   Him   every  knee  shall  bow.     This  was  not  the 
faith  of  St.  Paul  alone  :  it  was  notoriously  the  faith 
of  the  whole  Church  within  a  single  generation  of 
Christ's  death  ;    for  on   this    subject    there  was  no 
difference   of  opinion  among  the   first  witnesses  of 
Christianity.     Now,  is  there  any  resemblance  between 
this  image  and  that  which  Wendt  proposes  to  put  in 
its  place  ?     It  is  true  that,  with  the  great  exception 
of  the   resurrection,  St.  Paul  does  not  mention  the 
miracles  of  our  Lord  ;  but  the  entire  image  of  the 
Saviour    presented    in     the    Pauline    writings — and 
the    same    is  true  of  all   the   writings  in  the  New 
Testament — is    congruent   and    harmonious   with    a 
birth,  a  life  and  a  death  such  as  the  actual  Gospels 
depict,   and   it  is   utterly  incongruous   with  such  a 
history   as   Wendt    puts   together  from    the    gospel 
within  the  Gospels.      If  Christianity  from  the  very 
start  was  founded  on  a  huge  falsification,  to  however 
innocent  causes   the   distortion    of  facts   may   have 
been  due,  it  is  vain  at  this  time  of  day  to  attempt 
to  begin  it  over  again.     Besides,  if  Christ  was  not 
the  glorious  Son  of  God  whom  the  evangelists  and 


268  WENDTS   TEACHING  OF  CHRIST 


apostles  represented  Him  to  be,  but  only  this  figure 
to  which  those  who  agree  with  Wendt  would  reduce 
Him,  then  it  is  far  more  evident  that  it  is  hopeless 
to  redintegrate  the  Christian  religion  upon  these 
terms  ;  for  this  is  not  the  kind  of  Saviour  that  the 
world  requires. 


APPENDIX  B 

THE  BOOK  OF  ENOCH 

OF  late  this  ancient  document  has  again  been 
attracting  attention  to  itself.  A  lengthy 
fragment  of  it  in  Greek,  comprising  about  a  third 
of  the  entire  book,  and  forming  part  of  an  important 
find  of  manuscripts  made  a  few  years  ago  at 
Akhmim,  has  been  published  by  M.  Bouriant ;  and 
a  monograph  on  this  discovery,  from  the  pen  of 
Dillmann,  the  great  authority  on  the  Book  of  Enoch, 
has  appeared  in  the  shape  of  a  communication  made 
by  the  late  professor  to  the  Academy  of  Sciences  at 
Berlin.  An  annotated  French  version  of  the  Greek 
fragment  has  come  from  M.  Lods  ;  and,  most 
important  of  all  for  us,  Mr.  R.  H.  Charles  has 
published  a  new  translation  of  the  whole  book  in 
English,  with  introduction,  notes,  appendices  and 
indices,  from  which  everything  can  be  learned  which 
is  known  on  the  subject  up  to  date. 

Perhaps  it  may  be  well  to  begin  with  briefly 
recalling  its  history. 

In  early  Christian  writings  reference  is  made  to 
a  book  bearing  the  name  of  Enoch,  which  is  seriously 
accepted  as  the  work  of  the  patriarch  and  referred  to 

969 


270  THE  BOOK  OF  ENOCH 

as  Scripture.  These  references  are  not,  however, 
numerous  ;  and  soon  the  Fathers  began  to  express 
themselves  doubtfully,  till  at  length  Augustine  gave 
the  finishing  stroke  by  rejecting  it  altogether. 
Thenceforward  it  disappeared,  although  one  writer, 
Syncellus,  about  A,D.  800,  makes  a  long  quotation 
from  it.  In  the  year  1773  Bruce,  the  traveller, 
brought  from  Abyssinia  three  copies  of  an  ^thiopic 
manuscript,  which  proved  to  be  the  lost  book.  Of 
this  an  English  translation  by  Lawrence,  which  is 
now  quite  obsolete,  appeared  in  1821.  Other  copies 
from  Abyssinia  dropped  into  European  libraries 
from  time  to  time  ;  and  in  1851  Dillmann  published 
the  i^thiopic  text  from  five  manuscripts,  supplement- 
ing this  service  in  1853  with  a  German  translation, 
which  has  ever  since  been  the  basis  of  all  scholarly 
investigations.  At  the  conclusion  of  the  British 
war  with  King  Theodore  of  Abyssinia,  a  number  of 
additional  manuscrip!:s  found  their  way  into  the 
libraries  of  Europe,  especially  into  the  British 
Museum.  These  Mr.  Charles  has  made  use  of  in 
compiling  his  new  edition.  He  has  also,  of  course, 
incorporated  the  results  of  the  splendid  labours  of 
Dillmann.  His  work  is  an  able  performance,  and 
highly  creditable  to  English  scholarship  ;  he  ex- 
presses his  own  views  with  conciseness  and  decision  ; 
and,  although  the  problems  of  the  book  are  far  from 
being  settled,  the  materials  are  now  accessible,  and 
everyone  can  judge  for  himself  what  is  the  value  of  this 
relic  of  the  past  It  is,  however,  to  be  remembered 
that,  in  the  English  or    German,  we   have  it  only 


THE  BOOK  OF  ENOCH  271 

at  fourth  hand  ;  for  the  iCthiopic  is  a  translation 
from  a  Greek  version  of  a  Hebrew  original.  There 
are  ample  indications  in  the  book  itself  that  it 
was  originally  written  in  Hebrew,  and  also  that  it 
originated  in  Palestine,  probably  in  Galilee.  It  is 
about  as  large  in  bulk  as  the  Book  of  Genesis,  and 
is  filled  with  a  strange  variety  of  material. 

The  entire  book  rests  on  a  peculiar  interpretation 
of  the  verse  in  Genesis  which  says  that  "  Enoch 
walked  with  God,  and  was  not,  because  God  took 
him."  The  final  clause  is  understood  in  the  ordinary 
sense  of  a  translation  of  Enoch  similar  to  that  of 
Elijah  ;  but  the  first  clause — that  he  "  walked  with 
God  " — is  taken  to  imply  that  he  was  favoured  with 
excursions,  in  the  company  of  God,  or  rather  of  the 
angels,  into  remote  regions  of  the  universe,  where 
wonders  and  mysteries  of  all  kinds  were  revealed  to 
him,  along  with  copious  disclosures  as  to  the  future 
course  of  the  world. 

Such  a  conception,  it  will  easily  be  perceived, 
opened  immense  imaginative  opportunities ;  for  on 
such  a  journey,  under  such  guidance,  what  corner 
of  the  universe  might  not  be  visited,  and  what 
secret  might  not  be  explored  ?  From  such  a  stand- 
point, near  the  very  commencement  of  human 
history,  a  bird's-eye  view  might  be  given  of  the 
whole  course  of  the  ways  of  God  with  men.  Such 
a  task  would,  however,  have  required  the  greatest 
powers.  A  Dante  or  a  Milton  would  have  been 
needed  to  sustain   the   toilsome  journey  and  make 


272  THE  BOOK  OF  ENOCH 

the  vast  survey,  and  then  to  shape  the  whole  into 
one  continuous  and  consistent  picture.  The  author 
of  the  Book  of  Enoch  has,  indeed,  been  called  the 
Hebrew  Dante,  and  his  undertaking  has  been  com- 
pared to  that  of  Milton.  But  one  is  reminded  of 
someone  who  was  spoken  of  as  a  Carlyle  with  a 
wooden  leg  stumping  down  through  the  Puritan 
period.  On  the  shoulders  of  Enoch  there  are, 
unfortunately,  no  "  mighty  pens  "  like  those  which 
bore  up  Dante  or  Milton  on  his  divine  path  ;  if  he 
may  be  said  to  possess  wings  at  all,  they  are  at  most 
the  leathern  wings  of  a  bat,  capable  only  of  brief 
and  intermittent  flights. 

He  never  proceeds  far  on  his  way  in  one  direction 
before  he  stops,  and  then  he  begins  again  at  a  totally 
different  point.  The  book  is  not  a  whole  in  any 
artistic  sense,  but  a  series  of  fragments,  glued 
together  in  anything  but  artistic  fashion.  When 
Dillmann  issued  his  translation  forty  years  ago,  he 
persuaded  himself  that  it  was  a  continuous  whole, 
the  work  of  a  single  author,  with  only  a  few  inter- 
polations, which  could  easily  be  removed.  But 
he  subsequently  reversed  this  opinion.  And  Mr. 
Charles,  following  Ewald,  looks  upon  Enoch  as 
being  not  so  much  an  actual  book  as  a  collection  of 
the  fragments  of  an  Enoch  literature.  At  one 
period  in  the  history  of  Hebrew  literature,  it  seems, 
Enoch  was  a  name  round  which  literary  activity 
revolved,  as  at  an  earlier  period  it  revolved  round 
David  ;  and,  as  the  surviving  fragments  of  lyric 
poetry    collected    themselves    under    the    name    of 


THE  BOOK  OF  ENOCH  273 

David,  so  the  apocalyptic  fragments  which  survived 
were  gathered  under  the  name  of  Enoch. 

According  to  Mr.  Charles,  there  are  half-a-dozen 
or  more  authors  ;  but  unfortunately,  their  works 
are  far  from  being  in  the  condition  in  which  they 
left  them.  Nearly  everywhere  there  are  signs  of 
alteration  and  mutilation.  Worst  of  all,  the  final 
editor  seems  to  have  had  in  his  hands  a  Noah 
apocalypse,  purporting  to  give  revelations  made  to 
Noah  of  a  kind  similar  to  those  made  to  Enoch  ; 
and  he  thought  fit  to  combine  the  two  into  a  single 
book.  Instead,  however,  of  doing  so  in  a  rational 
manner,  he  simply  chopped  the  Noah  production 
into  a  mass  of  fragments,  and  sprinkled  them  pro- 
miscuously all  over  the  original  work.  They  turn  up 
in  every  other  page  without  rhyme  or  reason,  rendering 
it  exceedingly  difficult  to  get  any  continuous  sense, 
and  sorely  trying  the  editorial  temper. 

Whether  or  not  this  may  have  been  the  way  in 
which  the  book  came  into  existence,  it  is  certainly 
true  that  there  are  several  separate  masses  in  it 
easily  distinguishable  ;  and  it  will  be  well  to  indicate 
briefly  what  these  are. 

The  book  opens  thus  :  "  The  words  of  the  blessing 
of  Enoch,  wherewith  he  blessed  the  elect  and 
righteous,  who  will  be  living  in  the  day  of  tribu- 
lation, when  all  the  wicked  and  godless  are  to  be 
removed.  And  Enoch  answered  and  spake,  [Enoch] 
a  righteous  man,  whose  eyes  were  opened  by  God, 
that  he  might  see  a  vision  of  the  Holy  One  in  the 

18' 


274  THE  BOOK  OF  ENOCH 

heavens,  which  the  angels  showed  me  ;  and  from 
them  I  heard  everything,  and  I  understood  what  I 
saw,  but  not  for  this  generation,  but  for  the  remote 
generations  which  are  to  come."  There  follows  a 
theophany,  in  which  God  comes  forth  to  judge  the 
world,  ending  with  the  verse  which  appears  in 
St.  Jude,  "  Lo,  He  comes  with  ten  thousand  of  His 
holy  ones  to  execute  judgment  upon  them,  and  He 
will  destroy  the  ungodly,  and  will  convict  all  flesh 
of  all  that  the  sinners  and  ungodly  have  wrought 
and  ungodly  committed  against  Him."  Then 
suddenly  the  writer  wanders  off  into  a  description 
of  physical  phenomena,  such  as  the  regularity  of 
the  seasons  and  the  like,  the  slender  thread  of 
connection  being  the  contrast  between  the  order 
of  nature  and  the  disorder  of  the  life  of  sinners. 
This  feeble  transition  is  characteristic  ;  and  very 
often  there  is  not  even  as  much  connexion  as  here. 

After  this  introduction,  we  come  to  the  first  long 
section  of  the  book,  which  is  a  comment  on  the 
paragraph  in  Gen.  vi.  on  the  mixing  of  the  sons 
of  God  with  the  daughters  of  men.  Not  only  is 
this  theme  here  handled  at  great  length,  but  it 
recurs  again  and  again  throughout  the  subsequent 
book,  forming  one  of  the  leading  topics.  The 
interpretation  given  is  that  the  sons  of  God  were 
angels  ;  and  this  occurrence  was  both  the  fall  of 
the  angels  and  the  origin  of  evil  on  earth,  though 
these  points  of  view  are  not  always  consistently 
maintained.  The  author  knows  the  fallen  angels 
so  well  that  he  gives  the  names  of  a  score  or  more 


THE  BOOK  OF  ENOCH  275 

of  them  ;  and,  indeed,  his  acquaintance  with  angels, 
both  good  and  bad,  is  everywhere  most  intimate, 
and  he  displays  great  inventiveness  in  supplying 
them  with  names.  The  fallen  angels  corrupted 
the  inhabitants  of  the  earth  by  communicating  to 
them  evil  secrets,  such  as  witchcraft,  the  use  of 
arms,  the  painting  of  the  eyebrows,  the  use  of  pen 
and  ink,  and  many  other  nefarious  practices.  Their 
offspring  consisted  of  a  race  of  giants  a  thousand 
ells  high.  Of  course,  the  poor  inhabitants  of  the 
earth  could  not  long  stand  the  proceedings  of  such 
Brobdingnagian  neighbours  ;  and  a  great  cry  rose 
to  heaven,  in  answer  to  which  the  archangels  were 
despatched  to  slay  the  monsters.  The  fallen  angels 
were  bound  down  beneath  the  mountains,  to  await 
a  more  condign  punishment  at  the  consummation 
of  all  things.  The  spirits,  however,  of  the  giants 
escaped  into  the  atmosphere,  and  these  are  the 
demons  who  now  roam  at  large  over  the  earth, 
plaguing  the  lot  of  man  ;  but  their  time  will 
also  come. 

Enoch,  to  whom  the  entire  invisible  world  is  as 
open  and  familiar  as  a  man's  own  garden  to  himself, 
is  thrown  into  contact  with  the  imprisoned  angels, 
who  send  him  as  their  intercessor  to  beg  for  them 
the  pity  of  Heaven.  He  draws  up  their  petition 
in  a  regular  document ;  for,  though  he  enumerates 
the  use  of  pen  and  ink  among  the  evil  arts  taught 
by  the  fallen  angels,  he  has  great  faith  in  his  own 
powers  of  composition.  In  describing  his  journey 
to    the    palace    of   heaven,    as    the    bearer    of   this 


2-6  THE  BOOK  OF  ENOCH 

document,    the     author    unfolds     all    his    rhetorical 
resources  : 

"  And  the  vision  appeared  to  me  thus  :  behold, 
in  the  vision,  clouds  invited  me  and  a  mist  invited 
me ;  the  course  of  the  stars  and  the  lightnings 
drove  and  impelled  me  :  and  the  winds,  in  the 
vision,  gave  me  wings  and  drove  me.  And  they 
lifted  me  up  into  heaven,  and  I  came  till  I  drew 
nigh  to  a  wall  which  is  built  of  crystals  and 
surrounded  by  a  fiery  flame  ;  and  it  began  to 
affright  me.  And  I  went  into  the  fiery  flame  and 
drew  near  to  a  large  house  which  was  built  of 
crystals ;  and  the  walls  of  that  house  were  like 
a  mosaic  cr>'stal  floor,  and  its  groundwork  was  of 
crystal.  Its  ceiling  was  like  the  path  of  the  stars 
and  lightnings,  with  fiery  cherubim  between,  in  a 
transparent  heaven.  A  flaming  fire  surrounded  the 
wall  of  the  house,  and  its  portal  blazed  with  fire. 
And  I  entered  into  that  house,  and  it  was  hot  as 
fire  and  cold  as  ice ;  there  were  no  delights  of 
life  therein  ;  fear  covered  me  and  trembhng  gat 
hold  upon  me.  And,  as  I  quaked  and  trembled, 
I  fell  upon  my  face  and  beheld  in  a  vision.  And 
lo !  there  was  a  second  house,  greater  than  the 
former,  all  the  portals  of  which  stood  open  before 
me,  and  it  was  built  of  flames  of  fire.  And  in 
every  respect  it  so  excelled  in  splendour  and 
magnificence  and  extent,  that  I  cannot  describe 
to  you  its  splendour  and  its  extent.  And  its  floor 
was  fire,  and  above  it  were  lightnings  and  the 
path  of  the  stars,  and  its  ceiling  also  was  flaming 


THE  BOOK  OF  ENOCH  277 

fire.  And  I  looked  and  saw  therein  a  lofty  throne  ; 
its  appearance  was  as  hoarfrost ;  its  circuit  was  as 
a  shining  sun  amid  the  voices  of  cherubim.  And 
from  underneath  the  great  throne  came  streams 
of  flaming  fire,  so  that  it  was  impossible  to  look 
thereon.  And  the  Great  Glory  sat  thereon,  and 
His  raiment  shone  more  brightly  than  the  sun,  and 
was  brighter  than  any  snow.  None  of  the  angels 
could  enter  and  behold  the  face  of  the  honoured 
and  glorious  One,  and  no  flesh  could  behold  Him. 
A  flaming  fire  was  round  about  Him,  and  a  great 
fire  stood  before  Him,  and  none  of  those  who  were 
around  Him  could  draw  nigh  Him.  Ten  thousand 
times  ten  thousand  were  before  Him,  but  He  stood 
in  no  need  of  counsel.  And  the  holiness  of  the 
holy  ones,  who  were  nigh  to  Him,  did  not  leave  by 
night  nor  depart  from  Him.  And  until  then  I 
had  had  a  veil  on  my  face,  and  I  was  trembling. 
Then  He  called  me  with  His  own  voice,  and  spake 
to  me,  *  Come  hither,  Enoch,  and  hear  My  holy 
word.' " 

I  have  made  this  lengthy  quotation  in  order  to 
convey  a  notion  of  the  writer  at  his  best.  The 
intercessory  embassy,  however,  undertaken  at  so 
much  peril,  was  in  vain  ;  and  Enoch  had  to  return 
and  make  known  to  those  who  had  constituted  him 
their  patron  that  their  case  was  hopeless. 

Now  follows  another  lengthy  section,  the  character 
of  which  seems  to  be  partly  determined  by  what 
has  just  been  described.  Once  having  set  out  on 
his   celestial  travels,  Enoch   makes  a   peregrination 


278  THE  BOOK  OF  ENOCH 

of  the  universe  ;  and  its  different  localities  are 
described,  with  the  wonders  and  secrets  which  they 
contain.  Here  is  unfolded  a  kind  of  universal 
panorama,  in  which  such  places  and  objects  are 
described  as  Chaos,  Hades,  Gehenna,  the  stream 
out  of  which  the  heavenly  bodies  daily  renew  their 
fires,  the  tree  of  life,  the  windows  of  the  winds,  and 
so  forth.  All  through  the  book  this  affectation  of 
revealing  physical  and  metaphysical  secrets  is  an 
ever-recurring  feature.  It  is  especially  characteristic 
of  the  fragments  of  the  Noah  book,  which,  as  has 
been  already  indicated,  are  scattered,  as  if  from  a 
pepper-castor,  over  the  Enoch  composition.  The 
principal  effort  of  the  kind  is  found  in  the  latter 
half  of  the  book,  where  there  occurs  a  section 
entitled  by  Mr.  Charles  the  Book  of  Celestial 
Physics.  It  is  a  long-winded  but  clear  and 
compact  piece,  which  ought  to  be  interesting  to 
scientific  antiquarians,  as  giving  a  fair  idea  of  the 
astronomical  notions  of  the  period.  It  embodies 
a  complete  theory  of  the  sun  and  moon,  of  the  year, 
day  and  night,  the  seasons,  and  the  winds.  The 
winds  drive  the  heavenly  bodies,  which  issue  from 
different  doors  in  the  firmament  at  different  seasons. 
The  sun  is  of  the  same  size  as  the  moon,  but 
contains  seven  times  the  amount  of  fire.  The  year 
consists  of  three  hundred  and  sixty-four  days, 
neither  more  nor  less.  On  this  the  writer  is  most 
peremptory,  and  appears  to  be  conducting  a 
polemic  against  a  profane  and  innovating  notion 
that  it   contains   three  hundred   and   sixty-five. 


THE  BOOK  OF  ENOCH  279 


After  this  comes  a  section  consisting  of  two 
visions — tlie  one  a  brief  but  vivid  vision  of  the 
Noachic  Deluge,  seen  by  Enoch  ;  the  other  a 
symboHc  history  of  the  world.  The  latter  is  an 
astonishing  performance.  It  opens  in  this  way  : 
"  Behold,  a  ball  came  forth  from  the  earth,  and 
that  bull  was  white  ;  and  after  it  came  forth  a  heifer  ; 
and  along  with  this  came  forth  two  bulls,  one  of 
them  black  and  the  other  red.  And  that  black- 
young  bull  gored  the  red  one  and  pursued  him 
over  the  earth,  and  thereupon  I  could  no  longer 
see  that  red  young  bull."  This  white  bull  is  Adam, 
the  heifer  Eve,  the  black  and  red  bulls  Cain  and 
Abel.  And  so  the  history  goes  on  remorselessly 
from  century  to  century,  men  and  nations  being 
represented  by  different  animals.  The  Egyptians 
are  wolves  ;  the  Midianites  wild  asses  ;  and  so  on  ; 
and  of  course  the  Hebrews  are  sheep  or  lambs. 
Difficulties,  however,  occur.  Noah  is  a  sheep  ;  but 
how  can  a  sheep  build  an  ark  1  He  has  to  be 
transformed  into  a  man  for  the  nonce.  And  the 
same  metamorphosis  happens  to  Moses  when  he 
goes  up  to  the  mount  to  receive  the  Law.  The 
execution  is,  however,  carried  through  with  courage  ; 
and,  though  it  is  tedious,  yet,  when  the  eagles, 
vultures,  kites  and  ravens  swoop  down  on  the 
sheep  and  pick  out  their  e}'es,  it  is  not  without 
picturesqueness. 

The  next  section  is  again  an  attempt  to  set  forth 
the  history  of  the  world.  It  may  be  called  the 
Apocalypse    of    Weeks,    because    in    it    the    entire 


28o  THE  BOOK  OF  ENOCH 

history  of  man  appears,  from  the  standpoint  of 
Enoch,  as  a  series  of  ten  weeks,  each  of  which  is 
characterized  by  some  striking  feature,  such  as  the 
appearance  of  Noah  or  Abraham  or  Moses.  But 
the  section  soon  loses  itself  in  eschatological  de- 
clamation, especially  concerning  the  woes  which  are 
to  overtake  the  wicked  in  the  latter  days. 

One  or  two  fragments  are  tagged  on  to  the  end 
of  the  book  which  would  hardly  be  worth  men- 
tioning but  for  a  pretty  description  which  one  of 
them  contains  of  the  birth  of  Noah.  At  his  birth 
"  his  body  was  white  as  snow  and  red  as  a  blooming 
rose,  and  the  hair  of  his  head  and  his  long  locks 
were  white  as  wool,  and  his  eyes  beautiful.  And, 
when  he  opened  his  eyes,  he  lighted  up  the  whole 
house  like  the  sun,  and  the  whole  house  was  very 
full  of  light."     Then  it  wanders  off  into  grotesquery. 

Thus  I  have  as  briefly  as  possible  characterized 
the  different  sections,  with  the  exception  of  one, 
which  is  the  most  important  of  all,  because  in  it 
occur  most  of  the  passages  which  are  supposed  to 
have  influenced  the  New  Testament.  This  section 
appears  near  the  centre  ;  it  is  long,  and  it  may 
be  called  the  Book  of  Similitudes,  because  it  consists 
of  three  pieces  which  call  themselves  by  this  name. 
They  are  all  of  eschatological  import  :  the  first 
being  a  picture  of  heaven  ;  the  second  an  account 
of  the  events  which  will  befall  the  earth  when  God 
visits  it  in  the  latter  days,  to  clear  out  of  it  the 
sinners  and  inaugurate  the  millennium  ;  and  the 
third  treating  the  same  theme  in  a  more  hortatory 


THE  BOOK  OF  ENOCH  281 

style.  As,  however,  we  shall  have  to  come  back 
on  this  section,  it  need  not  at  this  point  be  further 
characterized. 

A  few  words  now  about  the  date.  Unfortunately, 
this  is  exceedingly  obscure.  Mr.  Charles  arranges 
the  different  compositions,  with  great  confidence,  in 
chronological  order,  and  his  various  dates  cover 
about  a  hundred  years — from  B.C.  170  to  64,  But 
the  criticism  passed  on  Mr.  Charles's  book  by 
Dillmann  *  touches  this  point  with  telling  effect, 
and  has,  besides,  a  wide  application  to  other  scholars 
at  the  present  time  :  "  The  practice  of  arranging  the 
varying  ideas  or  representations  of  anything  in  a 
straight  line  of  chronological  and  genetic  develop- 
ment, and  thereby  constructing  a  history  of  the 
subject,  is  very  popular  v;ith  certain  recent  schools  ; 
but  he  who  has  observed  how  old  and  new,  even 
when,  strictly  considered,  they  are  mutually  ex- 
clusive, may  yet  coexist  in  one  and  the  same 
brain,  will  always  regard  such  constructions  with 
suspicion." 

There  are  several  passages  which,  at  first  sight, 
appear  hopeful  in  determining  the  date.  There  is 
the  division  of  the  world's  history  into  ten  weeks, 
each  of  which  is  characterized  by  some  outstanding 
event.  The  outstanding  event  of  the  seventh  week 
appears  to  be  the  publication  of  the  Book  of  Enoch 
itself:  "And  after  that,  in  the  seventh  week,  will  a 

*  Theohgische  Literaturzeitung,  2nd  Sept.,  1893. 


282  THE  BOOK   OF  ENOCH 

generation  arise,  and  many  will  be  its  deeds,  and  all 
its  deeds  will  be  apostate.  And  at  its  close  will  the 
elect  of  righteousness  of  the  eternal  plant  of  righteous- 
ness be  elected  to  receive  sevenfold  instruction  con- 
cerning the  whole  creation."  Here  "  the  plant  of 
righteousness  "  is  the  Jewish  people,  as  we  learn  also 
from  other  passages  ;  "  the  elect  of  righteousness " 
are  the  Pharisaic  party,  to  which  the  writer  belonged ; 
and  the  sevenfold  instruction  "  concerning  God's 
whole  creation "  is  a  name  for  his  own  invaluable 
lucubrations.  Unfortunately,  however,  the  weeks  are 
very  indefinite  periods  ;  and  all  we  really  learn  is 
that  the  author  lived  after  Elijah,  who  is  the  out- 
standing figure  of  the  sixth  week.  The  events  of 
the  three  weeks  after  the  seventh  are,  of  course, 
purely  conjectural,  and  do  not  help  us  at  all. 

In  the  other  programme  of  the  world's  history — 
that  in  which  men  and  nations  are  represented  by 
different  kinds  of  animals — we  seem  to  be  certainly 
on  the  track,  because  the  characterization  is  both 
copious  and  minute  ;  but  just  at  the  critical  point, 
although  growing  more  minute  than  ever,  it  becomes 
unintelligible,  as  it  is  impossible  to  identify  with  their 
counterparts  the  different  animals  which  are  brought 
upon  the  stage. 

Unfortunately,  it  is  about  the  date  of  the  Book  of 
Similitudes,  which,  as  I  have  already  said,  is  the 
most  important  part,  that  the  greatest  doubt  exists. 
Here  there  is  a  reference  to  an  attack  on  the  Holy 
Land  by  the  Medes  and  Parthians,  which  .seems  a 
hopeful  chronological  datum,  but  it  turns  out  to  be 


THE  BOOK  OF  ENOCH  283 


capable  of  all  sorts  of  interpretations  ;  and,  besides, 
according  to  Mr,  Charles,  the  passage  in  which  it 
occurs  is  an  interpolation.  Most  hopeful  of  all, 
perhaps,  appears  at  first  sight  a  reference  to  the 
visits  of  "the  kings  and  the  mighty  and  the  exalted" 
to  certain  sulphur  springs  "  in  the  west,  among  the 
mountains  of  gold,  and  silver,  and  iron,  and  soft 
metal,  and  tin  ; "  but,  while  Hilgenfeld  understands 
this  of  the  congregating  of  the  Roman  nobility  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  Vesuvius,  Mr.  Charles  is 
positive  that  these  springs  must  be  sought  in 
Palestine.  And  besides,  according  to  him,  the  words 
occur  in  a  passage  inserted  by  an  interpolator  so 
stupid  that  what  he  says  does  not,  perhaps,  mean 
anything  at  all.  Mr.  Charles  does  not  believe  that 
there  is  in  the  book  any  reference  whatever  to  the 
Romans,  and  therefore  his  lowest  date  is  B.C.  64 — 
the  year  in  which  Rome  laid  its  grasp  on  Palestine. 
Baldensperger,  on  the  contrary,  feels  the  atmosphere 
of  the  irresistible,  illimitable  Roman  rule  everywhere 
in  at  least  the  Book  of  Similitudes— an  opinion  in 
which  I  agree  with  him,  because  Mr.  Charles's 
explanation  of  the  constantly  recurring  phrase,  "  the 
kings  and  the  mighty,"  against  whom  the  woes  of 
the  Book  of  the  Similitudes  are  launched,  as  a 
designation  of  the  Asmonean  kings  and  their  backers, 
the  Sadducees,  goes  to  pieces  on  the  fact  that  they 
are  characterized  as  worshippers  of  idols.  The  mode 
in  which  he  explains  this  away  is  really  an  illustra- 
tion of  a  style  of  interpretation  by  which  anything 
can  be  made  to  mean  anything. 


284  THE  BOOK  OF  ENOCH 

We  turn  now  to  the  most  important  aspect  of  the 
subject — the  influence  of  the  Book  of  Enoch  on  the 
New  Testament. 

Mr,  Charles  gives  in  parallel  columns  a  long  list 
of  coincidences  of  expression,  amounting  in  all  to 
about  a  hundred;  and,  besides,  he  enumerates  several 
New  Testament  doctrines  which  may  be  supposed 
to  have  been  modified  by  the  teaching  of  Enoch. 
The  quotations  will  strike  different  persons  differently. 
Of  the  twenty,  for  example,  found  in  the  writings  of 
St.  Paul  I  should  not  consider  a  single  one  to  be 
indubitable,  while  some  are  very  far-fetched  indeed.* 
Besides,  it  is  to  be  noted  that  about  a  third  of  all 
the  supposed  quotations  are  from  the  Book  of 
Similitudes,  about  which  it  is  doubtful  whether  it 
does  not  quote  the  New  Testament.  But  I  wish  to 
look  at  the  subject  from  a  viewpoint  of  my  own,  and 
investigate  rather  the  influence  of  the  book  as  a 
whole,  and  of  its  several  masses,  than  enter  minutely 
into  the  criticism  of  detached  verses  and  phrases, 
about  nearly  everyone  of  which  opinions  will  differ. 

When  Enoch  is  spoken  of  as  one  of  the  books 
which  may  have  influenced  our  Lord  and  His 
apostles,!  we  naturally  inquire  first  of  all  what  its 
spirit  is — whether  it  is  an  inspiring  production,  which 
could  have  communicated  tu  our  Lord  and  to  the 
Vvriters   of  the   New   Testament    something    of    the 

*  The  most  striking,  perhaps,  is  "  King  of  kings  and  Lord  of 
lords;"  but  see  Deut.  x.  17  and  Ps.  cxxxvi.  3,  to  which  Mr. 
Charles  gives  no  reference. 

t  This  is  the  title  of  a  book  by  Mr.  Thomson  on  these 
pseudepigrciphic  writings. 


THE  BOOK  OF  ENOCH  285 

power  with  which  they  spoke  and  wrote.  I  have 
quoted  already  the  characterization  of  the  author 
as  the  Hebrew  Dante  or  the  Hebrew  Milton.  In 
my  opinion,  Baldensperger  is  far  nearer  the  mark 
when  he  calls  him  "  the  patron  of  the  scribes." 
Again  and  again  in  the  book  itself  the  hero  is  called 
"  Enoch  the  writer  "  ;  and  we  saw  how  he  edited  the 
petition  of  the  fallen  angels.  He  is  an  idealized 
scribe  ;  and  his  writing  is  precisely  on  the  level  of 
the  hagadoth  of  the  rabbinical  schools.  Though 
the  book  is  as  long  as  the  larger  books  of  the  Bible, 
there  is  hardly  a  verse  in  it,  from  beginning  to  end, 
on  which  one  would  linger  with  pleasure  or  which 
one  would  delight  to  recall.  Once,  indeed,  it  says 
beautifully  of  the  stars  that  they  give  thanks  and 
praise,  and  rest  not ;  "  and  to  them  their  thanks- 
giving is  rest."  And  not  far  from  this  there  is  a 
striking  little  paragraph,  standing  quite  alone,  without 
any  connexion  with  what  goes  before  or  what  comes 
after,  which  reminds  one  of  a  famous  passage  in  a 
Latin  poet :  "  Wisdom  came  to  make  her  dwelling 
among  the  children  of  men  and  found  no  dwelling- 
place  ;  then  Wisdom  returned  to  her  place,  and  took 
her  seat  among  the  angels.  And  Unrighteousness 
came  forth  from  her  chambers  ;  and  she  found  those 
whom  she  sought  not,  and  dwelt  with  them,  being 
welcome  to  them  as  rain  in  the  desert  and  dew  on 
the  thirsty  land."  But  with  these  exceptions,  and 
one  or  two  passages  already  quoted,  there  is  hardly 
a  touch  of  originality  or  tenderness  or  power,  while 
page  follows  page  of  the  most  barren  and  tedious 


286  THE  BOOK  OF  ENOCH 


commonplace  or  even  nonsense.  If  the  prevailing 
characteristic  of  the  New  Testament  be  the  spirit  of 
power  and  of  love  and  of  a  sound  mind,  I  should  say- 
that  the  spirit  of  this  book  is  exactly  the  reverse. 

The  entire  production  is  a  glorification  of  Enoch. 
Around  this  hero  of  the  schools  not  only  these 
writings  gathered,  but  others  which  are  not  included 
in  this  book  but  heard  of  in  ancient  literature.  In 
the  New  Testament,  however,  there  is  not  a  trace 
of  hero-worship  bestowed  on  Enoch.  Except  in  its 
place  in  the  genealogy  of  Christ  in  St.  Luke,  even 
his  name  is  not  once  mentioned  in  the  Gospels  or 
the  writings  of  St.  Paul.  There  is  one  remarkable 
passage  in  the  Book  of  Enoch  where  the  hero  seems 
to  be  identified  with  the  Messiah  ;  and  Baldensperger 
mentions  that  in  the  rabbinical  writings  there  are 
passages  where  he  is  placed  side  by  side  with  the 
Metatron,  a  hypostasis  of  the  Divine  similar  to  the 
Messiah.  Had  such  notions  had  any  place  in 
the  circle  about  Christ,  Enoch  would  have  been  one 
of  the  first  names  suggested  when  the  minds  of  men 
were  occupied  with  the  question  who  Jesus  was,  and 
they  were  making  every  kind  of  guess.  Elijah  was 
the  favourite  conjecture,  and  he  would  at  once  have 
suggested  Enoch,  as  both  were  taken  to  heaven 
without  tasting  death  ;  but  never  once  was  the 
suggestion  breathed  that  Jesus  might  be  Enoch. 

No  element  in  the  Book  of  Enoch  is  more  per- 
vasive than  the  story  of  the  sons  of  God  and  the 
daughters  of  men,  interpreted  in  the  sense  already 
indicated.      It  is  a  disagreeable  story,  and  it  stains 


THE  BOOK  OF  ENOCH  2S7 


the  book  through  and  through.  In  one  or  two  out- 
lying parts  of  the  New  Testament  there  may  be 
references  to  certain  elements  of  this  conception. 
There  is  the  reference  in  Judc  to  the  angels  who 
kept  not  their  first  estate,  and  are  reserved  in  chains, 
under  darkness,  against  the  judgment  of  the  great 
day  ;  and  there  is  the  similar  statement  in  2  Peter  *  ; 
but  the  myth  in  its  great  features  is  not  only  avoided 
in  the  New  Testament,  but,  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, opposed.  The  New  Testament  writers, 
and  especially  St.  Paul,  have  to  deal  with  the  origin 
of  the  corruption  and  misery  of  mankind  ;  but  they 
go  back,  not  to  the  sixth  chapter  of  Genesis,  but  to 
the  third. 

In  connection  with  this,  reference  may  be  made 
to  the  enormous  development  of  demonology  and 
angelology  in  the  Book  of  Enoch,  which  displays 
the  utmost  familiarity  with  the  orders,  functions  and 
names  of  the  angels  fallen  and  unfallen.  The  New 
Testament  also  has  a  copious  angelology,  but  it  is 
based  on  the  Old  Testament,  and  not  on  Enoch, 
whose  extravagances  it  avoids.  Mr.  Charles  points 
out  two  New  Testament  notions  about  angels  which 
appear  to  be  borrowed  from  Enoch.  The  one  occurs 
in  our  Lord's  debate  with  the  Sadducees  about  mar- 
riage, when  He  says  that  in  the  resurrection  they 
neither  marry  nor  are  given  in  marriage,  but  are  as 
the  angels  of  God.  Incidentally,  in  addressing  the 
fallen  angels,  in  Enoch,  God  speaks  of  marriage  as 

*  Possibly  the  much-discussed  passage  about  Christ  preaching 
to  the  spirits  in  prison  may  refer  to  this. 


288  THE  BOOK  OF  ENOCH 

something  unnatural  to  them,  though  natural  to  men. 
The  other  case  is  the  cry  of  the  evil  spirits  in  the 
Gospels  not  to  torment  them  before  the  time.  In 
Enoch  the  demons  have  permission  to  range  at  large 
till  the  final  judgment.  In  both  these  cases  we  per- 
ceive, I  should  think,  the  influence  of  Enoch  ;  but 
it  is  less  likely  that  they  are  direct  quotations  from 
Enoch  than  references  to  popular  conceptions  which 
may  at  first  have  owed  their  origin  to  this  book. 

Another  enormous  clement  in  Enoch  consists  of 
descriptions  and  explanations  of  physical  phenomena, 
such  as  the  sun,  moon  and  stars,  winds,  thunder, 
mists,  dews  and  the  like.  This  part  of  his  task  is 
taken  by  the  author  very  seriously,  and  he  attaches 
to  his  explanations  a  sacred  value.  But,  happily,  this 
entire  domain  is  ignored  by  the  New  Testament. 

Nor  does  it  indulge  in  programmes  of  the  course 
of  the  world,  like  the  animal  history  to  which  refer- 
ence has  been  made.  The  only  thing  possessing 
any  resemblance  to  this  of  which  I  can  think  is  the 
division  of  mankind  into  sheep  and  goats  in  our 
Lord's  parable  of  the  Last  Judgment ;  but  it  is  with 
contrast  rather  than  similarity  that  in  this  case  we 
have  to  deal.  In  the  Book  of  Revelation  there  are 
passages  resembling  the  Ten  Weeks  of  the  world's 
history  ;  but  this  resemblance  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
Enoch  and  Revelation  arc  both  founded  on  the  Book 
of  Daniel. 

This  estimate  of  the  extent  of  the  influence  of  the 
book  as  a  whole,  and  of  its  great  masses,  on  the 
New  Testament   is,  in   my  opinion,  of  importance, 


THE  BOOK  OF  ENOCH  289 


not  only  in  itself,  but  on  the  question,  to  which  we 
now  turn,  of  the  relation  of  the  Book  of  Similitudes 
to  the  New  Testament. 

Here  there  is  not  only  undoubted,  but  extensive, 
dependence  either  on  the  one  side  or  the  other. 
The  more  striking  passages  have  been  already 
quoted  on  pp.  61-62  of  the  text,  and  one  more  may 
be  added  : — 

"  And  in  that  place  mine  eyes  saw  the  Elect  One 
of  righteousness  and  of  faith,  and  how  righteousness 
shall  prevail  in  his  days,  and  the  righteous  and  elect 
shall  be  without  number  before  him  forever.  And 
I  saw  his  dwelling-place  under  the  wings  of  the  Lord 
of  spirits,  and  all  the  righteous  and  elect  before  him 
are  beautifully  resplendent  as  lights  of  fire,  and  their 
mouth  is  full  of  blessing  and  their  lips  extol  the 
Name  of  the  Lord  of  spirits,  and  righteousness  before 
Him  never  faileth,  and  uprightness  never  faileth 
before  Him."  Several  of  the  titles  applied  in  the 
New  Testament  to  Christ  are  given  to  this  being, 
as  the  Anointed,  the  Elect  One,  the  Righteous  One, 
and,  very  frequently,  the  Son  of  man.  He  has 
existed,  "  under  the  wings  of  the  Lord  of  spirits," 
from  before  the  creation  of  the  world  ;  and  He  is 
to  be  the  Judge  of  men  and  angels  at  the  con- 
summation of  all  things.* 

These  are  remarkable  statements,  and,  if  we  could 
be  sure  that  they  are  of  pre-Christian  origin,  they 


*  Mr.  Deane's  statement  {Pseudepigrapha,  p.  92),  that  this 
idea  does  not  occur  in  the  Book  of  Enoch,  is  unintelligible. 


19 


THE  BOOK  OF  ENOCH 


would  raise  questions  about  the  originality  of  the 
New  Testament  writers,  and  even  of  our  Lord 
Himself.  They  would  show  at  least  that,  in  the 
period  between  the  Old  Testament  and  the  New, 
the  religious  mind,  working  upon  the  messianic 
elements  in  the  Old  Testament,  had  in  several 
important  respects  come  marvellously  near  to  the 
actual  image  of  the  Messiah  as  it  was  to  be  re- 
vealed by  our  Lord, 

Mr.  Charles  almost  takes  the  pre-Christian  origin 
of  the  Book  of  Similitudes  for  granted  ;  and  this  has 
of  late  been  the  prevailing  tone  of  German  criticism; 
but  I  have  seen  no  arguments  advanced  in  favour  of 
this  view  which  appear  to  me  nearly  as  strong  as 
those  of  Drummond  *  and  others  on  the  opposite 
side,  while  the  impressions  made  on  my  own  mind 
by  the  study  of  the  book  are  not  favourable  to  its 
originality. 

Everyone,  even  at  the  first  reading,  must  be 
sensible  of  the  strongly  Christian  flavour  of  the 
quotations  just  made  ;  and  the  pervasive  character 
of  this  element  in  the  Similitudes  is  in  the  strongest 
contrast  to  the  microscopical  similarities  between  the 
rest  of  the  book  and  the  New  Testament. 

Drummond  has  shown,  in  detail,  that  the  passages 
which  refer  to  the  Messiah  in  terms  strikingly  re- 
calling the  New  Testament  might  be  excised  from 
the  text,  not  only  without  mutilating  it,  but  with 
the   result  of  improving   it.      Moreover,   the    intro- 


*  In  The  Jewish  Messiah. 


THE  BOOK  OF  ENOCH  291 

ductory  words  of  the  second  Similitude,  in  which  the 
argument  is  announced,  are  not  in  the  least  con- 
sistent with  the  contents  of  the  subsequent  pages  as 
they  now  stand  ;  and  it  is  in  these  pages  that  the 
most  important  messianic  passages  occur.  The 
Book  of  Jubilees,  a  Jewish  production,  dating  from 
about  the  middle  of  the  first  century  B.C.,  quotes 
the  Book  of  Enoch  eighteen  times,  but  it  contains 
only  two  doubtful  quotations  from  the  Book  of 
Similitudes,  and  neither  of  these  is  messianic,  the 
inference  being  that  the  Book  of  Similitudes,  or 
at  least  the  messianic  paragraphs  in  it,  must  have 
come  into  existence  at  a  later  date. 

The  argument,  however,  which,  in  my  mind, 
carries  most  weight,  is  that  the  Book  of  Similitudes 
is,  obviously  and  confessedly,  a  perfect  patchwork 
of  interpolations.  It  is  sprinkled  all  over  with 
fragments  from  the  Book  of  Noah  ;  and  it  exhibits 
also  additions  from  other  quarters.  Indeed,  it  is  of 
such  a  nature  that  it  must  always  have  invited 
interpolation.  I  have  already  said  that  it  is  apoca- 
lyptic, and  have  tried  to  define  the  subjects  of  the 
various  Similitudes.  But  the  truth  is,  the  Book  of 
Similitudes  belongs  to  that  species  of  religious  litera- 
ture, unhappily  not  extinct  even  in  modern  times, 
which,  properly  speaking,  is  about  nothing.  It  is  a 
mere  haze  and  welter  of  words,  surging  uneasily 
round  dim  images  of  the  future  and  the  common- 
place contrast  of  the  righteous  and  the  wicked. 
Legitimate  doubt  might  be  entertained  as  to 
whether    the    messianic    passages   belong   originally 


292  THE  BOOK  OF  ENOCH 

to  the  places  where  they  are  found,  merely  on 
account  of  the  fact  that,  in  idea  and  language, 
they  have  a  certain  amount  of  consistency  and 
dignity. 

The  strongest  argument  on  the  opposite  side  is 
that,  if  these  had  been  Christian  interpolations,  there 
would  have  been  more  Christianity  in  them — more 
definite  references  especially  to  the  facts  of  Christ's 
life  and  death.  This  would  be  a  good  argument  if 
it  were  contended  that  the  interpolations  were  de- 
liberately made  for  apologetic  ends.  It  was  common 
enough  in  the  earliest  Christian  ages  to  make  inter- 
polations of  this  sort,  as  may  be  seen  in  other 
apocalyptic  books  of  the  period,  like,  for  example. 
The  Testaments  of  the  Tzvelve  Patriarchs.  But  the 
argument  loses  its  force  if  it  is  supposed  that  the 
insertions  were  made,  not  deliberately,  but  naively, 
the  editor  working  up  the  substance  of  a  Christian 
apocalypse  along  with  his  other  materials.  A 
Christian  apocalypse  of  an  eschatological  nature 
need  not  have  contained  any  more  direct  references 
to  the  history  of  Christ  than  are  found  in  the  Book 
of  Similitudes. 

The  conclusion,  therefore,  to  which  we  seem  to  be 
led  is  that  it  is  hopeless  to  build  any  structure  of 
history  or  speculation  on  a  foundation  of  this  kind. 
While  the  possibility  of  these  being  anticipations  of 
Christian  ideas  cannot  be  denied,  the  probability  lies 
on  the  opposite  side  ;  and  at  all  events  the  literary 
condition  in  which  they  have  come  to  us  makes 
anything  like  certainty  impossible. 


THE  BOOK  OF  ENOCH  293 


If  in  any  respect  the  Book  of  Enoch  may  be  said 
to  form  a  milestone  in  the  course  of  development  of 
relicTious  ideas  between  the  Old  Testament  and  the 
Nevv  I  should  say  it  is  in  its  teaching  about  the  state 
and  'the   fate   of  the   dead.     With   this  subject  we 
know  that    the    human    mind  was    at    that    period 
intensely  occupied  ;  and  the  Book  of  Enoch  shows 
that,   working   on    the    hints   supplied   by   the   Old 
Testament,  it  had  arrived  at  conceptions  on  which 
He  who  brought  life  and  immortality  to  light  by  the 
gospel  subsequently  set  His  seal.     The  views  of  the 
book  are  by  no  means  consistent  throughout  ;  but, 
on  the  whole,  its  conception  of  the  present  state  of 
the  dead,  as  well  as  of  the  proceedings  in  the  great 
crisis  of  the  last  judgment  and  the  issues  which  will 
follow,  are  far  nearer  than  those  of  the  Old  Testament 
to  the  representations  of  the  New  Testament  ;  and, 
indeed,  there  is  hardly  a  feature  of  the  New  Testament 
teaching  on   these   subjects,  with   the  exception,  of 
course,  of  the  part  played  by  Christ,  which  cannot  be 
matched  in  the  Book  of  Enoch. 

For  this  and  other  reasons,  the  Book  of  Enoch 
and  the  other  apocalyptic  writings  derived  from  the 
same  period  are  well  worthy  of  study  ;  although  it 
must  be  confessed  that  among  all  the  products  of 
the  human  mind  they  are  the  most  unreadable.  It 
is  even  well,  for  the  sake  of  science,  that  nature 
produces  men  so  constituted  that  they  are  able  to 
cast  themselves  upon  such  relics  of  the  past  with 
enthusiasm  and  exaggeration,  under  the  belief  that 
they  have  discovered  a  new  explanation  of  the  secret 


294  THE  BOOK  OF  ENOCH 


of  the  gospel.  Their  labours  will  not  be  in  vain  ; 
for  the  investigation  of  authentic  memorials  of 
human  experience  is  never  wholly  without  reward. 
The  rest  of  us,  however,  will  probably  do  well,  in  the 
present  case,  not  to  pitch  our  expectations  very  high. 
Indeed,  on  looking  closely  into  the  matter,  we  per- 
ceive that  the  mystery  of  Christ  is  deepened  rather 
than  explained  ;  because  it  is  more  difficult  than  ever 
to  understand  how  a  plant  of  such  perfect  beauty 
and  perennial  fruitfulness  as  Christianity  could  have 
sprung  out  of  such  a  dry  ground. 


4 


INDEX 


Adamson,  log. 

Angels,  274. 

Apocalyptic  Literature,  65, 

269  ff. 
Appel,  45,  46. 
Aramaic  language,  72,  74. 
Atonement,  171,  187,  205 
Augustine,  270. 

Babut,  171. 

"  Back  to  Clirist,"  3,  123. 

Baldensperger,  45,  63,  70, 

171,  211,  234,  285,  286. 
Baptism,  100,  207,  214. 
Baptist,  The,  264,  265. 
Baur,  49. 
Beatitudes,  215. 
Beyschlag,  45,  71,  87,  94 

161,  171,  211,  230. 
Biblical  Theology,  8. 
Biair,  Fulton,  35. 
Blasphemy,  98,  99. 
Blessedness,  26,  154. 
Blood,  197. 
Boehmer,  45. 
Bouriant,  269. 
Bousset,  70,  128,  161. 


127, 


127, 


Bo  von,  87. 

Browning,  163. 

Bruce,  7,  45,  109,  127,  171,  211. 

Bunyan,  28. 

Burns,  66. 

Candlish,  127. 

Carlyle,  67, 

Charles,  63,  65,  269  ff. 

Church,  The,  28,  30,  i6l. 

Coming-again  of  Jesus,  227, 
229. 

Covenant,  192;  the  Old  Cove- 
nant, 197  ff.  ;  the  New 
Covenant,     194     ff.  ;     the 


)lood     of 
-19:  ff. 


the     Covenant, 


Dale,  .71. 

Dalman,  36,  45, 74,  87,  127,  130, 

133.  142. 
Dante,  26. 
Davidson,  205. 
Deane,  289. 
Death   of  Christ,    18,    172;    a 

ransom,  179;  foreseen  and 

foretold,  218. 


290 


INDEX 


Denney,  21,  171. 
Development  of  Jesus,  211  ff. 
Dillmann,  269,  270,  281. 
Dogma,  22,  27,  122. 
Dorner,  99. 
Drummond,  290. 
Duncan,  Rabbi,  5. 

Ecce  Homo,  162. 

Edgar,  McCheyne,  211. 

Ehrhardt,  128. 

Enoch,    Book    of,    60    ft.,    94, 

269  ff. 
Ewald,  272. 

Fairbairn,  25,  171,  173,  189. 
Fatherhood  of  God,  26,  29,  214. 
Forgiveness,  1 17,  153. 
Forrest,  81. 

GlESEBRECHT,  224. 

Gifford,  109. 
Gore,  87,  109,  III. 
Grau,  45,  87,  127. 

Hall,  109. 
Harnack,  33,  190. 
Hastings,  65,  171,  205. 
Haupt,  211,  227,  229. 
Holsten,  71. 

Holtzmann,  9,  45,  87,  98,  103, 
105,  120,  127,  161,  171,  211, 
Homer,  200. 

Ignorance,  our  Lords,  107. 
Imaginativeness  of  the  Words 
of  Jesus,  39. 


Individualism  anduniversalism, 

157- 
Inspiration,  14. 
Ireneeus,  47. 
Issel,  127,  136. 

Jerusalem,  destruction  of,  229. 
John,  St.,  30,  31,  251,  263. 
Judgment,  last,  236. 
Jiilicher,  41,  191. 
Justification,  29,  207. 

Kaehler,  171,  206. 

Keim,  51,  104. 

Kenotic  theories,  108  ff. 

Kingdom  of  God,  25,29,  136  ff.; 
the  watchword  of  Jesus, 
138 ;  history  of  the  idea, 
139  ff. ;  as  understood  by 
the  Jews,  143  ff . ;  as  under- 
stood by  Jesus,  153  fi. 

Kostlin,  161. 

Krop,  45,  74,  128. 

Kurtz,  205. 

Laidlaw,  113. 

Lawrence,  270. 

Lewis,  Mrs.  Dr.,  75. 

Lietzmann,  45,  72,  74,  JJ. 

Life,  155. 

Lightfoot,  67. 

Livy,  200. 

Lods,  269. 

Logia,  35,  257,  258. 

Luke,  St.,  34,  256. 

Mackintosh,  211. 
Mark,  St.,  33,  249. 


INDEX 


297 


Mason,  109. 
Matthew,  St.,  34,  256. 
Messiah,  The,  127  ff. ;  use  of 

term  in  O.  T.  1 29 ;  in  N.  T. 

127;  the  Kingdom  of  God 

His  realm,  136. 
Menzies,  191. 
Meyer,  7. 
Miracles,  42,  112,  260. 

Neander,  48,  51. 
Nicoll,  22. 

N6sgen,  45,  54,  87,  92,  129. 
Novalis,  5. 

Origen,  48. 
Ottley,  109. 
Oiven,  215. 

Papias,  250. 

Parables,  40,  156,  232. 

Paul,  St.,  4,  20,  121,  188. 

Peyton,  148. 

Powell,  109. 

Pre-existence,  76. 

Pregnancy   of    the    Words   of 

Jesus,  38. 
Privatdocenten,  7,  72. 
Prophecy,    223 ;    its   timeless- 

ness,  230;  conditional,  231. 
Prophecies     of     Jesus,     221  ; 

about  His  resurrection,  222  ; 

about     His     coming-again, 

227 ;   about   the  judgment, 

236. 

Rainy,  262, 
Ransom,  178  ff. 


Repentance,  153,  207. 
Resch,  35. 

Resurrection  of  Jesus,  222  ff. 
Reticence  of  Jesus,  151,  265. 
Righteousness,  26,  154. 
Ritschl,  25,  161,  165,  171,  186. 
Rothe,  24. 
Russell,  211,  229. 

Salmond,  211,  230. 

Schaefer,  171. 

Schleiermacher,  27,  56. 

Schmoller,  127,  160. 

Schnedermann,  45,  128,  144. 

Schurer,  130,  142,  149. 

Schwartzkopff,  211. 

Scripture  and  dogma,  29. 

Sermon  on  the  Mount,  16,  154. 

Shakspeare,  5,  65,  66. 

Sieber,  45. 

Similitudes,  Book  of,  68,  282, 
289,  291. 

Sin,  117,  153,  207. 

Sinlessness  of  Jesus,  79  ft. 

Smeaton,  171. 

Son  of  David,  133  ft.,  196. 

Son  of  God,  in  Gospels,  87  ; 
in  O.  T.,  88  ff. ;  applied  to 
Jesus  by  others,  94  ff. ;  by 
Himself,  100  ff.  ;  its  mean- 
ing, III. 

Son  of  man,  45  ff. ;  origin  of 
term,  46  ;  in  O.  T.,  49  ff.  ; 
in  Book  of  Enoch,  60  ff.  ; 
messianic,  70  ff. 

Sonship,  105. 

Sovereignty  of  God,  29, 


298 


INDEX 


Stanton,  127. 

Stevens,  9,  45.  87,  127,  171,211. 

Stewart,  191. 

Stier,  18. 

Style  of  Jesus,  38. 

Supper,  The  Lord's,  190,  207. 

Syncellus,  270. 

Synoptic  problem,  32,  247. 

Temptation  of  Jesr.-,,  147  ft. 
Titius,  26,  128,  232. 
Tholuck,  109. 
Thomson,  2S4. 
Transfiguration,  The,  219. 
Trumbull,  199. 
Twelve,  The,  161. 


Ullmann,  83. 

Watson,  16,  20,  21,  22,  23. 

Weiffenbach,  211. 

Weiss,  B.,  45.  87.  103,  127,  171, 

211,  230. 
Weiss,  J.,  127,  160. 
{  Weizsacker,  54. 
j  Wellhauscn,  72,  74,  79. 
Wendt,  7,  31,  35,  40.  45.  87.  120, 
127,  171,  186,  204,  211,  240, 

247  ff- 
Wesley  and  Whitfield,  162. 
Words  of  Jesus,  1 1  ff. ;  38  ff. 

Zahn,  191. 


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"Dr.  Stalker's  treatment  of  the  Seven  Words  from  the  Cross — calm, 
reverent  and  impressive— may  be  compared  with  the  tempestuous  but 
splendid  eloquence  of  Pere  Didon's  handling  of  the  same  theme  in  his 
recently  published  Lent  Conferences,  as  an  illustration  of  two  widely 
contrasted  but  equally  effective  styles  of  religious  utterances.  We  hail 
Dr.  Stalker's  work  as  a  noteworthy  contribution  to  what  may  be  called 
the  Bibliography  of  the  Cxo%s."  —  Christian  World. 

"  It  is  safe  to  foretell  that  Dr.  Stalker's  latest  book  will  be  at  least 
as  popular  as  his  '  Imago  Christi.'  It  is  a  faithful  exhibition  of  the 
facts  themselves,  and  is  therefore  of  value  to  the  student  and  incom- 
parably more  helpful  in  devotional  exercises  than  are  some  books  on 
the  Passion." — Methodist  Recorder. 

"Dr.  Stalker  has  given  us  a  book  which  no  one  can  read  without 
profit.  ...  It  is  probably  the  best  book  we  have  on  the  subject." — 
Rev,  Professor  Marcus  Dods,  D.D  ,  in  Expositor. 

"  We  have  here  a  piece  of  honest  work  ably  executed.  The  author 
has  made  an  earnest  and  careful  study  of  the  passages  under  review,  and 
of  the  literature  of  the  subject,  and  in  this  way  he  has  qualified  himself 
to  write  with  fulness  of  knowledge,  and,  like  a  preacher  of  an  earlier 
day,  he  has  '  so'.ight  to  find  out  acceptable  words.'  He  has  thus  pro- 
duced a  book  which  may  be  assured  of  wide  popular  acceptance,  as  well 
as  appreciation,  amongst  those  whose  studies  lie  more  especially  in  this 
direction.  It  is  stimulating  as  well  as  instructive  in  a  high  degree,  and 
is  the  production  of  the  competent  student  not  less  than  the  eloquent 
preacher,  and  will,  like  the  author's  previous  productions,  take  a  pro- 
minent place  among  the  best  popular  religious  literature  of  the  day." — 
Scotsman. 


WOKKS  BY  PROF.  HENRY  DRUMMOND  (jthe  late),  F.R.S.E. 

NATURAL  LAW  in  the  SPIRITUAL  WORLD. 

Cheap  Edition,  3^.  dd. 

"  This  is  one  of  the  most  impressive  and  suggestive  books  on  religion 
that  we  have  read  for  a  long  time.  Indeed,  with  the  exception  of 
Dr.  Mozley's  University  Sermons,  we  can  recall  no  book  of  our  time 
which  showed  such  a  power  of  restating  the  moral  and  practical  truths 
of  religion  so  as  to  make  them  take  fresh  hold  of  the  mind  and  vividly 
impress  the  imagination." — Spectator. 

THE  LOWELL  LECTURES  on  the  ASCENT 

OF  MAN.  Cheaper  Edition,  price  3^.  6d.  net. 
'*  Readers  who  recollect  Professor  Drummond's  article  on  mimicry 
in  his  book  on  Tropical  Africa  will  expect  much  from  his  lectures  on 
the  greatest  subject  in  evolution — the  'ascent'  of  man.  Nor  will  they 
be  disappointed.  No  less  conspicuous  are  Professor  Drummond's 
powers  of  illustration.  Without  being  at  all  superficial,  his  book  is 
one  of  the  simplest  and  most  popular  ever  written.  He  is  one  of  the 
few  who  can  make  a  complex  scientific  subject  clear  to  any  ordinary 
capacity,  and  attractive  to  anybody  with  a  glimmer  of  imagination." — 
Daily  News. 

TROPICAL  AFRICA.     Cheap  Edition.    With  a  Map 
and  Illustrations.     Crown  8vo,  cloth,  35.  6d. 
"A  charmingly-written  book." — Saturday  Review. 

THE  NEW  EVANGELISM,  AND  OTHER 

PAPERS.     Cro\vn  8vo,  buckram,  price  5^. 

THE    IDEAL   LIFE,  AND  OTHER  UNPUB- 
LISHED   ADDRESSES.      With  Introductory  Sketches  by 
W.  Robertson   Nicoll   and   Ian   Maclaren.      Crown  8vo, 
buckram,  6s. 
"Nothing    is   more    instructive    about  these  addresses   than   their 
searching  and  intense  style.     There  burns  throughout  them  a  powerful 
flame  that  can  illuminate  or  melt,  and  we  cannot  believe  that  any  one 
can  study  them  carefully  and  rise  from  the  perusal  quite  the  same  as  he 
was." — British  Weekly. 

PROFESSOR     DRUMMOND'S     BOOKLETS. 
Cro7vn  8zo,  leatherette,  \s.  ;  cloth,  gilt  edges,  is.  6d.  each. 
THE   CITY   WITHOUT   A   CHURCH. 
THE    PROGRAMME   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 
THE   CHANGED    LIFE. 
PAX   VOBISCUM. 

THE   GREATEST   THING    IN   THE  WORLD. 
BAXTER'S    SECOND     INNINGS.      Fancy  boards,   is.    td 
leather  padded,  2s.  6d. 


WOUKS    BY    GEORGE    ADAM    SMITH,    D.D.,    LL.D., 
Professor  of  Hcbreiv  and  Old  Testament  Exega  is,  Free  Church  College,  Glasgow, 

THE    HISTORICAL    GEOGRAPHY   OF  THE 

HOLY  LAND.  With  six  specially  prepared  Maps.  With 
Additions,  Corrections,  and  New  Index  of  Scripture  References. 
Crown  8vo,  cloth,  i^s. 

"A  very  noteworthy  contribution  to  the  study  of  sacred  history,  based  upon 
the  three  indispensable  conditions  of  personal  acquaintance  with  the  land,  a 
study  of  the  explorations,  discoveries,  and  decipherments,  especially  of  the 
last  twenty  j'ears,  and  the  employment  of  the  results  of  Biblical  criticism 
during  the  same  period.  The  necessity  and  importance  of  such  an  under- 
taking need  no  demonstration,  and  the  results  as  set  forth  in  Dr.  Smith's 
learned  and  laborious  work  will  be  appreciated  by  all  competent  scholars." — 
Times. 

"The  book  collects  together  and  estimates  in  a  thorough  and  sure  way  all 
the  results  of  research  ;  it  is  WTitten  with  full  critical  and  historical  know- 
ledge ;  it  describes  the  physical  features  in  a  vivid  and  clear  manner." — 
Guardian. 

THE  BOOKS  of  the   TWELVE    PROPHETS, 

COMMONLY    CALLED    THE    MINOR.       In  the  series 
of   '"The  Expositor's  Bible."      In  Two  Volumes.      Crown  8vo, 
cloth,  Js.  6if.  each. 
Vol.    I. — Containing  Amos,  Hosea,  and  Micah. 

Vol.  II.  {Recently  Published). — Containing  Zephaniah,  Nahum,  Habak- 
kuk,  Obadiah,  Haggai,  Zechariah  I. -VIII.,  "  Malachi," 
Joel,  "Zechariah"  IX.-XIV.,  and  Jonah. 

"  In  Dr.  Smith's  volumes  we  have  much  more  than  a  popular  exposition  ot 
the  minor  Prophets.  We  have  that  which  will  satisfy  the  scholar  and  the 
?tudent  quite  as  much  as  the  person  who  reads  for  pleasure  and  for  edifica- 
tion. ...  If  the  minor  Prophets  do  not  become  popular  reading  it  is  not 
because  anything  more  can  be  done  to  make  them  attractive.  Dr.  Smith's 
volumes  present  this  part  of  Scripture  in  what  is  at  once  the  most  attractive 
and  the  most  profitable  form."— Dr.  Marcus  Dods  in  the  British  fVeekly. 

THE    BOOK    OF    ISAIAH.     In  the  series  of  " The 

Expositor's  Bible."     In  Two  Volumes.     Crown  8vo,  "js.  6d.  each. 
Vol.  I.— Chapters  I.  to  XXXIX.        Vol.  II.— Chapters  XL.  to  LXVI. 

"A  work  of  no  ordinary  merit;  indeed,  it  is  but  rare  that  such  exegetical 
power  and  mature  scholarship  are  united  with  an  ease  of  style  and  a  fertility 
of  modern  illustration  that  leave  but  little  to  desire." — Speaker. 

"This  is  a  very  attractive  book.  Mr.  George  Adam  Smith  has  evidently 
such  a  mastery  of  the  scholarship  of  his  subject  that  it  would  be  a  sheer 
impertinence  tor  most  scholars,  even  though  tolerable  Hebraists,  to  criticise 
his  translations ;  and  certainly  it  is  not  the  intention  of  the  present  reviewer 
to  attempt  anything  of  the  kind,  to  do  which  he  is  absolutely  incompetent. 
All  we  desire  is  to  let  English  readers  know  how  very  lucid,  impressive — and, 
indeed,  how  vivid — a  study  of  Isaiah  is  within  their  reach;  the  fault  of  the 
book,  if  it  has  a  fault,  being  rather  that  it  finds  too  many  points  of  connection 
between  Isaiah  and  our  modem  world,  than  that  it  finds  too  few.  In  other 
words,  no  one  can  say  that  the  book  is  not  full  of  life."— S/i^f /a/or, 

FOUR     PSALMS.       In  the  series  of  "Little  Books 
on  Religion."    Cloth,  is.  6J. 
"These  expositions  are  in  every  way  admirable,  and  worthy  of  the  highest 
admiration." — Aberdeen  Free  Press. 


London  :    HODDER  &  STOUGHTON,  27,  Paternoster  Row. 


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