THE ESCHATOLOGICAL
QUESTION IN THE
GOSPELS
And other Studies in Recent
New Testament Criticism
BY THE REV.
CYRIL W. EMMET, M.A.
VICAR OF WEST HEN OREL)
EDINBURGH : T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE ST.
1911
Printed by
MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED,
FOR
T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH.
LONDON I SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO. LIMITED.
NEW YORK : CHARLES SCRIliNER'S SONS.
n-io-^c,
PREFACE
THE subjects of these essays, though they
all deal with recent New Testament criticism,
are a little miscellaneous. But the first four,
which comprise the bulk of the book, have
in common one feature which may perhaps
be of value to the busy reader. In discuss
ing the views of Schweitzer, Loisy, and
Harnack, the attempt has been made to give
verbatim extracts from their works to an
extent sufficient to enable him to judge for
himself the merits of their respective positions,
apart from any gloss put on them by the
critic.
A few words of explanation may be useful
as to the general standpoint adopted in this
book. New Testament critics would seem
to be divided just at present into the two
camps of which Father Tyrrell has spoken
in Christianity at the Cross-Roads. On the
one hand there is the familiar Liberal and
VI
PREFACE
Protestant criticism, of which Bousset and
Harnack are generally taken as examples ;
on the other there is the newer and more
radical type, represented by Loisy and
Schweitzer, and endorsed by Tyrrell. The
paradox is that this latter has found not a
few of its exponents and supporters in the
ranks of those who hold more closely to the
Creeds and the fuller faith of historic
Christianity, than does the older Liberal
school.
If a more or less personal note may for
a moment be allowed, I myself in each
case approached the writers of this second
school with every possible prejudice in their
favour, and with the hope that I should find
at length that reconciliation of faith and
criticism for which so many are looking.
Perhaps the somewhat unreasonable nature
of this hope may, by the law of reaction, be
responsible for the ultimate impression made
upon me. However that may be, the feeling
of dissatisfaction deepened at each reading.
I found myself continually contrasting the
impressions made on me by the Harnack-
Bousset school, to which at an earlier period
I had come fresh from the sincere milk of a
less critical teaching. There, there had been
PREFACE
but little to repel. Rather, I was amazed
at the tone of reverence pervading a literature
which was supposed to be "dangerous." It
might present what Dr. Sanday has lately
called "a reduced Christianity," but it was
Christianity, and it seemed to offer a founda
tion on which a fuller Christianity might
safely be built.
On the other hand, it became impossible
to resist the conviction that the newer school,
though as a whole it cared more for the
superstructure than did its predecessors, was
yet in fact busily engaged in removing every
stone of the foundation on which alone that
superstructure can rest. In particular, the
figure of the historic Jesus receives a treat
ment which either practically banishes Him
from the stage of history, leaving Him as a
Great Unknown of whose life and teaching
we can affirm almost nothing, or else strips
Him of nearly every attribute which has
hitherto attracted the love and admiration
of the world. That when this is done, the
Christ, who somehow springs from His ashes,
can retain the worship of the world, it is
difficult to believe.
Such, at any rate, is the position reached in
the following pages ; and I hope that the
touch of autobiography will have made it
viii PREFACE
clear that, whether it be right or wrong, its
adoption is at least not due to any a priori
prejudice. The conclusion was not ready
formed before the books in question were
opened, but was forced upon me as a result
of their study, against my will and expecta
tion. If something is done to remove the
widespread impression that the position of
Loisy and Schweitzer is somehow more com
patible with a full and Catholic Christianity
than is that of the " Liberal Protestants,"
this little volume may perhaps justify its
existence.
It remains to offer my grateful acknowledg
ments for permission to reprint articles, granted
by the editors and publishers of the Expository
Times (Essays n. and iv.), the Contemporary
Review (Essay in.), the Expositor (Essays
(v. and vi.), and the Interpreter (Essay vn.).
A reference has been added here and there
to subsequent literature, but the papers remain
substantially unaltered.
CYRIL W. EMMET.
WEST HENDRED VICARAGE,
September 17, 1910.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE . . v
I.
THE ESCHATOLOGICAL QUESTION IN
THE GOSPELS AS INTERPRETED BY
SCHWEITZER.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
"Eschatology"— Some recent English literature : Sanday,
Tyrrell, etc.— Schweitzer's The Quest of the Historical
Jesus
CHAPTER II.
SCHWEITZER'S POSITION.
Problems raised by the Marcan narrative— Wrede's solu
tion—The eschatological solution— Nearness of the
end— Predestinarianism— The mystery of the Parables
—The Mission of the Twelve— Retirement to the
CONTENTS
PAGE
North, Transfiguration, and Ctesarea Philippi — The
quest of death — The Son of Man — The Messiah of
the future and His secret — Ellas — The entry into
Jerusalem— What did Judas betray?— The end . 10
CHAPTER III.
SOME PRELIMINARY CRITICISMS.
Attractions of the theory — Does it do justice to the
Gospels ? — Reading between the lines — Modernising
— Sacraments and the Five Thousand — The Church . 29
CHAPTER IV.
THE POLITICAL MESSIAH.
Unproved assumptions — The political element in the
Messianic hope— Old Testament ideas and the new
Apocalyptic— Evidence of the Psalms of Solomon
and the New Testament — The Messianic secret —
Why should Jesus " play with it " ? . . .40
CHAPTER V.
[THE ESCHATOLOGY OF JESUS.
The uncompromising character of the theory — Can we
dispense with "buts"? — Interpretation of eschato-
logical language, qualified by (i.) possible spiritualisa-
tion ; (ii.) later additions ; (iii.) its subsidiary place —
Analogy of St. Paul — Are the ethics eschatological ?
— Predestinarianism— Jesus as a teacher . . 49
CONTENTS
CHAPTER VI.
THE JESUS OF ESCHATOLOGY.
PAGE
The fate of Christianity depends on the passing away of
eschatology — The chasm between the Master and
His disciples— " The historical Jesus" a stumbling-
block — His Spirit— Schweitzer's portrait of Jesus —
The claim to divinity— Can it stand ?— Elements
ignored — The Christ of liberal theology . . 66
II.
M. LOISY AND THE GOSPEL STORY.
Les Evangiles Synoptiques — Loisy's view of the life of
Jesus — Rise of Christianity — The Resurrection belief
— Paulinism— Jesus becomes Christ— The Church —
Idealising of the hero — Influence of the Old Testa
ment — Symbolism — The question of good taste —
Some criticisms ... -79
III.
M. LOISY'S VIEW OF THE RESUR
RECTION
Spiritual value and historic fact — The Resurrection narra
tives — Predictions — Burial and the " empty tomb "-
St. Peter's vision — The present life of Christ — How
did the belief arise ? — Visions : objective or subjec
tive ? — Psychical research — The subjective needs
explanation — The impression of the personality of
Jesus— The unique character of the apostolic belief
— St. Peter the religious genius — The persistence of
the belief — The empty tomb — The difficulties of
unbelief .... . . 113
xii CONTENTS
IV.
HARNACK ON THE SECOND SOURCE OF
THE FIRST AND THIRD GOSPELS.
PAGE
"Q" — Its reconstruction and use by St. Matthew and
St. Luke — Evangelists' respect for their sources —
Contents of Q — Order of sections — Character —
Simplicity — Prior to St. Mark? — The double tradi
tion — Later elements not necessarily unauthentic —
Christology of Q — How near can we come to the
words of Jesus ?. ..... 143
V.
"SHOULD THE MAGNIFICAT BE
ASCRIBED TO ELISABETH?"
The question of the reading in Lk i46 — Evidence for
Elisabeth — Probable origin of the variants — Interpre
tation of the original reading — Grammar — Com
parison with Hannah's song — Is the language more
appropriate to Mary or Elisabeth ? — The " higher
critical " question which lies behind , . . 175
VI.
GALATIANS THE EARLIEST OF THE
PAULINE EPISTLES.
The South Galatian theory — The visits of Ac 15 and
Gal 2 not identical — Coincidences between Ac n
and Gal 2 — Why does not Galatians refer to the
decrees of the Council ? — Their bearing on the ques
tions at issue — Galatians must be placed before the
Council — Light thrown on the second missionary
journey — Objections— Galatians and Romans — The
two visits of Gal 413 — The " Western " reading of the
decrees in Ac 1 5 . . . . -191
CONTENTS xiii
VII.
VII.— THE PROBLEM OF THE APOCA
LYPSE AND ITS BEARING ON THE
CONCEPTION OF INSPIRATION.
TAl.E
Some recent English literature — The apocalyptic books
—Light thrown on the Apocalypse — The historical
situation— The question of inspiration — The psycho
logical problem . -213
GENERAL INDEX . 231
INDEX OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES . • 238
THE ESCHATOLOGICAL QUESTION IN THE
GOSPELS AS INTERPRETED BY SCHWEITZER
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
THE eschatological question is, without doubt, the
most live issue in New Testament criticism at
the present day. Eschatology means properly
the doctrine of the last things, and in its proper
sense the word is, of course, not confined to any
one conception of them. A Dictionary article
on Eschatology would deal with the various
views current in different circles and at different
times with regard to the future of the world,
the nature of life after death, Heaven and
Hell, and kindred subjects. But in the set of
questions we are about to discuss, the eschato
logical theory, and similar phrases, refer to one
particular doctrine of the last things. The
eschatologist, as the word is used in critical
discussions just at present, is one who holds
that most of the New Testament writers, and
our Lord Himself, believed that the end of
the world was to come in the lifetime of those
INTRODUCTORY
then living, and that this belief is the best key
to the understanding of the Synoptic Gospels.
The position derives its strength from the light
thrown on the New Testament by the study
of the apocalyptic literature of contemporary
Judaism.1 This literature shows to what an
extent the hopes of the Jews, or at least certain
sections among them, were directed to the
future. They looked for God to redress the
evils and oppression under which they suffered
by a startling supernatural catastrophe, which
was to annihilate the existing order, and bring
in a new heaven and earth ; in each Apocalypse
the writer is convinced that God will do this
right early. It is held, then, that a similar
apocalyptic hope was the central motive in the
career and preaching of Jesus.
This view is specially connected with the
name of Albert Schweitzer, a Privatdozent at
Strassburg, who, of course, built to some extent
on the work of his predecessors, particularly
Johannes Weiss. It was first brought before
the general English reader by Dr. Sanday ;
though far from accepting Schweitzer's theory
as it stands, he devoted a large part of his Life
of Christ in Recent Research to a sympathetic
discussion of the latter's Von Reimarus zu
1 Some account of this literature will be found below in the
concluding essay, " The Problem of the Apocalypse."
RECENT LITERATURE
Wrede, in which the eschatological position is
developed.1
On the other hand, Father Tyrrell in his
Christianity at the Cross-Roads, published after
his death, appears as a whole-hearted supporter.
He accepts the view of Weiss and Schweitzer,
practically without reserve, as the last word
of criticism. Chapter viii., "The Christ of
Eschatology," is a summary of it, given after
his manner with no quotations or references,
a method which is perhaps acceptable to the
general reader, but which has its drawbacks,
not only to the serious student, but to any one
who wishes to know the authority on which a
statement is based. The rest of the book is an
1 References will be readily found in the index to Dr.
Sanday's book. It will be well to quote what he himself has
said more recently in a letter to the Guardian (igth August
1910) : " I cannot say that I look back with satisfaction to the
way in which I wrote on this subject three years ago. I made
the mistake of trying to do two things at once — to give some
account of Schweitzer, and at the same time to state what I
thought could be assimilated of his book. In the double task
I cannot think that I was successful. At the same time, I am
conscious that I owe much to Schweitzer for compelling me to
see things that I had not seen before or seen so clearly. I
cannot retract anything of the acknowledgments that I made
to him on this head. Neither can I retract anything that I
said in praise of qualities which excited my genuine admiration.
And yet I admit that the balance was not struck perfectly. I
made allowance for the audacities of a young writer. There
are one or two that I should not defend. Which of us sends out
a book in which he has nothing to regret ?"
INTRODUCTORY
attempt to draw out the implications of the
theory, and to prove its compatibility with a
liberal Catholicism. Other indications of the
interest which the question raises may be seen
in the place which it filled in the International
Congress for the History of Religions, and the
Summer School of Theology, held at Oxford
in the early autumn of 1908 and 1909 respect
ively. The record of the former is to be found
in the two papers printed in the second volume of
the Proceedings, " New Testament Eschatology
and New Testament Ethics," by Professor
Peabody, and " Early Christian Eschatology, "by
Professor von Dobschutz.1 That of the latter
is to be found in the series of papers on " The
Eschatology of the Gospels," also by Professor
von Dobschutz, in the Expositor of January to
May i9io.2 Reference should also be made to
Dr. Burkitt's essay in the Cambridge Biblical
Essays, a paper written with a peculiar charm
of style, and dealing sympathetically with the
presuppositions and implications of the theory,
rather than with its details. On the other
side, Dr. Inge, in a sermon preached before
the University of Cambridge and in reviews,
1 The discussion which followed was conducted by Drs.
Sanday, P. Gardner, Burkitt, Professor Lake, and Mr.
Montefiore, a combination of experts, which is significant of
the importance of the subject.
2 Now published in book form.
SCHWEITZER
has come forward as an uncompromising
opponent.1
Generally speaking, every recent book which
touches on New Testament criticism has some
reference or other to the point at issue. For
the theory is so far-reaching that, if accepted,
it modifies, and modifies profoundly, the results
of New Testament study on nearly every side.
Fortunately the English reader can now go
to the fountainhead. Early in the present
year (1910) an English translation of Von
Reimarus zu Wrede appeared under the title of
The Quest of the Historical Jesus, accompanied
by a Preface by Dr. Burkitt.2 The object of
this essay will be in the first place to explain as
clearly as possible the nature and the basis of
the eschatological theory, and then to offer
some criticisms upon its validity. We shall
confine ourselves in the main to Schweitzer
himself, and our references throughout will be
to the translation. His book is written to
commend the eschatological solution of the
problems raised by the life of Christ. It is true
1 Guardian, I3th May 1910 ; Hibbert Journal, January 1910 ;
Journal of Theological Studies, July 1910. There has also
been a discussion at the Cambridge Church Congress, in which
Dr. Charles (amongst others) criticised Schweitzer very severely.
And no one can suggest that he is likely to minimise the im
portance of Apocalyptic.
2 London : A. & C. Black.
INTRODUCTORY
that only the concluding chapters deal with this
directly, the greater portion of the book being
occupied with a detailed sketch of the course of
German 1 criticism as applied to the Gospels and
the life of Jesus "from Reimarus to Wrede,"
i.e. roughly from 1774, when Lessing began to
publish posthumous fragments of the writings
of Reimarus, to 1901, the date of Wrede's
Messianic Secret in the Gospels. But this
preliminary survey is strictly germane to the
main subject, for the writer's object is to show
how various assured results have been gradually
reached by New Testament criticism, and how
imperfect solutions of the problems have been
one by one eliminated. This elimination leaves
the field clear for the thoroughgoing eschato-
logical solution, glimpses of which have been
caught by earlier critics from Reimarus onwards.
Whatever view we ultimately find ourselves
compelled to take of Schweitzer's position, there
can be no doubt that the book is of supreme
value, both on account of the uncompromising
and thought-provoking manner in which the
questions are stated, and also for the unique
synopsis which it gives of the history and
growth of critical opinion. The book is not
always easy to read, and the language is at
1 There are some references to writers of other nationalities,
and a chapter is devoted to Kenan.
SCHWEITZER AND TYRRELL
times enigmatic, but as a rule there is no mis
taking the writer's meaning, and he delights the
reader with a series of vivid and illuminating
o
metaphors, which it would be hard to parallel
in literature of this type.
It is perhaps needless to praise Christianity
at the Cross-Roads. We may not be able to
endorse Tyrrell's attitude towards the Gospel
story, but the whole book will be found to
be full of suggestions and points of view of
the profoundest interest ; the discussions of
symbolism, and of the place of religion in
relation to morality and social progress, stand
out as specially important. But it would
complicate the inquiry before us too much if
we were to attempt to deal with these aspects
of the book.
CHAPTER II.
SCHWEITZER'S POSITION.
THE pith of Schweitzer's positive results is
found in his last two chapters. He sketches
with a sufficiently decisive, not to say brutal,
touch the difficulties which he considers in
soluble on any of the usual theories of the life
of Christ, whether liberal or orthodox. His
charge is that they all read too much into the
text of Mark, and the Synoptists in general,
adding " connecting links " for which there is
no justification, and regarding as self-evident
the very things which require the most stringent
proof. "Mark knows nothing of any develop
ment in Jesus ; he knows nothing of any
pedagogic considerations which are supposed
to have determined the conduct of Jesus
towards the disciples and the people ; he knows
nothing of any conflict in the mind of Jesus
between a spiritual and a popular political
Messianic ideal ; he does not know either that
in this respect there was any difference between
the view of Jesus and that of the people ; he
THE PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED n
knows nothing of the idea that the use of the
ass at the triumphal entry symbolised a non-
political Messiahship ; he knows nothing of the
idea that the question about the Messiah's
being the Son of David had something to do
with this alternative between political and non-
political ; he does not know either that Jesus
explained the secret of the Passion to the
disciples, nor that they had any understanding
of it ; he only knows that from first to last they
were in all respects equally wanting in under
standing ; he does not know that the first
period was a period of success, and the second
a period of failure ; he represents the Pharisees
and Herodians as (from 3° onwards) resolved
upon the death of Jesus, while the people, down
to the very last day when He preached in the
temple, are enthusiastically loyal to Him."
And, referring to the claim of critical scepticism
that all connecting links should be justified, he
says in a characteristic and delightful metaphor :
" Formerly it was possible to book through-
tickets at the supplementary - psychological-
knowledge office which enabled those travelling
in the interests of Life-of- Jesus construction to
use express trains, thus avoiding the incon
venience of having to stop at every little station,
change, and run the risk of missing their
O '
1 P. 330.
12 SCHWEITZER'S POSITION
connection. This ticket office is now closed.
There is a station at the end of each section
of the narrative, and the connections are not
guaranteed."1
He finds that Wrede and himself have stated
the real problems in much the same way, and
if we are to do anything like justice to his own
solution, we must have a clear idea of what
they are. Most of them are connected with
the Messiahship. Demoniacs address Jesus as
Son of God ; a blind man as Son of David ;
He makes what is supposed to be a Messianic
entry. Yet His Messiahship i§ a secret only
revealed to the disciples at Cae^area Philippi
(how ?) ; it is to be unknown till after the
Resurrection, and is covered by the mysterious
title Son of Man ; the high priest only learns
it in answer to his direct question. What is
"the mystery" connected with the teaching by
parables ? The place of miracles in the mind
of Jesus? Why should He anticipate persecu
tions for His followers, and death for Himself?
Did He go to Jerusalem in order to die or to
work? How reconcile Gethsemane with His
prophecies of death ? What is the meaning of
the sayings in Mt icr3 and elsewhere about the
imminent coming of the Son of Man ? And
so on almost without limit. Schweitzer has
1 P. 332.
THOROUGHGOING ESCHATOLOGY 13
three full pages of these diropiai, some of them
a little trivial, some of them real difficulties on
any view of the Gospels and the life of Christ.
Wrede's solution of these problems is a
sufficiently desperate one. It is that Jesus
was only thought of as Messiah after the
Resurrection ; the contradictions have arisen
from the more or less conscious attempts of
tradition, and the Evangelists, to explain how
it came about that He was not recognised as
o
Messiah before, the impression of the non-
Messianic character of His life being still too
strong to allow of the story being recast alto
gether. Schweitzer's detailed criticism of
Wrede need not detain us ; we pass on to
his own view, which is that of " thoroughgoing
eschatology."
It is stated on pp. 35off., and no excuse need
be offered for a somewhat full summary. As
has already been said, a similar summary will
be found in Tyrrell's Christianity at the Cross-
Roads, chap, viii., " The Christ of Eschatology."
Jesus, having come in contact with the move
ment initiated by the Baptist, appeared Himself
in Galilee proclaiming the near approach of
the kingdom of God. From first to last His
o
public life and teaching were dominated by this
one idea, that the existing world-age was to
come to an abrupt end, and the "kingdom"
14 SCHWEITZER'S POSITION
to be established suddenly, miraculously, and
supernaturally, not, be it understood, in any
sense as a new force in the old world, but as
something which was to take its place. Ac
cordingly, He Himself was a herald or prophet,
rather than a teacher. His disciples "are not
His helpers in the work of teaching ; we never
see them in that capacity, and He did not
prepare them to carry on that work after His
death. ... He chooses them as those who are
destined to hurl the firebrand into the world,
and are afterwards, as those who have been the
companions of the existing Messiah, before He
came to His kingdom, to be His associates in
ruling and judging it." It is true that, accord
ing to the counsel of God, penitence was a
condition of the coming of the kingdom ; 2 no
one could hope for a place therein who was not
qualified by repentance. This repentance is
supplemented by a special system of ethics,
found in the Sermon on the Mount ; it is an
Interimsethik suited to the brief interval before
the coming of the kingdom, the code of a
dying world, not of a world which is to endure
from generation to generation.
Bound up with this ethic is a strict predestin-
1 P. 369-
2 The obscure saying in Mt II12 refers to "the host of
penitents which is wringing the kingdom from God," p. 355.
PREDESTINARIANISM 1 5
arianism. In the parables and kindred sayings
"there lies concealed a supernatural knowledge
concerning the plans of God, which only those
who have ears to hear — that is, the foreordained
— can detect. For others these sayings are
unintelligible."1 "All that goes beyond that
simple phrase [_sc. 'repent ye/ etc.] must be
publicly presented only in parables, in order
that those only who are shown to possess
predestination, by having the initial knowledge
which enables them to understand the parables,
may receive a more advanced knowledge."'
In the parable of the Marriage Supper (Mt
221"14) the man who has not on the wedding
garment is ejected solely because he is not
predestined. The Beatitudes "are really pre-
destinarian in form." They are not intended
by Jesus "as an injunction or exhortation, but
as a simple statement of fact ; in their being
poor in spirit, in their meekness, in their love
of peace, it is made manifest that they are
predestined to the kingdom." 3 Again, it is " the
predestinarianism which is an integral part of
eschatology, and which, in fact, dominated the
thought of Jesus," which explains why He
spoke of giving His life as a ransom for many,
not for the nation, or for all. "The Lord is
conscious that He dies only for the elect. For
1 P. 356. 2 P. 352. 3 P- 353-
1 6 SCHWEITZER'S POSITION
others His death can avail nothing, nor even
their own repentance." Or it explains His
reply to the sons of Zebedee that the places on
His right hand and left are to be given only to
those for whom they are prepared ; "therefore
perhaps not to any of the disciples. At this
point, therefore, the knowledge and will of Jesus
are thwarted and limited by the predestin-
arianism which is bound up with eschatology."'2
On the other hand, it is sometimes a cause of
hope. He follows up the refusal of the rich
young man with the suggestion that "with
God all things are possible." " That is, He
will not give up the hope that the young man,
in spite of appearances which are against him,
will be found to have belonged to the kingdom
o o
of God, solely in virtue of the secret, all-
powerful will of God. Of a ' conversion ' of
the young man there is no question." 3
" The mystery of the kingdom " enshrined in
the parables is the nearness and the miraculous
nature of its coming. In parables such as those
in Mk 4, " it is not the idea of development
but of apparent absence of causation which
occupies the foremost place. The description
aims at suggesting how, and by what power,
incomparably great and glorious results can be
infallibly produced by an insignificant fact with-
'P.388, n. i. 2P. 363. 3P- 353-
THE EXPECTATION OF THE END 17
out human aid." The frequent references to
sowing and reaping are to be accounted for by
the fact that Jesus believed that the harvest
then ripening on earth was in very truth the
last. The movement had probably begun in
the spring, and all was to come to an end in
the harvest of the summer, which corresponded
to the harvest ripening in heaven. The saying
about the rich harvest in Mt 937- 3S probably
refers to the close temporal connection of the
earthly and heavenly harvests.
This belief finds its climax in the mission
of the Twelve, which follows the rejection at
Nazareth, where Jesus had found to His surprise
only a few "elect." Before the return of the
Apostles He expected the Paroiisia : "Verily
I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone
through the cities of Israel, till the Son of Man
be come" (Mt io23) — a very crucial text in
Schweitzer's mind. It is to be interpreted
absolutely literally ; the end was to come before
they had completed their tour. It is this fact
which explains the prediction of sufferings in
Mt io. They 'have no sort of reference to
any persecutions which Christ's followers were
to undergo in a more or less distant future
there being no reason why Jesus should anti
cipate anything of the sort. They refer to the
v. 354-
1 8 SCHWEITZER'S POSITION
eschatological woes which were to precede the
inauguration of the new era. During the very
journey on which they were starting, the
disciples were to pass through a storm of
hatred and persecution, a period of bitter dis
sension in which brother should rise against
brother, children against fathers, fathers against
children. But they are encouraged "to endure
till the end," i.e. hold out bravely for the few
remaining weeks or days of the world's history.
For before they could return, the Son of Man
would have come.
Somehow there had been a miscalculation ;
the disciples came back safe and sound, and
the wheel of the world rolled smoothly on its
course. This point marks a crisis in the life
and thought of Jesus. It explains the sudden
dropping of the successful work in Galilee,
and the retirement to the north, facts which
Schweitzer considers altogether inexplicable on
any other view. This retirement is, in fact, "a
flight," as has been generally believed ; not,
however, from the scribes or Herod, "but from
the people, who dog His footsteps in order to
await in His company the appearing of the
kingdom of God and of the Son of Man — to
await it in vain." l A fresh feature now becomes
1 p. 362.
THE SUFFERING MESSIAH 19
prominent in the story. We hear hencefor
ward, not of sufferings which are to be the fate
of the elect in general, but of Jesus' own
death. In the eschatological scheme a time of
tribulation was expected before the end, "the
birth-pangs of the Messiah." This is the trial
or temptation (7^/30,07*09) of which we read so
often ; the Lord's Prayer closes with a petition
to be delivered from it. But in Jewish thought
the Messiah Himself had no share in this
tribulation. He was a heavenly Being, who
was to be manifested when the kingdom came.
With this heavenly Being Jesus had identified
Himself. But, probably under the influence of
the Isaianic prophecies concerning the Suffering
Servant, He had come to realise that He,
the future Messiah, must also pass through
the tribulation. Nay, more than this; He
is to bear the brunt of it alone. " The pre-
Messianic tribulation is for others set aside,
abolished, concentrated upon Himself alone.
. . . He must suffer for others that the
kingdom might come."1 In this sense Hrs
life was to be a ransom for many ; henceforth
His career is, in Tyrrell's phrase, "a quest of
death."
This may be a suitable place to explain
the position which (according to Schweitzer)
1 P. 386.
20 SCHWEITZER'S POSITION
Jesus considered Himself to hold in the scheme
of things. Our understanding of it chiefly
depends on the correct interpretation of the
phrase " Son of Man." We cannot here enter
on the long and important controversies which
have centred round it. Schweitzer's own
view1 is that it was derived from Daniel, and
had come to be used in a transcendental sense
of the Messiah who was to come on the clouds
of heaven ; it is so used in the Similitudes of
Enoch and 4 Esdras. Jesus would under
stand it as referring to a heavenly Being to be
revealed in the future. Hence in the Gospels
He sometimes of set purpose uses it quite
vaguely. To His hearers it meant the great
Unknown ; to His own mind, but to His own
alone, it meant Himself as He should shortly
be manifested. The saying in Mt io23, and
the parable of the Sheep and Goats (Mt
2531~46)> are examples of this use. In other
cases, after His secret had Become known, the
phrase was understood as referring to Himself,
as in the conversation at Csesarea Philippi, and
the reply to the high priest at the trial.
"Jesus did not therefore veil His Messiahship
by using the expression Son of Man, much less
did He transform it, but He used the expres
sion to refer, in the only possible way, to His
1 Pp. 266-289.
SON OF MAN 21
Messianic office as destined to be realised at
His 'coming,' and did so in such a manner
that only the initiated understood that He was
speaking of His own coming, while others
understood Him as referring to the coming of
a Son of Man who was other than Himself."1
Schweitzer is therefore compelled to main
tain that the disciples never understood the
expression as referring to Jesus Himself until
the incident at Caesarea Philippi, the Jews as
a whole not until the trial. Apparent ex
ceptions are to be explained in two ways.
(a) There are cases where " Son of Man " in
the Aramaic original meant simply " man " ; z
e.g. in the sayings about the power to forgive
sins, and about the Sabbath (Mk 210 and 228).
(6) In other cases tradition, following the ana
logy of the authentic uses of the title, substi
tuted " Son of Man" for an original " I." A
comparison of Mt i613 and Mk 827 proves that
this did in fact sometimes occur. Mt 820
("hath not where to lay His head") and n19
("the Son of Man came eating and drink
ing ") are most naturally explained on these
lines. It will, of course, be understood that
1 P. 282.
2 Lietzmann, Wellhausen, and others have, of course, main
tained that the Aramaic phrase barnasha could only have
meant " man."
22 SCHWEITZER'S POSITION
Schweitzer admits that the Evangelists always
intended the phrase to apply to our Lord
openly ; he is trying, as he has every right to
do, to go behind the tradition to the words
actually used, and the meaning they conveyed
to the original audience. It is interesting to
note that he considers his view of the use
of the title to be a vindication of the trust
worthiness of the Gospel tradition.
The upshot, then, is that Jesus regarded
Himself as the future Messiah. He was not
on earth as Messiah ; He had only come to
announce, and to some extent to prepare for,
the kingdom. It was only, as it were, an
accident that the herald of the present was also
the King and Judge of the future. That this
was so, was His " secret." When and by whom
was it first discovered ? We expect the answer
"at Csesarea Philippi," but Schweitzer holds
that the Transfiguration preceded the great
question. The scene on the Mount was an
actual occurrence, in which, in a state of rapture
common to them all, the secret is revealed to
the Three. Jesus supplements it with the
prediction of the Passion, and the strictest
injunctions to secrecy. The conversation at
Ca^sarea Philippi follows. Jesus, for some
reason not explained, asks His disciples the
C/ESAREA PHILI1TI 23
well-known question. Peter's answer is not
the result of a gradually growing conviction ;
it is simply the acceptance of what had been
revealed on the Mount. Hence our Lord's
reply, that flesh and blood had not revealed it
to him. But He is by no means pleased at
the confession, since the secret is now shared
by all the Twelve, with what tragic results will
shortly appear. " Jesus was astonished. For
Peter here disregarded the command given
during the descent from the Mount of Trans
figuration. He had 'betrayed' to the Twelve
Jesus' consciousness of His Messiahship. One
receives the impression that Jesus did not put
the question to the disciples in order to reveal
Himself to them as Messiah, and that by the
impulsive speech of Peter, upon whose silence
He had counted because of His command, and
to whom He had not specially addressed the
question, He was forced to take a different line
of action in regard to the Twelve from what
He had intended. It is probable that He had
never had the intention of revealing the secret
of His Messiahship to the disciples. Otherwise
He would not have kept it from them at the
time of their mission, when He did not expect
them to return before the Parousia. Even at
the Transfiguration the ' three ' do not learn
it from His lips, but in a state of ecstasy, an
24 SCHWEITZER'S POSITION
ecstasy which He shared with them. At
Csesarea Philippi it is not He, but Peter, who
reveals His Messiahship. We may say, there
fore, that Jesus did not voluntarily give up His
Messianic secret ; it was wrung from Him by
the pressure of events."1
The revelation once made was readily
accepted. There remained, however, a pre
liminary objection in the mind of the disciples :
Elias must first come. Is not Jesus Elias, the
forerunner ? No ; as our Lord explains during
the descent from the Mount, the Baptist has
been Elias.2 It is true that, according to
o
Mt nu, He had already made a similar state
ment to the people on the occasion of the
Baptist's message, but we are reminded that
the disciples were not then present, and we
must apparently assume that no report of what
had passed reached their ears. When the
Baptist asked Jesus, " Art thou he that cometh? "
the question meant, " Art thou Elias? " not " Art
thou the Messiah ? " though the Evangelist has
given the episode a Messianic colouring. The
question was indeed an awkward one for Jesus
to answer without revealing His secret, and
His reply is intentionally obscure. But He
adds to it the statement identifying the
Baptist with Elias, and in so doing " unveiled
1 p. 384. 2 Mt i712.
ELIAS 25
to [the people] almost the whole mystery of
the kingdom of God, and nearly disclosed the
secret of His Messiahship. ... If John was
Elias, who was Jesus?"1 It is true the
description of Elias did not fit John at all ;
"Jesus makes him Elias, simply because He
expected His own manifestation as Son of
Man, and before that it was necessary that
Elias must first have come." In particular, " the
death of Elias was not contemplated in the
eschatological doctrine, and was, in fact, un
thinkable. But Jesus must somehow drag or
force the eschatological events into the frame
work of the actual occurrences." 2
The rest of the story is concerned with the
death of the Messiah. "Jesus sets out for
Jerusalem solely in order to die there." If He
teaches as a prophet, it is mainly because " He
thinks only how He can so provoke the
Pharisees and the rulers that they will be
compelled to get rid of Him. That is why He
violently cleanses the Temple, and attacks the
Pharisees, in the presence of the people,
with passionate invective."3 The entry into
Jerusalem is, as is shown by the attendant
circumstances, "a Messianic act on the part of
Jesus, an action in which His consciousness
of His office breaks through, as it did at the
1 P- 373- 2 P. 374- 3 P. 389-
26 SCHWEITZER'S POSITION
sending forth of the disciples, in the explanation
that the Baptist was Elias, and in the feeding
of the multitude.1 But others can have had no
suspicion of the Messianic significance of that
which was going on before their eyes. The
entry into Jerusalem was therefore Messianic
for Jesus, but not Messianic for the people."5
In the eyes of the multitude He was the
Prophet, Elias, as is shown by Mt 2in ; though
here again the Evangelist has wrongly given
a Messianic colouring to the whole episode.
Jesus is, in fact, "playing with His secret," as
He played with it once more when He asked
the question about the Messiah being David's
Son.
The people, however, have not guessed His
secret, even at the last. The high priest by
his crucial question at the trial suddenly shows
himself to be in possession of it. How?
Because Judas has betrayed the secret. "For
a hundred and fifty years the question has been
historically discussed why Judas betrayed his
Master. That the main question for criticism
was what he betrayed was suspected by few, and
they only touched on it in a timid kind of way." 3
"Jesus died because two of His disciples had
broken His command of silence : Peter when
he made known the secret of the Messiahship
1 See below, p. 36. 2 P. 391. 3 P. 394.
BETRAYAL AND DEATH 27
to the Twelve at Caesarea Philippi ; Judas
Iscariot by communicating it to the high
priest." But Judas was only a single witness ;
it is no use calling him unless he can be
supported. Jesus Himself cuts the knot by
His reply to the high priest's question,
strengthening His admission by an allusion to
His Parousia. When the case is referred to
Pilate the presence of the people creates a
difficulty, since they are on Jesus' side. The
priests " had done everything so quickly and
quietly that they might well have hoped to get
Jesus crucified before any one knew what was
happening, or had had time to wonder at His
non-appearance in the Temple." Suddenly the
crowd is seen to be eager for His execution.
The explanation is that the priests had spread
the sensational report of His Messianic claim.
' That makes Him at once from a prophet
worthy of honour into a deluded enthusiast and
blasphemer. That was the explanation of the
' fickleness ' of the Jerusalem mob, which is
always so eloquently described without any
evidence for it except this single inexplicable
case."2
The sketch of the career of Jesus ends,
somewhat enigmatically, with the following
paragraph: "At midday of the same day —
1 P. 394- 2 P. 395-
28 SCHWEITZER'S POSITION
it was the i4th Nisan, on the evening of
which the Paschal lamb was eaten — Jesus
cried aloud and expired. He had chosen to
remain fully conscious to the last."
The next chapter, headed " Results," begins :
" Those who are fond of talking about negative
theology can find their account here. There
is nothing more negative than the result of
the critical study of the life of Jesus."
1 P. 395. 2 P. 396-
CHAPTER III.
SOME PRELIMINARY CRITICISMS.
THE impression which Schweitzer's theory
makes on different readers varies greatly.
Some find it merely grotesque from first to
last ; some are steadily fascinated by it ;
others, again, are repelled and attracted by
turns. The reasons of its undoubted attrac
tion for many minds are not far to seek.
The conception seems to be consistent and
thoroughgoing ; it is a master-key which can
fit every lock. It moves apparently within
the limits of what is strictly historical, yet
it leaves room for mystery. It claims to do
justice to the Gospels as they stand, and
to dispense with all "modernising and
psychologising." Further, it is thought to
vindicate the position of the Sacraments and
the originality of the references to the Church.
On such grounds as these it has won con
siderable favour, both from those who have
a first-hand acquaintance with Schweitzer, as
well as from some who have not. It will be
30 SOME PRELIMINARY CRITICISMS
well then for us to examine some of the
claims which it makes for itself.
We may take, first, its claim to do justice
to the Gospels, or rather to the Synoptists.
"We may, in fact, say that the progressive
recognition of the eschatological character of
the teaching and action of Jesus carries with
it a progressive justification of the Gospel
tradition."1 In criticising his predecessors,
Schweitzer protests continually that they
treat the Gospels arbitrarily, accepting or
rejecting just what suits their theory, read
ing too much into the text, and taking for
granted the very things which require most
proof. We expect, therefore, that his own
procedure will be free from this charge, and
Dr. Sanday says of him that "he keeps
much closer to the texts than most critics
do ; he expressly tells us that his investigations
have helped to bring out the historical trust
worthiness of the Gospels,"2 though he points
out later on that he is not consistent in this
respect.3 Certainly he is not. We do not,
of course, quarrel with him for ignoring the
Fourth Gospel for his purpose, but it is a
very serious matter when we find him
entirely sweeping away the third. In his
1 P. 285. 2 Life of Christ in Recent Research, p. 88.
3 Ibid. p. 101.
TREATMENT OF THE GOSPELS 31
reconstruction of the life of Christ he makes
no use whatever of St. Luke ; how gravely
this omission affects the resultant picture of
the teaching of Christ we shall see later on.
And in the two Gospels which he does use,
his procedure does not seem to differ very
materially from that of his predecessors. We
have seen that he goes a long way behind the
text in order to arrive at what he considers
the authentic use of the expression " Son of
Man " ; he does not hesitate to transpose the
Transfiguration and the scene at Csesarea
Philippi ; the prophecy of the sufferings in
Mk 834 cannot possibly come where it is
placed by the Evangelist, and the predictions
of tribulation in Mk 13 cannot be derived
from Jesus, simply because as they stand they
contradict Schweitzer's theory that, after the
mission of the Twelve, the expectation of a
general tribulation is entirely displaced by
the thought of the sufferings which Jesus
Himself must undergo.1 The command to
baptize is, of course, not an authentic saying
of Jesus.2 He is practically silent about the
Resurrection, and, needless to say, does not
accept the narratives of miracles as they stand.
Once more Schweitzer himself reads so
much into the Gospels and supplies such
1 P. 387, n. i ; see above, p. 19. 2 P. 379.
32 SOME PRELIMINARY CRITICISMS
important connecting links, that he has
developed a theory practically unsuspected
for over eighteen centuries. He admits that
it is not the view of the Evangelists them
selves, who have frequently misrepresented
the nature of the events they record. To
get at the truth, he has to go behind their
narrative.1 One would not suggest for a
moment that these considerations invalidate
the eschatological theory. The Gospel narra
tive is fragmentary, and is not clear as it
stands ; it demands the insertion of explanatory
links and some connecting scheme. This is
done, and must be done, by the most orthodox
commentator as much as by the liberal critic.
And we cannot deny a priori that some of
the Gospels, and some of the incidents they
narrate, may be more historical than others,
so that in order to recover the facts we may
be compelled to select here and discard there.
Our point is that there seems to be but scant
justification for Schweitzer's implied claim that
he has somehow escaped the necessity for any
such procedure. He pours unlimited scorn
upon the various explanations offered of the
" flight to the north." On his own view it
is accounted for by the disappointment of
Jesus, when the Parousia did not take place
1 For examples, see above, pp. 21, 24, 26.
READING BETWEEN THE LINES 33
during the mission of the Twelve.1 He
supplements St. Mark's narrative by an
explanation derived from Mt io23. Is not
this in principle precisely the same procedure
as Professor Burkitt's, when, with far more
probability, he combines St. Mark with St.
Luke's hints of Herod's hostility?2 Is not
the method that of the commonplace critic
who has recourse to the growing enmity of
the scribes and Pharisees? The fact is, all
have to read between the lines of the Gospels,
to supplement and interpret ; the only ques
tion is, which interpretation is the m
probable.
And, not to be further tedious on this point,
similar considerations apply briefly to what
Schweitzer says about " psychologising " and
"modernising." It is quite true that, as Professor
Burkitt has reminded us, we must not make
Jesus the hero of a modern psychological
novel. But we cannot escape from psychology,
and Schweitzer's theory that Jesus was pos
sessed throughout by the ever-present belief in
the nearness of the end, is a piece of psycholo-
gising, no less than the view that His main
interest was in inward religion. He attempts
to "read the mind of Jesus" when he holds
1 See above, p. 17.
2 The Gospel History and its Transmission^ pp. 90 ff.
3
34 SOME PRELIMINARY CRITICISMS
that He believed Himself the Messiah of the
future, as much as those who try to trace a
development of His Messianic consciousness.
And as to modernising, he seems to under
stand by this the attribution to Jesus of any
religious or spiritual idea which would make
the smallest appeal to our own age. After all,
it may turn out that the charge of modernising,
and of false modernising, will lie at the door of
those who ascribe to Him their own absorbing
interest in the recently studied apocalyptic
literature, rather than of those who hold that
He came to reveal the Fatherhood of God,
and the joy of communion with Him. The
study of the Jewish Apocalypses is the dernier
cri, and the New Testament student is just now
steeped in eschatology. There is a danger in
our taking our own enthusiasm and transferring
it bodily to Jesus. We assume that He was
nourished on apocalyptic literature as His
Bible, and breathed daily an atmosphere im
pregnated by the ideas of the Book of Enoch.
Is it not possible that a future generation will
reproach the eschatologist himself with creating
a Christ after his own likeness ?
Again, Schweitzer has been supposed, es
pecially it would seem by Tyrrell, to vindicate
sacramental teaching as an authentic element
o
in the mind of Jesus. He insists rightly on
SEALINGS AND SACRAMENTS 35
the importance of " sealings " in eschatological
thought.1 Men sought for a guarantee that
they would pass safely through the tribulation
and secure their place in the kingdom. This
guarantee could be found in some external sign
of which the " mark on the forehead " of Ezk 9
is an early example. Baptism was a similar
"sealing," a guarantee of immunity. It is so,
as Schweitzer points out, in St. Paul (Ro 61,
2 Co i22, Eph i13-14430), ti\z Psalms of Solomon
(xv. 8), and Hermas (Vis. iii. ; Sim. ix. 16).
St. Paul further speaks of other saving marks
(Gal 617, 2 Co 410), and the idea is, of course,
prominent in the Apocalypse. This is the key
to the baptism of John. It is not contrasted
with a future baptism of the Spirit, but connected
with it. Those who are baptized by him can
depend on receiving the subsequent outpouring
of the Spirit which is to come in the last days.
John's wrath at the coming of the Pharisees and
Sadducees is due to his fear that by beino-
baptized they may secure for themselves a place
in the kingdom to which they are not entitled
or foredestined.2 Baptism forms part of "the
predestinarian thought of election."
Further, the Messiah can give the right to
1 Pp. 375 f-
2 This is apparently the meaning of the paragraph at the top
of p. 377.
36 SOME PRELIMINARY CRITICISMS
partake of the Messianic feast of the future.
Here is the true significance of the feeding of
the five thousand, which is an " eschatological
sacrament." " With the morsel of bread which
He gives His disciples to distribute to the
people He consecrates them as partakers in
the coming Messianic feast, and gives them
the guarantee that they who had shared His
table in the time of His obscurity would also
share it in the time of His glory. In the
prayer He gives thanks not only for the food,
but also for the coming kingdom and all its
blessings. It is the counterpart of the Lord's
Prayer, where He so strangely inserts the
petition for daily bread between the petitions
for the coming of the kingdom and for deliver
ance from the Tret/oa 07^,69." Of course no one
1 P. 374. Schweitzer's treatment of this miracle is interesting.
He makes great play with the "rationalism" of O. Holtzmann,
who suggested that " in the feeding of the multitude Jesus
showed ' the confidence of a courageous housewife who knows
how to provide skilfully for a great crowd of children from
small resources.' Perhaps in a future work Oskar Holtzmann
will be less reserved, not for the sake of theology, but of
national well-being, and will inform his contemporaries what
kind of domestic economy it was which made it possible for the
Lord to satisfy with five loaves and two fishes several thousand
hungry men " (p. 307). We naturally turn eagerly to his own
explanation (p. 374). " Our solution is that the whole is
historical, except the closing remark that they were all filled.
Jesus distributed the provisions which He and His disciples
had with them among the multitude, so that each received a
very little after He had first offered thanks." The method may
SACRAMENTS 37
but Himself had any suspicion of this hidden
significance.
Naturally the same principle is applied to
the Last Supper, which is a guarantee to the
disciples that they will soon drink with Jesus of
the fruit of the vine in the kingdom. Hence
baptism and the Lord's Supper were from the
first " eschatological sacraments," though the
former was not instituted by Christ, and He
certainly did not contemplate any repetition of
the latter. Before, however, we fasten unwarily
on the admission of the sacramental character
of these rites, it will be well to understand
exactly in what sense Schweitzer uses the word
sacrament. He really means magic. He
emphasises the fact that at the feeding of the
five thousand, the people had no idea of the
significance of what was taking place. "The
sacramental effect was wholly independent of
the apprehension and comprehension of the
recipient." Baptism is purely predestinarian ;
there is no ethical side whatever to Schweitzer's
"sacraments." In view of the normal use of
the word, in England at any rate, it would seem
be useful in dealing with the problems raised by the Gospel
miracles ; the raising of Lazarus is all historical— except the
statement that he came forth from the tomb. Only most
people would call it not only rationalising, but somewhat
unintelligible rationalising.
1 P. 378, n.
38 SOME PRELIMINARY CRITICISMS
better to substitute for it in Schweitzer's argu
ment some such phrase as magic rites ; l other
wise the unwary may be misled as to his real
meaning. One of the grounds on which he
commends his view is that by it we are not
compelled to "make the history of dogma
begin with a ' fall ' from the earlier purer
theology into the sacramental magical." That
is, we have the advantage of ascribing this
"fall" or inferior teaching, not to St. Paul
or second-century Christianity, but to Jesus
Himself.
A similar caution is necessary with regard to
what Schweitzer says about the Church. It
will be well to quote his exact words. The
texts which deal with " binding and loosing "
are probably quite genuine. "If one has got
a clear idea from Paul, 2 Clement, the Epistle
to the Hebrews, and the Shepherd of Barnabas
what the pre-existing ' church ' was which was
to appear in the last times, it will no longer
appear impossible that Jesus might have spoken
of the church against which the gates of hell
shall not prevail. Of course, if the passage
is given an uneschatological reference to the
Church as we know it, it loses all real meaning,
and becomes a treasure-trove to the Roman
1 On p. 379 he uses the phrase " magic-sacramental."
2 P. 378.
THE CHURCH 39
Catholic exegete, and a terror to the Protestant."1
We remember that not even the Twelve were
chosen with any idea of continuing Christ's
work after His death. On the eschatological
view there is, of course, no room for anything
like a "Church" in the modern sense, whether
organised or unorganised. There was no time
for missionary work, and no need for pastoral
work.
1 P. 369, n. i.
CHAPTER IV.
THE POLITICAL MESSIAH.
WE have spoken of some of the elements of
the eschatological theory which may at first
sight seem to be attractive : the claims to
adhere closely to the text of the Gospels, to
avoid reading between the lines, modernising
and psychologising, and the vindication of the
originality of the teaching as to sacraments
and the Church. We have seen that these
claims must be largely discounted before they
can be admitted as in any sense valid. There
are other features in Schweitzer's book which
are not even superficially attractive. The chief
is the tone of positive and even arrogant
dogmatism, which cannot help offending,
because it is so obvious that the writer
commits precisely the same sins as those for
which he blames his predecessors unmercifully.
Examples have already been given of this ; and
the same criticism may fairly be applied to the
way in which he asserts without proof, or with
very insufficient proof, things which are by
no means self-evident How can he be so
certain that Jesus can never have intended to
spiritualise existing conceptions of the Messiah-
ship and the kingdom ? Why was it quite
impossible for Him to anticipate persecutions
for His followers in the future, except in the
light of the eschatological woes ? l Were there
not sufficient analogies in the Old Testament
stories of the prophets, and the sufferings of the
pious in the Maccabcean period ? Was the
attitude of the ruling classes of His day such
that He could have anticipated smooth water
for the new religion, assuming for the moment
that some such thing was after all in His
mind ? Or, again, is it quite self-evident that
the prophecies of death and resurrection must
be completely historical as they stand, or else
entirely false ? 2 Jesus might well have antici
pated and spoken of His death, and after the
event His followers might have equally
naturally, and quite innocently, supposed Him
to have also anticipated His Resurrection.
Of course other views are equally tenable,
but this is an entirely reasonable one from a
1 PR- 333» 348- It need not be denied that the eschatological
doctrine of the " woes of the Messiah " throws a valuable side
light on Christ's expectation of sufferings ; the point is that it is
not the sole, or only tenable, explanation.
* P. 331-
42 THE POLITICAL MESSIAH
certain standpoint, and at any rate cannot be
summarily waived aside without argument.
But perhaps the most serious case of assertion
without proof is the denial that there was in
our Lord's time any expectation of a political
Messiah. Schweitzer holds that the only
Messiah whom the Jews of His day looked
for was the eschatological Messiah, the super
human Being who was to appear on the clouds
of heaven at, not before, the regeneration.
Dr. Sanday 1 has rightly called attention to
the paradoxical character of this position, and
confesses himself unable to understand what
exactly Schweitzer means when he denies
that there was any political element in the
Messianic hope of the Jews. The point is of
considerable importance, and it will be well
to look closely at the available evidence.
(i) We cannot ignore the Old Testament.
We find there the expectation of a Davidic
King, and a series of prophecies which, if
they are not merely political in themselves,
were at least easily susceptible of a political
and earthly interpretation. The eschatological
hope arose later on, and became popular. We
should then expect a priori that the two strains
would continue side by side, sometimes one,
sometimes the other, being prominent in a
1 Op. cit. pp. Si, 99.
POLITICAL OR ESCHATOLOGICAL? 43
particular circle or period ; neither was likely
to oust the other. And this is, in fact, what
we find ; both conceptions lived, and but little
attempt was made to harmonise the contra
dictions which resulted from the blending- of
o
the two.1
(2) The best proof of the existence of the
political element in the Messianic hope may
be found in the often-quoted passages from
the Psalms of Solomon? where the Messiah
is the Son of David, who will purify Jerusalem
from the Gentiles who tread her under foot,
and destroy her enemies by the word of His
mouth. It is difficult to understand on what
grounds Schweitzer denies the existence of a
political element in this conception.3 It is,
1 See Baldensperger, Die Messianisch-Apokalyptischen Hoff-
nungen des Judenthums (1903), pp. 105 ff. Also Oesterley and
Box, Religion and Worship of the Synagogue, chap. x. There
is a most exhaustive article by W. V. Hague on the " Eschatology
of the Apocryphal Scriptures," in the Journal of Theological
Studies (Oct. 1910). He sums up : " In the literature of later
Judaism we meet with two very different views as to the nature
and origin of the Messiah. On the one hand, he appears as a
merely human ruler who is to bring about a period of quasi-
material prosperity in the future, to destroy the enemies of
Israel, and to inaugurate an era of ethical regeneration on
earth. On the other hand, he is represented by the apocalyptic
writers (in close connection with the idea of divine judgment)
as a wholly supernatural being, depicted in characteristically
mythical colours, and viewed as the initiator of the new
' Golden Age ' ; in other words, emphatically as a God-king."
- Esp. Ps. 17-18. •"' I'. 367, n. i.
44 THE POLITICAL MESSIAH
of course, true that they belong to a period
a hundred years before Christ's ministry, but
that does not affect their value as proving
the survival of the earthly and political element
after the eschatological conception had arisen.
(3) As Schweitzer himself points out, " Mark,
Matthew, and Paul are the best sources for
the Jewish eschatology of the time of Jesus."1
In the same way, the New Testament as a
whole, with which for our present purpose we
may couple Josephus, will be our best authority
for the nature of the Messianic hope of His
day. There is no doubt that in the first
century A.D. there existed among the Jews a
strong political and revolutionary element,
eager for revolt against Roman oppression,
and anticipating an earthly dominion for the
nation. The Zealots, the frequent rebellions,
the attempts to make our Lord King, and
His execution as a claimant to the throne, are
sufficient proofs of this. It is true that it is
a question how far the revolutionary move
ments were directly connected with the
Messianic hope, but they show that there
was an inflammable material, which the appear
ance of a Messiah would have quickly kindled
into flame. It is really incredible that the
nationalist party could have entirely abandoned
1 P. 366.
THE NATIONALIST ELEMENT 45
to the eschatologists an asset so valuable as
that of the Messianic kingdom. No doubt
the outlook of the average Jew embraced
both conceptions, and he would not have been
careful to reconcile their contradictions. In
Dr. Sanday's phrase, "from the time of the
Maccabees to the time of Barcochba there
was a Messianic background — or something
like it — to every popular movement that
swept over Palestine." And as he points
out,2 Josephus connects the Jewish war with
the Messianic hope, when he speaks of the
influence of the ambiguous oracle that "about
that time one from their country should become
governor of the habitable earth."3
It is, then, fairly clear that Schweitzer has
no right to say that our choice must lie
between the acceptance of the purely eschato-
logical conception of the Messiahship, and the
stroking out of the Messianic claim as un-
historical. It is still possible to believe that
Jesus may have said or implied, " I am Messiah,
but not the Messiah of your popular expecta
tion " ; there were elements which He may
after all have wished to spiritualise.4 We
must consider in this connection the nature
and purpose of the "Messianic secret" of
1 Op. cit. p. 8 1. 2 Ibid. p. 100. 3 B.J. vi. v. 4.
4 Does not the narrative of the Temptation imply this ?
46 THE POLITICAL MESSIAH
Jesus. Schweitzer rightly makes much of this,
and perhaps one of the most valuable features
of his book is the emphasis with which he has
stated the view that Jesus did not openly
claim to be Messiah, and was not publicly
recognised as such till the end. But our
o
acceptance of this Messianic secret as a clue
to the life of Jesus does not commit us to
the whole eschatological position. Indeed, in
Schweitzer's pages we are completely be
wildered by Jesus' attitude towards His
Messiahship and His secret. We remember
that He was by no means pleased at Peter's
confession at Caesarea. Why, then, did He
ask the question which led up to it ? Why
is He continually, in Schweitzer's phrase,
"playing with His secret"? He nearly
betrays it when in the hearing of the multi
tude He identifies the Baptist with Elias ; He
"plays with His Messianic self-consciousness
before their eyes " in the entry into Jerusalem,
in the question about the Davidic Sonship of
the Messiah, and on other occasions. Unless
all this has a serious purpose, it seems trivial,
and unworthy of a man with a solemn mission.
Was it, or was it not, advisable that the
people should know that He was the Messiah
of the future ? We remember that there is
no question now of elevating or purifying
THE MESSIANIC SECRET 47
their ideas ; Jesus is supposed simply to have
adopted the current belief as He found it,
adding to it His conviction of the extreme
nearness of the kingdom, and the identifica
tion of Himself with the Son of Man. We
are told that He wished to provoke the
Pharisees to put Him to death. Then why
not declare openly and at once the secret,
the betrayal of which ultimately led to His
condemnation ? If, on the other hand, He
wished to avoid death, or at any rate death
on this charge, what was His object in trifling
with this solemn mystery, and incurring un
necessary risks of discovery ? Apparently
the only answer Schweitzer would give is
that we are dealing with " an incalculable
personality."
But on the ordinary view the purpose of the
Messianic secret is intelligible. Jesus did wish
to declare Himself as Messiah, but not to be
regarded as the Messiah of popular expectation.
There were, in fact, elements in the current
belief which He desired to eliminate, or
spiritualise; and He realised that if His claim
were widely known, it might be made the
excuse for political agitation. There is therefore
something which He can reveal only to those
who have ears to hear, to those who can
interpret the mystery aright. He does not
48
play with His secret purposelessly, but treats it
in the only way the conditions of the case will
allow. He was Messiah in a sense which
embraced all that was worth preserving both in
the political and in the eschatological conception,
but which was identical with neither. And
when He does reveal His secret, whether to
His disciples or his enemies, though the
Parousia is future, His claim is to be already
the Christ.
We suggest, then, that the denial of a political
element in the Messianic hope of Jesus' day is
not justified by the available evidence, and that
it makes the reserve with which He veiled His
Messianic claim purposeless and unintelligible.
And once this is admitted, a great part of
Schweitzer's criticism of current views of the
life of Christ loses all its force.
CHAPTER V.
THE ESCHATOLOGY OF JESUS.
IT may be said that the foregoing criticisms,
whether valid or not, at any rate affect only
the details of the eschatological theory. No
doubt this is partly true; but it will not be
denied that some at least of these details, and
particularly the question as to the "political
Messiah," are of considerable importance.
And it is always wise to test the details of a
hypothesis, so long as we do not concentrate our
attention too exclusively on subsidiary points
and forget the main thesis, by the soundness of
which the hypothesis must ultimately be judged.
We have already stated this central thesis. & It
is that the mind of Jesus was dominated through
out by the belief that the end of the woHd
was to come immediately, the kingdom to be
established supernaturally in place of the
existing world-order, and He Himself to be
revealed on the clouds of heaven as the Son
of Man. It is admitted that this conception
has been to some extent obscured in our
50 THE ESCHATOLOGY O^ JESUS
existing authorities, but it is claimed that its
workings can be clearly traced a little way
below the surface, and that it is the key, the
one and only key, to the right understanding
of the life and teaching of Jesus, both in outline
and in details.
It will be well, first of all, to emphasise the
fact that Schweitzer's view is absolutely uncom
promising and thoroughgoing. The require
ments of the eschatological position are not
satisfied by those who hold that the expectation
of the Parousia was a more or less subsidiary
feature in the teaching of our Lord and the hope
of the Early Church. There is all the difference
in the world between the view that such a
belief was somewhere in the background,
occasionally protruding itself in a way which
was never quite harmonised with the general
tenor of Jesus' life and teaching, and
Schweitzer's view that it was all and everything.
He is himself very ready with his criticism of
such a view as that of Keim's, who admits the
eschatological element, but practically allows
it to be cancelled by the spiritual.1 And he
would undoubtedly ask that his theory should
either be accepted practically as it stands, or
else rejected in toto. He is not one who would
be content with compromise, or acquiesce in
1 P. 213.
THE UNCOMPROMISING THEORY 51
conciliatory conferences, wherein he and his
opponents might find a common basis of
agreement. No doubt we ourselves may feel
that even if we are unable to follow him all the
way, we have learnt much from his presentation
of the Gospel story, and that what we have
learnt will modify, and even modify profoundly,
our reading of certain features in the life of
Christ. But such a partial and carefully
guarded assent will not make us " eschato-
logists" in Schweitzer's eyes. His watchword
is "thorough." It is the thoroughness of
Johannes Weiss1 which arouses all his enthu
siasm. " At last there is an end of ' qualifying
clause' theology, of the 'and yet,' the 'on the
other hand,' the 'notwithstanding.' The reader
had to follow the others step by step, making
his way over every foot-bridge and gang-plank
which they laid down, following all the
meanderings in which they indulged, and must
never let go their hands if he wished to come
safely through the labyrinth of spiritual and
eschatological ideas which they supposed to be
found in the thought of Jesus. In Weiss there
are none of these devious paths : ' Behold the
land lies before thee.' ' Weiss forces us to
1 Die Predigijesu Vom Reiche Gottes. The eulogy applies to
the ist ed. (1892). The 2nd and enlarged ed. (1900) shows,
alas ! " a weakening of the eschatological standpoint."
52 THE ESCHATOLOGY OF JESUS
choose between the alternatives " either eschato-
logical or non-eschatological. Progress always
consists in taking one or other of two
alternatives, in abandoning the attempt to
combine them. The pioneers of progress have
therefore always to reckon with the law of
mental inertia which manifests itself in the
majority — who always go on believing that it
is possible to combine that which can no longer
be combined, and, in fact, claim it as a special
merit that they, in contrast with the ' one-sided '
writers, can do justice to the other side of the
question." l
The quotation is a significant indication of
the writer's temper of mind. No doubt such
an attitude has its value, in that it forces us to
face facts, and will not allow us to cry peace,
when critically there can be no peace. -But as
applied to the Gospels, surely it carries its own
condemnation with it. If there is one thing
1 P. 237. After writing the above, I was very glad to see a
paper by Dr. Percy Gardner (Expository Times, September
1910), in which he makes the same quotation from Schweitzer,
and emphasises very forcibly the criticism which it suggests.
" Systems of such extreme simplicity and logicality have draw
backs. They sometimes make up for the triumph of massacring
buts and notwithstandings, and marching straight to their end,
by outraging common sense, and constructing a house of cards
which, however fine to look at, will not resist a breath of wind.
If their principle is faulty, their consistency only makes them
the easier to refute."
MANYSIDEDNESS OF THE GOSPELS 53
clear about the career and teaching of Jesus, it
is that we have to deal with a most complicated
phenomenon, complicated on its literary,
historical, and psychological sides. The palace
of truth which the student of the Gospels seeks
to enter has many mansions, and we may be
quite sure that no one key will fit them all.
If we are to do justice to the manysidedness
of the Gospels, we cannot dispense with our
"qualifying clauses" and our " notwithstand
ing^," however praiseworthy and heroic be
the effort to do so.
And it may be said with confidence that
nowhere is the compromising and cautious
spirit of the "on the other hand" theology
more necessary than when we are dealing with
the eschatological teaching of the Gospels. It
is impossible to deny that there are expressions
in the New Testament, and the Synoptic
Gospels, and even in the reported words of
Christ Himself, which imply that the end of the
world was expected very soon. We have no
right to gloss or explain away the clear historical
meaning of such passages. It is one of the
great merits of Schweitzer's book that he has
o
forced us to face this side of New Testament
teaching, and to face it squarely and honestly.
But because we admit this, we are not bound
to shut our eyes to all else in the Gospels ; nor
54 THE ESCHATOLOGY OF JESUS
is it scientific to compile for ourselves a marked
New Testament with the eschatological passages
underlined in red ink, assuming at once " Lo
here, and nowhere else, is the pith of Christ's
teaching." In fact, we even have to have
recourse to " notwithstandings."
There are indeed three qualifying considera
tions to be borne in mind, (i) We have no
right to assume that Christ's apocalyptic
language is always to be interpreted in its
crudest and most literal sense. This is indeed
a side of the question where it is peculiarly
difficult to find the right balance. The con
ventional exegesis of the Gospels has spiritual
ised and allegorised to such an extent that we
feel uneasily that all contact with the historical
sense has been lost. The reaction has come,
and now everything must be interpreted as
baldly and literally as possible, and this when
we are dealing with the sayings of an Oriental,
and of the greatest religious genius of the world.
"For Jesus," says Father Tyrrell, "what we
call His apocalyptic 'imagery' was no mere
imagery, but literal fact." If we spiritualise, or
even admit the presence of a metaphorical
element, we are met with the charge of
"modernising." Yet, as Professor Dobschiitz1
1 Expositor, March 1910, p. 209.
APOCALYPTIC LANGUAGE 55
points out, we cannot interpret our Lord's
language with regard to feasting in the kingdom
of God in a crudely realistic sense. And there
are the well-known passages where the kingdom
seems to be spoken of as inward and present,
and therefore in a more or less figurative sense.
It is true these may be explained away one by
one with some degree of probability, just as the
eschatological sayings may be spiritualised, if
we take them singly. But in each case we
must look at the group of related passages as a
whole ; and if we do this, we shall find it very
difficult consistently to adopt a purely literal
interpretation of Christ's teaching about the
kingdom.1 Again, with regard to Mt io23
("Ye shall not have gone over the cities of
Israel," etc.), of which, as we saw,2 Schweitzer
makes so much, it is clear that the Evangelist
himself, even if he understood the saying es-
chatologically, yet did not take it in its baldest
sense. Had he done so, he would hardly have
recorded it, after it had been so obviously falsified.
And an interpretation which was possible for the
Evangelist, cannot have been apriori impossible
for Christ Himself. We appeal to the parallel
1 It is important to remember that in Jewish thought the
kingdom (Malkuth") had a very spiritual side. In meant the
sovereignty of God which was to be established in the hearts of
an obedient people, though, of course, it had other aspects.
2 See above, p. 17.
56 THE ESCHATOLOGY OF JESUS
case of St. Paul, who, in spite of his undoubted
eschatological beliefs, spiritualises the concep
tion of the kingdom. "The kingdom of God
is not eating and drinking, but righteousness
and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost."1 We
have no right to assume that all that was
spiritual and inward lay beyond the range of
our Lord's thought. And once we admit a
figurative element in some of His eschatological
language, it becomes simply a question of in
terpretation (no doubt a peculiarly difficult
question) how far it is to be extended.
But one point in this connection is perhaps
clear. Making full allowance for the fore
shortening, and loss of perspective, which are
characteristic of prophecy, we cannot cling to
the idea that everything is literal in our Lord's
prediction of the end, except its immediacy.
"The view commonly held by most Christians,
that our Lord promised to return on earth at a
far distant date unknown to Himself, does not
seem to have any support in the New Testa
ment. The day and hour, we read, were un
known ; but the predictions, as they stand in
our documents, clearly assert that the return, or
coming, of the Son of Man was imminent."1
We can hardly suppose that Christ was
1 Ro I417 ; cf. the article of Dr. Gardner, referred to above.
2 Dr. Inge, "Sermon," in the Guardian, I3th May 1910.
GROWTH OF APOCALYPTIC ELEMENT 57
speaking figuratively when He spoke of the
time of His return, and literally when He
spoke of its manner. If we spiritualise "this
generation," we must spiritualise the clouds of
heaven and the trumpet.
(2) If our Lord did to some extent use the
conventional language in a more or less sym
bolical sense, His followers may well have
continued to interpret it literally ; and if He
uttered any eschatological sayings, they may
have added to their number.1 The strength of
<_?
the eschatological belief in the Early Church is
probably sufficient proof that He did to some
extent countenance it. On the other hand, the
very popularity and prevalence of apocalyptic
ideas in the first century, a point on which so
much stress is laid, and the fact that men
readily have recourse to them in a time of
spiritual excitement, combine to increase the
probability that an undue emphasis may have
been laid on this element of our Lord's teaching.
It is usually believed that we have an instance
of this tendency in the " Little Apocalypse" of
1 Dr. Sanday was at one time, at any rate, inclined to this
view, at least with regard to the Gospel predictions of the near
ness of the Parousia. See article "Jesus Christ" (Hastings'
DB. ii. p. 635). There are three questions which should be
carefully distinguished: (i) How far was the current apoca
lyptic language generally interpreted crudely and literally?
(2) In what sense did our Lord use it ? (3) What meaning
did the Evangelists attach to it ?
Mk 13 and parallels. "The kingdom of God
come with power " of Mk 9* becomes, in Mt
i628, " The Son of Man coming in His kingdom,"
the eschatological colouring being thus empha
sised. Where in Lk 646 we have the simple
saying, "Why call ye Me, Lord, Lord, and do
not the things which I say ? " in Mt fl we find,
"Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord,
shall enter into the kingdom of heaven," the
"in that day" of the next verse strengthening
the eschatological reference.1 Generally speak
ing, the first Gospel is much the most " eschato
logical," and the third the most "spiritual," the
second standing about midway between them.
We have seen that Schweitzer practically ignores
St. Luke. The question arises whether the
eschatology has been over-emphasised in St.
Matthew, or overlaid in St. Luke. The
answer may not be easy, but we have no
right to assume at once that what most of
us would regard as the lower point of view
must be nearer to the original teaching of
Jesus.2
1 Cf. Dobschiitz, loc. cit.
2 The Fourth Gospel spiritualises the whole idea of the
Parousia, a fact which may remind us that such a conception is,
at any rate, no "modernism." Weiss (pp. cit. pp. 60 ff.) taunts
Wellhausen (who adopts the spiritual view) with taking refuge
in this Gospel. But is not this a case in which the later writer,
though furthest from the ipsissima verba of Jesus, may yet be
the truest interpreter of His spirit ?
SUBORDINATION OF ESCHATOLOGY 59
(3) Let us grant that the eschatological
sayings of the Gospels are all authentic, and
are to be interpreted in the literal sense. Even
then we may claim that this element is not pre
dominant ; it is rather secondary and in the
background. Once more St. Paul supplies us
with an instructive analogy. St. Paul's belief
(at any rate at one period of his life) in an
immediate Parousia is even more certain than
Christ's ; we have his own words at first-hand.
Yet surely no one can maintain that the
eschatological idea is with him central and
all-pervading. It never, so far as we can see,
seriously affected his practical policy, which
was to spread the kingdom of God, or the
Church, upon earth here and now, as a new
power in the midst of existing society ; it but
seldom affected his ethical teaching ; l and
though it is an element in his doctrine, yet
there are many and important sides of this
which are worked out quite independently of
eschatology. What has the thought of an im
mediate Parousia to do with his view of the
Atonement or justification, his Christology, or
later doctrine of the Church ? And if St. Paul's
belief in eschatology left room, no doubt some
what inconsistently, for other ideas, it is rash
to deny that the same may have been the case
1 I Co 7 is a probable exception.
60 THE ESCHATOLOGY OF JESUS
with Jesus. The parallel shows that the
" eschatologist " is not always consistent and
thoroughgoing ; he may have other sides to
his character and message.1
Once more we repeat that the immediate
question before us is not whether Jesus believed
in the nearness of the end, but whether this
belief had the paramount importance which
Schweitzer claims for it. That it had not, is
proved by the direct evidence of the Gospels,
which contain much that can only be interpreted
eschatologically by a tour de force. This
becomes almost self-evident when we pass to
the ethics of Jesus. Is it really possible to
reduce all that is authentic and important in
His teaching to an Interimsethik* appropriate
only to the short and peculiar period interven
ing before the end? It may, no doubt, be
claimed that such a view throws light on
certain sayings. "Take no thought for the
1 Cf. Dr. Gardner, loc. cit. " Alas for St. Paul ! He does not
understand the conditions of German criticism. He weakly
speaks of the kingdom as future, and at the same time as
present. He falls into the snare of but and notwithstanding.
He even dares, in company with all the great leaders in the
history of the world, to be inconsistent, and to direct his
writings rather to the building up of a Church, and the salva
tion of his hearers, than to the formulation of a thoroughly
thought-out system of interdependent propositions."
2 See above, p. 14. Weiss (pp. cit. pp. 148 ff.) bravely tries
to show that the command to love one's enemies is essentially
eschatological !
THE INTERIMSETH1K 61
morrow " : providence is superfluous in view of
the approaching end; "away with your cloak
and coat " : you will not need them for long ;
"hate father and mother": family ties are
soon to be superseded. But it is impossible
to work out the idea consistently. As we saw,
an extreme predestinarianism has to be invoked
in order to make it even superficially probable,
— a predestinarianism which even claims the
Beatitudes for its own ! It is significant that
the English exponents of Schweitzer's view
have not given any very great prominence to
this particular element of the theory ; very few,
in fact, will be found to take it seriously. But
Schweitzer is right from his own standpoint
in working it to its utmost limits. For, as he
tells us again and again, and as Tyrrell repeats
after him, Jesus was not a great moral teacher.
By discovering predestinarianism everywhere,
he comes very near to proving this. For there
is not much danger of our finding an ideal system
of ethics in the words of one who taught that
a poor wretch was to be cast ignominiously
from the banquet of the kingdom, simply
because he was not predestined thereto, quite
apart from any moral disqualification, or that
another who had turned his back on his
duty, might yet secure his place without any
question of conversion, if it should turn out
62 THE ESCHATOLOGY OF JESUS
that the all - powerful will of God had so
determined.1
If, however, we refuse to read this pre-
destinarianism into the most straightforward
passages, Jesus remains the great moral teacher
the world has always considered Him, and His
teaching is certainly not that of an out and
out eschatologist. " When we recall the pre
vailing tone of ethical teaching, and still more
the habitual attitude of the Teacher to the
world in which He found Himself, it is difficult
to see in it a predominating quality of indiffer
ence to the world's affairs, or a complete
preoccupation with a supernatural catastrophe.
On the contrary, the ethics of Jesus exhibit on
the whole a kind of sanity, universality, and
applicability, which are independent of abnormal
circumstances, and free from emotional strain.
There is nothing apocalyptic in the parable of
the Good Samaritan, or in the appropriation
by Jesus of the two great commandments, or
in the prayer for to-day's bread and the
forgiveness of trespasses, or in the praise of
peace-making or of purity of heart. Yet in
these, and not in the mysterious prophecies of
1 It may not be superfluous to refer the reader to the quota
tions given above on pp. 15 f., in order that he may assure him
self that this outline is not, as might be readily imagined,
exaggerated.
ETHICS AND ESCHATOLOGY 63
an approaching desolation, the conscience of
the world has found its Counsellor and
Guide."1
It is indeed almost incredible that the
"moralism of the Gospels" should be, in
Tyrrell's phrase, "incidental," and that the
appeal which Christ has made to the world as
a great moral teacher should be the result of
an accident, of the persistent misinterpretation
of His sayings, or of additions made to them
in our Gospels. He did, in fact, lay down
principles which were to govern life lived in
a world much the same as that He Himself
knew, only marked by an increasing sense of
the nearness and love of God. Perhaps He
did expect that the end was soon to come ; no
doubt His outlook was "other-worldly," and
His followers are encouraged to fix their hopes
on "the good time coming" ; but the point to
be emphasised is that when He speaks about
Fatherhood and Sonship, God's gift of love
and man's duty of love, about forgiveness and
salvation, service and humility, He is not, as a
rule, speaking of the end at all. He speaks
timelessly and absolutely, and what He says is
as applicable, and has been found as applicable,
1 Peabody, " New Testament Eschatology and Ethics "
(Transactions of the Third International Congress of the
History of Religions ^ ii. p. 309).
64 THE ESCHATOLOGY OF JESUS
with no undue straining of meaning, to a world
that lasts for centuries, as to one that was to
pass away in a few months.
There is, then, good reason to believe that
Schweitzer's single key will not fit all the doors,
even if it fits any of them. It is, as we have
seen, doubtful whether his view does justice
to the eschatological passages themselves ; it
certainly does not do justice to the other sides
of the character and teaching of Christ, as we
find them in the Gospels.
J. Weiss has indeed admitted1 that the
eschatological point of view is not consistently
maintained by our Lord ; He does sometimes
"seek to improve and help [the world], as
though it were destined to continue." But it
o
is not superfluous to point out that the theories
of the Interimsetkik and Predestinarianism
cannot be quietly dropped as excrescences.
They are essential to the consistency of the
eschatological hypothesis. If they are re
moved, we can believe once more that Jesus
did deliberately set Himself to save and reform
the world as it is, and not merely to proclaim
its immediate disappearance. The fact is that
the sense of the nearness of the end is, as
Harnack points out, an element in the preach-
ino- of most reformers at a time of crisis. But
t>
1 Op. cit. pp. I34ff.
ETHICS AND ESCHATOLOGY 65
it is only the fanatic who applies it with a
narrow, logical consistency to the exclusion of
every other point of view. We have every
right in the case of our Lord to refuse to be
tied down to the final choice between " eschato-
logical" and " non-eschatological." We reply
boldly and unblushingly that we will have
both. And if a difficulty arises from admitting
the existence of a certain amount of inconsist
ency between the two sides, that difficulty is
theological, not psychological or historical.
CHAPTER VI.
THE JESUS OF ESCHATOLOGY.
IF Schweitzer is convinced that the eschato-
logical idea was the predominating influence in
the mind of Jesus, he is no less convinced that
the future of religion is bound up with its dis
appearance. " The whole history of Chris
tianity down to the present day, that is to say,
the real inner history of it, is based on the
delay of the Parousia, the non-occurrence of
the Parousia, the abandonment of eschatology,
the progress and completion of the ' de-eschato-
logising ' of religion which has been connected
therewith."1 "The tragedy does not consist
in the modification of primitive Christianity by
eschatology, but in the fate of eschatology
itself, which has preserved for us all that is
most precious in Jesus, but must itself wither,
because He died upon the Cross with a loud
cry, despairing of bringing in the new heaven
and the new earth — that is the real tragedy.
And not a tragedy to be dismissed with a
1 P. 358.
66
THE PASSING OF ESCHATOLOGY 67
theologian's sigh, but a liberating and life-
giving influence, like every great tragedy. For
in its death-pangs eschatology bore to the
Greek genius a wonder-child, the mystic,
sensuous, Early-Christian doctrine of immor
tality, and consecrated Christianity as the re
ligion of immortality to take the place of the
slowly dying civilisation of the ancient world."1
It is indeed admitted that the problem of how
this exclusive system of eschatology developed
into a world-wide religion has as yet been
"hardly recognised, much less grappled with.
The few who since Weiss' time have sought
to pass over from the life of Jesus to early
Christianity, have acted like men who find
themselves on an ice-floe which is slowly
dividing into two pieces, and who leap from
one to the other before the cleft grows too
wide."; But it is worth while noting the para
doxical character of the position. It implies
that the success of Christianity has depended
on the gradual elimination of that which was
primary and central in the mind of its founder.
Both Schweitzer and Tyrrell emphasise the
fact that this view does away with the neces
sity of postulating an immediate deterioration,
by which primitive Christianity fell away at
once from its supposed original purity and per-
1 P. 254. 2 p. 252.
68 THE JESUS OF ESCHATOLOGY
fection. No doubt this is true; but, as we
have already remarked,1 the result is attained
at the expense of Jesus Himself. We might
lessen the gap between Shakespeare and his
successors by depreciating his work in every
possible way, and assigning large sections of
it to unknown writers of a later period ; but
literature would not gain much by the process,
and we should only have succeeded in lowering
the world's estimate of Shakespeare. The
fact is that in religion as in art, the disciple is
not above his master ; the genius reaches at
a bound heights which later generations can
hardly hope to keep. The theory of a "fall"
from the original purity of Christ's teaching is,
in fact, in accordance with all analogies, and
only emphasises the uniqueness of the Founder
of the new religion.
We have touched on a question which leads
to our final and most serious criticism. What
sort of Christ does eschatotogy give us ?
Schweitzer concludes with a somewhat curious
and enigmatic chapter, entitled " Results." He
seems to realise that his "historical Jesus"
will be a stumbling-block to many. " He will
not be a Jesus Christ to whom the religion of
the present can ascribe, according to its long-
cherished custom, its own thoughts and ideas,
1 See above, p. 38.
THE HISTORICAL JESUS AN ENIGMA 69
as it did with the Jesus of its own making.
Nor will it be a figure that can be made by a
popular historical treatment so sympathetic and
universally intelligible to the multitude. The
historical Jesus will be to our time a stranger
and an enigma." " We are experiencing what
Paul experienced. In the very moment when
we were coming nearer to the historical Jesus
than men had ever come before and were
already stretching out our hands to draw Him
into our own time, we have been obliged to
give up the attempt and acknowledge our
failure in that paradoxical saying : 'If we
have known Christ after the flesh, yet hence
forth know we Him no more.' And further,
we must be prepared to find that the historical
knowledge of the personality and life of Jesus
will not be a help, but perhaps even an offence
to religion. ":
But he finds his compensation in the thought
of the " mighty spiritual force [which] streams
forth from Him and flows through our time
also. ... It is the solid foundation of Christian
ity." 3 Eschatology, he maintains, has thrown
into clear relief the utter contrast between the
modern world-affirming spirit and His world-
negating spirit. "Why spare the spirit of the
individual man its appointed task of fighting
1 P. 396. 2 P. 399. a P. 397-
70 THE JESUS OF ESCHATOLOGY
its way through the world-negation of Jesus,
of contending with Him at every step over
the value of material and intellectual goods—
a conflict in which it may never rest ? For the
general, for the institutions of society, the rule
is : affirmation of the world, in conscious op
position to the view of Jesus, on the ground
that the world has affirmed itself ! This general
affirmation of the world, however, if it is to
be Christian, must in the individual spirit be
Christianised and transfigured by the personal
rejection of the world which is preached in the
sayings of Jesus." He came indeed to send
on earth not peace, but a sword. " He was
not a teacher, not a casuist ; He was an im
perious ruler. ... He comes to us as One
unknown, without a name, as of old by the
lake-side He came to those men who knew
Him not. He speaks to us the same word :
' Follow thou Me,' and sets us to the tasks
which He has to fulfil for our time. He com
mands. And to those who obey Him, whether
they be wise or simple, He will reveal Himself
in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which
they shall pass through in His fellowship, and
as an ineffable mystery they shall learn in their
own experience who He is."
There is no mistaking the sincere religious
1 P. 400 (the concluding paragraph of the book).
JESUS AND CHRIST 71
tone of such words, enigmatic though they are.
We must not pause to discuss how far it is
necessary to acquiesce in the somewhat desper
ate conclusion that the world as organised in
the institutions of society must always be "in
conscious opposition to the view of Jesus" — not
merely to the literal meaning of His teaching,
but to the very spirit which lies behind His
words. We have to ask rather in what relation
"the mighty spiritual force" of Christ stands
to the historical Jesus of eschatology. We
might fairly raise the crucial question of the
Resurrection, of which Schweitzer has nothing
to tell us ; but this is not a difficulty peculiar to
the eschatologist, and it is discussed at length
elsewhere in these pages.1 It will, however, be
sufficient to refer to the portrait of Jesus in the
days of His flesh, as it appears painted by the
brush of the eschatologist. We see One whose
whole life was based on a fundamental error,
whose every action and word were dictated
by His all-absorbing belief in the nearness of
the end, whose knowledge and will were
thwarted by predestinarianism, who asked
with regard to each one He met whether he
was sealed according to the predestination of
God. We find Him forcing facts to fit the
framework of His eschatological theory, and
1 See below, " Loisy's View of the Resurrection."
72 THE JESUS OF ESCHATOLOGY
"almost cursing with cruel harshness" the
Apostle who had ventured to speak about His
death. He plans to "provoke the Pharisees
and the rulers that they will be compelled to
get rid of Him," and "plays with His secret"
aimlessly and purposelessly. He dies upon the
Cross with a cry of despair at the failure of
His hopes ; and the future of the religion,
which paradoxically enough has based itself on
Him, has depended on the elimination of that
which He counted most dear and important.
Expressions such as visionary, or fanatic, come
readily to the pen, and they are not a whit too
strong. The picture Schweitzer has drawn is
not one-sided ; it is a caricature.
The question may fairly be raised how far
the repellent traits of this portrait are to be
regarded as accidental, and how far they are
inherent in the presuppositions of the eschato-
logical theory. The answer is to be found in
Tyrrell's pages. His Christ of Eschatology is
but little more attractive than Schweitzer's,
though the more brutal touches are omitted.
Tone down the harsher colours as we will, it
seems impossible that a Jesus dominated by
an error and living for an illusion can ever
retain the reverence of the world. The retort
will, no doubt, be made that in saying this we
are only confessing our own modernity ; we
THE MYSTERY OF HIS PERSON 73
are refusing to leave Jesus in His own age.
Our reply must be that He does in fact belong
to every age. It is one thing to admit that He
did to some extent share the beliefs of His
time, while rising far above them in all that is
of the essence of religion. It is quite another
to find the all-absorbing interest, and the
motive power of His life, in a single peculiar,
and not very spiritual, class of Jewish ideas.
It may, of course, be said that, at any rate,
eschatology does not give us a merely human
Jesus ; it tells us of One who claimed from the
first to be the Danielic Son of Man, a Divine,
pre-existent Being. No doubt it is of this that
Dr. Sanday is thinking when he says that
Schweitzer "does not, 'like so many critics,
seek to reduce the Person of Christ to the
common measures of humanity, but leaves it
at the transcendental height at which he finds
it." l Eschatology certainly emphasises the fact,
which is coming to be recognised more and
more from other points of view, that even the
Synoptists do not set before us a merely human
teacher or prophet, and that Christology is not
a late and mistaken development. It ascribes
to Jesus Himself the claim to be more than
man. But at what cost, and under what
conditions? It regards His claim to be the
1 Op. at. p. 88.
74 THE JESUS OF ESCHATOLOGY
Son of Man as inseparably bound up with His
belief in the nearness of the end, and the
Parousia on the clouds of heaven. To the
eschatologist the one belief is as central and
important as the other.1 If, then, the one-half
of Jesus' claim has been completely falsified,
is it likely that the world will readily accept
the other ? The cogency of the dilemma aut
Deus aut homo non bonus has hitherto rested
on the reluctance of mankind to accept the
second alternative ; it has clung to the belief
that Jesus is at least the perfect example.
Can this be any longer said of the Jesus of
eschatology ?
Can we really reverence such a figure ?
And can we conceive how "a mighty spiritual
force " can have flowed from it for the
regeneration of the world ? It will hardly
be maintained that this is in fact the Christ
who has won the admiration and love of the
1 Schweitzer himself seems to recognise this. " The ' Son of
Man' was buried in the ruins of the falling eschatological
world ; there remained alive only Jesus ' the Man ' " (p. 284).
"The names in which men expressed their recognition of Him
as such \sc. authoritative ruler], Messiah, Son of Man, Son of
God, have become for us historical parables. We can find no
designation which expresses what He is for us "(p. 401). " The
kingdom of heaven ; His own Christhood ; the temporal
immediacy of the End, were the three organic constituents of
the Apocalypse of Jesus. Of these the last was in some sense
principal in point of motive, power, and inspiration" (Tyrrell,
op. cit. p. 172).
A ONE-SIDED PORTRAIT 75
ages. Schweitzer indeed admits that He will'
not be readily understood or "popular." And
yet we remember that when He was on earth
" the common people heard Him gladly," and
that the simple and unlearned were invited to
come to Him and learn His secret. And this
may remind us for our comfort that the Christ
of eschatology, if He is not the Christ which
Christianity has known, is not after all the
Christ of the Gospels either. He is, as we
have seen, not even the Christ of the purely
eschatological passages, unless we insist on
interpreting them in their narrowest and most
crudely realistic sense. And when we pass
to other elements in the narrative, elements
which, as a whole, we have no reason for
rejecting as unhistorical, the one-sidedness
of the portrait becomes still more apparent.
What has become of the teaching about the
universal Fatherhood of God and His loving
care, which embraces this world as it is as
well as the next? The hope of the Jewish
Apocalypses is frankly based on despair of
this world as altogether given over to the Evil
One. God has practically failed in it, and a
new world must be called in to atone for that
failure. Where can we find this pessimism in
the preaching of Jesus? Does lie not accept
and rejoice in all that is pure and lovely in
76 THE JESUS OF ESCHATOLOGY
Nature and in home-life as the gifts of the
same Father? He came eating and drinking,
sharing the innocent pleasures of a simple
society, sympathising with the joys and
sorrows of man as He found him.1 This is
hardly the attitude of one whose single
message was the passing away of all such
things. The teaching about forgiveness as
seen in the parable of the Prodigal Son, or
about the love of the Shepherd seeking the lost
sheep, is not what we should expect from a
thoroughgoing predestinarian. When Jesus
spoke of the duty of service, as in the parables
of the Good Samaritan or the Sheep and Goats,
of the taking up of the Cross and the losing
of life for His sake, was He really only thinking
of principles which were to be valid, and in
practice, for a few months ? For we remember
that " there is for Jesus no ethic of the
kingdom of God." " To serve, to humble
oneself, to incur persecution and death, belong
to the ethic of the interim just as much as
does penitence."1 Are we really "creating a
Christ in our own likeness," when we attribute
to His conscious purpose the enunciation of
1 Bousset has specially emphasised the "joy of life" found in
Jesus' teaching, arguing that this is quite incompatible with the
eschatological theory.
2 P. 364.
A REDUCED CHRISTIANITY 77
those timeless principles of religion and
morality which are in no way the discovery
of modern German criticism, but have been in
truth the inspiration of Christianity from the
beginning ?
Schweitzer and Tyrrell compare the Christ
of eschatology with the Christ of liberal, or
protestant, German criticism, and pour unlimited
scorn on the latter. No doubt such critics as
Harnack and Bousset do give us what Dr.
Sanday has called " a reduced Christianity."
But it is a Christianity which is true as far it
goes, and it is something on which we can
build. They portray for us a Christ whom we
can unreservedly admire and love, even if it is
a little doubtful whether logically we ought to
worship Him. The Jesus of eschatology it is
difficult either to admire or to love ; worship
Him we certainly cannot.
II
M. LOISY AND THE GOSPEL STORY
79
II.
M. LOISY AND THE GOSPEL STORY.
THE publication of Loisy's Les Evangiles
Synoptiques1 coincided with the wave of ex
citement which accompanied their distinguished
author's excommunication, and the Modernist
controversy as a whole. The sympathies of
English students could only be on one side,
and these extraneous and accidental circum
stances made it difficult to appraise dispassion
ately the value of Loisy's commentary. By
now, perhaps, the halo of martyrdom is a little
less dazzling to our eyes, and it is more possible
to examine the books in the light of common
day. No one can refuse to acknowledge their
exhaustive and scholarly treatment of their
subject, or the lucidity and charm of their style,
but there can be no doubt that to most readers
they have proved a disappointment. When
critics of the calibre of Sanday, Salmon,
Ramsay, Burkitt, Allen, and Harnack had
done so much to vindicate the general historical
1 At the close of 1908.
82 M. LOISY AND THE GOSPEL STORY
accuracy of the Gospels, we seemed to be
moving towards something of a fixed position
in their criticism, but here the whole question
is thrown back indefinitely. With Loisy in
one's mind, it is possible on hardly any point
to speak of "the unanimity of modern critics,"
and it is safe to say that the Gospels have
never received more drastic treatment from
one who stood within the pale of historic
Christianity.
Now the two volumes which comprise the
commentary are somewhat terrifying in size,
and probably more people are ready to talk
about them than to read them. It may, then,
be of service to attempt a sketch of Loisy 's
position at somewhat greater length than has
been possible in the ordinary reviews. For it
is well for those who defend Loisy, sometimes
with greater enthusiasm than knowledge, to
realise clearly to what they are committed.
We may sympathise with him sincerely and
respectfully in the treatment he has received,
and admire unreservedly his devotion to the
truth, but most of us will probably prefer to
pause before we accept his critical conclusions.
We need only state summarily his view of
the Gospels themselves, as helping us to under
stand his estimate of their historical value and
of their picture of Christ, which is the main
THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS 83
theme of his book. Briefly, he throws back
the three Synoptic Gospels to late dates, St.
Mark to about 75, St. Matthew and St. Luke
to at least the close of the first century. They
are not, even in part, the work of their tradi
tional authors ; and what is more important,
they are in no sense first-hand authorities.
" En ce qui concerne 1'origine des Synoptiques,
il parait certain que pas un d'eux ne repose
directement et completement sur la tradition
orale, qu'aucun d'eux n'est 1'expression im
mediate de souvenirs garde's par un temoin "
(i. p. 81). Even St. Mark, the earliest, is "une
ceuvre de second main," "une ceuvre de foi
beaucoup plus qu'un temoignage historique "
(p. 84). They are all three composite docu
ments, many stages removed from the original
facts, and have been drastically edited under
influences which we shall consider later.
Loisy's main interest with the "Synoptic
problem " is to show that neither where our
documents agree nor where they differ, can
they be regarded as resting on any sound
basis of fact.
We proceed to outline the career of Jesus
as Lcisy conceives it (i. pp. 203 ff.). The
troubled state of Palestine under Roman rule
and Herodian misgovernment had produced
a prophet. A certain John appeared preach-
84 M. LOISY AND THE GOSPEL STORY
ing the near fulfilment of the national hopes,
and the approach of the kingdom of God.
Among his hearers there found Himself, more
or less by accident, one Jesus, born at Nazareth
some thirty years before. He already, as it
seems, believed Himself to be called by God,
to be the chief agent in the proclamation of
the kingdom, and was ready, like others, to
be baptized by John. This experience deepened
the conviction of His call, and on the prophet's
imprisonment He decided to carry on his work.
He adopted the idea of the kingdom as He
found it, with its traditional Judaic setting
(i. p. 225), and the one theme of His preaching
was its imminence, together with the necessity
of repentance for those who looked for a share
in it. It meant the future rule of God and of
righteousness upon earth, inaugurated by a
resurrection, which need not be conceived of
as sweeping away the material world. " La
notion evange"lique du royaume n'est pas si
spirituelle ; les hommes qui y auront part
seront en chair et en os ; ils ne se marieront
pas, parce qu'ils seront immortels, mais ce
n'est point par pure metaphore qu'on se les
figure assembles dans un festin " (p. 238). He
Himself is to hold the chief place therein, and
in that sense He is the Christ. But He is
only the Christ of the future ; He is not so
THE CAREER OF JESUS 85
yet; hence the reticence as to His claims.
" En fait, il n'y avait pas de Messie tant qu'il
n'y avait pas de royaume " (p. 213). This is
the central idea of His conception of His
person ; titles such as "Son of God" or " Son
of Man," if used at all, were vague and general,
and of no real significance as explaining who
He was. His ethical teaching was transitory,
not having in view the normal requirements of
social life of His own or any other period, but
laying down the conditions for entrance into
the kingdom, which was soon to sweep away
the existing order of things. " Toute la morale
de 1'Evangile est done subordonne"e a la con
ception eschatologique du regne de Dieu "
(p. 236).1 This teaching was marked by a
strong independence, an originality of selection ;
also by great simplicity ; and both of these
features attracted the people. Parables or
simple metaphors played a large part in it ;
but were in no way designed to veil the truth
from the unready, as our Evangelists have
falsely imagined. Though we are told that
the first three Gospels " repr^sentent fidele-
ment la substance de 1'enseignement donn6 par
Jesus" (p. 82), yet such large deductions must
1 Loisy here seems to adopt the Interimsethik of J. Weiss
and Schweitzer ; i.e. Christ's teaching was intended only for an
interval which was expected to be short. See above, pp. 14, 60 ff.
86 M. LOISY AND THE GOSPEL STORY
be made from this admission that we wonder
where we can rely on finding the real meaning
of Jesus, let alone His exact words. The
parables have been much edited ; some are
entirely due to the Evangelists. Generally
" il est a pre"sumer que les disciples memes ne
firent jamais aucun soin pour retenir ce qu'ils
entendaient, et que leur me*moire garda seule-
ment ce qui les avait le plus frappe"s " (p. 187).
Only striking fragments remain, and of these
the meaning is often disguised by their setting
and combination. Probably none of the " words
from the Cross " are authentic (ii. p. 684). A
saying such as that of Mk Q1 (" There be
some here which shall not taste of death till
they see the kingdom of God come with
power ") is genuine because untrue ; but as
actually spoken, it was probably still more un
true, and Christ is presumed to have said,
" Those here shall not die," etc. (ii. p. 28).
We are reminded of the " foundation pillars "
of Schmiedel's article.
More or less against His will, Jesus appeared
as a worker of miracles. Here the facts have
been grossly exaggerated in our records, under
the influence of " faith," " symbolism," and so
on, and the details are quite unreliable ; but
He probably did work a certain number of
cures in nervous diseases, particularly in those
JESUS AND HIS DEATH 87
supposed to be due to demoniac possession.
A few months was enough to attract the
attention of the political authorities, Antipas
in Galilee and the ruling caste at Jerusalem,
and Jesus retired for safety to the north.
Here comes the crisis of the ministry ; the
disciples confess their belief in His Messiah-
ship, and, encouraged by this, their Master
decides to declare Himself at Jerusalem. " La
est le terme assigns' a la preparation du regne
de Dieu. Jerusalem est le passe*, la ville des
grands souvenirs ; c'est le present, le lieu des
reunions nationales ; c'est aussi 1'avenir, car
une Jerusalem nouvelle doit surgir a la place
de 1'ancienne " (i. p. 213). The decision was
dangerous, and the disciples realised it. So
did Jesus Himself. But He never lost His
faith that somehow God would intervene by
a miracle and save Him. "Jesus n'allait pas
a Jerusalem pour y mourir ; il y allait pour
pre*parer et procurer, au risque de sa vie,
1'avenement de Dieu" (p. 214). The events
of the next few days accentuated the danger,
but still there remained the hope. "Je"sus
n'avait pas laisse* de la (sc. la catastrophe]
pre"voir, mais il n'avait pas cesse* non plus
d'espe"rer le miracle" (p. 218). That indeed
was the ground of the prayer in Gethsemane.
No miracle, however, came ; He was arrested,
88 M. LOISY AND THE GOSPEL STORY
and at once hurried before Pilate, who con
demned Him to death with little hesitation as
claiming to set up a kingdom. Jesus, in fact,
could not deny the charge ; for His mission,
as He understood it, " n'e'tait pas 1'institution
d'une socie'te' spirituelle, compatible avec tous
les pouvoirs humains, c'e"tait 1'instauration
complete du regne de Dieu, a la place de la
tyrannic des hommes " (p. 221). Of the
Crucifixion practically no details are known ;
He died with some loud cry on His lips, and
was buried, probably by the soldiers, in the
common grave. " Ainsi finit le reve de
1'Evangile ; la re'alite' du regne de Dieu allait
commencer."
Not unnaturally we exclaim " how " ? For
to the historian the curious fact is that from
this career, in no way unique, hardly out of
the common, there has arisen a religion which
has dominated the civilised world, and which
still has some hold even over educated minds.
M. Loisy himself believes in it sincerely.
How then did it come about ? Apparently
because Jesus was followed by a succession of
men of spiritual power and literary genius who
proved able to develop in a most unexpected
manner a somewhat unpromising material.
A few of them are known to us by name, in
particular a certain Paul of Tarsus ; the
THE BIRTH OF CHRISTIANITY 89
majority are remembered only by fragments
of their work. They include the series of
writers to whom we owe the Gospels, the
"Christian prophets" who are responsible for
their poetry (i. p. 256), or such men as the
"croyant de genie" who has given us the
account of the Transfiguration (ii. p. 33).
The first step was soon taken. The im
pression made by Jesus on His followers was
too strong to be effaced merely by His death.
" Le travail interieur de leur ame enthousiaste
pouvait leur suggerer la vision cle ce qu'ils
souhaitaient " (i. p. 223). The wished-for
visions soon came, the earliest apparently to
Peter by the lake of Galilee, in the half-light
of the morning ; a late and artificial version of
this is preserved in Jn 21. Others followed;
and it was, of course, quite a natural thing for
simple folk to believe in a Resurrection, to
stake their lives on the fact, and to find in the
belief a force sufficient to renew the face of
the earth. " Nul ne contestait que Jesus fut
mort sur la croix. Nul ne pouvait demontrer
qu'il ne fut pas ressuscit^ " (p. 224). The need
of some proof was, however, felt later on, and
this was met in two ways. Nothing was known
of the burial of Jesus ; His friends had perhaps
tried to find His body, and their failure gave
rise to the legend of the empty tomb (i. p. 178,
90 M. LOISY AND THE GOSPEL STORY
ii. pp. 721 ff.). To the final editor of the
second Gospel this was in itself sufficient, and
he concludes his narrative with its discovery,
thinking it unnecessary to add details of any
appearances of the risen Christ. Legend soon
defined "the third day" as the date. In
popular belief the spirit haunted the body till
this time, and a resurrection afterwards would
be inconceivable. The " third day " was further
identified with the first day of the week, be
cause Christians were in the habit of meeting
together on that day, and pagan converts
naturally fixed upon it as being "the day of
the sun."1 Possibly also the influence of the
Old Testament was at work, in the parallel of
Jonah, or the "third day" of Hos 62 (i. p. 177,
ii. p. 723). Loisy forgets to remind us that
this passage is never quoted in the New
Testament.
The second proof of the Resurrection itself
was also found in the prophecies of the Old
1 This extraordinary argument should be noticed. All our
evidence shows the " first day " as established in the usage of
the Church before Gentile influence had had time to make
itself felt. No doubt later on its appropriateness as "the day
of light" was realised (e.g. by Justin), but this could hardly
have led to its choice. And to suggest that Christians fixed
on Sunday as the day of the Resurrection, because for some
unknown reason they were in the habit of observing it as a
day of worship, may well stand as a classical example of
hysteron-proteron.
PAULINISM 9 1
Testament. "II est de toute invraisemblance
que les textes de 1'Ancien Testament aient
sugge"re aux disciples de Je"sus la resurrection
de leur Maitre ; mais ce qui parait certain,
c'est que cette idee, aussitot que ne'e, chercha
son appui, sa defense, sa preuve, dans les
Ecritures, et qu'elle les y trouva" (i. p. 176).
The crucial step of a belief in the Resurrec
tion having been taken, further developments
quickly followed, particularly under the in
fluence of St. Paul. Dr. Sanday, in the
Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels (ii. p.
886), says : " We need to examine with all
the closeness in our power the nature of the
relation between St. Paul and Christ -- or,
what almost amounts to the same thing — be
tween the Epistles (as represented by their
central group) and the Gospels." But Loisy
by no means regards these two statements of
the problem as identical. For him, our Gospels
are impregnated with Paulinism, St. Mark,
the earliest, no less than the rest ; in fact,
rather more. The author was probably
"grand partisan de Paul"; "son eVangile est
une interpretation paulinienne, volontairement
paulinienne, de la tradition primitive. Son
paulinisme ne tient pas settlement a quelques
expressions, a quelques lambeaux de phrase
ou de doctrine qu'il aurait emprunte's a 1'Apotre
92 M. LOISY AND THE GOSPEL STORY
des gentils ; il est dans 1'intention generale,
dans 1'esprit, dans les idees dominantes et
dans les e'le'ments les plus caracteristiques de
son livre " (i. p. 116). It was St. Paul who
discovered a wide significance in the death of
Jesus, as "a ransom for many." It was not
so in His own view. " Je"sus a regarde" sa
mort comme possible, et, dans certain e"ven-
tualite", comme la condition providentielle du
royaume qui allait venir, mais non comme un
e'Mment ne*cessaire en soi de sa fonction
messianique ; il 1'a envisaged comme un risque
a courir, un peril a affronter, non comme
1'acte salutaire par excellence auquel devait
tendre son ministere, et duquel de"pendait
essentiellement tout 1'avenir " (i. p. 243).
Under similar influence the idea of forgive
ness of sins has been introduced into a simple
miracle, such as the healing of the sick of the
palsy, giving a new turn to the whole episode
(i. pp. 1 08, 476). It is to St. Paul that we owe
the whole narrative of the institution of the
Eucharist ; the very words of consecration are
derived from him: " Ce doit etre lui qui, le
premier, a con9u et presente la coutume
chretienne comme une institution fonde'e sur
une volonte" que Je"sus aurait exprime'e et
figuree dans la derniere cene " (ii. p. 541).
The only basis of fact was a supper held at
CHRISTOLOGY AND THE GOSPEL STORY 93
Bethany, in which Jesus promised His disciples
a share in the Messianic feast.
Under such influences the person of Jesus
assumes a new importance ; He was not merely
the Messiah of the future kingdom ; He was
Christ on earth. He becomes the incarnate
Wisdom of God ; He will appear again as
Judge. "Jesus apparait comme juge et non
comme t^moin ; il ne pre"sente pas les hommes
a son Pere ; il vient dans la gloire du Pere, et
accompagne* des anges. Cette mise en scene
apocalyptique est aussi dans le gout et les
idees de Paul " (ii. p. 26). He must then be
supposed to have known of His approaching
death and to have understood its necessity.
Prophecies of it are readily placed in His
mouth. The predictions we find in the
Gospels " sont visiblement domine'es par une
double preoccupation theologique et apolo-
getique, a savoir, montrer que le Christ avait
prevu sa fin " (ii. p. 16). He must be protected
against the carping of unbelievers ! " La
dignite du Christ est sauve"e, dans le recit de
Gethsemani, par un acte formel de resignation
a la volont6 du Pere" (i. p. 181). Generally
with regard to His knowledge of the future,
o o
" on ne se borna pas a gloser les paraboles
primitives, on en crea quelques-uns " (p. 190).
Why, then, were the Apostles so completely
94 M. LOISY AND THE GOSPEL STORY
taken by surprise ? Simply because they were
obtuse and unworthy of their Master. This
explanation has the advantage of exalting the
far-seeing (or imaginative ? ) Apostle of the
Gentiles, at the expense of his Galilsean pre
decessors. The second Gospel is dominated
by this idea ; examples may be found in the
refusal of the thrones to the two sons of
Zebedee, in the praise of the exorcist " who
follows not us," in the rebuke to Peter after
his confession1 (i. pp. 96, 117, ii. p. 20). The
"first shall be last, and the last first," is a
vindication of the position of St. Paul. We
seem to remember something of this sort in
the criticism of fifty years ago, and had
imagined it was somewhat out of date.
It remained to emphasise the sin and
unbelief of the Jewish nation in rejecting its
Christ. This result is attained not merely by
a certain heightening of the opposition between
Jesus and the Pharisees, or by an increased
stress on their hypocrisy ; the central facts
have been manipulated in a startling way. The*
whole narrative of the trial before Caiaphas is
due to a desire to transfer the guilt from the
Roman to the Jew (i. p. 181). " Le proces
devant Caiphe est une fiction apologe'tique "
1 We note that St. Matthew is supposed to be free from this
tendency (ii. p. 7) ; yet he narrates the rebuke.
THE PRIMITIVE TRADITION 95
(p. in). The denial of Peter is the only
solid fact between the arrest and a brief
morning consultation of the Sanhedrin to
prepare the charge which was to be presented
before Pilate (ii. p. 595). St. Luke's account
of the trial before Herod is a trace of another
attempt to do the same thing (p. 640). The
Barabbas episode is again a legend with the
same tendency ; possibly it has some slight
historical basis.
Once more, when the Gospels took their
present form an organised Church existed.
In fact, Jesus had no idea of founding any
society ; it was unnecessary, if the kingdom
was so near. He chose the Twelve as
preachers of that kingdom, not at all as the
first of a long line of successors. This gap,
again, was filled without hesitation, and we
find much which contemplates a Church, with
its officers, its organisation, and its worship ;
all this is entirely unhistorical. This is par
ticularly the case in St. Matthew, where
ecclesiastical interests are strongest. We may
instance the promise to St. Peter, which, we
are told, represents accurately the position
of the Church and of St. Peter's successors
in the writer's time (ii. p. 12). In other cases
the details of the picture merely represent
the later usage of the Church. In St. Luke's
96 M. LOISY AND THE GOSPEL STORY
account of the Baptism, "on croirait assister,
et Ton assiste en effet a un bapteme dans les
premieres communaute's chretiennes " (i. p.
411). The accounts of the feeding of the five
thousand and of the Last Supper are both
largely coloured by the customs of the Agape
and the Eucharist as actually celebrated in
the Church of later days.
Generally speaking, Christian apologetic
and Christian faith have been everywhere at
work, the former particularly in the first
Gospel. Faith surrounded the head of its
hero with a halo ; He tends to become
omniscient ; claims are put in His mouth which
express the later views of His followers.
" Dans tous ces deVeloppements, ce n'est plus
seulement la foi qui domine le souci de
1'exactitude historique : il en a etc* ainsi des
le commencement ; c'est la devotion, ne'e de
la foi, qui se satisfait dans les peintures qui
lui semblant les plus dignes de son objet "
(i. p. 182). The narrative of the Transfigura
tion, which is supposed to have been originally
a legend of a post-Resurrection vision, is an
example of this tendency. But fancy was
particularly busy with the question of the
origin of the Master. The first conception
was that of a unique consecration in the
Baptism. This was felt to be insufficient, and
THE BIRTH NARRATIVES 97
myths of the Virgin Birth arose, with which
go the connected stories of the Magi, the visits
to the Temple, etc. It will be readily under
stood that the Abbe takes the most severely
critical view of their origin. They are
" pieuses fictions " ; " 1'ensemble des anecdotes,
y compris celle de Jesus a douze ans, n'a rien
qui depasse les facultes moyennes d'invention
des hagiographes populaires a toute e"poque
et en tout pays " (i. p. 197; cf. pp. 139, 169).
He differs from others of the extreme school
only in the very low estimate he forms of their
literary and imaginative value ; of this more
later. We note that he believes that their
origin is to be looked for on Gentile soil, not
so much in mythological ideas as in the
tendency to conceive of the Divine Sonship
as something which must be materially realised
(i- P- 339).
As in the Resurrection story, so here the in
fluence of the Old Testament has been strongly
felt. Is 7U did not, indeed, create the belief in
the Virgin Birth, but it served as a valuable
proof thereof. In L'Evangile et I Eglise (p. 24)
the Abbe" laid down the principle with regard
to the Old Testament that "il serait plus juste
de dire qu'elle colore la plupart des re"cits,
que d'affirmer qu'elle en a cree quelques-uns."
His present view seems to go beyond that.
7
98 M. LOISY AND THE GOSPEL STORY
The story of the Magi is regarded as suggested
by the star of Balaam's prophecy. The hymns
of St. Luke are merely imitations, not very suc
cessful or appropriate, of Old Testament songs.
The announcement of the betrayal is probably
inspired by Ps 4i10; the flight of the young
man naked, by Am 216. Most startling of all,
the fourth word from the Cross (" My God,"
etc.) has nothing of the crucial significance
usually assigned to it ; it simply expresses the
Christian conviction that Ps 22 was Messianic,
and could be applied to the Crucifixion (ii. p.
684).
We pass on to consider a further factor of
which Loisy makes much, the influence of
symbolism. The details of the Gospel story
must have a meaning, and were freely, and
more or less deliberately, invented to convey
that meaning. Whole incidents, narrated as
fact, are really only picturesque symbols of
spiritual truth. Many of the miracles are
explained in this way. The draught of fishes
is an allegory of the success of the Gospel
among the Gentiles, just as the rejection of
Nazareth had figured its failure among the
Jews (i. p. 439). So in the raising of the
widow's son at Nain, "la veuve d^solee re-
presente la fille de Sion, Jerusalem menace'e de
perdre Israel, son fils unique, et le perdant en
SYMBOLISM 99
effet, pour le recouvrer miraculeusement par la
puissance de Jesus " (i. p. 655). The feeding
of the five thousand is in origin the expansion
of a metaphor about spiritual food ; 5 + 2 = 7,
the perfect number ; the twelve loaves are the
inexhaustible treasures of the Gospel. "A
lire le premier narrateur, on se douterait a
peine qu'il s'agit d'un miracle, le recit flottant,
pour ainsi dire, et tres consciemment, entre le
symbole et la realite " (i. p. 938). It is indeed
not always clear how far the symbol was
realised, or how far the miracle was literally
understood by the Evangelists. But to Loisy
the allegory is not something added to the
fact ; it has produced the fact — or rather the
fiction.
The principle is not only called in to explain
the miraculous I it accounts for much which to
the ordinary reader looks like the most innocent
detail. The "after six days" of the Trans
figuration is symbolic of a mystic week (ii. p.
30). Did Christ's friends mourn His death ?
It is an allegory of the universal mourning of
nature (p. 698). Do we read of two thieves
on whom the Crucifixion made an opposite
impression? It is not fact, but "le mauvais
larron repre"sente la judai'sme incre'dule, la
foi du bon larron repre"sente la conversion du
monde" (p. 677). We hear of two sisters,
ioo M. LOISY AND THE GOSPEL STORY
Martha and Mary ; they are an allegory of
the Jewish and Gentile sections of the Church,
and Loisy feels himself unable to gainsay those
who see in the story nothing more (p. 105).
The " mountains " of the first Gospel are all
pure symbol (p. 745). " La paque du dernier
repas dans les Synoptiques, et celle du
crucifiement dans le quatrieme Evangile, le
sabbat de la sepulture, et le dimanche de la
resurrection sont des donne"es symboliques,
dont il est maintenant difficile a 1'historien de
degager le point de depart dans le re"alite des
farts " (p. 700). We cannot, indeed, distin
guish between fancy and fact ; the mysterious
realm of the sub-conscious self comes to our aid.
" Paul n'a pas pris pour traditionnel un recit
ou il avait mele" sa propre doctrine ; le melange
s'est fait de lui-meme dans la region sub-
consciente de Tame ou se preparent les visions
et les songes" (ii. p. 532, n. i). We may
compare an eloquent passage in i. p. 195,
unfortunately too long to quote ; the enthusi
astic faith of the first century was not troubled
to draw any distinction between vision and
reality.
What are we to say of all this ? Perhaps
our first word would be that if the Roman
Church is ever to excommunicate, it could
hardly be expected to hold its hand here.
THE GOSPELS AS LITERATURE 101
But, after all, a man's views are not always
to be received as truth, because he has been
excommunicated, and sympathy with one
whom we may regard as the victim of per
secution must not be allowed to blind our
judgment. In the first place, most Christians
of every school will be with us in an amazed
protest against the extraordinary lack of taste
(to call it nothing worse) which marks these
volumes. Sarcasm and irony are mercilessly
invoked to call attention to the "absurdities"
of the Gospel narrative ; phrases such as
"enfantin," "banal," " d'une invention tres
faible," " escamotage litteraire," are continu
ally applied to it. The raising of the widow's
son is " un recit sans originalite " ; the Apostles
were " ni les etres obtus que dit Marc, ni les
personnages de vitrail que montre Luc "
(i. p. 167); the details of the trial before
Pilate are "de traits qui conviennent mieux
a la fiction legendaire qu'a 1'histoire, et qui
ressembleraient plutot a un effet de theatre,
dans un melodrame ou une piece enfantine,
qu'a la realite " (ii. p. 644). A passage on
the stories of the infancy has already been
quoted ; it by no means stands alone. " Rien
n'est plus arbitraire comme exegese, ni plus
faible comme narration fictive " than the
second chapter of St. Matthew ; nor is it
102 M. LOISY AND THE GOSPEL STORY
much better to read that in St. Luke's account
" le merveilleux est moins banal et moins
enfantin " (p. 169). He has, too, the lowest
opinion of the Evangelists' style — St. Mark
has " aucun gout litteraire " ; St. Matthew,
" une mediocre invention " ; St. Luke's style
is " inegal, maniere, on oserait presque dire
truqueV' The dedication to Theophilus is
"pompeuse et banale " (i. pp. 257^). The
whole passage should be read with its sarcastic
phrases of half-praise to get the full effect.
Loisy realises, of course, that his view is, to
say the least of it, unusual, and he quotes
Renan's well-known eulogy on the other side
(p. 260, n. 3). Securus judicat or bis terrarum;
and one who now attacks the Gospels as
literature will not injure them. Probably such
language has never before been used by a
professed believer ; when it is, it can hardly
expect the mitigation of sentence which may
be granted to a Blatchford.
With regard to Loisy's general position, it
is impossible here to enter into a discussion
of the details of the commentary. Any one
at all familiar with modern criticism will
have noticed that on many points he can be
answered completely from writers of the most
extreme school. But one or two general
considerations may be allowed. It is usual
THE MIRACULOUS 103
with English critics to insist on the fact that
they approach the Bible with no prejudice
against the supernatural as such. It is not
so with Loisy. He states his fundamental
assumption quite clearly. The author of the
Acts cannot be an eye - witness, because he
narrates miracles. " Ne serait-il pas inoui
qu'un disciple immediat des apotres eiit pre-
sente comme a fait Luc les temoignasfes
o o
concernant la resurrection?" (i. p. 172; cf.
p. 179). To him the miraculous is not to be
marked with a query in the margin, as Sanday
has suggested ; it calls for the thickest of blue
pencils at once. The Gospels as a whole
cannot rest on the evidence of eye-witnesses,
because they contain miracles. This a priori
assumption is at least dangerous, some would
say unscientific. We remember Harnack's
argument. He gives a list of the miracles
in the " We-sections " of Acts : " mehr Wunder
in wenigen Versen kann man wohl doch nicht
wlinschen ! " The eye - witness (and Loisy
himself admits that in this case he was an
eye-witness) who has recorded these was quite
capable of the miracles of the rest of the Acts
and the third Gospel (Lukas der Arzt, p. 24).
Again, most readers will feel that the
part assigned to symbolism is exaggerated.
Few will deny that metaphor has sometimes
104 M. LOISY AND THE GOSPEL STORY
been misinterpreted as fact, and allegory trans
formed into history. With regard, e.g., to
such a detail as the darkness at the Cruci
fixion, most critics will admit that there is
as much of symbol as of fact, and will ap
prove Loisy's delightful epigram, " Le ciel est
toujours sombre pour une ame desolee"
(ii. p. 679). And his commentary on the
Fourth Gospel has made us realise that the
tendency may have been at work on a larger
scale. But even if one admits the possibility
with a mystical writing such as the Fourth
Gospel, the case is very different with the
first three. They read as a whole as simple,
straightforward narrative, and to find subtle
and hidden allegories in almost every detail,
number, place, or saying, is surely a return
to an exegesis long discredited. If the episode
of the two thieves is merely an allegory of
faith and unbelief, there are few incidents in
history which cannot be explained as symbol
rather than fact. We are reminded of the
tyranny of the " Solar Myth," and of Tyler's
amusing exposure of its possibilities in
Primitive Culture.
The fact is, that Loisy approaches the
Gospels as they have been interpreted by
centuries of Christian teaching, and often
reads into them far more than their writers,
SYMBOLISM AND FACT 105
with all their Oriental mind, ever dreamt of.
Naturally we believe that in many cases they
selected their facts as typical and significant.
But what is typical may none the less remain
true as fact. We need no more regard Martha
and Mary as symbolic personifications of the
Jewish and the Gentile Church, than we
regard the two daughters of Henry vm. as
fictitious embodiments of Romanism and
Protestantism, because they happen to repre
sent different elements in the English mind
O
of the period.
It is curious, again, to note how, with all
his undeniable psychological subtlety, the
critic again and again succeeds in missing
the obvious, and discovering difficulties and
contradictions, which it requires very little
ingenuity to explain. He misses the exquisite
appropriateness of the reproaches round the
Cross, of St. Peter's remonstrance after the
first announcement of the Passion, and of
Christ's subsequent rebuke, an incident which
it is hard to believe invented. He fails to
see how true to life is the same Apostle's
dazed suggestion of the three tabernacles :
" il n'est pas croyable que les trois person-
nages celestes soient invites a rester pour le
plaisir cles trois disciples " (ii. p. 36). The
pathetic irony of the "Sleep on now" in
io6 M. LOISY AND THE GOSPEL STORY
Gethsemane is twisted into a literal command,
frustrated by the unexpected arrival of Judas.
Mary could never have kept the events of
the childhood in her heart, because she could
not understand them! "On n'a pas coutume
de retenir avec soin les choses qu'on n'a pas
comprises" (i. p. 382). Difficulties of the
most pedantic description are made much of,
e.g. in the angel's word to Zacharias, "thy
prayer is heard," because we have not been
specially told that he had been praying for
a child ; or in the murmurings of the scribes
in the healing of the sick of the palsy, because
St. Mark had not previously referred to their
presence. In the same incident fault is found
because the crowd is represented as paying
more attention to the miracle than to the
forgiveness of sins — a trait altogether true to
human nature. Similarly, in the insults before
Caiaphas, we read "les ' quelques-uns ' qui se
mettent a frapper Jesus, arrivent on ne sait
d'ou" (ii. p. 612), as though every incident
must commence with an exhaustive list of the
dramatis persona. With regard to the Jewish
trial we are told no one could have known
the details; "aucun fidele cle Jesus n'etait en
etat de les prendre sur 1'heure ; aucun ne
songea sans doute a les prendre plus tard "
(ii. p. 596) ; the events of the Crucifixion
CRITICAL METHOD 107
remained equally unknown; "aucun disciple
n'avait souci de recueillir pour la posterite ce
qui se passait " (i. p. 179).
Frankly, this is hair-splitting unworthy of
M. Loisy and his subject, and such arguments
are enough to make even the most careless
reader realise that negative criticism is not
always the most scientific. The whole treat
ment is, in fact, a priori and subjective to
a degree. The true method tries without
arriere-pensee to analyse the documents, to
get to their sources, to estimate their authority.
It allows to the full for the influence of all
the factors on which Loisy lays so much
stress, symbolism, idealising of the past, Old
Testament prophecy, and ecclesiastical interests.
But it can set a limit to their influence, and
as we study our authorities the historical
figure of Jesus and the fact of His work
stand out all the more clearly. As Harnack
has said of the two sources of the Gospels,
" where they agree their evidence is strong,
and they do agree in many and important
points. Destructive critical inquiries . . .
break themselves in vain against the rock of
their united testimony " (Spriiche und Reden
Jesu, p. 172).
On the other hand, if we accept the drastic
a priori treatment of Loisy, we are ultimately
1 08 M. LOISY AND THE GOSPEL STORY
brought to the conclusion that we can know
nothing of the historic Jesus. And if the
figure and work of Jesus dissolve in mist,
how can we explain the fact of Christianity
or the consistent, lifelike narrative of the
Gospels ? The ascription to unknown men
of genius will not do. If the story was in
the main true, it required no very extra
ordinary power to tell it for us as it has been
told. The magic is in the facts rather than
in their presentation. But if the career of
Jesus was only what Loisy imagines, the real
founders of Christianity were those who
developed the story and gave it the form
in which it has appealed to the world. Where
were such men to be found in the first
century ? As Professor Burkitt has reminded
us, it is not an easy thing to write parables
such as those of the Gospels, and after all,
as we have seen, Loisy himself has no very
high estimate of the abilities of the Evangelists.
But the last word in a discussion such as
this will always be, " What of the Resurrec
tion ? " The writer's position is not clear.
Were the visions true, i.e. were they con
sistent, veridical, objective apparitions of a
living being, proving the persistence of per
sonality after death in the sense desired by
the Society for Psychical Research? If so,
CHRISTIANITY AN ENIGMA 109
they form a fact as unique in the history of
the world as is the Resurrection as more
popularly conceived. And then the story of
the life that led up to it must be read once
more in the light of its unique sequel. We
lose the right to reject all that raises that life
above the common run of human experience.
If, on the other hand, the visions were merely
subjective, the working of the (supposed)
intense enthusiasm of the mourners, we are
face to face with the old difficulty of explain
ing the rise of the belief, its persistence and
general consistency, its vitality and value for
the world. An immortality, such as that
ascribed to Keats in Adonais, fails to meet
the requirements of Christian history and of
individual experience. It is a small point
that M. Loisy's treatment leaves his own
position a psychological puzzle ; the crux is
that it leaves the fact of Christianity an in
soluble historical enigma.
Ill
M. LOISY'S VIEW OF THE RESURRECTION
III.
M. LOISY'S VIEW OF THE
RESURRECTION.1
THE distinction often drawn between spiritual
value and historical fact is, perhaps, nowhere
so sharp as in the view of the Resurrection
of Jesus held by many modern Christian
thinkers. The fact as ordinarily understood,
with its historical evidence, is rejected in
toto ; the spiritual reality of the abiding life
of Christ is held sincerely and with conviction.
The position may be considered from two
points of view. It raises the philosophical
problem to what extent truth can be built up
on error and illusion ? What are the limits of
the principle that
" God's gift was that man should conceive of truth,
And yearn to gain it, catching at mistake,
As midway help till he reach fact indeed"?2
It also raises the historical and psychological
1 This paper originally appeared independently of the pre
ceding pages.
2 Browning, "A Death in the Desert."
H4 LOISY'S VIEW OF THE RESURRECTION
problem as to how we are to explain the rise
of the belief on the supposed premises ? The
purpose of this paper is to approach the
question from this second point of view. It
starts from a fact which is not open to dispute,
that the first generation of Christians believed
sincerely and firmly in the Resurrection. We
ask how they came to do so, if the real course
of events was at all that supposed by extreme
critics. And we wrill take as typical the view
put forward by M. Loisy in Les Evangiles
Synoptiques.
We may begin by stating as clearly as
possible the view which he takes of the
Resurrection narrative.1 In the first place,
we note that the predictions of the death and
Resurrection ascribed to Jesus in the Gospels
are, in Loisy's opinion, unhistorical. They
are unhistorical because, according to his
reconstruction of the Gospel narrative and
his view of the self-consciousness of Jesus,
He never really expected to die. He realised
1 The chief relevant sections in his works are : UJ&vangile et
rfcglise, pp. H2fF. ; DAiitour (fun Petit Livre, pp. 120, 169 ff. ;
Le Qume Evangile, esp. pp. 900 ff. ; Les fcvangiles Synoptiques,
esp. i. pp. 177, 223 ff, ii. pp. 696 ff. ; Simples Reflexions, pp.
79, 170 ; Quelques Lettres, pp. 91, 154, 158, 188, 225. The last-
named work is of special importance as clearing up certain
possible ambiguities. In what follows detailed references have
not, as a rule, been given ; they will be readily found by those
who consult the passages here quoted.
DID JESUS PREDICT RESURRECTION? 115
the danger of the course He was pursuing,
and the possibility of a fatal termination, but
to the last He looked for a miracle to save
Him ; even the Gethsemane prayer was a
prayer for such a Divine intervention. Hence,
if we understand M. Loisy aright, there is no
room for prophecies of the Second Advent
as ordinarily understood, i.e. a return after
death on the clouds of heaven. Loisy's
view is, indeed, strongly eschatological.
Jesus expected a crisis which was to end the
present seon ; there was to be a great
denouement by which the kingdom of God
was to be established on earth, and He
Himself was to be manifested as the Messiah.
This was to come unexpectedly and soon
(hence the frequent injunctions "to watch"),
and was to be accompanied by a judgment.
But in that judgment He was to be witness,
not judge, and it was all to be accomplished
in His lifetime. The importance of this for
our present purpose lies in the fact that we
are thus debarred from supposing that the
ground had been prepared for a belief in
the Resurrection by any direct teaching of
Jesus Himself.
Again, Loisy holds that the last fact which
we know about the Jesus of history is His
death on the Cross. Nothing is known of
n6 LOISY'S VIEW OF THE RESURRECTION
His burial. He was probably thrown by the
soldiers into some common trench where
the bodies of criminals were buried,1 and
neither friend nor foe had any record of the
spot. The whole story connected with the
rock tomb and Joseph of Arimathea is a later
addition. M. Loisy emphasises this point
very clearly in Quelques Lettres. It follows
that the narratives of the visits of the women
to the empty tomb fall to the ground entirely.
It is, therefore, unnecessary to attempt to
discover in them any basis of fact by
eliminating the angelic appearances and the
rest of the miraculous element ; it is equally
unnecessary to advance any theory of re
suscitation, or of removal of the body by the
Apostles, Joseph, or any one else, in order
to explain the empty tomb. The empty tomb
was not the starting-point of the belief in the
Resurrection ; the stories connected with it
form only a secondary stage in its legendary
development, being the probably unconscious
response to the natural need of external
proof. They are, according to Loisy, un
known to St. Paul ; in their final development
in St. Luke and St. John they contradict the
earlier Galilaean tradition, implying as they
1 Perhaps the " Aceldama " mentioned in connection with
Judas.
THE GROWTH OF LEGEND 117
do the presence of the Apostles in Jerusalem.
Hence, they can only have arisen at a time
when the production of first-hand evidence
was impossible to friend and foe alike.
Rejecting the episode of the empty tomb,
Loisy naturally also rejects the " third day "
as a datum of any historical significance in
the development of the Resurrection belief,
and this in spite of its attestation by St.
Paul. That Christ "rose again the third
day," or appeared for the first time on the
third day, is regarded by him as a purely
legendary embellishment of the story, due
in part to the popular belief that the spirit
haunted the body till the third day after death,
in part to the choice of Sunday by Gentile
Christians as the day of worship, as being
the "day of the sun," and in part to the
influence of the Old Testament prophecies
of Jonah and Hosea. These prophecies
caused Christian tradition to hesitate for a
time between "after three days" and "on
the third day." In fact, according to Loisy's
view, the belief in the Resurrection was of
slow growth, and required some weeks, or
even months, before it was fully established.
The references in the narratives to the doubts
of the disciples are regarded as evidences of
its gradual and partial acceptance.
u8 LOISY'S VIEW OF THE RESURRECTION
The belief, then, that Jesus was alive did not
find its starting-point in the sight of the empty
tomb on Easter Day. Its origin is to be sought
rather in a psychological necessity ; it was
the natural reaction from the shock of the
Crucifixion, the result of the deep impression
Jesus had made on His followers. Of this we
shall have more to say later on. We ask now
whether this intuitive faith had any facts on
which to build, and we are told that it found its
first support in a vision of St. Peter in Galilee.
This is nowhere fully and accurately recorded
in our authorities, but Loisy finds many sig
nificant traces of it. It is mentioned by St.
Paul and St. Luke, and may have been
narrated in some form in the source which
Mark followed.1 It is suggested that it is the
basis of the appearance by the Lake in
John 21, this episode being intentionally mis
placed in the third Gospel, and becoming
the miraculous draught of Luke 5. As a
Galilsean appearance it could not be fitted in
with the Jerusalem manifestations with which
alone St. Luke is concerned in his closing
chapters. It may, however, have left its
traces in the "fish" of Luke 2442, and in the
tradition preserved by Origen that " Simon "
was the unnamed companion of Cleopas on the
1 Cf. i67.
ST. PETER'S VISIONS 119
road to Emmaus. Finally, the fragment of the
Gospel of Peter seems, where it breaks off, to
be about to narrate a similar appearance to
Peter while fishing, as the first manifestation of
the risen Christ. Whatever be thought of this
£5
ingenious hypothesis, we have here what Loisy
regards as the first historical fact which criticism
can seize after the death of Christ. St. Peter
had a vision in Galilee ; the nature of that
vision will be discussed in due course. Loisy
believes that similar visions were afterwards
experienced by other disciples, but of none of
them have accurate records been preserved, and
it is needless to say that in the conversations
recorded we hear not the words spoken by
Jesus on any particular occasion, but the ex
pression of the faith of the Church. "C'est la
voix de la conscience chretienne, qui parle en
Je*sus glorifieV'
Now it is not our intention to discuss directly
and in detail Loisy's critical treatment of the
Gospels.1 The purpose of this summary has
1 It may, at the same time, be well to point out certain un
satisfactory features. His objections to the burial can only be
called trivial. What difficulty is there in the presence of the
women at the Cross and the entombment, and why should it be
supposed that they have been " dragged in " to serve as useful
witnesses when the Apostles by their flight are no longer avail
able ? The difficulties with regard to Joseph, Loisy answers
himself. And we ask why details such as the " fine linen " and
the " new tomb " " precedent d'un sentiment moral plutot que
120 LOISY'S VIEW OF THE RESURRECTION
been to show how uncompromising is his
position from one point of view. He does
not merely hold that the narratives are obscure,
and have been subjected to legendary and
materialising influences, whilst beneath them is
a bed-rock of fact, in a real Resurrection and
true appearances, with some messages at least
actually delivered. Such is probably the belief
of many liberals,1 but Loisy will have none
de la tradition historique"? There is nothing suspicious in
reverent care for the dead. And the mention of the rock tomb
is more intelligible as a piece of detail interesting to Roman
readers, than as the invented fulfilment of an unidentifiable
prophecy. Again, though one is loath for some reasons to find
oneself on the side of Loisy's opponent (see Quelques Lettres,
pp. 191, 227), it is difficult not to see in the speech of Acts 2
a reference to the raising of the flesh from the corruption of the
tomb ; nor can we admit that the expression of Acts I329
(" they . . . laid him in a tomb ") necessarily excludes all
knowledge of burial by friends. After all, Loisy believes that
the writer of the Acts wrote the third Gospel, and, if so, he
obviously held the ordinary view, and had himself described the
burial. In fact, we may safely say that the objections to the
burial do not arise from any real difficulty in the narrative, but
from the necessity of eliminating an incident which the critic
would otherwise find very inconvenient. Similarly with regard
to the " third day," the explanations of its origin are very un
convincing. The Old Testament references are not enough to
explain the belief (Hos 62 is never quoted, and Loisy himself
admits that the influence of prophecy modified, but was seldom
responsible for, the growth of tradition) ; and though Justin saw
the appropriateness of the observance of the first day as being the
" day of the sun," there is no evidence whatever that the first
Christians, particularly the Jewish Church, were influenced by
this association of ideas.
1 See, e.g., Lake's Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
THE SPIRITUAL RESURRECTION 121
of these half measures. There is for him no
fragment of history in the Gospels after the
death of Christ ; it is all the work of faith.
Nor when he says that the Resurrection is not
"un fait de 1'ordre historique," does he merely
mean that it is not demonstrable by historical
evidence, whilst the fact itself may none the
less be true. This possibility is, indeed, left
open in his earlier works, but has now been
clearly rejected by him. The Resurrection did
not take place " si Ton veut entendre par
resurrection cette chose inconcevable, le cadavre
d'un mort de deux jours se prenant une vie qui
n'est pas celle des mortels, et qui ne"anmoins se
manifeste sensiblement."1
Now, if this were all, Loisy's position would
be simply that of the ordinary " unbeliever,"
and would require no special treatment. But
we know that it is not all. Loisy is a sincere
Christian, and has a whole-hearted belief in the
present life of Christ as the most important fact
of spiritual experience both to the individual
and to the world as a whole. Unless we
recognise this to the full, we cannot understand
the problem as it presents itself to the modern
mind. Those who believe in a "spiritual"
Resurrection would maintain that the living
Christ is manifested in history and in the
1 Quelques Le tires, p. 189.
122 LOISY'S VIEW OF THE RESURRECTION
individual in a unique sense. It is more than
the persistence of the influence which every
man leaves behind him in a greater or less
degree. The Christ, even the historic Jesus of
Nazareth, lives in His Church in a sense other
than that in which Alexander lived on in the
realms which he had quickened with the Greek
spirit. The Christian is not content to ascribe
to his Master the elusive pantheistic immortality
in which Shelley's indignant love clothes Keats.
The life of Christ, to those who believe in it at
all, is something more personal and more real,
because it affects us directly and practically.
Now it is comparatively easy for the latter-day
Christian to hold such a faith. It has become
an integral part of his creed, and he supports it
by his personal experience, backed by the wide
and varied experience of Christians in all ages,
and by the testimony of history. We are not
here discussing the validity of this line of
evidence, but merely emphasising the undoubted
fact that such are the main grounds on which [
the Resurrection is believed now by those who I
lay little stress on the "empty tomb." But the
historical problem is to explain how this belief
could have arisen, if we reject the 'Gospel
narrative in toto. By what psychological
avenue could the Apostles have arrived at it ?
We remind ourselves of the conditions as
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL DIFFICULTY 123
supposed by Loisy. Jesus had died a felon's
death ; He had neither anticipated that death,
nor warned His disciples of it, though no doubt
He realised and spoke of its possibility. Much
less had they any promises of the Resurrection
on which to build. He had proclaimed a future
kingdom, to be speedily established by a
miraculous act of God, probably in His own
lifetime, when He Himself would be declared
to be the Messiah. But this hope had been
manifestly frustrated by events. The Apostles
had been dazed by the catastrophe, and had
fled to their own homes. Yet gradually, with
in a comparatively brief period, they came to
believe that this Jesus was alive and active in a
sense in which this could be said of no other
departed leader. The belief transformed their
views of their Master and of their Bible,
changed their characters, and enabled them to
begin the conversion of the world, a task which
Jesus had never suggested to them in His life
time. Whatever view we take of the details
of the opening chapters of the Acts, we cannot
say less than this. The historical fact of the
growth of Christianity requires it, and Loisy
himself insists continually that the Church was
built up on the faith in the risen Christ. How
did it all come about? It is a historical
problem, and there seems nothing that history
124 LOISY'S VIEW OF THE RESURRECTION
can take hold of to explain it. Did it arise
from a study of prophecy ? No, says Loisy :
" il est de toute invraisemblance que les Textes
de 1'Ancien Testament aient suggere aux
disciples de Je'sus la resurrection de leur
Maitre." The interpretation of prophecy
turned out to be a most impressive method of
proof for the new faith once it had arisen, but
it did not itself give it birth. An answer which
seems more promising is that the belief arose
from visions of Jesus, according to Loisy from
a vision seen by Peter. The crucial question
is, Of what nature were these visions? Are we
to understand them as in some sense objective ?
We touch here on the problem which is being
for the first time scientifically investigated by
the Society for Psychical Research. In a sense
the appearances of spirits, and messages from
the spirit world, are facts, i.e. certain people
have undoubtedly had psychological experiences
of this character. Eliminating cases of fraud,
we have to ask whether these experiences point
to something objective. Do they take their
origin from the personality of the departed,
and, therefore, correspond to a reality which
exists outside of the mind of the percipient ?
This reality need not be thought of as material ;
we have only to suppose that it in some way
1 Ev. Syn. i. p. 176.
PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 125
uses the material world in order to communicate
with us. Or, on the other hand, are we to
regard all such messages and appearances as
subjective illusions, projected by the sub
conscious self of the percipient, and standing
in no relation to the personality from which
they claim to come?1 If the first answer be
ultimately proved to be true, we shall go some
way towards explaining the Resurrection
narratives, and that in a sense which both
science and religion can accept. If it can be
maintained that the appearances and messages
of A. after death to B. are really to be attributed
to the conscious deliberate effort of A. to com
municate with his friend in this world, we have
in essence the vindication of the Gospel story.
Whether we accepted the Biblical records in
toto or not, we should have a scientific justifica
tion for our belief in the continued life of Jesus.
But we may remark that His Resurrection would
still remain a unique event in the world's history.
It would be unique, because results have come
from it which it is no exaggeration to say out
weigh the results which have come from all
other supposed spirit communications put
together ; it would also be unique because,
1 In certain cases we have to reckon with the possibility that
they may be telepathic, i.e. proceeding from other earthly
minds ; they are then in a sense objective, but not veridical.
126 LOISY'S VIEW OF THE RESURRECTION
assuming the substantial accuracy of the Gospel
records of the manifestations (and on this
hypothesis most of the difficulties felt with
regard to them would disappear), His appear
ances have a consistency, fulness, and spiritual
value attained by no others, since they enabled
the disciples to realise completely the presence
of the personality which they loved. Again, if
we may believe the suggestion of Mr. Myers,1
a suggestion which is in itself a priori probable,
and which is " confirmed " by messages claiming
to come from him and Dr. Gurney,2 the departed
spirit finds it hard to communicate on account
of the difficulty of controlling the material
media which it must use. Now we are in the
habit of explaining many of the Gospel miracles
by insisting on the control which a perfect
personality would have over matter. It is,
then, natural to suppose that that same person
ality would have a unique control of the media
of communication after death. Then, as in the
days of His flesh, He was the perfect man, in
fullest harmony with His spiritual environment,
and able to do perfectly what others have only
been able to do imperfectly. No doubt this
line of thought will fail to satisfy many. To
some it will appear unduly rationalistic ; they
1 The Survival of Htiman Personality.
2 S.P.R. Proceedings^ June 1908.
OBJECTIVE OR SUBJECTIVE? 127
would not wish to explain the Resurrection of
Christ as being on at all the same lines as the
continued life of other men in the spirit world,
forgetting that we are only dealing with the
means by which His human spirit may have
communicated with His friends. Others will
insist that the "objective" character of spirit
communications is still far from proved. This,
no doubt, is the case ; we have only attempted
to indicate a line of thought which may possibly
ultimately be of value. To the writer it is a
hopeful line, though he is aware that it cannot
be pressed at present, and does not wish to
suggest that our belief in the Resurrection is to
stand or fall with any such proof.
But the main object of this somewhat long
digression has been to press upon those who
speak of " visions " in this connection the
necessity of defining clearly of what nature
they suppose them to be. Are they objective,
due to the direct action of the departed spirit,
regarded as a living personality, and, therefore,
evidence of the life after death ? Many will
reject this hypothesis, and will maintain that
they are purely subjective. This seems to be
the view of M. Loisy. To the Apostles "le
travail interieur de leur ame enthousiaste
pouvait leur suggerer la vision de ce qu'ils
souhaitaient ; des incidents fortuits, interpreted
128 LOISY'S VIEW OF THE RESURRECTION
et transfigures selon les preoccupations du
moment pouvaient avoir la meme portee que
des visions, avec un caractere objectif qui les
rendaient moins discutables, si Ton avait
songe" a discuter." And there are instructive
passages2 in which he speaks of "la region
sub-consciente de 1'ame, oil se preparent les
visions et les songes. En 1'etat d'exaltation ou
vivaient les premiers croyants, tout ce travail,
qui deroute 1'analyse par sa complexity s'est
opere, spontanement et rapidement, dans la
region subconsciente des ames ou se preparent
les songes de tous les hommes, les hallucina
tions de quelque-uns, les intuitions de genie."
Loisy is not here dealing directly with the.
Resurrection, but with the developments " de
la pensee chretienne " in general ; but he nowhere,
so far as I can discover, suggests for a moment
that the visions of the Christ are to be attributed
to any other source than " la region subcon
sciente " ; he regards them as from first to last
subjective.
Now it is quite obvious that to call the visions
"subjective" is merely to describe them; it
does not explain them, or do away with the
necessity for an explanation. This explanation
can only be found in the mental condition of
1 Ev. Syn. i. p. 223.
3 Ibid. \. p. 195, ii. p. 532, n. I.
HOW DID THE BELIEF ARISE? 129
the Apostles. Were they so predisposed to
believe in the Resurrection that it became
natural to them to see their Master standing
before them as "in the days of His flesh"?
There were, according to Loisy, two factors to
which the visions may be traced. The first
was the strong impression made by the person
ality of Jesus ; the second was closely connected
with this, the belief in His Messiahship. As
the disciples revisited the familiar scenes of the
Galilsean ministry, " le passe" les ressaisit, leurs
souvenirs s'enflammerent dans la solitude. Us
avaient e"te trop profond^ment remue's par
1'espeVance pour que le coup de malheur qui les
avait d'abord accable~s ne fut par suivi d'une
reaction puissante vers le grandiose avenir qui
les avait seduits." " L'on pe^oit aussi que
ces deux facteurs " (i.e. the appearances and the
argument from prophecy) " ont puise originaire-
ment toute leur force dans la persuasion ou
etaient les disciples que Je"sus lui-meme etait le
Messie."! We are bound to ask whether this
view is psychologically intelligible. We are
not merely dealing with the conviction that the
work of a great and good man cannot be cut
short by death, and that he will be recompensed
hereafter for his unmerited sufferings on earth.
The Apostles rose far above the sublime intui-
1 E-v. Syn. i. p. 223. 2 Ibid. ii. p. 782.
9
tion of the Book of Wisdom, that " the souls of
the righteous are in the hand of God." They
believed that their Master was alive and in
touch with them in a perfectly unique sense.
They did not imagine for a moment that His
"spirit" was merely resting on them as the
spirit of an Elijah rested on Elisha. We
remind ourselves once more that, according
to Loisy's view, there was very little in the
historical career of Jesus to create an atmo
sphere favourable to such a belief. Most of
the miracles are to be eliminated ; the predic
tions of the "rising again" are unhistorical.
The Crucifixion itself came not as something
foreseen and allowed for, but as an unlooked-
for catastrophe, apparently upsetting all calcula
tions and falsifying all hopes. The shock,
indeed, was so great that "les moins timides
perdirent toute esperance quand ils virent que
le ciel n'avait pas secouru celui qu'ils avaient
salue" comme le Mcssie."
Can we, then, base the whole reaction on
the impression of the personality of Jesus, for
the belief in the Messiahship is really only an
aspect of this ? We are far from wishing to
minimise in any way the extent of that impres
sion, though it is a question which will require
more consideration than it has hitherto received,
1 Ev. Syn. i. p. 222.
THE PERSONALITY OF JESUS 131
whether we can reject so much of the Gospel
story as Loisy rejects, and yet retain the right
to speak of that personality as unique and un
approachable. But the question at issue is not
" how great was the influence of that person
ality," but " why did it have the particular results
supposed ? " It is one thing to invoke " person
ality " to explain certain miraculous cures ;
we know it does, in fact, work in this particular
way. It is quite another thing to urge it as
a sufficient explanation of the Resurrection
belief. Are there any real parallels? Cases
of varying degrees of similarity are, indeed,
often hinted at in footnotes. We may suggest
that they deserve a more prominent place.
For from this point of view the essence of the
subject is to study and compare carefully the
alleged parallels. Does a leader with a strong
personality naturally force on his adherents the
conviction that he is alive, that he is mani
festing himself, that he is helping them and
continuing his work ? It is obvious that we
must exclude most, if not all, of the alleged
parallels from post - Christian times. The
stories of the appearances of saints are easily
explained from the already existing belief in
the appearances of Christ. Given the Gospel
narrative and the Christian belief in the Resur
rection, it is intelligible that similar stories or
132 LOISY'S VIEW OF THE RESURRECTION
experiences should follow ; in fact, it is signifi
cant that, comparatively speaking, there are so
few. It suggests that the mind of man does
not work easily in this groove ; it is not so
"natural," as certain critics would seem to
imagine, that visions should be seen of a man
o
after death, simply because he has been loved
and revered. But this by the way. The
problem is to explain the first great instance,
the belief in the appearances of Jesus. There
is nothing like it in the Old Testament, and
no real parallel has been adduced from other
sources. We should, then, clearly recognise
that we are not explaining anything in a scientific
sense when we trace the Resurrection belief to
the influence of "the personality of Jesus."
We are really invoking a psychological miracle.
Now psychology has its laws, obscure though
they may be, and a phenomenon which seems
to contradict all we know of those laws should
be a stumbling-block in the psychological
realm, no less than it would be in the material.
A miracle does not cease to be a miracle
because it has been transferred from the sphere
of matter to the sphere of mind. And this is
precisely what Loisy seems to do ; whether he
be on the right lines or not, it should, at least,
be clearly recognised that he leaves us with a
new problem as inexplicable as the old. It is
THE DIVINE INTUITION 133
an historical fact that the disciples believed that
Jesus was alive in a unique sense, and the fact
calls for a historical explanation. We are
offered that of self-caused visions, which in
their turn rest upon a faith inexplicable by any
known laws of thought.
This difficulty has to be faced by all,
whether Christians or unbelievers, who reject
all objective manifestations of a risen Christ,
and it is recognised by most candid critics as
a very real crux. But the difficulty is greatly
increased to all who hold the paradox of Loisy's
position. They maintain that though the
visions to which faith gave birth, and in which
it found its nourishment, were false, yet the
faith was in the last resort true. Jesus was
alive, though He had not manifested Himself
in the way imagined. How came it that the
faith was true ? It must have been an intuition,
which can only be explained as a Divine revela
tion to the soul, an otherwise inexplicable
uprush of spiritual genius. Now we admit
that the spirit of genius blows where it lists,
and that its manifestations are often mysterious
and apparently arbitrary. But though those
who are the vehicles of such intuitions of genius
have nothing which they have not received
from the great Unknown, yet we honour them
as our greatest men, whether they be artists,
134 LOISY'S VIEW OF THE RESURRECTION
poets, or religious leaders. This particular
intuition, that the real work of Jesus was to be
carried on by His Spirit after His death, is
without question the essential factor in Chris
tianity. Yet, on the view we are considering, it
did not come to Jesus Himself. We are told
it probably came to Peter. Then, we say it
deliberately, Peter or some unknown disciple
was a greater religious genius than Jesus, and
should be regarded as the real founder of
o
Christianity. Jesus expected speedy and
temporal success ; He was utterly mistaken in
His view of the future, and died with a cry
of despair on His lips, leaving His work and
hopes a wreck. It was Peter and the Apostles
who were able to bring life out of death, be
cause there came to them the sublime intuition
to which their Master had never risen, that
His spirit would be with them in the invisible
world, and that His work could be continued
on new lines. Jesus never foresaw failure,
, Peter triumphed over it. And yet, even in
the Roman Church, Jesus and not the other is
worshipped as God.
It would seem, then, to be the case that any
theory which denies the fact of objective mani
festations is hard pressed to explain how the
Apostles arrived at their faith. It has to
invoke " personality " working in a mysterious
THE NEED OF PROOF 135
and unparalleled, and therefore almost a
"miraculous," manner. It supposes that the
belief in question arose unaccountably as a
Divine intuition, creating for itself proofs which,
though in themselves false, supported a con
clusion at bottom true. And yet this is only
half the problem which the historian has to
face. If it is hard to explain the origin of the
belief, it is no less hard to understand how it
maintained itself and won general acceptance.
One of the sternest tests of life is to keep the
heights which Faith has won in her moments of
insight. Those who had seen visions, whether
objective or subjective (and in considering the
impression on the percipients the distinction
ceases to be of importance), would certainly feel
the need of more tangible evidence " in the
light of common day." Still more would the
need be felt by those who had not been favoured
with such experiences. Now it is perfectly
clear that once the Apostles had attained their
belief in the Resurrection, they never afterwards
wavered in it for a moment. They were able
to communicate that belief to the disciples in
general and to multitudes of new converts.
And, most startling of all, it does not seem to
have been seriously contradicted by their op
ponents. It was not that they preached a
purely spiritual Resurrection, which would not
136 LOISY'S VIEW OF THE RESURRECTION
admit of proof or disproof. On the contrary,
it is admitted that they proclaimed a visibly
manifested, to some extent a material, body ;
they believed themselves to have spoken with
Christ, to have eaten and drunk with Him,
if not to have touched Him. Hence, it is
startling to read, " Les auteurs de la mort de
Jesus ne pensaient probablement plus a lui,
quand il leur revint que ses disciples etaient
maintenant a Jerusalem, qu'ils declaraient vivant
et immortel le crucifie de Golgotha. Le chris-
tianisme etait ne. On allait essayer de le com-
battre. II fallait le discuter. Nul ne contestait
que Je*sus fut mort sur la croix. Nid ne pouvait
demontrer qiiil ne fut pas ressuscite" Surely
from the first the obvious answer to the
apostolic preaching was the insistence on
the fact of the burial, and the production of the
body of Jesus, if possible. It is very curious
that until the probably late edition of the story
of " the watch " in St. Matthew, and the notices
of the Jewish counter-propaganda in the
"Gospel of Peter" and in Justin, we have no
hint of any attempt to meet the witness of the
Apostles. The reason may be found in some
such explanation as that suggested by Loisy,
but there is no doubt that the hypothesis of
the " empty tomb," if it can be accepted,
1 Ev. Syn. \. p. 224.
THE EMPTY TOMB 137
accounts most naturally for the attitude, both
of Jews and Christians, in face of the alleged
fact of the Resurrection. The possibility of
counter-evidence was cut off at the source.
We admit that the vanishing of the earthly
body is not necessary to a philosophical view
of the Resurrection, that it may even be a
stumbling-block, since we do not believe in a
quickening of its material particles, yet it would
seem to have been almost necessary as evidence.
Granted the " empty tomb," we can explain the
rapid growth and the unhesitating certainty of
the Resurrection belief on the side of the early
Christians, and the comparative absence of
contradiction on the side of their opponents.
We do not now touch the philosophical question
of its possibility ; we merely suggest that the
admitted facts are most easily explained by
the supposition that this part of the Resurrec
tion story is true in its main features. But it is
well to insist that the religion of Christ does
not "rest on the fact of the empty tomb."
The argument of a well-known popular work
of fiction is a libel on the faith of Christians.
If it were proved that this part of the Gospel
story arose from some misapprehension and
must be surrendered in the light of fuller know
ledge, the Creed of the Church would remain
unshaken. We can believe without such help.
138 LOISY'S VIEW OF THE RESURRECTION
But the question is, Could the first generation
of disciples have done so ? To say this, is not
to claim for ourselves a spiritual height which
they never reached. We are heirs of centuries
of Christian experience ; they were pioneers to
whom the greater part of the " evidence for the
Resurrection " was still in the future. As we
try sympathetically to realise their temper of
mind, if we find it hard to understand how they
could have evolved their visions from their
own inner consciousness, we find it almost
equally hard to understand how they could
have believed in them so unflinchingly, if they
had no external evidence on which to rest.
The purpose, then, of this study is to suggest
that the problem of the Resurrection is by no
means solved by a criticism which, however
ingeniously, analyses almost into nothingness
the concluding chapters of the Gospels. Such
a criticism is always sooner or later pulled up
sharp by the hard fact of the apostolic belief.
It should be clearly recognised that until it can
give a reasonable account of the origin and
permanence of that belief, it is no solution of
the problem, however attractive it may be as
an exercise in literary criticism. The difficulties,
historical and psychological, no less than
religious and philosophical, which accompany
denial are no whit less serious than those which
LOGIC AND FAITH 139
accompany belief. And yet let our last word
be this. The real dividing line is not between
those who accept the historical records of the
Resurrection, and those who deny them. It is
rather between those who believe in the present
power of a risen Christ, and those who reject
such a belief as a superstition. From this point
of view a Loisy is on the side of the angels,
and it is well for the most orthodox to realise
that their only quarrel with such a one should
be in the domain of logic and proof; they have
none when it comes to the question of spiritual
value.
IV
PROFESSOR HARNACK ON THE SECOND
SOURCE OF THE FIRST AND THIRD GOSPELS
IV.
PROFESSOR HARNACK ON THE SECOND
SOURCE OF THE FIRST AND THIRD
GOSPELS.
PROFESSOR HARNACK'S remarkable vindication
of the Lukan authorship of the third Gospel
and the Acts l has been followed by a further
volume, in which he examines the second
source common to St. Matthew and St. Luke.2
The first source is, of course, the Gospel of
St. Mark, in whatever form it may have been
used by the two later Evangelists. Of this
Harnack has nothing to say here ; he confines
his attention strictly to the matter common to
the other two Gospels alone. His purpose is
by a careful comparison of the two versions, as
given in St. Matthew and St. Luke, to obtain
a hypothetical reconstruction of "Q,"3 the
1 In Lukas der Arzt.
2 Spriiche und Reden Jesu (Leipzig, 1907); or in the transla
tion, The Sayings of Jesus. The references in this paper are
to the German edition.
3 The source is so called from the German Quelle ; the old
name Logia has been dropped as suggesting an identification
with the Matthajan Logia, which, however probable, must not
be assumed.
144 HARNACK, FIRST AND THIRD GOSPELS
common source which it is generally agreed
must in some form and in some sense lie behind
both.
He renews the protest which we find in
Lukas der Arzt against flashy a priori theor
ising, and asks for more "spade-work," a
detailed examination of the actual data.
" What happens in many other of the main
questions of gospel criticism happens here ;
critics launch out into sublime questions as to
the meaning of the ' Kingdom of God,' as to
the 'Son of Man,' ' Messiahship,' etc., or
into inquiries of 'religious history,' and ques
tions of authenticity decided on ' higher ' con
siderations . . . but they avoid the ' lower '
problems, which, involve spade-work and
troublesome research (bei deren Behandlung
karrnerarbeit zu leisten und Staub zu schlucken
ist) " (p. 3). He acknowledges the complica
tions of the problem, the probability of an early
harmonising of the text of the two Gospels,
the doubts whether Q was used by both in
the same form, or whether one or the other
may not have gone back at times to an
Aramaic original, and the difficulty of deciding
on the scope of O. But the right method
puts these questions aside for the moment and
" must first confine itself exclusively and strictly
to the parts common to Matthew and Luke as
THE SCOPE OF THE INQUIRY 145
against Mark, must examine these from the
point of view of grammar, style, and literary
history, and starting from this firm basis see
how far we can go." Not till such an inquiry
has failed, need the problem be given up as
hopeless (p. 2).
The common sections which are the material
of the study, comprise about one-sixth of the
third Gospel and two-elevenths of the first.
Harnack divides them into three groups :
(i) Numerous passages where the resemblance
is often almost verbal ; these are treated of
first, and must form the basis of any theory
or reconstruction of O. (2) Cases where
the divergence is so great that it becomes
very doubtful whether there was any common
source at all ; they include only Mt 2i32
and Lk 729-30, and the parables of the Great
Feast, and of the Pounds (or Talents), and are
dealt with separately in an appendix. (3) The
numerous and important sections where striking
resemblances are combined with no less striking
differences. The student does not need to
be reminded that these form the real crux of
the problem.
We note that Harnack starts from the resem
blances ; this fact is important as explaining
his conclusions. It is perhaps true to say that
Mr. Allen in his Commentary on St. Matthew
1 46 HARNACK, FIRST AND THIRD GOSPELS
is more impressed with the divergences, and
therefore, as we should expect, reaches a cor
respondingly different solution of the problem.
We shall have something to say later on of
the relation between the two views.
Harnack's critical method will be best shown
by an example of its actual working :
Text of Mt. Variations in Lk.
Mt I316. vp.5>v Se paKiipioi Lk IO23- 24. i/xwi/ Se om.
ol o0doX/iot, on /SXeTrouo-tv, (cat ot /SXeVovrey a /SXeTrere KOI
ra wTa [u/xoai'] ort dKououcrtv. ra bis OKOUOUCT/I' om.
(17) fi^.^ yap Xe'yw i/^ti/, on n/iTji/ om. Xeyco yap
TroXXot 7rpo(^)f)rai KOI 8/Katot [<cai jSacrtXety] for Kai 8/Kaiot
fTre6v^rj(rav I8tlv a /SXeVerf, rjde\r)<rav v/xety /3Xe7rere
Kai OI'K fiSav' KOI aKoOcrat a [/cat a*, bis f/KOvcrav om.].
a/covere, (cat OVK TJKOWCIV.
"At the beginning Luke inserts an improve
ment of the style, and a pedantic explanation
of the meaning. Blass has rightly struck out
from Luke the last seven words of Matthew,
following several MSS. 'Hearing' is not
found in v.16, and if the last clause of v.17 were
Lukan it must have run u/iet<? afcovere (cf. the
Lukan text immediately before). Probably
Luke did not care to say that the prophets
had not heard it ; they only had not seen it.
Luke's insertion of the Ly^et? is striking, as he
usually omits O's pleonastic personal pronouns.
In this case he had at the beginning omitted
the ii^oiv, and where he inserts it, the u/u,et? is
TEXTUAL CRITICISM 147
not pleonastic, a/jujv may belong to the source,
but may also have been inserted by Matthew.
KOI /Sachet? must be retained in Luke in spite
of the indecisive attestation, since its later inser
tion is not easily explained, while the omission
is easy to understand. But if it stood in Luke,
it also stood in O, and Si/caioi, in Mt. is a cor
rection by Matthew, who had a special fond
ness for SiicaioavvTj. q0€\if<rav for eTredv^aav is
an obvious improvement in style (eiriOvfjueiv only
occurs once elsewhere in Mt.). In Q the
saying will have run just as in Mt., except
for the SUaiot (and perhaps the apyv). We
notice also the parallelism in Mt." (p. 22).
The extract has been chosen more or less
at random, simply as a fair illustration of the
principles adopted in the investigation.
i. As regards text, Harnack does not deal
directly with questions of textual criticism.
He takes the view that Blass and Wellhausen
have overestimated the value of D, and of
unsupported variants in general, as well as the
influence of the Lukan text on Matthew. He
prefers Westcott and Hort (p. 5). At the
same time we find him abandoning that text
in several startling instances, and, as in the case
before us, preferring the "Western" text (the
evidence for the omission of the final clause
of Lk io24 is three old Latin MSS). Similarly,
1 48 HARNACK, FIRST AND THIRD GOSPELS
he omits the close of Lk 1 142, as interpolated
from Mt 2323, the third (or second) Beatitude
from Mt 55, and not merely the third, but also
the first two petitions from the Lukan version
of the Lord's Prayer, in favour of the petition
for the Holy Ghost found in Tertulltan, Gregory
of Nyssa, and Cod. Ev. 604. We may admit
that the text of the Gospels is not yet finally
settled, and with Mr. Allen we may be
" inclined to believe that the second century
readings, attested by the ecclesiastical writers
of that century, and by the Syriac and Latin
versions, are often deserving of preference."
At the same time, in the present state of know
ledge, one feels a little uncomfortable at
o '
conclusions founded on readings which have
been adopted by but few, if any, of the acknow
ledged leaders of textual criticism.
2. It will have been noticed that in the
example cited, nothing is said of the difference
of context in which the words occur, in Mt.
in the explanation of teaching by parables, in
Luke after the return of the Seventy. In the
same way the section on the aspirants to
discipleship (Mt 819, Lk 9" ; p. 12) contains
no hint of the fact that St. Luke mentions a
third aspirant ; and the two versions of the
"Lost Sheep" (p. 65) are discussed without
1 Op. cit. p. Ixxxvii.
ST. MATTHEW'S EDITING OF Q 149
the least reference to St. Luke's closely con
nected parable of the Lost Coin. As we have
seen, Harnack's method is to isolate the
parallel sections of the two Gospels, but it is
at least questionable whether divergences such
as these are not too essential to be io-nored.
o
3. We proceed to the explanation of differ
ences in language. St. Luke's variants in the
passage before us are explained by considera
tions of style ; St. Matthew's, by the influence of
certain dominating ideas. This is, in fact, the
general conclusion arrived at.
(a) Changes in St. Matthew. According to
the summary on p. 28, there are thirty-four
cases in the first group of passages in which
Mt. may reasonably be supposed to have
altered the text of O ; thirteen of these are in
the introductions to the sections ; fifteen betray
his dominating ideas, e.g. " Heavenly Father,"
" Heaven " for " God," etc. These peculiarities
are found in all parts of his Gospel, and are
therefore presumably not derived from O. Of
a similar character is his fondness for the con
ception "righteousness," as in 633 and our
illustrative passage (i317). More significant
are the additions of Trpwrov in 633 (limiting and
explaining a hard saying), and of "this is the
law," etc., to the Golden Rule in ;12 (emphasis
ing the editor's respect for the Jewish law), and
150 HARNACK, FIRST AND THIRD GOSPELS
the expansion of the Jonah passage in i240
(interest in Old Testament type and pro
phecy).
Similar results come from the examination of
the second group, where his alterations are
about fifty (p. 76). They include the emphasis
on "Heaven" and "Father" (particularly in
io32, where " Heavenly Father" takes the place
of " the angels "), and on " righteousness " (56> 45
2^29.35. cf Texei09; 548) ; favourite expressions
such as the closing formulas in 812*13, v-rraye in
410 813 i815, /-iw/509 and </yxm//,o9 in 724-26 ; besides
more trivial variations in particles, etc. His
interest in the Old Testament is illustrated by
the continuation of the quotation in 44 ; his
Palestinian and Judaic standpoint, by the men
tion of Jerusalem as "the Holy City" in 45, by
the " Pharisees and Lawyers " (or Sadducees)
of 37 2323>29, by the first three petitions of the
Lord's Prayer, and by the addition in 2323 [see
above for the questionable treatment of the
text in these two cases]. Hard sayings are
softened in 532 ("except for fornication"), and
in 53 ("poor in spirit"}; the strange and un
recognised reference to the " Wisdom of God "
is omitted in 2334.1
1 On the "son of Barachiah " in 2335, see pp. 73, 78, n. i. If
genuine in the text of Mt., it is probably an addition of the
editor, and did not stand in Q. Harnack does not discuss the
ST. LUKE'S EDITING OF Q 151
(b) Changes in St. Luke. In both groups
these are more numerous, 1 50 in the first,
" 8 to 10 times more numerous than Matthew's "
in the second. They are nearly all due to
considerations of style. These are grouped
under nineteen heads (pp. 31 and 78); the list
is too long to quote in extenso ; we may
instance (i) the use of literary and favourite
expressions such as K\aieiv (621 732 ; 1 1 times
in the third Gospel, twice in the first, once in
a quotation from LXX), evayye\.i£ea-0ai (l616).
%«/K<? (632<33 ; 25 times in third Gospel and Acts,
never in Mt. or Mk.) vTroo-rpefatv (4* ; 22 times
in third Gospel, 1 1 times in Acts, never in
Mt. or Mk.) ; (2) constructions such as the
genitive absolute, or rjv with the participle ;
(3) improvements in order and in the connection
of sentences. Indeed, the characteristics of
Luke's style are so well known that it is un
necessary to dwell on them here ; it is enough
to note that they are self-evident in his treat
ment of the O passages. More important
variations are the "egg and scorpion" in ii12
origin or explanation of the supposed mistake, but he rejects
unhesitatingly the view which sees a reference to the " Son of
Baruch " mentioned by Josephus \_B.J. iv. v. 4]. The editor
might have put a prophecy into Christ's mouth, but not a pure
anachronism ; he could not intend the words " whom ye slew "
to refer to an event which happened in 67 or 68 A.D. On the
other side, see Burkitt, The Gospel History andits Transmission,
P- 343-
I 5 2 H ARNACK, FIRST AND THIRD GOSPELS
(cf. Mt 79), the rewriting of the obscure Mt 1 112
in i616, and the additions in Q60 and I241 (cf.
Mt 822 2443). A new version is given of the
parable of the Two Builders (646) ; the disciples
are to heal as well as to preach (g2 ; cf. Mt io7) ;
in ii42 " love of God " is substituted for " mercy,"
in ii49 "apostles" for "wise men and scribes,"
in 1 152 " knowledge " for the " kingdom " (cf. Mt
2^23.34.14^ The, idea of repentance is added to
the parable of the Lost Sheep (i57), and the
doctrine of the Holy Spirit is emphasised in 41
ii13, and the Lord's Prayer [p].1
What, then, do these alterations show us as to
the method which the Evangelists have followed
in using their sources ? Have they made it ap
preciably harder for us to reconstruct \heipsissima
verba of Christ? Harnack's answer is important.
"We may say that Matthew has treated the
sayings [of Christ] with great respect, and in
a very conservative spirit" (p. 30). "Special
tendencies have had no stronger influence over
Luke's version than over Matthew's ; rather
the reverse. He has corrected the text un-
1 In a certain number of cases we must allow for the
influence of St. Mark, where he had matter parallel to Q. It
appears in St. Matthew in 411 ("angels came and ministered to
Him") ; in St. Luke more frequently. It influenced his version
of the Temptation in the " forty days tempted? and the omission
of " and nights " ; I43* (" salt ") is nearer to Mk 950 than Mt 513,
and i618 ("divorce") rests on Mk iou as much as on Mt 532 (Q).
See pp. 35, 41, 43.
RESULTS OF THE EDITORS' WORK 153
flinchingly in matters of style, which Matthew
has apparently almost entirely avoided doing.1
But although these stylistic corrections are so
numerous, we cannot say that he has entirely
obliterated the special features of the original
before him. We must rather give him credit
for having carried out his revision in a con
servative spirit, and for having allowed his
readers to obtain an impression of the char
acter of the sayings of Jesus. . . . Almost
everywhere we may notice that short and
pregnant sayings of the Lord are corrected the
least ; longer speeches have suffered more ;
the encroachments reach their height in the
o
narrative portions " (p. 80).
The investigation then proves altogether
favourable as establishing the reliability of the
Evangelists, i.e. the editors of the Gospels as
we have them. The question at present is
not "what is the value of their sources?" but
" how have they treated those sources ? " Have
they manipulated them in such a way as to
leave us several degrees further removed from
historical fact ? Even taking a text, as Harnack
practically does, from which all possible traces of
1 Dr. Moulton (Cambridge Biblical Essays) suggests that a
study of the papyri would somewhat modify this conclusion.
"Compounds" are not necessarily literary, and Matthew some
times has the more classical word, leaving Luke (and Q) with
the Hellenistic, or^popular, phrase (pp. 480, 485 ft, 496).
154 HARNACK, FIRST AND THIRD GOSPELS
harmonising have been relentlessly expunged,
and assuming for the moment that all variations
are due to the Evangelists and not to their
sources, or to the actual repetition of similar
sayings on different occasions, it appears that
both have treated their source with a high
degree of fidelity. The majority of their as
sumed alterations are unimportant, being, in
fact, little more than verbal ; very seldom do
they allow themselves to tamper with the sense.
With regard to the first group of passages in
particular, it is not too much to say that,
roughly speaking, the text in St. Matthew and
in St. Luke is identical (p. 32).
The important point is that this conclusion is
valid, apart from any theory of the nature of
O, or of the form in which the material came
to the final editors. The variations which have
so far been attributed to them may, in fact, go
further back, as Harnack admits in some cases.
They may be supposed to have arisen in the
course of oral tradition, in different versions of
an original Aramaic collection, or in a hundred
other ways. That will not affect the conclusion
that as a whole the variations themselves are
unimportant^ and easily explained ; we can go
behind them with a high degree of probability
and reach a stage perhaps very near to the
original.
THE COMMON SOURCE 155
We pass now to the question of "Q," the
supposed common source. The variations in
the text of St. Matthew are sufficient to forbid
the idea that St. Luke used his Gospel (p. 78).
On the other hand, the resemblances in the
first group of parallel sections prove that " in
the parts we are concerned with the connection
between the two Evangelists (neither of whom
was the source of the other) must be literary ;
i.e. it is not enough to go back to common oral
sources " (p. 32). In particular, oral tradition
is not enough to explain the phenomena of the
Sermon on the Mount (p. 80 n.). The con
clusion is that "one and the same Greek
translation of an Aramaic original lies behind
the two Gospels " (p. 80). As to the supposed
traces of differences of translation from this
Aramaic, Harnack is not nearly so certain as
Wellhausen and Nestle. He admits that the
actual copies of Q used by St. Matthew and St.
Luke may have differed in detail, but finds it
hopeless to reconstruct a O1 and a O2. E.g. the
editor of the first Gospel may have found the
amplification of the " sign of Jonah " in the copy
he used, and St. Luke may have taken the
"egg and the scorpion" from another version
of the saying. "In a few cases we might
doubt whether there is any common source
underlying Matthew and Luke (Lk 646-49 71-10
156 HARNACK, FIRST AND THIRD GOSPELS
ii41-44 i426)" (p. 80); and with regard to the
short sayings in particular, " Matthew and Luke
may well have had more than one common
source besides Mark" (p. 126). The admission
of these possibilities does not prevent Harnack
from giving us an interesting reconstruction of
Q (pp. 88 ff.) ; needless to say it is hypothetical
both in text and in compass. According to
this reconstruction, Q included 7 narratives,
12 parables, 13 collections of sayings, and 29
longer or shorter sayings.
Did Q inchide more ? It is a priori probable
enough that parts of Q may have been utilised
by one of the Evangelists alone (as has hap
pened in their reproduction of St. Mark), but
have we any criterion by which we can assign
to Q matter found in one Gospel only? The
examination of the material which has so far
been supposed to come from Q, fails to disclose
any marked peculiarity of style, unless extreme
simplicity can be so described. Herein New
Testament criticism differs from that of the Old
Testament ; in the Hexateuch the style, e.g., of
P enables us to trace it with a high degree of
certainty. With regard to Q, the double version
is practically our only criterion, hence the con
clusion is that there is practically nothing
peculiar to the first or third Gospel which can
definitely be assigned to Q (p. 130).
CONTENTS OF Q 157
The question is particularly important with
regard to the Passion Narrative. As is well
known, St. Matthew and St. Luke practically
never agree against St. Mark in this ; our one
certain criterion accordingly fails us. Is there
any ground for supposing that either, in par
ticular St. Luke, used Q ? Did Q include a
Passion narrative at all? Probably not. If it
did so, why should either of the Evangelists
desert it at the critical point, when they have
both used it so freely before ? Further, a glance
at any list of the passages common to the two
Gospels will show that, except for Mt 23. 24,
the common source is hardly used by either in
the latter half of their Gospels. The conclusion
can hardly be resisted that they must have ex
hausted all it had to give them in the course of
their earlier chapters (p. 120).
A similar " not proven " must be the verdict
with regard to the supposed traces of Q outside
the Gospels. The agrapha of other books of
the New Testament, of MSS, and of the
Fathers, or versions of Christ's sayings in the
Fathers which do not seem to rest directly on
our Canonical Gospels, have been ascribed to
Q. In particular, Clemens Romanus and Poly-
carp have been supposed to quote from a
definite collection of Aojot TOV KvpLov (cf. Ac 2O35),
which has further been identified with Q or the
158 HARNACK, FIRST AND THIRD GOSPELS
Logia. The hypothesis is a tempting one, but
if we follow Harnack, it must be resisted.
"The burden of proof in each case rests on
those who support the claims of Q, but we look
in vain for real proofs in the pages of Resch
and others" (p. I35).1
So much with regard to the contents of O ;
can we arrive at any conclusions as to the order
in which its contents stood ? The apparently
hopeless divergences of their arrangement in
our Gospels have usually been a stumbling-
1 It is of interest to compare Harnack's view with one of the
latest considerable investigations of the subject in England,
Mr. Allen's Commentary on St. Matthew. At first sight the
divergence seems great, and is discouraging to those who are
hoping for assured results in the investigation of the Synoptic
problem. It would be impertinent for the amateur to attempt
to decide between the two, but it may be permissible to point
out that on looking closer the difference tends to diminish.
Mr. Allen's view is conditioned by his stress on the divergences
between St. Matthew and St. Luke ; Harnack fastens on the
resemblances. Mr. Allen turns the edge of the latter by keep
ing before him the possibility that St. Luke may have seen the
first Gospel, though not writing with it before him. His Q
consists of the Judaic sayings peculiar to St. Matthew, together
with some of the sayings which are found also in St. Luke.
The common narrative portions he assigns to X ; i.e. Harnack's
Q = part of Allen's Q + X. It will be remembered that Harnack
does not deny that some of the matter peculiar to St. Matthew
may have stood in Q ; he merely refrains from saying so in any
definite case. And while Mr. Allen holds that the two Evan
gelists had very rarely a common written source, he admits
that much of the common matter may go back to one source
ultimately, reaching St. Luke at a later stage. See, further, an
article by Mr. Allen, Expository Times, xx. pp. 445 ff.
THE ORDER OF Q'S MATERIAL 159
block to the would-be believer in the reality of
a common source, but Harnack makes a bold
attempt to bring order out of this seeming-
chaos. In fact, an unobtrusive note on p. 125
tells us that it was the similar order of the
sections in St. Matthew and St. Luke which
conquered his own long-continued scepticism as
to the existence of such a source as Q. The
investigation is complicated (pp. 121 ff.), and it
is impossible to do justice to it without elaborate
tables. The result maybe summed up as follows.
St. Luke's first 13 sections are reproduced in
St. Matthew in practically the same order though
interspersed with sayings found later in St. Luke
( = St. Matthew's Sermon on the Mount). The
material in Mt 8-10 is found in nearly the same
order in St. Luke, but it is scattered over a
larger number of chapters. Generally speaking,
the order of the important sections in Q is
identical in both Gospels, the main exceptions
being the message of the Baptist, and the
division by St. Luke of Mt 23, 24. The other
differences of order are usually confined to short
logia or to passages which on other grounds
may not belong to Q. Harnack takes the view
that St. Matthew's order is more primitive, and
that his "conflations" had their basis in the
source ; he supposes that even in the Sermon
the common matter stood together in Q, as we
1 60 HARNACK, FIRST AND THIRD GOSPELS
find it in St. Matthew, and that it was de
liberately displaced by St. Luke. This, of
course, is not the prevalent view, and in face
of St. Matthew's disturbance of St. Mark's
order in the first half of his gospel, it is doubt
ful. But, again, the main conclusion is un
affected. Whatever be the explanation of the
differences, we can reconstruct the order of the
common source in its outline. It commenced
with the Baptism and Temptation, followed by
a large number of discourses in a more or less
probable, though, it is true, not a very signifi
cant order, and concluded with final warnings
and eschatological matter.
What, then, was the character of Q ? It was
mainly a collection of sayings of the Lord.
It is true it included a small proportion of narra
tives, but their presence may be easily accounted
for (p. 127, n. 2). The Baptism and Tempta
tion define at the very beginning the person of
Jesus and His Messianic character, which is
henceforth assumed. Incidents such as John's
message to Christ, the questions of the aspirants,
the casting out of a devil, and the demand for
a sign, are in each case subordinate to the
teaching of which they were the occasion. The
healing of the centurion's servant has always
been a difficulty to those who regard the source
as Logia in the usual sense. Harnack suggests
CHARACTER OF Q 161
that the point was not the healing in itself,
which, indeed, may not have been mentioned
in Q, but the faith of the heathen and the
lessons drawn from it (p. 146).
As we have seen, Q probably did not include
a Passion narrative, the climax and, in a sense,
the raison d'etre of the Gospels as we have
them ;l i.e. " Q was not a Gospel at all as they
were" (p. 120). It was rather a collection of
sayings drawn up for catechetical purposes.
Such a collection is a priori probable, both on
account of Jewish ways of thought, and from
the actual stress which early Christians laid on
the "words of the Lord" (pp. 127, 159). It
had a method, but the principle of its arrange
ment was not chronological ; e.g. the position
of the Sermon is probably due to the desire for
emphasis (p. 142). The style is not very dis
tinctive, the vocabulary being of small compass
and simple (see lists on pp. 103-115). In face
of the marked features of the Synoptists' style,
this does, in fact, give Q a certain distinctive
character and unity. So with the contents, the
main feature is simplicity. Its Christology is
1 Harnack finds it necessary to insert a warning (p. 162, n.)
against the "folly" (Unsinn) of those who would argue on this
ground that the Passion never took place ! We may add that
the " argument from silence " is always precarious ; when it
bases itself on a document which is hypothetical and frag
mentary, it becomes ludicrous.
ii
1 62 HARNACK, FIRST AND THIRD GOSPELS
simple, " Jesus " being the almost invariable title
of our Lord, and the teaching is informal and
largely ethical. We find none of the "tend
encies " which are so characteristic of our
Gospels : St. Mark's emphasis on the super
natural, and the Divine Sonship ; St. Matthew's
interest in the needs of the Church, and apolo
getic attitude towards Judaism ; St. Luke's
Hellenic wideness of outlook, presenting Christ
as the Healer (p. 118). Its horizon is even
more definitely Galilsean than theirs. Harnack
follows Schmiedel (and Loisy) in seeing in the
often-quoted lament over Jerusalem a continua
tion of the quotation from the " Wisdom of
God."1
The same simple and undeveloped attitude
appears in Q's relation to Judaism. Palestinian
features are prominent ; the work of the Baptist
1 The facts are these. In Mt 2334 the lament over Jerusalem
follows immediately on the saying about the blood of the
prophets. In Lk II49 this is introduced by the words, "There
fore the wisdom of God said" (? a quotation from an unknown
source) ; the lament follows in a different context in I334. The
suggestion is that the first Gospel has preserved the true con
nection of the passages, and the third Gospel the fact of the
quotation, which may then cover the lament as well. The
point is that in this case the reference to unknown visits to
Jerusalem is weakened ; our Lord may be applying the quota
tion to Jerusalem's long continued rejection of God's love.
Harnack, however, still thinks that the words gain in impressive-
ness if they were actually spoken in Jerusalem. (Cf. Loisy, Le
Quatrtime Evangile^ p. 63.)
Q AND ST. MARK 163
is strongly emphasised. There is a clearly
marked opposition to "the evil and adulterous
generation" of the day, but no anti- Judaic
polemic or apologetic, or criticism of the law
(p. I60).1
Arguing from these marks of primitive sim
plicity, Harnack draws the important conclusion
that Q is prior to St. Mark. St. Mark's few
points of contact with Q are not enough to
establish a direct connection ; he probably knew
some collection of sayings, and a double tradition
is in itself probable. Those who have main
tained, as Wellhausen does, the priority of the
second Gospel, have done so because they
1 One can feel a difference in the supposed standpoints of Q
and of the editor of the first Gospel. But both wrote from a
Judaic point of view, and it becomes in some cases a very
delicate task to divide rightly between them the admitted Judaic
material of the first Gospel E.g., in the Lord's Prayer, Harnack
refuses to Q the first three petitions as well as the last. He
attributes them to the primitive Jewish Christian community
assimilating the prayer to the synagogue forms, or to the editor
himself (p. 40). But admitting the " Jewish horizon " of Q, are
they not equally intelligible there, and may not Q here, as else
where, be supposed to take us very near to the Lord's own
words? The same question arises with regard to the teaching
about Righteousness in Mt 6 (pp. 117, 128).
As we have had occasion to criticise the somewhat truncated
version of the Lord's Prayer, which is all that Harnack allows
to come from Q, i.e. to be original, it may be well to add that
he makes no question that some such form was actually given
by Christ. " I doubt whether a prophet or teacher of the East
ever gave injunctions to prayer, without also giving a pattern
prayer "(p. 145).
1 64 HARNACK, FIRST AND THIRD GOSPELS
have ascribed to Q the secondary traits of St.
Matthew and St. Luke (p. 136). The detailed
examination of the second Gospel and Q, in
which Harnack suggests that St. Mark is
secondary throughout and marks a later stage,
is perhaps not very convincing. Once more
we try to disentangle the important point, which
is the absence of any real contradiction between
the two. The suggestion on p. 159 is worthy
of note ; Q could not have arisen after St.
Mark had fixed the Gospel type, in which he
was followed by all subsequent writers, canonical
and uncanonical alike. "Q stands midway
between a formless collection of the sayings of
Jesus, and the Gospels as fixed in writing."
We have, in fact, in Q and St. Mark the true
"double tradition," to which St. Luke may
perhaps refer in Ac i1. "Our knowledge of
the preaching and life of Jesus depends on two
sources, of nearly the same date, but inde
pendent, at least in their main features. Where
they agree their evidence is strong, and they do
agree in many and important points. Destruc
tive critical inquiries . . . break themselves in
vain against the rock of their united testimony "
(p. 172).
It is evident, then, that the investigation is
of the highest value from the point of view of
the evidence on which our knowledge of Christ's
MATERIAL SUBSEQUENT TO Q 165
teaching rests. One knows, indeed, that there
is an unwise and a somewhat unfair readiness
to quote admissions of a German critic on the
orthodox side, apart from their context, and
with the omission of qualifications which would
be much less readily accepted. Harnack him
self has protested against this procedure in his
preface to Lukas der Arzt. It is then only
right to say that his treatment of the Gospel
story will not in all respects satisfy the con
servative. We cannot help being conscious of
the implied assumptions, that whatever has to
do with "a Church" is "secondary," and that
whatever is "Pauline" or developed is further
from the truth than primitive first impressions.
As Dr. Sanday has lately put it, " he [Harnack]
feels the prevalent Geist des Verneinens drag
ging at his skirts, and has yielded to it more
than he ought." What Mr. Allen has said on
this subject is entirely to the point.1 "The
historian . . . will shrink from the conclusion
that ... the teaching of Christ was altogether
and exclusively what the editor of the first
Gospel represents it to have been, to the ex
clusion of representations of it to be found in
other parts of the New Testament. . . . That
teaching was no doubt many-sided. Much of
it may have been uttered in the form of para-
1 Op. dt. p. 320.
1 66 HARNACK, FIRST AND THIRD GOSPELS
dox and symbol. The earliest tradition of it,
at first oral and then written, was that of a
local Church, that of Jerusalem, which drew
from the treasure-house of Christ's sayings such
utterances as seemed to bear most immediately
upon the lives of its members, who were at
first all Jews or proselytes. In this process of
selection the teaching of Christ was only parti
ally represented, because choice involved over
emphasis. Paradox may sometimes have been
interpreted as an expression of literal truth,
symbol as reality, and to some extent, though
not, I think, to any great extent, the sayings
in process of transmission may have received
accretions arising out of the necessities of the
Palestinian Church life. Thus the representa
tion of Christ's teaching in this Gospel, though
early in date, suffers probably from being local
in character. In the meantime, much of Christ's
teaching remained uncommitted to writing ; and
not until St. Paul's teaching had made men see
that Palestinian Christianity suffered in some
respects from a too one-sided representation of
Christ's teaching, did they go back to the utter
ances of Christ, and reinterpret them from a
wider point of view ; seeking out also other
traditions of different aspects of His teaching
which had been neglected by the Palestinian
guardians of His words." The remarks refer
RELIABILITY OF THE GOSPELS 167
to the first Gospel, but they apply equally to
any attempt to over-emphasise the value of Q
to the exclusion of the later teaching of other
parts of the New Testament.
Further, Harnack's conclusions as to the
scope, use, and the very existence of Q are still
admittedly in the region of hypothesis ; by the
nature of the case such inquiries can rarely rise
above a high degree of probability. But one
of the objects of this paper is to call attention
to his results, as affecting the reliability of the
Gospel story, and to suggest that they do not
entirely depend on a particular view of Q and
its use by our Evangelists, nor need they be
rejected on account of a possible overestimate
of its value as compared with other writings.
We have already seen that his inquiry has
made it clear that our varying versions of
Christ's words do not show signs of any serious
manipulation, whether on the part of our Evan
gelists or their predecessors. A further conclu
sion is that we can take the matter common to
St. Matthew and St. Luke, call it Q, or 'what
we like, and from it we can construct a picture
of our Lord and His teaching, primitive and
simple, essentially in harmony with that of St.
Mark, and containing the germ of much that
was to follow.
We have said that O's Christology was
1 68 HARNACK, FIRST AND THIRD GOSPELS
simple, yet it is also profoundly significant.
The person of Jesus holds throughout the
central place in the picture. His Messiahship
is emphasised in the opening paragraphs of
the Baptism and Temptation, and is henceforth
assumed. The absence of proof or attempted
argument on this point shows "that this collec
tion was exclusively intended for the Church,
and had in mind those who needed no assurance
that their teacher was also the Son of God "
(p. 163). It included the title "Son of Man,"
and, above all, the antithesis between " the
Father" and "the Son" in the famous passage
Mt 1 125, Lk io21. This passage is crucial, with
regard both to our Lord's self-consciousness,
and to the relations between the Synoptists and
St. John ; Harnack devotes a long appendix
to it. He admits that the canonical wording
is "Johannine" (p. 210), but by a careful
examination of MS variations, and of the
numerous patristic quotations of the passages,
he restores what he regards as the original text,
as it ran in Q, and probably also in St. Luke.
E£ofio\o<yov[jLai croi, irdrep, Kvpie rov ovpavov Kal rfjs
or i eicpv-fyas ravra aTrb crotywv Kal arvverfav, /cat
avra vrjTriois' vat, o Trarrjp, on ovrws
eyevero evBotcia ep,Trpoa6e.v aov. rrdvra y^oi TrapeSoOrj
vTTo rov Trar/309, /cat oySet? eyva> rov Trdrepa (or Tt9
6 Trart'ip\ el p,rj o fto?, /cat a> av o vio?
Q'S CHRISTOLOGY 169
(p. 206). l Even so, the Logion is of the first
importance critically ; it implies that in our
oldest source, Jesus spoke of Himself absolutely
as " the Son," and regarded Himself as standing
in a peculiar relation to His Father. "It is
indeed quite inconceivable how he could have
arrived at the conviction that He was the future
Messiah, without first being conscious of stand
ing in a peculiar relation to God " (p. 209).
We find, in fact, the same antithesis in Mk I332
(io32 on p. 152 is an obvious misprint), and
Harnack suggests that i Co i19-21 may rest on
the passage before us. The continuation in St.
Matthew ("Come unto Me," etc.) stands on a
different footing ; it is not found in St. Luke,
and the connection with the context is not im
mediate. But here, again, Harnack pronounces
strongly for its authenticity, mainly on internal
evidence. 2 Co io1 may well be an echo of
the saying, and the absence of any reference to
death or the Cross shows that it must be prior
to St. Mark and the development of Paulinism.
It may belong to O, or to some other source
(this would explain its otherwise very strange
1 I thank Thee, Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, that
Thou hast hid these things from wise and prudent, and hast
revealed them to babes ; yea, Father, for thus it seemed good
before Thee. All things are delivered Me by the Father, and
no one knoweth the Father (or who the Father is), save the Son
and he to whom the Son revealeth Him.
1 70 HARNACK, FIRST AND THIRD GOSPELS
omission by St. Luke); "it cannot be shown
that it belongs to a secondary tradition." " The
only alternatives are to ascribe it to the later
creation of a prophet of the Jewish Christian
Church, who strangely disregarded the death
upon the Cross, or to Jesus Himself. There
seems to me no doubt which alternative we are
to adopt " (p. 216).
Again, with regard to the " Sermon on the
Mount," Harnack's investigations go to show
that it is not a mere compilation. The setting,
of course, is different in the two Gospels, but
attention is drawn to the fact that both agree
in mentioning the presence of the multitude,
combined with the fact that the Sermon was
addressed to the disciples (p. 122, n.). This
points to a real tradition as to its occasion. It
is true the Beatitudes speak of persecutions,
and persecutions did, in fact,' take place after
wards. But that does not prove that the
saying was a product of a later age, coloured
by the facts. Harnack has some cutting re
marks on the folly of regarding everything
as an "anachronism" or artificial prophecy
(" hysteron-proteron "), which does, in fact, fit
the circumstances of a subsequent generation
(p. 143). " Looked at both in detail, and as
a whole, that which is set before us in the
Sermon on the Mount as the teaching of Jesus
ORIGIN OF Q 171
bears the stamp of unalloyed genuineness.
We are astonished that in an as^e in which
O
Paul was active, and burning questions of
apologetic and the law were to the fore,
the teaching of Jesus was so well remembered
and remained so vital as Moral preaching "
(p. 146).
O, then, has given us the abiding picture of
Jesus as revealed in His words. It takes our
tradition a stage further back, who shall say
how near to the actual occasion on which those
words were spoken? It obviously arose in
Palestine (p. 172) — on the actual scene of the
ministry. And Harnack himself concludes,
from the well-known words of Papias, that it
was in all probability the work of St. Matthew
(p. 172) — an eye-witness and a listener. Allow
ing for a somewhat different view of the Logia,
Harnack would probably endorse the words of
Mr. Allen: "They are perhaps the earliest
of all our sources of knowledge for the life of
Christ, and rest even more directly than does
the second Gospel on apostolic testimony.
For the Apostle Matthew seems to have
written down, for the use of his Palestinian
fellow-Christians, some of the sayings of Christ
that he could remember, selecting, no doubt,
such as would appeal most strongly to his
readers and satisfy their needs. Better security
i;2 HARNACK, FIRST AND THIRD GOSPELS
that these sayings were uttered by Christ Him
self we could hardly desire."
We may add, in conclusion, two similar pro
nouncements put side by side by Dr. Sanday
in his Life of Christ in Recent Research, p. 172.
The first is a quotation from Sir W. Ramsay.
" The lost common source of Luke and Matthew
(i.e. Q) . . . was written while Christ was still
living. It gives us the view which one of His
disciples entertained of Him and His teaching
during His lifetime, and may be regarded as
authoritative for the view of the disciples
generally." The second is from Dr. Salmon's
Human Elements in the Gospels, p. 274. "The
more I study the Gospels the more convinced
I am that we have in them contemporaneous
history ; that is to say, that we have in them
the stories told of Jesus immediately after His
death, and which had been circulated, and, as I
am disposed to believe, put in writing while He
was yet alive." These views of the date of Q
may indeed be, as Dr. Sanday thinks, some
what optimistic, but the consensus of opinion as
to its value is of good omen to those who are
trying to combine the old faith with the new
critical methods.
1 Op. at. p. 317.
V
"SHOULD THE MAGNIFICAT BE ASCRIBED
TO ELISABETH?"
173
V.
"SHOULD THE MAGNIFICAT BE
ASCRIBED TO ELISABETH?"
IT has always been known to textual critics
that there is a remarkable variant in Lk i4U,
according to which the Magnificat is ascribed
to Elisabeth instead of to the Virgin Mary.
It is discussed in Westcott and Hort's
Notes on Select Readings, and has been the
subject of various articles in Germany and
France, but it has not until latterly attracted
much attention in England. The point is not
even mentioned in Plummer's Commentary on
St. Luke, nor does there seem to be any
reference to it in Hastings' Dictionary of the
Bible ; certainly there is no article on the subject.
It is, however, discussed shortly by Schmiedel
in the Encyclopedia Biblica (s.v. Mary), and at
more length by Bishop Wordsworth and Dr.
Burkitt in Dr. Burn's Niceta of Remesiana
(1905). But probably not a few have had
their attention first drawn to the point by a
passing remark in Harnack's Lukas der Arzt
175
1 76 MAGNIFICAT ASCRIBED TO ELISABETH
(p. 72, cf. p. 140), and the whole question is
treated fully by Loisy in Les Evangiles
Synoptiques (Introd. p. 265, and Com. i. pp.
302 ff.). The most comprehensive discussion
in English would seem to be an exhaustive
article by Dr. A. E. Burn in' the second volume
of the Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels
(s.v. Magnificat).1
It may, then, be of use to put together the
facts and the arguments on both sides. Did
St. Luke attribute the Magnificat to Mary or
Elisabeth ? The question is of importance
from its bearing on the validity of the generally
received critical text of the New Testament,
and it also has a sentimental side, which will
not be ignored by those who are in the habit of
using the hymn in public worship.
i. The Evidence for the Reading. In the
introduction to the Magnificat in Lk i46 all
our MSS, Greek and Latin, read KOI el^ev
Mapm/i("and Mary said"), except three Old
Latin MSS (a, b, and /2), which have Elisabeth.
These three form, according to Burkitt, "a
typical European group " ; i.e. they tend to be
found in agreement, and their combined evidence
should be regarded as single rather than three
fold. All other Versions have the ordinary
1 And more briefly in Hastings' one-vol. DB.
2 Sometimes quoted as rhe.
TEXTUAL EVIDENCE 177
reading, as have the Fathers, except Irena^us,
Origen, and Niceta. Some doubt, however,
attaches to the evidence of the first two.
In the passage in question from Irenseus
{Hccr. iv. 7. i), ElisabctJi is read by two
MSS, while a third has Maria, and in iii. 10. 2
Irenaeus unquestionably attributes the Magni
ficat to Mary ; hence Burn and Loisy agree
that in the former passage the reading Elisabeth
is probably due to his translator or to a copyist.
The reference in Origen is by way of a note
on the reading,1 and critics are divided as to
whether it is to be attributed to him or to
his translator Jerome ; but in either case it is
important additional evidence of the existence
of the reading Elisabeth in St. Luke. With
regard to Niceta there is no doubt. Twice
over he speaks of Elisabeth as the author of
the Magnificat, and in one case adds the epithet
" diu sterilis." He lived at the close of the
fourth century, and in his quotations represents
generally the Latin Bible just before Jerome's
revision. He uses a type of text "not very much
unlike 6" (one of the MSS which has the
variant), and therefore "does not add very
1 In Luc. liom. vii. : " Invenitur beata Maria, sicut in
aliquantis exemplaribus reperimus, prophetare. Non enim
ignoramus quod secundum alios codices etha;c verba Elisabeth
vaticinetur. Spiritu itaque sancto tune repleta est Maria."
12
1 78 MAGNIFICAT ASCRIBED TO ELISABETH
much to the weight of evidence for the
ascription to Elisabeth, except in so far as he
shows that the tradition was more widespread
and persistent at the end of the fourth century
than we might otherwise have supposed." It
is noticeable, too, that as a liturgiologist (he
is supposed to have been the author of the
Te Deum) he saw nothing incongruous in
attributing the hymn to Elisabeth.
It is obvious, then, that the textual evidence
for the new reading is very slight, but it would
be wrong to brush it aside at once. There are
two considerations to be borne in mind :
(a) The type of text associated with the names
of Westcott and Hort no longer has the field
to itself. Textual critics are giving increasing
weight to much of what is known as the
o
" Western " text ; in particular, it is held that
the Old Latin and Syriac often preserve
readings current in the second century, the fact
being that the text of the Gospels may well
have been for some time in a fluid state. The
question is still sub judice, and must be left to
the experts. Probably most of us feel a prejudice
in favour of the Westcott and Hort type, as at
least giving us a fixed basis on which to work.
And we are at any rate justified in our present
state of knowledge in hesitating before we
1 Burkitt in Burn, op. cit. p. cliii.
THE ORIGINAL READING 179
accept a reading which has no Greek evidence
in its favour. There is, indeed, no case where
critics have done so with any unanimity. It is
at the same time of great importance to realise
that the text of the New Testament cannot by
any means be regarded as finally fixed, and
that we may be called upon to revise our views
on the subject1
(6) In the case before us the nature of the
variant forbids our rejecting it at once. It
seems to be too widely spread to be ascribed
to a slip of the pen,2 and it is obviously im
probable that Elisabeth should ever have been
substituted for Mary, whilst the reverse is
possible enough.3 On the other hand, the
1 Mt i16 may serve as an example of the type of case in
which there is an increasing agreement among critics that no
Greek MS preserves the original reading; but there the
evidence of corruption is far greater than in the case we are
considering.
2 Nestle, however (Introd. NT. Crit. p. 238), apparently
considers the variant to be due to mere carelessness.
3 We may note that b plays a somewhat prominent part in
the important readings connected with the Virgin Birth. But,
unfortunately, the tendency of its variants is so divided that
it is hard to discover any bias on the part of the scribe. On
the one hand, we have this variant " Elisabeth," which might
be due to a desire to depreciate the position of Mary.
Similarly in Mk 63 breads " son of the Carpenter" instead of
" Carpenter" (cf. Mt I353 and Lk 422) ; in Lk 2B it has " wife "
instead of "fiancee," and in Mt I1(1 an apparently intermediate
reading with genuit, whilst in vv.lu- 20- 24 it does not share
the variations of SyrCur, which emphasise the Virgin Birth.
1 8o MAGNIFICAT ASCRIBED TO ELISABETH
evidence for Mary is far too strong (including,
e.g., Tertullian), and that for Elisabeth too weak,
to allow us to suppose the latter to have been
the original reading. The conclusion of the
majority of recent critics is that the real
reading is teal etTrei/ ("and she said"), from
which the variants were derived by way of gloss.
Whilst by no means accepting this view as
final, for the reasons stated under (a), we may
adopt it as a provisional hypothesis. A further
question at once arises. If there was originally
no name, which gloss is right ? Burn and
Wordsworth say " Mary," Burkitt, Harnack,
Loisy, Schmiedel, etc., " Elisabeth." The
question can only be answered on internal
and grammatical considerations.
2. Grammatical Considerations, (a] It is
said that /cat elnrev standing alone must refer
to Elisabeth as the last speaker. This is
more than doubtful. Mary is the prominent
Most striking of all, in Lk I34 it stands alone in substituting for
" How shall this be ? " etc., the words of v.38, " Behold the
handmaid," etc. From these instances one might be tempted
to suppose in this MS some hesitation with regard to the
Virgin Birth. But in other cases we have variations with an
exactly opposite tendency. In Lk 233- 41 it substitutes "Joseph"
for "father" or "parent," and in particular in Jn i13 it is the
only MS which has preserved the reading "qui . . . natus
est," a reading which, pace Loisy (Qume Ev. p. 180), seems to
imply the miraculous conception. The phenomena, then, are
too contradictory to allow of our ascribing any uniform bias to
the MS in question.
INTERNAL EVIDENCE 181
figure, and usage is not decisive as to whether
the phrase may or may not be used when
the speaker changes. Wordsworth l finds it
in accordance with Hebraic and Septuagint
idiom to omit the name of the fresh speaker
in such a case. Probably most readers read
ing the paragraph as a whole will feel that
it is impossible to pronounce decisively for
either speaker on these grounds.
(fr) If the introduction is inconclusive, can
we gain a clearer light from the subscription ?
The Magnificat is followed by the words,
"And Mary abode with her about three
months, and returned to her house." Prima
facie these words undoubtedly suggest that
Elisabeth and not Mary has been the speaker
in the preceding verses ; and yet this con
clusion is by no means certain, the repetition
of Mary's name after so many verses being
entirely natural, and serving to mark the
whole section as a " Mary section." We
can, however, go further than this. It has
not been sufficiently emphasised that the
verse looks forward at least as much as
back ; it connects with v.57, " Now
Elisabeth's full time came that she should
be delivered," and this has decided the form
of the preceding sentence. It would have
1 In Burn's Niceta, p. clvi.
1 82 MAGNIFICAT ASCRIBED TO ELISABETH
been awkward to say, epeivev Se aw 'E\et-
a-dfieT . . . ("she remained with E.") T$
£e 'E\eiau/3eT e7r\ija-0rj ("and E.'s full time
came "), while e7r\rjaOr) Se avrfj would have
been ambiguous. Taking the verses together,
the " Mary " at the beginning of the first
marks the close of the " Mary section," and
is answered by the " Elisabeth " at the
beginning of the second, marking the com
mencement of an " Elisabeth section." The
verses have, in fact, received the best literary
form possible, and contain nothing incom
patible with the ascription of the Magnificat
to the Virgin. At the same time, the fact
that the grammar is superficially in favour
of "Elisabeth" may have been the cause,
as Westcott and Hort suggest, of the sub
stitution of her name for Mary's in v.46.
3. Internal Evidence. (a) It is quite
obvious that a main source of the Magnificat
was Hannah's song in i S 2, and it is
equally obvious that whatever the real
origin of that song (it is not as a whole
appropriate to Hannah's situation, and has
been supposed to be the song of a warrior),
St. Luke, Mary, or Elisabeth would all
believe it to be hers without question. The
resemblance between the two has furnished
a strong argument in favour of the ascription
HANNAH'S SONG 183
of the Christian hymn to Elisabeth. Hannah's
song of praise is inspired by the fact that
Jehovah has removed from her the reproach
of childlessness ; the parallel is with the
situation of Elisabeth, not with that of Mary.
True, but no critic seems to have pointed out
that the only words in Hannah 's song which
are really appropriate to Elisabeth are entirely
unrepresented in the Magnificat. These are
v.5b, "Yea, the barren hath borne seven,
and she that hath many children languisheth."
Surely these words, even if not literally
applicable, must have found an echo in the
Magnificat, if it had been by Elisabeth, the
more so as the first half of this very verse
is fully represented ("They that were full
have hired out themselves for bread ; and
they that were hungry have ceased "). The
omission is almost inexplicable if the Magni
ficat is attributed to Elisabeth, whilst it is
perfectly natural under the ordinary view ;
the words were quite inappropriate in Mary's
mouth.
(b] With regard to the language of the
Magnificat itself, the most distinctive verse
is v.48. The opening words (" For He
hath regarded the lowliness of His hand
maiden "), though true of Elisabeth, raTreiWcri?
being used of the reproach of childlessness
1 84 MAGNIFICAT ASCRIBED TO ELISABETH
(cf. i S i11), recall Mary's "Behold the hand
maid of the Lord ; be it unto me according
to thy word'' (v.38). It may be true that
the second half of the verse (" For, behold,
from henceforth all generations shall call
me blessed "), if divested of the fullness of
meaning which Christians have found in it,
is, as Loisy maintains, possible in the mouth
of Elisabeth1 (cf. Leah in Gn 3O13). But
there is no question that it is far more
appropriate to the mother of the Messiah,
and is the natural answer to Elisabeth's
" Blessed art thou among women " (v.42), and
" Blessed is she that believed " (v.45).
(<:) Passing to the general situation, we are
told that the Magnificat regarded as the
utterance of Elisabeth is in exact correspond
ence with the Benedictus as spoken by her
husband Zacharias, when he too is filled
with the Holy Ghost (v.67, cf. v.41). But in
the latter hymn the central thought is the
coming of the Messiah of whom the child is
the forerunner. If, however, the Magnificat
belongs to Elisabeth, it is her own personal
happiness and exultation which becomes a
main theme and the occasion of the song.
The emphasis laid on her own joy in vv.46~49
is quite out of keeping with the subordinate
1 Les Evangiles Synoptiques, \. p. 305.
THE TRADITIONAL ASCRIPTION 185
position which she assumes in vv.41-45. There
can, indeed, be no doubt that Mary is intended
to be the real centre of the picture; if she
is deprived of the Magnificat, she is left
on this occasion absolutely silent. Burkitt
suggests that the "^070? airb a-iyr^ 7rpoe\0d)i>
more corresponds to the fitness of things
i i
than a burst of premature song." It is not,
however, very obvious why the song should
be more "premature" as spoken by Mary
than by Elisabeth, and the mystic fitness seen
in her supposed silence is perhaps a little
subtle. It is natural that she should reply
to Elisabeth's salutation, and it seems some
thing of a "modernism" to suppose that a
first century writer would have seen a pro-
founder significance in her not doing so.
Our conclusion, then, is that we need have
little hesitation in believing the ordinary view
to be correct. It is by no means certain
that the accepted reading is wrong ; and
even if we assume an original Kal elirev, it will
still remain probable that St. Luke intended
Mary to be understood as the speaker of
the Magnificat.
This last phrase has been deliberate.
Nothing that has been said touches the
question of the real authorship and ultimate
1 Op. cit. p. cliv.
1 86 MAGNIFICAT ASCRIBED TO ELISABETH
origin of the hymn. We have been dealing
with a question of " Lower Criticism." What
did the author of the third Gospel actually
write, and what did he mean to be understood
by his words ? The further and more im
portant question belongs to the " Higher
Criticism." Who really wrote the Magnificat ?
Is it a free composition of St. Luke himself?
Or is it a Jewish hymn which he found in
some source and adapted for his purpose ?
Or does it really rest upon words spoken by
Mary on this or a later occasion ? The
question is part of the wider problem of the
nature and origin of the first two chapters
of Luke, and lies beyond the purpose of
the present article. But one remark may be
allowed. As has been often pointed out, the
character of the Canticles is strongly in
favour of their substantial authenticity. On
the one hand, the vagueness of the language
and the lack of definite prediction suggest
IT OO
that they were not deliberately composed at
a later date to fit the supposed circumstances ;
it would have required but little ingenuity
to write something which, superficially at
least, would have been far more appropriate.
On the other hand, they do reflect in a
marvellous way the general hopes and the
temper of the circle from which they claim
THE SOURCE OF THE MAGNIFICAT 187
to have sprung. Dr. Sanday l has called
attention to "the extraordinary extent to
which these chapters hit the attitude of
expectancy which existed before the public
appearance of Christ. It is not only expecta
tion, and tense expectation, but expectation
that is essentially Jewish in its character."
It is hard to believe that either St. Luke,
or any other Christian poet, could have had
the dramatic genius, for it required no less,
to think himself back so completely into the
temper and circumstances of a very peculiar
and very brief period of transition, unless
he had considerable and authentic materials
to guide him. The argument may not be
decisive, but it must at least be taken into
account in any solution of the problem of
these two chapters which is to claim to be
final.
1 The Life of Christ in Recent Research, p. 165.
VI
GALATIANS THE EARLIEST OF THE
PAULINE EPISTLES
VI.
GALATIANS THE EARLIEST OF THE
PAULINE EPISTLES.
THIS article is only meant for those who accept
the "South Galatian " theory, and believe that
"the Churches of Galatia" to whom St. Paul
wrote were the Churches of Antioch, Iconium,
etc., founded on his first missionary journey.
The arguments in support of this view are best
found in Sir W. Ramsay's well-known books,
and need not be repeated here. Those who
are still unconvinced, if they think it worth
while to read what follows, will presumably do
so only in order to amuse themselves with yet
another of the extravagances to which that
theory leads its adherents.
Further, our argument will rest on the view
o
that the visit to Jerusalem of Gal 2 is not that
for the Council in Ac 15. A few words must
be said in support of this position. If the
identification is insisted on, the account either
of St. Paul or of St. Luke must be abandoned
as unhistorical. With all due respect for the
192 GALATIANS— EARLIEST EPISTLE
ingenious pleading of Lightfoot and others,
there is no escape from this conclusion ; and pre
sumably it is St. Luke's credit that must suffer,
since he cannot in this connection be considered
an eye-witness. This means that the whole of
Ac 15 must be thrown to the wolves as a
comparatively late fiction intended to reconcile
the two sections of the Church. It is hardly
necessary to labour the point that such a view
seriously discredits the credibility of the rest of
the Acts, a result which will hardly be readily
acquiesced in at a time when the current of
critical opinion, under Harnack's influence, is
setting so strongly in its favour. But the con
clusion can only be disputed with success, if the
premise is abandoned. Let us then look at the
premise a little more closely. There are two
cogent reasons why Gal 2 and Ac 15 should
not be regarded as referring to the same event.
(i) If they are identified, St. Paul ignores the
visit of Ac ii. As we shall see, this visit
was probably by no means so unimportant as
is sometimes maintained. Even if it were, it
was surely impossible for Paul to ignore it, and
so quite gratuitously give an occasion to his
opponents of which they would readily avail
themselves. If it was of no consequence for his
argument, it only needed a parenthesis of a few
words to avoid all possibility of misunderstand-
GALATIANS AND ACTS 193
ing — and St. Paul is not afraid of parentheses.
(2) The accounts in the two chapters simply do
not tally. To talk about the private personal
view as opposed to the public official account
is not to the point. No one could imagine for a
moment that Gal 2 referred to a formal council
of the Church at which the very point for which
St. Paul was contending had been definitely and
deliberately conceded. If this was the case,
why in the world did he not say so clearly ?
Of this more later on ; for the argument carries
us further than the mere refusal to identify
Gal 2 and Ac 15. But at least as against that
identification, it is surely sufficient and decisive.
Critics have, of course, suggested various
solutions of these difficulties, such as the rejec
tion of the visit of Ac 1 1 as unhistorical, or
the elaborate reconstruction of the whole chrono
logy of St. Paul's life which is associated with
the name of Clemen. We need not stop to
discuss these views; they are destructive of
the credit of Acts, and become superfluous,
if we can adopt the obvious solution, which
is to identify the visits of Gal 2 and Ac n.
It will probably be generally admitted that
Ramsay has disposed of the chronological
objection to this view. A glance at the varying
tables of dates drawn up by scholars for the
life of St. Paul shows at once how uncertain
194 GALATIANS— EARLIEST EPISTLE
they are. But, at any rate, there is no great
difficulty in finding room for the " fourteen
years " which our theory requires between the
conversion of the Apostle and his second visit
to Jerusalem. It will hardly be denied that
the theory itself is natural enough. As we
read the Epistle our first impression is that
the writer is in fact describing his second visit
to Jerusalem. A study of the context deepens
the impression that if he has omitted any visit,
however unimportant, he has been guilty of a
most unfortunate error of judgment, if of
nothing worse. When, however, we turn to
Ac 1 1 we find good grounds for maintaining
that the visit there related was by no means
"unimportant" in its bearing on the future
work of the Apostle of the Gentiles. The
circumstances which led up to it were these.
Unofficial missionaries had begun to convert
"Greeks"1 at Antioch (Ac n20). Barnabas
is at once despatched by the Jerusalem Church
1 There is, of course, the important variant
("Grecians"), which is adopted by WH. and RVm. Ramsay
(St. Paul, p. 24) mentions this as one of the two cases in Acts
where it is impossible to follow WH. ; and curiously enough
Mr. Valentine-Richards, in Camb. Biblical Essays, p. 532, also
instances it as one of their mistakes. 'EXX/yi/a? is adopted by
Tisch., Treg., Blass, Harnack, etc., and is absolutely required
by the context. After Ac 6, to say nothing of other passages,
it is impossible that preaching to Hellenists could have been
mentioned as a new and significant departure.
THE SECOND VISIT TO JERUSALEM 195
as a man of tact and sympathy to deal with a
delicate situation, and presumably in due course
to report to the Mother Church on this very
question of the relations between Jews and
Gentiles. During his stay at Antioch, he
fetches Saul, and on the occasion of the famine
the two return to Jerusalem (" by revelation,"
Gal 22 ; in consequence of the prophecy of
Agabus, Ac n27).1 It was inevitable that
the representatives of the Apostles (it is, of
course, a pure hypothesis of the harmonisers
of Ac 15 and Gal 2 that there were none at
Jerusalem at this time) should seize the op
portunity of discussing the new departure at
Antioch. Barnabas was their commissioner,
and they were awaiting his report ; Paul is
now associated with him in his work. It is
quite in Luke's manner to leave it to his reader
to assume that such a report was made, and we
turn to Galatians for the details of the interview.
The question of the admission of Gentiles is,
as we have seen, already to the fore ; the
Apostles admit the principle, though no con
ditions are laid down, except the continuance
of assistance to the poor of the Mother Church,
"which very thing," says Paul, "I was also
1 Titus is not mentioned either in Ac 11 or 15, or indeed
anywhere in the book ; therefore the omission of his name in
Ac n, as compared with Gal 2, raises no special difficulty.
I96 GALATIANS— EARLIEST EPISTLE
zealous to do " ; it was, of course, one main
reason of this very visit to Jerusalem. Re
turning to the narrative of Acts, we understand
at once on this view the events of i225-i3,
which follow immediately after the parenthesis
of ch. 12. The first missionary journey may
be regarded from one point of view as due
to a revelation vouchsafed to the Church at
Antioch ; from another, it is the direct result
of a policy already sanctioned by the Apostles.
It is surely one of the curiosities of Biblical
exegesis that orthodox scholars should have
created an entirely unnecessary difficulty by
continuing to reject this identification. Even
before the reign of the " South Galatian theory "
it was open to them to make it, as, e.g., Calvin
made it. But the purpose of this article is to
suggest that while this view solves some of the
difficulties connected with the Epistle, it does
not go far enough. It does not explain why
the Council is not referred to in Galatians,
assuming that the letter was written after it
had taken place. It is quite true that no
mention of it may have been necessary for the
purposes of the autobiographical sketch with
which the Epistle opens, but some reference to
its decision was absolutely called for by the
argument of the remaining chapters. On what
grounds can it possibly have been passed over ?
ST. PAUL AND THE COUNCIL 197
It has been suggested that its conclusions were
of the nature of a compromise and uncongenial
to St. Paul. Even if this may have been true
of the prohibitions, it was not true of the main
conclusions. And if it had been, it did not in
the least relieve him of the necessity of dealing
with them. For if ex hypothesi Paul could not
quote them on his side, his opponents must
have been quoting them on theirs (they could
not have been ignored by both parties), and he
was bound to reply to their arguments unless
he was prepared to throw over the authority
of the Jerusalem Church. If, on the other
hand, as is far more probable, the decisions
were in St. Paul's favour, why should he
neglect so strong a support ? To say that they
were local and temporary is only partially true
and completely irrelevant. They were local—
intended for the very places in which the
trouble had recently arisen, and temporary—
applying to the very period at which Paul was
writing. The suggestion may explain why
they are not applicable to England in the
twentieth century ; it does not in the least
explain why they should not have been ap
plicable to Galatia in the middle of the first ;
Ac i64 is decisive on the point.1 And after all,
1 " Delivered them [the churches of S. Galatia] the decrees
for to keep."
198 GALATIANS— EARLIEST EPISTLE
the main outcome of the Council lay in the
recognition of the fact that circumcision was no
longer necessary. This was neither local nor
temporary, but a principle of permanent import
ance, and what is more, the very principle for
which St. Paul was contending in the Epistle.
Let us realise the situation. Galatians is
not like Romans, a more or less academic
treatise, justifying an already existing state of
affairs, and working out its implications ; it is a
religious pamphlet, issued red-hot in the midst
of a burning controversy, and in view of a
pressing danger. The Judaisers are active
with their pestilential teaching ; the infection
is spreading rapidly in the newly-founded
Churches, and must be checked by every pos
sible means. St. Paul would intervene in person
if he could, but he cannot, and has to content
himself with a letter. He is bound under the
circumstances to use every legitimate argument
he can think of. Is it conceivable that if he
can point to a formal decision of the Church
conceding that circumcision is unnecessary for
Gentiles he should refrain from doing so ? We
need not further labour the point that his
account of the private arrangement between
himself and the Apostles is not an adequate
representation of such a formal decision.
We may easily suppose a parallel case. Let
RELATION OF GALATIANS TO COUNCIL 199
us assume that the use of the Athanasian Creed
in the services of the Anglican Church has at
length been abolished. A Bishop writes to
an Incumbent urging its discontinuance. He
brings forward the familiar arguments against
the Creed, and forgets to remind his corre
spondent that Parliament and Convocation have
now sanctioned its disuse, and that the law of
the Church is now on his side. He would be
omitting what for practical purposes is the crux
of the matter.
The usual solution of the difficulty is to say
that after the Council the Jewish party still
held that circumcision was necessary to a
perfect Christianity. An uncircumcised man
might be a Christian "in a sense," but he only
became a full Christian when he had submitted
to circumcision, much as in later times the
monk or religious was supposed to follow Christ
in a higher sense than the Christian who re
mained in the world. The position after the
Council may or may not have taken this form ;
the unfortunate thing is that there is not a hint
of it in Galatians. If the argument of the
Judaisers had been, "We admit circumcision
is not necessary, but it makes a man a better
Christian," this must have come out clearly in
St. Paul's reply. What he in fact deals with is
the necessity of circumcision per se, and he never
200 GALATIANS— EARLIEST EPISTLE
once refers to the perfectly clear official pro
nouncement on the subject, which is supposed
to have been made in his presence at his own
instigation a year or two before. In such a
case, the "argument from silence" is valid and
conclusive. No such pronouncement can yet
have been made.
Accordingly, we maintain that the Epistle
to the Galatians must have been written before
the events of Ac i53. There is no difficulty
in finding a place for it. It obviously belongs
to the period covered by Ac I51'2. Judaisers
claiming the sanction of James (i524, Gal 212)
have visited Antioch ; it is more probable than
not that they should have extended their pro
paganda to the recently founded Churches of
S. Galatia.1 Remembering the strong Jewish
element in Pisidian Antioch and Iconium, we
see at once that the soil would be congenial.
Paul hears of this at Antioch, but he cannot
revisit the Churches, since he is needed where
he is, and must soon go to Jerusalem. He
writes the letter, bringing forward the argu
ments which he is using in person at Antioch,
and will shortly use at Jerusalem. Peter's
defection (Gal 2llff>) belongs to the same time.
Paul in dealing with it is not raking up a matter
of ancient history ; he is bound to discuss it
1 Cf. the " so quickly " of Gal i«.
THE SEQUEL OF THE COUNCIL 201
since it is an element in the situation, which is
no doubt being worked by the Jewish party for
all it is worth. And we may note that Peter's
change of attitude is at once far more intelligible
and less discreditable, if it follows the merely
informal interchange of views which took place
at St. Paul's second visit, than if it has to be
placed after the formal settlement of the ques
tion at the Council.
How far, it may be asked, does this view
harmonise with the rest of the data of Ac 1 5 ?
At first sight there is a difficulty in the fact
that the letter embodying the Council's decision
is addressed to the Churches of Antioch, Syria,
and Cilicia ; why not Galatia too, if the trouble
had already broken out there ? But the omis
sion is equally strange on any view. The
Churches of South Galatia are obviously the
centre of St. Paul's narrative in v.12 ; the Council
unquestionably had them in mind, and whether
they had been already "troubled" or not, the
settlement was undoubtedly meant to apply to
them, at least in its dispensing with the neces
sity for circumcision (cf. i64). Presumably the
controversy is regarded as primarily one be
tween Jerusalem and Antioch ; the Churches
named are those which looked to Antioch as
their centre. In any case the omission cannot
be regarded as fatal to the early date of Gala-
202 GALATIANS— EARLIEST EPISTLE
tians ; it is only part of the difficulty that Luke
entirely ignores the Galatian defection, a
difficulty which is not peculiar to any particular
theory of the date of the Epistle. When we
pass to the events which followed the Council,
we at once have an explanation of the second
missionary journey. When the news of the
Galatian defection first reached St. Paul, the
pressure of circumstances prevented an im
mediate visit, as we have already seen ; now
the way is clear. It is quite true that i^33-36
seems at first sight to imply a delay which
would be a little inconsistent with this view ;
surely St. Paul would have paid his visit at the
earliest possible moment ? Well, perhaps he
did ; a certain stay at the important centre of
Antioch (v.33) was probably quite inevitable, and
the expressions used in Vv.35'36 do not imply any
long delay, but are intentionally vague, after
St. Luke's manner.1 We must remember, too,
that we do not know the results of the Epistle ;
St. Paul may have heard that the plague had
been already stayed. The words of i64 are, at
any rate, significant ; the position he had taken
up in his letter has been triumphantly vindi
cated, and the settlement of the controversy
makes for a strengthening of the Churches.
And may we not on our view find a certain
1 On these, see Harnack, Apostelgeschichte, pp. 37-41.
THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY 203
significance in other features of the second
journey ? We know both from Acts and
i Thessalonians that St. Paul was eager to re
turn to Thessalonica after his enforced departure.
He was learning from the experience of his
first journey. Then he had been eager to open
up fresh territory as quickly as possible, but he
realises now that he must not leave a newly-
founded Church to its own devices too soon ;
there must not be a repetition in Macedonia of
the sort of thing that has happened in Galatia.
It is true that circumstances are too strong for
him, and in the letters to Thessalonica we see
the unspeakable relief in the mind of the
Apostle that his converts had in fact remained
steadfast, and the exhortations to continue firm
recur again and again. Of course these features
are perfectly explicable on the ordinary view,
but it will not be denied that they are doubly
significant if the memory of the Galatian defec
tion lies behind them.
The view, then, that Galatians is the earliest
of the Pauline Epistles harmonises so com
pletely with many of the data both of the
Epistles themselves and of Acts, that it can
only be rejected for serious and weighty
reasons. It should be noticed that it stood first
in Marcion's list, a point whi^h may prove to
be of the greatest importance, though I must
204 GALATIANS— EARLIEST EPISTLE
leave it to others to develop its significance.
But, as we know, the early date has not been
widely adopted,1 and we shall naturally expect
to find the objections to it strong and almost
invincible. The curious thing is that they are
apparently very weak, and it is really a mystery
why critics who have taken the comparatively
difficult steps involved in the South Galatian
theory, and the identification of the visits in
Gal 2 and Ac 1 1 , should have refused the far
easier step of assigning an early date to the
Epistle.
(i) Perhaps the main reason is to be found
in the apparent connection between Galatians
and Romans. The current division of the
Pauline Epistle into four groups is fascinating
and convenient, and gives an intelligible picture
of the development of the Apostle's thought.
We are naturally disinclined to upset this
arrangement by placing Galatians before the
Thessalonian Epistles. However, for certain
purposes the grouping will survive the trans
position, and in any case such a theory must
follow the facts. It is quite true that there is a
fairly close connection in thought and language
between Galatians and Romans, but this is
1 It has been taken by Weber, Bartlet, and others, but I have
preferred in this paper to work out the arguments afresh from
the facts themselves.
GALATIANS AND ROMANS 205
explained by the similarity of subject-matter,
and does not in the least imply that they were
written at the same time. There is no reason
why they should not be separated by the five
or six years which is all our theory requires.
The one is the sketch hastily drawn up in view
of the urgent requirements of the moment ; the
other is the more considered philosophical
development of the same theme. It is "the
ripened fruit of the thoughts and struggles of the
eventful years by which it had been preceded,"
and "belongs to the later reflective stage of the
controversy." It deals with the intellectual
difficulties involved in the apparent rejection of
the Jews, rather than with the practical question
of whether Christians ought in fact to be cir
cumcised. And to maintain that St. Paul's
thought could not have been sufficiently de
veloped by the close of the first journey to
write the Epistle to the Galatians, is quite un
reasonable. There had been, let us say, seven
teen years of meditation and practical work
since his conversion, and the relation between
Jew and Gentile must have often come before
him. He did not deal with the point in the
Thessalonian Epistles because there was no
need to do so. On any view the controversies
of the Council had already been raised before
1 Sanday and Headlam, Romans, p. xxiii.
206 GALATIANS— EARLIEST EPISTLE
they were written, and the fact that they do
not refer to them does not in the least imply
that the writer may not have already done so
in another letter to another Church.1
(2) A further difficulty is found in the two
visits, implied in the TO -n-porepov of Gal 413. To
this it may be replied that we have the high
authority of Blass for the view that TO Trporepov
here means "formerly." Or if this solution is
rejected, and we prefer to retain the ordinary
translation ("the first time"), we can at once
find the two visits in the journeys out and
back of Ac 14. The second visit lasted long
enough to organise the Churches, and, especi
ally in the case of Antioch and Iconium, could
easily be distinguished from the first visit.
There unquestionably were two visits on the
first journey, and nothing more need be said.
A few words must be added in conclusion on
a closely related point. How far is our position
affected by the view we take of the text of
the Decree in Ac 15? Harnack2 has lately
1 I am very glad at the last moment to be able to refer to
a remarkable article by Professor Lake in the Expositor (Dec.
1910), in which he argues convincingly on textual grounds that
Romans originally existed in a shorter recension, and that it
was in this form written as a circular letter at the same time
as Galatians, and very possibly before the Council. This
hypothesis would, of course, completely dispose of the objection
discussed above.
2 Apostelgeschichte, pp. 188-198.
TEXT OF THE APOSTOLIC DECREE 207
declared his adherence to the "Western"
reading, which omits "and from things
strangled." These words are omitted in Dd.,
Iren., Tert, Cypr., etc., and there are con
verging lines of evidence which tend to prove
they were not in the original text. Their
omission carries with it weighty consequences ;
the Decree no longer deals with ceremonial
questions, as is usually supposed, but with
moral questions, idolatry, murder, and fornica
tion, the three offences mentioned together in
Rev 2215. It would take us too far afield to
state the arguments in support of this view ;
they are convincingly stated in Harnack's
pages. If we accept it, as we probably should,1
several serious difficulties of New Testament
criticism vanish at once. We understand,
for example, why the Decree is not directly
referred to in the Epistles, and particularly in
i Corinthians, where the eating of things offered
to idols is discussed ; it was not ad rem, since
it dealt with the moral offence of idolatry, not
with the ceremonial point which troubled the
Corinthians. But it does not in the least, as
Harnack seems to suggest, solve the difficulties
1 It must, however, be admitted that Harnack's view has
not yet been widely adopted ; it has been criticised by Prof.
Clemen (Hibbert Journal, July 1910), and Dr. Sanday (The'o-
logische Studien Theodor Zahn dargebracht, pp. 317 ff.).
208 GALATIANS— EARLIEST EPISTLE
associated with the ordinary view of Galatians.
It rather accentuates them. For, as we have
seen, the problem is not to explain why St.
Paul does not discuss the prohibitions of the
Decree, whether moral or ceremonial, but why
he does not emphasise the great concession,
the dispensing of circumcision. If, in fact,
the whole Decree was concerned with moral
questions and contained no concessions made
to Jewish prejudices, as is commonly supposed,
it becomes a sweeping victory for the Pauline
and Gentile party. The silence about it in
Galatians becomes more inexplicable than ever;
the revised form of the Decree demands the
early date for the Epistle, since the mere
quotation of it must have been sufficient to
silence the Judaisers.
I am glad, however, to have been able to
refer to this corrected version of the Decree,
since, although it does not solve the particular
difficulty we are considering, it is most valuable
in other respects. The problems which centre
round Galatians and Ac 15 have long been
a crux of New Testament criticism. Their
complete solution requires four hypotheses : (i)
the " South Galatian " theory ; (2) the identifica
tion of the visits of Gal 2 and Ac 1 1 ; (3) the
placing of Galatians before the " Council " ; (4)
the " Western " version of the Decree. Of
THE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM 209
these the fourth stands on a somewhat different
footing to the rest. The first three are not
the desperate resort of " harmonisers," twisting
or ignoring facts in order to force an agree
ment which is not there. They are the prima
facie natural interpretation of the facts ; the
onus probandi surely lies on those who reject
them. Accept them, and each piece of the
puzzle falls into its place easily and satisfactorily.
The resultant picture does no discredit either
to the Apostle or to the historian of Acts.
VII
THE PROBLEM OF THE APOCALYPSE AND
ITS BEARING ON THE CONCEPTION OF
INSPIRATION
VII.
THE PROBLEM OF THE APOCALYPSE
AND ITS BEARING ON THE CONCEP
TION OF INSPIRATION.
THE Apocalypse is peculiarly a book where
we may expect help from a sane and unflinch
ing criticism. Even the educated reader, who
does not confine his attention to the familiar
passages, but attempts to get some idea of the
book as a whole, is completely at a loss as to
what he is to make of it. German commen
tators, such as Bousset, have offered valuable
assistance to those who can use it ; but now
we have in English a series of important books
which face the problem to some extent in the
liirht of modern critical methods. Of these the
o
chief are Dr. Swete's Apocalypse, Hort's post
humous and incomplete commentary, Mr. C. A.
Scott's edition in the Century Bible, Sir W.
Ramsay's Letters to the Seven Churches, and
Dr. Porter's very full article in Hastings'
Dictionary of the Bible. We wait eagerly for
the completion of the list by Dr. Charles'
214 THE PROBLEM OF THE APOCALYPSE
volume in the " International Critical Com
mentary."
Let us try and look at the book in the light
of criticism. Two principles stand out as
fundamental to its study. They are not
altogether new, but their full significance has
only lately been recognised ; in their modern
application they revolutionise our conception
both of its origin and of its interpretation.
(i) The Apocalypse does not stand alone,
but is only one example of a special type of
literature. This literature has its recognised
language and symbolism, its common traditions
and beliefs. Its germs are found in Ezekiel
and Zechariah;1 its first representative is the
Book of Daniel ; it is further developed in
such writings as the Book of Enoch, the
Secrets of Enoch, the Apocalypse of Baruch,
and the Fourth Book of Esdras ; its influence
is seen in a lesser degree in many other Jewish
or semi-Christian works of the period, particu
larly in the Book of Jubilees, the Assumption
of Moses, the Psalms of Solomon, the Testa
ments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and the
Sibylline Oracles.
The name given is " Apocalyptic," its main
1 Its presence is becoming increasingly recognised in certain
passages of other prophetical books, notably in the later
sections of Isaiah.
APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE 215
subject being the Apocalypse or Revelation
of the future. We find in it a common stock
of ideas. The righteous people of God are
oppressed by their enemies, and evil seems to
be triumphant. But when it reaches its climax,
the "day of the Lord" will come; He will
vindicate the right and terribly avenge His
servants on their oppressors. The promises
of the prophets will at last be realised, and the
kingdom of God, or of the Messiah, will be
established, whether on earth or in heaven.
And besides its common beliefs, it has its
common modes of representation, which seem
to have become conventional. The book is
issued under the name of some great one of
the past. The revelation is made by vision,
by angel, with translation to distant scenes.
There is a recognised symbolism of mystic
numbers and allegorical beasts ; a constantly
recurring materialistic imagery of fire, storm,
and earthquake.
In the case of the Apocalypse of St. John
a very large proportion of its language and
symbolism is taken directly from the Old
Testament, particularly from Daniel (the first
Apocalypse), Ezekiel and Zechariah (its pre
cursors), Isaiah and the Psalms. The writer
has a vision of the glorified Christ ; each of
its details is a reminiscence of Ezekiel and
216 THE PROBLEM OF THE APOCALYPSE
Daniel. He hears from an angel a "taunt
song " on the fall of Babylon ; in almost every
word it goes back to the "taunt songs" of
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. His vision
of the holy city again rests on the vision of
Ezekiel ; his picture of its joys is directly
inspired by the same prophet and by Isaiah.
These are only a few examples out of many,
and the resemblances have, of course, been
recognised from the first. The point is that
we cannot stop here. The study,1 in some
cases the discovery, of the non-canonical
apocalyptic literature just mentioned has
emphasised still further the writer's dependence
on earlier material, (a] In many cases his
language and symbolism, when reminiscent
of the Old Testament, have not been taken
directly from it, but are used with the addi
tional significance which they have received
in the later Apocalypses, e.g. the eating "of the
tree of life which is in the paradise of God " is
promised to him that overcomes (27, cf. 2214).
The history behind this conception is not
merely that of the Genesis narrative. In the
Book of Enoch we hear of the tree of life
1 No student will need to be reminded of the debt we owe
in this respect to Dr. R. H. Charles. It is interesting to
note that in Alford's commentary on the " Revelation " there
is no reference at all to this literature.
APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE 217
in the celestial paradise : " its leaves and its
flower and its wood wither not for ever . . .
and no flesh hath power to touch it till the
great judgment, . . . then to the righteous
and the holy shall their fruit be given." The
idea recurs in 4 Es (there is in paradise fruit
wherein is abundance and healing) and in
other books ; in the Testaments of the Twelve
Patriarchs we even find, " He shall give His
saints to eat of the tree of life." Again, since
the time of Ezekiel, Gog and Magog (Rev 2O8)
have received a new connotation. Magog is
no longer the land with which Gog is con
nected, but both appear continually as the
typical enemies of the Messiah. Cf. Jerus.
Targum, " In fine extremitatis dierum Gog
et Magog et exercitus eorum adscendent
Hierosolyma, et per manus regis Messiae ipsi
cadent." In 4 Es 13 we read of the war
in the last days of a countless multitude
against Messiah, who shall destroy them by
fire from His mouth. Similarly, the conception
of the "New Jerusalem" does not rest merely
on Isaiah and Ezekiel. It had become a
commonplace of Jewish apocalyptic hope, e.g.
Enoch 9O28 speaks of a New House greater
and loftier than the first, "and the Lord of
the sheep was in it"; 4 Es 726, "The bride
shall appear, even the city coming forth."
218 THE PROBLEM OF THE APOCALYPSE
Other ideas which may be paralleled from the
Old Testament, but have received greater
significance, are the opening of the books, the
book of life, beliefs about Satan, the serpent,
or Abaddon.
(b) Expressions to which no real parallel is
found in the Old Testament are seen to rest
upon conceptions familiar to apocalyptic
thought and contemporary writings. We
note that the seer by using the definite article
often assumes that his readers will recognise
the allusion, e.g. in 217 the conqueror is pro
mised his share of "the hidden manna"; in
ii19 the ark of the covenant is seen in the
opened sanctuary of heaven. The reference
is to the legend of the hiding of the ark by
Jeremiah. Cf. 2 Mac 27, "The place [of its
hiding] shall be unknown until God gather the
people again together and mercy come ; and
then shall the Lord disclose these things, and
the glory of the Lord shall be seen, and the
cloud." The Apocalypse of Baruch has further,
"At the selfsame time [of the revelation of
Messiah] the treasury of manna will again
descend from on high, and they will eat of it
in those years."
Again, the conception of the millennium, as
a temporary triumph of righteousness before
the final consummation, appears in various
APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE 219
forms. In Enoch 90 the eighth and ninth of
those "weeks" into which human history is
divided are the reign of righteousness, followed
by the judgment and "weeks without number
for ever." In 4 Es the reign of Messiah
on earth is for four hundred years. In the
"Secrets of Enoch" the final world-week is
one thousand years. The "seven spirits
before the throne" (i4), the seven angels of
the presence of 82, are paralleled by the "seven
first white ones " of Enoch, by the seven angels
of the presence of Tob i215, and the Rab
binical angelology. Thoughts similar to the
conception of the souls of the righteous beneath
the altar crying for vengeance meet us frequently
in Enoch. The waiting till the number of the
elect be completed is a Jewish conception.
Cf. Baruch, " The storehouses (promptuaria)
shall be opened in which was guarded the
number of righteous souls " ; 4 Es 4s5, " Did
not the souls of the righteous ask question of
these things in their chambers, saying, ' How
long shall I hope on this fashion ? When
cometh the fruit of the threshing time of our
reward?' And unto them Jeremiah the arch
angel gave answer and said, ' Even when the
number is fulfilled of them that are like unto
you.'"
Again, the " Secrets of Enoch " speaks of
220 THE PROBLEM OF THE APOCALYPSE
a great sea between the first and second
heavens (cf. Rev 4°) ; of horses walking to the
breast in the blood of sinners (Rev i420). It
is impossible here to multiply quotations ; it
is enough to instance among many similar
parallels the conception of the imprisonment
of Satan in the abyss, sealed and guarded by
an angel who holds the key ; the angelology—
an angel of the waters, spirits of the winds, the
celestial worshippers who sleep not in their
praise ; the lake of fire which awaits the Devil
and his servants, and the " second death."
(c) We have to reckon with the probability,
amounting in some cases almost to a certainty,
that other features to which no full parallel has
yet been found were not original or invented
for the first time by the writer. In particular
we are prepared to find the influence of the
folklore of the time.1 In ch. 12 (the dragon
and the woman with child) Gunkel sees the
influence of the widespread Babylonian myth
of creation — "the victory of Marduk, the god
of light, over the chaos-beast Tiamat, the
1 The identification of stars and angels found in ch. i (the
seven stars are the seven angels of the Churches) may point
to the influence of the Babylonian idea of seven star-spirits.
The personified star of gl which falls from heaven is a mytho
logical conception found in Enoch. The belief in the power
of hidden names and the sealing of the elect can hardly be
separated from the popular folklore connected with talismanic
formulae, however purified be the form it assumes.
SOURCES 221
dragon of the deep." Bousset adds further
striking parallels from the story of the birth
of Apollo, and the Egyptian myth of Isis and
Horus. On this view we explain the obscuri
ties of the picture. They are due to an attempt
to adapt the original myth to the story of the
birth of Christ. Again, there are the persistent
traditions connected with the belief in Anti
christ (see Bousset, The Antichrist Legend].
Traces may be seen in ch. n ("The Two
Witnesses") and in ch. 13 (the second
beast, afterwards identified with the false
prophet, deceiving men by his lying wonders,
and appearing as a parody of the Lamb, the
true Messiah).
How far such episodes are taken from a
special written "source" must remain an open
question. We explain a good deal by some
such supposition, the isolation and peculiar
character of some of the pictures, and contra
dictions between different parts of the book,
the existence of "doublets" and repetitions.
On the other hand, we must account for the
general sense of unity which pervades the
whole and the homogeneity of its very peculiar
style. Without adopting any "scissors and
paste " theory, we may probably assume that
the writer at times incorporates some earlier
legend, taking it much as he finds it, without
222 THE PROBLEM OF THE APOCALYPSE
caring to harmonise all its details with the rest
of his picture. Dr. Swete admits that the
book may "incorporate earlier materials"
(Introd. p. c), and in one place (ch. 15*) he
suggests the probability of a Jewish source.
On the general question of the relationship
to apocalyptic literature, our conclusion may
be less unhesitating. Again, the question of
any direct use of the actual books is secondary.
Dr. Swete doubts it, and in some cases it is
precluded by the fact that the parallels quoted
are from books contemporary with or sub
sequent to St. John. That does not touch
the main point. The nature of the resem
blances does not as a rule suggest " borrowing "
on either side ; they prove the existence of a
popular tradition, of a current mode of thought
to which all apocalyptic writers can appeal.
It is perfectly clear that "he shared with the
Jewish Apocalyptists the stock of apocalyptic
imagery and mystical and eschatological
thought which was the common property of
the age." The ideas were in the air, they
recur continually in the literature of the type ;
the writer can assume that they will be in
telligible to his readers. The book is an
Apocalypse among Apocalypses, using their
conventional language and symbolism.
(2) Our second principle of criticism can only
HISTORICAL SITUATION 223
be briefly summarised and illustrated. It is
that the book was written with direct reference
to a peculiar historical situation. It makes no
secret of its origin and, unlike other Apoc
alypses, does not seem to be pseudonymous.
The writer had a practical purpose, and that
purpose was to strengthen the Churches of his
day in view of a crisis which he saw to be
imminent. Dr. Swete follows the trend of
recent opinion in dating the book in the time
of Domitian. If we accept with Dr. Hort the
earlier date of the reign of Nero, it will not
affect our principle. Whatever there is of
direct prediction or of definite historical
reference has to do with the situation at the
time and the view the seer has been led to
take of the probable future of the Roman
Empire as he knows it. We may expect to
find historical personages and events, more or
less disguised or idealised, but always of the
writer's own day. And as it is, we see the
Roman Empire with its Caesar worship and
names of blasphemy, supported by an interested
priestcraft, resting on force and pretended
miracles. We hear the rumours of Parthian
invasion, and of the dreaded return of Nero
(perhaps to the seer's mind reincarnate in
Domitian). On the other hand, we see the
224 THE PROBLEM OF THE APOCALYPSE
struggles and the temptations of the local
Churches of Asia, the dangers from within,
from the tendency to compromise with the
heathen life round them, the persecution already
beginning from without, with its boycotting
and its death to those who will not worship the
beast and his image. The terror will run its
course, and in the end Rome will fall attacked
by the petty kings of the East or by other of
its subject nations.
And after that ? Mingled with this view of
contemporary history, and in the background,
is an eschatology or doctrine of the last things.
It is inspiring and full of teaching, but vague
and inconsistent with itself directly we attempt
to press the details. How are the various
catastrophes and falls of Satan to be related
to one another ? Are they synchronous —
different pictures of the same event — or
successive steps in the victory ? What is the
place of the millennium ? What of the New
Jerusalem and the visions of the closing
chapters ? No one can say how far we have a
realistic picture of what the seer expects will
be in heaven, or an idealised picture of what he
hopes for on earth. The fact is that in all
these things the book does not minister to an
idle curiosity to pierce the veil of the future, or
to read the secrets of the unseen world. We
VALUE OF THE BOOK 225
can neither sketch the course of history from it
nor discover how earth will pass into heaven.
It gives us what we need, the assured promise
of the victory of Christ and truth, of the eternal
blessedness of the faithful with God.
How, then, are we to regard the book ? It
becomes impossible to see in it a direct and
immediate revelation from heaven or a detailed
prophecy of the future. It is a literary
product ; in a sense it may be called artificial.
As we have seen, the writer is steeped in the
Old Testament and in the apocalyptic tradi
tions of his age. His knowledge of the world
and its secrets is gained from a study of the
conditions of his own day. To say this is not
to deny its originality or its unity of purpose.
It is never a mere mosaic, but bears clearly
upon it the stamp of a great, of a spiritual,
mind. The most cursory comparison with
previous and subsequent " revelations" shows
its immense superiority, literary, artistic, and
spiritual.
Nor does this view deny its value ; rather it
enhances it. It becomes a real and a living
book, written by processes intelligible up to
a certain point, and with a clearly defined
purpose. It is a positive help to find that its
materialistic and almost grotesque imagery was
not invented by the seer, still less " revealed "
15
226 THE PROBLEM OF THE APOCALYPSE
from heaven. It accounts for the obscurities
of the book, and warns us against misleading
attempts to find " meanings " in details which
were often only conventional to the writer. It
helps us to understand the Jewish features ; we
see why the Christian heaven is described in
terms of Jewish thought. We can 'more easily
accept the symbolism of its numbers and its
allegorical figures when we see that it was the
current language of the time. To us, it may
seem forced and unnatural, but at least to the
writer and his first readers it was intelligible.
And what of its inspiration ? In a word, it is
subjective, not objective. It is not a dictation
from without, " supernatural " in the objection
able sense, as overriding the normal processes
of the reason and the imagination. The Spirit
has worked from within the mind of the seer,
using the natural means which are at the call
of every writer. What right, then, have we
to speak of "the Spirit" at all? How do we
know that the book is in the deepest sense
"true"? Simply because our Christian con
sciousness recognises it as such. We acknow
ledge, indeed, that the appeal of its different
sections varies enormously. In some the
inspiration is at a low level ; these are the very
parts which as a matter of history have been
most abused and have led to the wildest errors.
INSPIRATION 227
But in others the appeal finds us at once ; and
it is no less a matter of history that here, too,
our own verdict is verified by the general
experience of Christians. We find in it " the
notes of insight and foresight," a prophecy in
the true sense as interpreting and justifying the
ways of God to man ; its stern faith is able to
evoke our own faith ; its vision of God and its
hopes for the future find their echo in our own
hearts. We believe it to contain the "word of
God," because the Divine in us answers to the
Divine in the mind of the writer. It is so in
Christ's own teaching, His ultimate appeal is
to the inherent truth of His words ; they are
their own evidence that they are the truth and
the life, and are recognised as such by all who
have not lost the power of seeing the truth, in
whom the light that is in them has not turned
to darkness.
The bearing of the Apocalypse on the whole
question of inspiration is most significant. It
is crucial for the view which sees in " revela
tion " not an external message of God, but
an internal process — the Divine in man, the
immanent Logos, gradually working itself
out and received as true, not on any external
authority, but by the weight of its own self-
evidence. We may begin by believing the
Bible to be true because we are told it is
228 THE PROBLEM OF THE APOCALYPSE
inspired ; we end by believing it to be inspired
because we find it, in the sphere of spiritual
things, to be true.
There remains, in conclusion, with respect
to the Apocalypse itself the further problem,
fascinating but insoluble, "What was the
actual psychological process in the mind of the
seer?" We speak of the book as a literary
product, and so in the main it is. But are we
to interpret the whole of its language of angels
and Christophanies, of trance and of vision,
as a mere conventional fafon de parler ? We
recognise, on the one hand, that the phenomena
of trance have been but little investigated ; we
are less ready than the last generation to deny
their validity in toto ; we make full allowance
for the dependence of vision on memory. And
this we can say : the book gives the impression
of a solemn belief in the reality of the experi
ences it describes. The writer certainly believed
himself to have had experiences which are not
granted to all men. On the other hand, we see
o
all through the mark of the artist working con
sciously and deliberately. The strange thing
is that at the very moment of describing these
experiences the writer seems to rest most
strongly on the conventional language of his
predecessors. The role of visionary is often
suddenly dropped ; we pass insensibly from the
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL QUESTION 229
language of trance to that of simple prediction.
It is very hard to work out any consistent view.
There is a curious note by Dr. Swete on ly3
which just gives the two sides : " He carried
me away in the spirit into the wilderness" (i.e.
to see the vision of the Great Harlot). The
note is, " The movement took place ev Trvevfjian,
i.e. in the sphere of the seer's spirit impelled
by the spirit of God. ... He probably has
in view the frequent ecstasies of Ezekiel."
Which was it ? A literary reminiscence or a
personal experience ? Dr. Porter, in the article
on " Revelation " in Hastings' Dictionary of the
Bible, sums it up well when he says with regard
to a similar conception, "A literal voice from
heaven this certainly cannot be, and we seem
shut up to two possibilities regarding it ; either
the angels and the voice from heaven belong
wholly to the poetry of the piece, its literary
form, or they express the writer's own inter
pretation of the strong impulse, as if from with
out, under which he wrote." His reverence
for the materials he used, and his sense that the
secrets he unfolded were not his own discovery,
would lead naturally and quite innocently to
the use of the impressive imagery of revelation,
which he found current. It was the obvious
means of emphasising his belief in the reality of
his inspiration, his own possibly naive interpreta-
230 THE PROBLEM OF THE APOCALYPSE
tion of experiences which he could not explain
or analyse. The question is interesting, but its
importance is only secondary. The problem is
psychological, and does not affect the value of
the book. If we were to accept the language
of trance in the most literal sense, that would
not be the real ground for our belief in its
inspiration. The records of a trance need to
be criticised and examined even more narrowly
than the reasoned productions of the waking
mind. Whether trance or poetry, the ultimate
proof of the teaching can only be its inherent
truth. However we may picture to ourselves
the process at work in the seer's mind, however
our modern thought may analyse and interpret
it, the book is a genuine record of experiences
spiritually true. It is "the revelation of Jesus
Christ"; the writer was "in the spirit"; he
has given us " his own personal realisation of
the unseen world," of the present life of Christ
and the victory of His Church.
GENERAL INDEX
[See also TABLE OF CONTENTS.]
ACILDAMA, 1 1 6.
AcU of the Apostles, Harnack
on, 103, 192.
relation to Galatians, 192 ff.,
200 ff.
Adveit, the Second, see
Parousia.
Agapt, 96.
Agrapia, 157.
Allego-ising, 99 ; see Sym-
K>lism.
Allen, -\rchdeacon, 145, 158,
65, 171.
Angelobgy of Apocalypse,
Antichrst, 221.
Antiochjudaisers in, 200.
St. Pail's visits to, 194 ff.,
2C2.
Apocalyjse of St. John, 213-
23).
date, 23.
influenced by Old Testa-
meit and Apocalyptic,
2I4ff.
inspiraton. 226 ff.
mythological elements, 220.
purposeand value, 224 ff.
recent Uerature on, 213.
relation to contemporary
histcry, 223 ff.
Apocalypse, sources of, 221 f.
"Apocalypse, the Little," 57.
Apocalyptic literature, 4, 34,
42 ff., 2i4ff.
interpretation of, 54-58,
225 f.
Apostles and St. Paul, 195.
choice and work of, 14, 17,
23, 39, 95-
mission of, 17.
supposed stupidity of, 94,
101.
Aramaic source of Gospels,
21, 144, I54f.
Ark, hiding of, 218.
b and the Virgin Birth, 179
n. 3.
Babylonian mythology, 220.
Baldensperger, W., 43 n. i.
Baptism, 31, 35 ff., 96.
of Christ, 96, 1 60.
Baptist, John the, identified
with Elias, 24, 26.
preaching of, 13, 35, 83.
Barabbas, 95.
Barachiah, the son of, 150^. i.
Barnabas, I94f.
Barndshd, 21.
Baruch, Apocalypse of, 214,
218.
232
GENERAL INDEX
Beast (in Apocalypse), 221.
Beatitudes, 15, 61, 148, 170.
Benedictus, relation to Magni
ficat, 184.
Betrayal, the, 26 f.
Birth stories, see Jesus Christ.
Blass, 147, 206.
Bousset, W., vi, 76 f.
on Apocalypse, 213, 221.
Burial of Christ, 88 f., 119,
136 f.
Burkitt, Prof., 6f., 33, 108, 141,
176 ff.
Burn, Dr., 175.
Cassarea Philippi, 20, 22 f., 31,
105.
Calvin, 196.
Charles, Dr., 7, 213, 216.
Christ, see Jesus Christ.
influence of, 69 ff., 121 ff., 130.
Person of, vii, 73 f., 85, 93,
96, 115.
in Q, 161 f., 167 f.
see Messiah, Son of Man.
Christianity, "a reduced," vii,
77-
rise of, 66 ff., 88, 108, 123 f.,
134.
Church, the, Harnack on, 165.
Loisy on, 95.
Schweitzer on, 38 f.
Circumcision, 199 f., 205.
Clemen, 193, 207 n. i.
" Connecting links " in the
Gospels, n, 32.
Corinthians, the 1st Epistle to,
and the Apostolic
Decree, 207.
Council, the Apostolic —
decisions, nature of, 196 ff.,
207 ff.
scope of, 20 1.
text of, 206 ff.
relation to Galatians, 191-
209.
Criticism, "Higher" and
"Lower," 186.
method and results of, in
the Gospels, v ff., 68,
107, 138, 154, 164, 172.
in the Apocalypse, 213,
225 ff.
Cross, words from the, 28, 66,
88, 98.
Crucifixion, see Jesus Christ,
darkness at the, 104.
Daniel, Book of, 20, 214 ff.
Dobschiitz, Prof, von, 6, 54,58.
Elect, the, 15, 219 ; see Pre-
destinarianism.
Elijah, the coming of, 24 i, 26.
Elisabeth and the Magnficat,
175-187.
Enoch, Book of, 20, 214 217,
219.
Secrets of, 214, 219.
Eschatological Questbn in
the Gospels, 3-77, 84 f.,
US-
Messiah, 19, 42 ff.
portrait of Christ, 3471-77.
sacraments, 37 f.
Eschatology, 3, 24.
and ethics, 60 ff. ; se Inter-
imsethik.
of Jesus, 50-65.
passing of, 60 ff.
Esdras, Fourth Bool of, 20,
214, 217, 219.
Eucharist, see Lord'sSupper.
Ezekiel, Book of, 2i/f.
Five thousand, feedng of the,
see Miracles.
"Flight to the North, the,"
i8f, 32 f., 87.
folklore, 90, 117, 22).
Fourth Gospel, ec John,
Gospel.of.
GENERAL INDEX
233
Galatia, St. Paul's visits to,
206.
" Galatian, South, theory,"
191, 201.
Galatians, Epistle to, 191-209.
circumstances, 200 ff.
relation to Acts, I92ff.,
200 ff.
Romans, 198, 204 ff.
Gardner, Prof. P., 52 n. i, 60.
Gentiles and Jews in early
Church, 98, 100, 195,
199-
Gog and Magog, 217.
Gospels, the Synoptic, escha-
tological passages in,
53 ff.
Harnack on sources of, 143-
172.
influenced by Paulinism ?
91 ff., 165, 169 f.
later theology, 93, 96.
literary merits, 97, 101.
Loisy on the, 81-109.
Messianic hope in the, 44-
48.
relation of Q to the, 161,
i64f.
reliability of, 30 ff, 83-88,
107 f., 152, 167, 172.
Schweitzer's treatment of,
30 ff.
Gunkel, 220.
Hague, Prof., 43 n. i.
Hannah's song, 182 f.
Harnack, on the Apostol
Decree, 206 ff.
on the Gospels, 107.
on the Magnificat, 175.
on miracles, 103.
on Q,
ilC
uu V; J4J-
position of, vi, 77.
Hastings' Dictionaries,
I75f., 213, 229.
T- T « i- m ic -» f
57,
Hernias, 35.
Herod Antipas, 18, 33, 95.
Holtzmann, O., 36.
Hort, Dr., 213, 223 ; see
Westcott and Hort.
Inge, Dr., 6, 56.
Inspiration, 226 ff.
Interimsethik, 14, 60 ff, 69 ff,
76, 85.
Irenasus, 177.
Isaiah, influence on the
Apocalypse, 214 n. i,
215 f.
Suffering Servant of, 19.
James, St., and St. Paul, 200.
Jerome, 177.
Jerusalem, Christ's entry into,
25, 46.
visits to, 87, 162.
St. Paul's visits to, 191 ff.
the New, 217, 224.
Jesus Christ, birth stories, 97,
101, 106, 179 n. 3, 220.
death, 19, 23-27, 66, 88 f.,
92,99.
how far anticipated, 41,
87, 92 f., 114, 123, 130.
life according to Loisy,
83 ff.
Schweitzer, i3ff, 68 ff.
problems raised by, 1 1 ff.
teaching of, affected by
eschatology, 60 ff, 70 f.,
76, 85.
in Q, 152, 165-171.
see also Christ, Messiah, Son
of Man, Resurrection.
"Jesus, the Historical, an
enigma," 68.
Jews, polemic against, 94, 99,
136, 162.
John, see Baptist.
John, Gospel of St., relation to
Synoptists, 168.
spiritualises Parousia, 58.
234
GENERAL INDEX
John, Gospel of St., symbolism
in, 104.
Joseph of Arimathea, 116, 119.
Josephus, 44 f., 151.
Judaising Christians, 198 f.
Judas Iscariot, 26, 106.
Keim, T., 50.
Kingdom of God, or of
Heaven, 13, 16, 55f.,
58, 82, 215.
Lake, Prof. K., 120, 206 n. i.
Last Supper, see Lord's
Supper.
Latin version of Gospels, the
old, 147, I78ff.
Lietzmann, H., 21 n. 2.
Lightfoot, Bishop, 192.
Logia, 143, 157, 1 60, 171.
Loisy, on the Gospels, 81-109.
on the Magnificat, I76ff.
on the Resurrection, 1 1 3-1 39.
on the Virgin Birth, 180.
Lord's Prayer, the, 36, 148,
150, 152, 163 n. i.
Lord's Supper, the, 37 f., 92,
96, 100.
Luke, Gospel of St., canticles
in, 98, 1 86.
characteristics of, 58, 101 f.,
151, 162.
date, 82.
ignored by Schweitzer, 31,
58.
order of sections in, 1 59 f.
relation to Q, 143-154.
use of St. Matthew, 155,158.
Magi, visit of, 97 f.
Magic and sacraments, 37.
Magnificat, ascribed to Mary
or Elisabeth? 176-187.
relation to Hannah's song,
l82f.
ultimate origin of, 186.
Manna, the hidden, 218.
Marcion, 203.
Mark, Gospel of St., diffi
culties in, 1 1 ff.
influence on first and third
Gospels, 143, 152.
influenced by Paulinism, 91,
94-
Loisy on, 83, 101 f.
relation to Q, i63ff.
Martha and Mary, 100, 105.
Mary, the Virgin, and the
Magnificat, 175-187.
Matthew, St., author of Logia ?
171.
Gospel of, ecclesiasticism,
in, 95, 162.
Judaic standpoint, 150,
163 n. i.
Loisy on, 83, 102.
order of sections in, I59f.
relation to Q, 143-154.
Messiah, " birth-pangs " of the,
19, 41.
Christ as the, ioff., 19 ff., 93,
168 ; see Son of Man.
Wrede's view of, 13.
Messianic feast, the, 36, 84,
92 f.
hope, nature of the, 19, 40-
48, 215, 217.
secret, 26 ff., 46 ff.
Millennium, the, 218, 224.
Miracles, 31, 86 f., 98 f., 103,
131 f-
the centurion's servant, 160.
the draught of fishes, 89, 98,
118.
the five thousand, 36, 96, 99.
Nain, 98, 101.
Missionary journey, St. Paul's
first, 196.
second, 202 f.
" Modernising," 39, 33 f., 54, 58.
Moses, Assumption of, 214.
Moulton, Dr. J. H., 153 «. I.
GENERAL INDEX
235
Myers, F. W. H., 126.
Mythology, 97, 221.
Nero, return of, 223.
Nestle, 179.
Niceta of Remesiana, 175 ff.
Numbers, symbolism of, 99,
219.
" Objective and subjective,"
127, 132.
Oesterley and Box, 43/7. i.
Old Testament, apocalyptic
elements in, 2i4ff.
influence on the Apocalypse,
215 ff.
Gospels, 90 f., 97, 117,
124, 150, 182.
the Messianic hope in the,
42 f.
Oral tradition, i$4f.
Origen, 118, 177.
Papias on the Logia, 171.
Papyri, 15372. I.
Parables, interpretation of,
1 5 f-,. 76, 85.
the Marriage Feast, 15.
of sowing, 17.
Parousia, the, I7f., 27, 32,
50 ff., 66 ff., 74,93, 115.
Passion, see Jesus Christ, death
of, .
narrative, did O contain a ?
157-
Paul, St., attitude towards
eschatology, 56, 59.
on Baptism, 35.
development of thought in,
204 ff.
and Galatians, 191-209.
Missionary journeys of, 196, !
202 ff.
originator of the Eucharist ?
92.
and the Resurrection, u6f. i
Paulinism, supposed influence
of, on the Gospels, 91 ff.,
94, 165, i69f.
lletpaoTioy, 6, 19, 36.
Persecutions in the Apoca
lypse, 224.
Christ's predictions of, 17 f.,
3i, 4i, 170.
Personality of Jesus, 126, 130 ;
see Christ.
Peter, Gospel of, 119, 136.
Peter, St., at Antioch, 200.
denial, 95.
at Caesarea Philippi, 23 f.,
26, 72, 94 f., 105.
visions of the risen Christ,
89, ii8f., 134.
Pharisees and Christ, 25,
94-
Pilate, trial before, 95, 101.
Porter, Dr., 213, 229.
Predestinarianism, 14 f., 35 f.,
6if., 71.
Prophecy, Is the Apocalypse
a? 223 f., 227.
Psychical Research, 108,
I24f.
" Psychologising," 29, 33.
Psychology of Inspiration,
228 f.
of the Resurrection faith,
u8f., 128 ff.
O (the second common source
of St. Matthew and St.
Luke), 143-172.
Allen's view of, 15872. r.
character and style, 161 ff.
contents of, 145, i56ff.
how arranged, I59ff.
origin and date, 171.
relation to St. Mark, 163 ff.
treatment by St. Matthew
and St. Luke, 145-
156.
varying forms of ? 155.
236
GENERAL LNDEX
Ramsay, Sir W., 172, 191, 193,
213.
"Ransom for many," 15, 19,
92.
Reimarus, 8.
Resurrection of Christ, the, 31,
71, 89 f., io8f., 113-
139-
predictions of, 41, 114,
123.
the spiritual view of, 113,
121, 135, 139.
uniqueness of, 109, 125, 130-
1.33-
Revelation, 227.
Book of, see Apocalypse.
Roman Empire in Apocalypse,
223.
Romans, Epistle to the, rela
tion to Galatians, 198,
204 ff.
shorter recension of, 206 n. I.
Ruler, the young, 16.
Sacraments, 34 ff. ; see Bap
tism, Lord's Supper.
Salmon, Dr., 172.
Sanday, Dr., 30, 42, 45, 73,
77, 91, 172, 1 86, 207.
and Headlam, 205.
Satan, 218, 220, 224.
Schmiedel, Prof., 86, 175.
Schweitzer, 3-77, 85 n. i.
Scott, C. A., 213.
Sea in heaven, the, 220.
Sealings, 34 ff., 220.
Sermon on the Mount, 14, 55,
60, 159, 170.
Servant, the Suffering, 19.
Sibylline Oracles, 214.
Solomon, Psalms of, 35, 43 f,
214.
Son of David, n, 26.
Son of Man, 19 ff., 47, 73 f., 85,
1 68.
" Son, the Father and the,"
i68f.
Sources of Apocalypse, 221 ff.
of Gospels, see Q.
"Spiritualising,'' 45, 50, 54,
56, 58, 104.
Stars and angels, 220 ;/. i.
Subconscious self, the, 128.
Sunday, origin of, 90, 100,
117, 120.
Swete, Dr., 213, 222 f., 229.
Symbolism, 98 f.. 103 f., 215,
222 f., 226, 228.
Syriac version of the Gospels,
the old, 178.
Temptation of Christ, 45 n. 4,
152 n. i, 160.
Testaments of the Twelve
Patriarchs, 214, 217.
Textual Criticism, 147, 176 ff.,
194 n. i, 207 f.
Thessalonians, Epistles to the,
203 f.
Thieves, the two, 99, 104.
" Third day, the," 90, 1 1 7.
Titus, 195 n. i.
Tomb, the empty, 89, 116, 120,
122, I36ff.
Trance, nature of, 228 f.
Transfiguration, the, 22 f., 96,
99, 105.
Tree of Life, the, 216 f.
Trial of Jesus, the, 26 ff., 94 ff.,
101, 106.
Tyrrell, G., 5, 9, 19, 34, 54,61,
63, 67, 72, 74.
Virgin Birth, the, 97, 179
n. 3.
Visions, in Apocalypse, 215,
228 f.
the Resurrection, 89, 108,
u8f., 127 ff., 133 ff.
GENERAL INDEX
237
Weiss, J., 4, 51, 60, 64, 85 n. i.
Wellhausen, J., 21 n. 2, 58,
147, 163.
Westcott and Hort, 147, 178,
207.
" Wisdom of God, the," 1 50.
Wordsworth, Bishop, 175.
Wrede, W., 8, I2f.
Zachariah, see Barachiah, son
of.
Zebedee, prayer of the sons of,
1 6, 94.
Zechariah, Book of, 214 ff.
INDEX OF CHIEF BIBLICAL
REFERENCES
i SAMUEL.
ST. MATTHEW.
2l-io
. l82f.
jl6. 19. 5
°. . . 179 n. i, 3
44"b
. 150
PSALMS.
[-3-6
. 148, 150
,,0
633
22
4i10
98
. 98
7li.
. 149
721 p
. 58
ISAIAH.
820 .
21
714-
. 97
g»7. 38
I023
17
• 17, 20, 33, 58
EZEKIEL.
I032
II12
. 150
14 n. 2, 150
9 •
• 35
II14
. 24
II19
21
HOSEA.
JJ25-30
.i68f.
62 '
90, 120
Is16-17
. 150
. 146 f., 149
AMOS.
i613
i628
21
2\6
. . . . 98
221'4
. 15
2 (4) ESDRAS.
21-31-4(1
150, 162 n. i
20
4s 5 .
. 219
72" .
. 217
ST. MARK.
852 .
. 217
olO. 28
• ^ I
13 •
. 217
4 •
. i6~f.
6s
2 MACCABEES.
827 .
21
27
. 218
834 .
• 31
a
38
INDEX OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES 239
ST.
M A R K — continued.
i CORINTHIANS.
91 -
58, 86
j!9. 21
. 169
13 .
. . . 31,58
I0ioir.
. 207
,332
. 169
2 CORINTHIANS.
ST. LUKE.
I22 .
35
I34 .
i79«. i
410-
• 35
j 40-57
. . 175 ff.
I01 .
. 169
->5. 33. 41
. 179 n. i
[jl-11
. 118
GALATIANS.
64(; .
I021f.
IQ23. 24
. 58, 152
. i68f.
. I46f.
2lfi- .
ollff.
413 •
191 ff.
. 200 f.
. 206
II12
II42
. 151
. 148
617 .
• 35
II41'
162 n. i
EPHESIANS.
13
162 n. i
244-'
. 118
j!3. 14
• 35
430 .
• 35
ST. JOHN.
1 1
REVELATION.
I18 .
179 n. i
A
21 .
. 118
I4 .
219, 220 n. i
27 .
. 216
ACTS.
217 .
. 218
IX 20-20
II30
I329
. I94f.
192 ff.
1 19 n. i
4° •
82 .
11-13
ii19
. 220
. 219
. 221
. 218
j -20. 2!)
j r33-3G
i64.
191 ff.
. . . 206 ff.
. 202
. 197, 201
12 .
I420
i54-
17*.
. 220 f.
. 220
22O
. 229
ROMANS.
208.
2214
. 217
. 216
6l .
• 35
2215
. 207
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