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THE ESCHATOLOGICAL QUESTION 
 IN THE GOSPELS 
 
 AND OTHER STUDIES IN RECENT 
 '( NEW TESTAMENT CRITICISM 
 
THE ESGHATOLOGIGAL 
 
 QUESTION IN THE 
 
 GOSPELS 
 
 And other Studies in Recent 
 New Testament Criticism 
 
 BY THE REV. 
 
 CYRIL W. EMMET, M.A. 
 
 VICAR OF WEST HENDRED 
 
 Edinburgh : T. & T. CLARK, 38 George St. 
 
 I 91 1 
 
^.^(^^S 
 
 \z_ 
 
 Printed by 
 Morrison & Gibb Limited. 
 
 FOR 
 
 T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH. 
 
 LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO. LIMITED. 
 NEW YORK : CHARLES SCKIDNER'S SONS. 
 
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 
 
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 ii. and iv.), the Contemporary 
 Review (Essay iii.), the Expositor (Essays 
 (v. and VI.), and the Interpreter (Essay vii.). 
 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, igio. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface . v 
 
 1. 
 
 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 — Themystery of the Parables 
 — The Mission of the Twelve — Retirement to the 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 North, Transfiguration, and Cassarea Philippi — The 
 quest of death— The Son of Man— The Messiah of 
 the future and His secret — Elias — The entry into 
 Jerusalem — What did Judas betray ? — The end . lo 
 
 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 " ? . . -4° 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 iTHE 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 ivangiles 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 diflficulties of 
 unbelief . . . . . • "S 
 
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 i'"' — 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 1 1 
 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 4^^ — The " Western " reading of the 
 decrees in Ac 15 . . . . . igi 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 VII. 
 
 VII.— THE PROBLEM OF THE APOCA- 
 LYPSE AND ITS BEARING ON THE 
 CONCEPTION OF INSPIRATION. 
 
 PACE 
 
 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 
 
4 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 then living, and that this beHef 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.^ 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 zit 
 
 1 Some account of this literature will be found below in the 
 concluding essay, " The Problem of the Apocalypse." 
 
RECENT LITERATURE 5 
 
 Wrede, in which the eschatological position is 
 developed.^ 
 
 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 
 
 ^ 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 (19th August 
 1910) : " I cannot say that 1 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 Dobschiitz.^ That of the latter 
 is to be found in the series of papers on " The 
 Eschatology of the Gospels," also by Professor 
 von Dobschiitz, in the Expositor of January to 
 May 1910.^ 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, 
 
 ^ 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. 
 
 ^ Now published in book form. 
 
SCHWEITZER 
 
 has come forward as an uncompromising 
 opponent.^ 
 
 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.^ 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 
 
 ^ Guardian, 13th May 1910 ; Hibberl Journal, ]axm&Ty 1910 ; 
 Journal oj 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 ^ 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 
 
 ' There are some references to writers of other nationahties, 
 and a chapter is devoted to Renan. 
 
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 
 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 resuhs 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; " connectino- 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 ii 
 
 knows nothing of the idea that the use of the 
 ass at the triumphal entry symboHsed 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 
 ' 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."^ 
 
 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 is a secret only 
 revealed to the disciples at Caesarea 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 lo^^ and elsewhere about the 
 imminent coming of the S(^n of Man ? And 
 so on almost without limit. Schweitzer has 
 ' I'- 332. 
 
THOROUGHGOING ESCHATOLOGY 13 
 
 three full pages of these avopiai, 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 
 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. 350 ff., 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 
 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 ; ^ 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- 
 
 ' P. 369- 
 
 ^ The obscure saying in Mt ii^^ 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."^ "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 
 22"*) 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." ^ 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. ' 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. " ^ 
 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 
 of God, solely in virtue of the secret, all- 
 powerful will of God. Of a ' conversion ' of 
 the young man there is no question."^ 
 
 "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- 
 ip.388, n. r. 2 P. 363- 'P-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 9^'- ^^ 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 Parousia: "Verily 
 I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone 
 through the cities of Israel, till the Son of Man 
 be come" (Mt 10^^) — 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 10. 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 
 
 P- 354- 
 
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." ^ A fresh feature now becomes 
 ' P. .363. 
 
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 [iretpaa-fio';) 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."^ In this sense His 
 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) 
 ' 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 
 view ^ 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 lo^^ and 
 the parable of the Sheep and Goats {Mt 
 2 53i-*«), 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."^ 
 
 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 " ; * 
 €.£-. in the sayings about the power to forgive 
 sins, and about the Sabbath (Mk 2^" and 2^^). 
 (d) 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 16^^ and Mk 8" proves that 
 this did in fact sometimes occur. Mt 8^" 
 ("hath not where to lay His head") and 11^^ 
 ("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. 
 
 ^Lietzmann, Wellhausen, and others have, of course, main- 
 tained that the Aramaic phrase barnAshd 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 
 Csesarea Philippi follows. Jesus, for some 
 reason not explained, asks His disciples the 
 
C^SAREA PHILIPPI 
 
 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 Messlahship. 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 
 Caesarea 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."^ 
 
 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.^ It is true that, according to 
 Mt 1 1^*, 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 thatcometh?" 
 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 -v/'wh Elias, and in so doing "unveiled 
 » P. 384. 2 Mt i7i2_ 
 
ELI AS 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?" ^ 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." ^ 
 
 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."^ 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 
 
 ' P. 373- ' P- 374- ■' P- 389. 
 
2 6 SCHWEITZER'S POSITION 
 
 sending forth of the disciples, in the explanation 
 that the Baptist was Elias, and in the feeding 
 of the multitude.' 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."^ 
 In the eyes of the multitude He was the 
 Prophet, Elias, as is shown by Mt 21" ; 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." ^ 
 "Jesus died because two of His disciples had 
 broken His command of silence : Peter when 
 he made known the secret of the Messiahship 
 ^ See below, p. 36. ^ P. 391. ^ P. 394. 
 
BETRAYAL AND DEATH 2; 
 
 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. 
 
 The sketch of the career of Jesus ends, 
 somewhat enigmatically, with the following 
 paragraph: "At midday of the same day — 
 
 ' P. 394- ^ P- 395- 
 
2 8 SCHWEITZER'S POSITION 
 
 it was the 14th 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." ^ 
 
 ' P. 395- ' 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."^ 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,"^ though he points 
 out later on that he is not consistent in this 
 respect.* Certainly he is not. We do not, 
 of course, quarrel with him for ienoringr the 
 Fourth Gospel for his purpose, but it is a 
 very serious matter when we find him 
 entirely sweeping away the third. In his 
 
 ' P. 285. ' Life of Christ in Recent Research, p. 88. 
 
 ■* Ibid. p. 10 1. 
 
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 8^* 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.^ The command to 
 baptize is, of course, not an authentic saying 
 of Jesus.^ 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. ^ P- 379- 
 
32 SOME rRELIMINARY 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.^ 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 
 
 " For examples, see above, pp. 21, 24, 26. 
 
READING BETWEEN THE LINES 33 
 
 during the mission of the Twelve.^ He 
 supplements St. Mark's narrative by an 
 explanation derived from Mt lo^l 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?^ 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 most 
 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. 
 
 ^ 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 
 in the mind of Jesus. He insists rightly on 
 
SEALINGS AND SACRAMENTS 35 
 
 the importance of " sealings " in eschatological 
 thought/ 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 6\ 
 2 Co i^^ Eph i^^-" 4^"), the Psalms of Solomon 
 (xv. 8), and Hermas {^Vis. iii. ; Sim. ix. 16). 
 St. Paul further speaks of other saving marks 
 (Gal 6^^ 2 Co 4^"), 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 being 
 baptized they may secure for themselves a place 
 in the kingdom to which they are not entitled 
 or foredestined.^ Baptism forms part of "the 
 predestinarian thought of election." 
 
 Further, the Messiah can give the right to 
 
 1 Pp. 375 f- 
 
 ''■ 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 Treipa 0-/^09." ^ Of course no one 
 
 ^ 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 iJo^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. 
 ' P. 378, n. 
 
38 SOME PRELIMINARY CRITICISMS 
 
 better to substitute for it in Schweitzer's argu- 
 ment some such phrase as magic rites ; ^ 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 
 
 ^ On p. 379 he uses Ihe jjlirase " magic-sacramental." 
 ^ P. 378. 
 
THE CHURCH 39 
 
 Catholic exegete, and a terror to the Protestant."^ 
 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. 
 
 ^ 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 
 
QUESTIONABLE ASSUMPTIONS 41 
 
 very insufficient proof, things which are by 
 no means self-evident. How can he be so 
 certain that Jesus can never have intended to 
 spirituaUse 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 ? ^ Were there 
 not sufficient analogies in the Old Testament 
 stories of the prophets, and the sufferings of the 
 pious in the Maccabaean 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 ? ^ 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 Pp. 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^ 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 
 
 ^ op. cit. pp. 8i, 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 
 the two/ 
 
 (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 
 CTrounds Schweitzer denies the existence of a 
 political element in this conception.* 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 (iod-king." 
 
 ^ Esp. Ps. 17-18. ' P- 367,". 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." ^ 
 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,^ 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." ^ 
 
 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.* We 
 must consider in this connection the nature 
 and purpose of the "Messianic secret" of 
 
 1 op. cit. p. 81. 2 Ibid. p. 100. 2 B.J. vi. v. 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 
 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 beHef 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 THE POLITICAL MESSIAH 
 
 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 world 
 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 
 4 
 
50 THE ESCHATOLOGY OF 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.^ 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 
 ip. 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 Weiss ^ 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 Predigtjesu Vom Reiche Gottes. The eulogy applies to 
 the 1st ed. (1892). The 2nd and enlarged ed. (igcx)) shows, 
 alas ! " a weakening of the eschatological standpoint." 
 
5 2 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." ^ 
 
 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- 
 ings," 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 Dobschiitz^ 
 
 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.^ Again, with regard to Mt 10^* 
 ("Ye shall not have gone over the cities of 
 Israel," etc.), of which, as we saw,^ Schweitzer 
 makes so much, it is clear that the Evangelist 
 hhnself, 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 
 
 ^ 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. 
 
 ^ See above, p. 17. 
 
56 THE ESCHATOLOGY OF JESUS 
 
 case of St. Paul, who, in spite of his undoubted 
 eschatological beHefs, spirituaHses 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." ^ 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." - 
 We can hardly suppose that Christ was 
 
 ' Ro 14^' ; cf. the article of Dr. Gardner, referred to above. 
 ' Dr. Inge, "Sermon," in the Cicardian, 13th May 1910. 
 
GROWTH OF APOCALYPTIC ELEMENT 57 
 
 speaking figuratively when He spoke of the 
 time of His return, and Hterally when He 
 spoke of its manner. If we spirituaHse " this 
 generation," we must spirituaHse 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.^ 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 
 
 ^ 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: (l) 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 ? 
 
58 THE ESCHATOLOGY OF JESUS 
 
 Mk 13 and parallels. "The kingdom of God 
 come with power " of Mk 9^ becomes, in Wt 
 16^**, " The Son of Man coming in His kingdom," 
 the eschatological colouring being thus empha- 
 sised. Where in Lk 6*^ we have the simple 
 saying, " Why call ye Me, Lord, Lord, and do 
 not the things which I say } " in Mt 7^^ 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.^ 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.^ 
 
 ^ Cf. Dobschiitz, loc. cit. 
 
 ^ 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 ; ^ 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 
 
 ' I Co 7 is a probable exception. 
 
6o THE ESCHATOLOGY OF JESUS 
 
 with Jesus. The parallel shows that the 
 "eschatolooist " is not always consistent and 
 thoroughgoing ; he may have other sides to 
 his character and message.^ 
 
 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." 
 
 ^ See above, p. 14. Weiss {op. cit. pp. 148 ff.) bravely tries 
 to show that the command to love one's enemies is essentially 
 eschatological ! 
 
THE INTERIMSETHIK 6i 
 
 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.^ 
 
 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 
 
 ' 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, 
 
 ^ Peabody, " New Testament Eschatology and Ethics " 
 {Transactions of the Third International Co7igress 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 admitted^ that the 
 eschatological point of view is not consistently 
 maintained by our Lord ; He does sometimes 
 " seek to improve and help [the world], as 
 thoueh it were destined to continue." But it 
 is not superfluous to point out that the theories 
 of the Interimsethik 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- 
 ing of most reformers at a time of crisis. But 
 ^ Op. cit. pp. 1 34 ff. 
 
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 rehgion 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." ^ " 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 
 ' 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." ^ 
 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- 
 ' P. 254. 2 P. 252. 
 
68 THE JESUS OF ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 fection. No doubt this is true ; but, as we 
 have already remarked,^ 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 eschatology 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, 
 
 ^ 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."^ Eschatology, he maintains, has thrown 
 into clear relief the utter contrast between the 
 modern world-afiirming spirit and His world- 
 negating spirit. "Why spare the spirit of the 
 individual man its appointed task of fighting 
 
 ' P. 396- ' P- 399- ' 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.^ 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 Danielle 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."^ 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. cit. 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/ If, then, the one-half 
 of Jesus' claim has been completely falsified, 
 is it Hkely 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 
 
 ^ 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 sonie 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 He not accept 
 and rejoice m all that is pure and lovely in 
 
T6 the JESUS OF ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 Nature and in home-life as the gifts of the 
 sameF"ather? 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/ 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."^ Are we really "creating a 
 Christ in our own likeness," when we attribute 
 to His conscious purpose the enunciation of 
 
 ' 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 TJ 
 
 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. 
 
i;^.-'-^- 
 
 II 
 M. LOISY AND THE GOSPEL STORY 
 
 79 
 
II. 
 
 M. LOISY AND THE GOSPEL STORY. 
 
 The publication of Loisy's Les Iivangiles 
 Synoptiqttes'^ 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 
 
 ' 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 I'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 I'expression im- 
 mediate de souvenirs gardds par un tdmoin " 
 (i. p. 81). Even St. Mark, the earliest, is "une 
 oeuvre de second main," "une ceuvre de foi 
 beaucoup plus qu'un tdmoignage 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 Loisy 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 evangdlique 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 mdtaphore 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 I'Evangile est done subordonn^e a la con- 
 ception eschatologique du regne de Dieu " 
 (p. 236).^ 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 I'enseignement donn6 par 
 J^sus" (p. 82), yet such large deductions must 
 
 ^ 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 pr^sumer que les disciples memes ne 
 firent jamais aucun soin pour retenir ce qu'ils 
 entendaient, et que leur mdmoire garda seule- 
 ment ce qui les avait le plus frapp^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 9^ (" 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 poHtical authorities, Antipas 
 in GaHlee 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 assign^ a la preparation du regne 
 de Dieu. Jerusalem est le pass6, la ville des 
 grands souvenirs ; c'est le present, le lieu des 
 reunions Rationales ; c'est aussi I'avenir, car 
 une Jerusalem nouvelle doit surgir a la place 
 de I'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. " ]6sus n'allait pas 
 a Jerusalem pour y mourir; il y allait pour 
 preparer et procurer, au risque de sa vie, 
 I'avenement de Dieu" (p. 214). The events 
 of the next few days accentuated the danger, 
 but still there remained the hope. "Jdsus 
 n'avait pas laiss^ de la (sc. /a catastrophe) 
 prdvoir, mais il n'avait pas cessd non plus 
 d'esp^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'^tait pas institution 
 d'une socidt^ spirituelle, compatible avec tous 
 les pouvoirs humains, c'^tait I'instauration 
 complete du regne de Dieu, a la place de la 
 tyrannie 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 
 I'Evangile ; la rdalit^ 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 g^nie " 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 intdrieur de leur ame enthousiaste 
 pouvait leur sugg^rer la vision de 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 J^sus fut 
 mort sur la croix. Nul ne pouvait ddmontrer 
 qu'il ne fut pas ressuscitd " (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."^ Possibly also the influence of the 
 Old Testament was at work, in the parallel of 
 Jonah, or the "third day" of Hos 6^ (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 
 
 ^ This extraordinary argument should be noticed. All our 
 evidence shows the " first day " as estabUshed 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 reahsed (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 91 
 
 Testament. "II est de toute invraisemblance 
 que les textes de I'Ancien Testament aient 
 suggdr^ aux disciples de J^sus la resurrection 
 de leur Maitre ; mais ce qui parait certain, 
 c'est que cette id^e, aussitot que n^e, chercha 
 son appui, sa defense, sa preuve, dans les 
 Ecritures, et quelle 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 dvangile est 
 une interpretation paulinienne, volontairement 
 paulinienne, de la tradition primitive. Son 
 paulinisme ne tient pas seulement a quelques 
 expressions, a quelques lambeaux de phrase 
 ou de doctrine qu'il aurait emprunt^s a I'Apdtre 
 
92 M. LOISY AND THE GOSPEL STORY 
 
 des gentils ; il est dans I'intention g^ndrale, 
 dans I'esprit, dans les id^es dominantes et 
 dans les ^Idments les plus caracteristiques de 
 son livre" (i. p. ii6). 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. "J^sus a regard^ sa 
 mort comme possible, et, dans certain Even- 
 tuality comme la condition providentielle du 
 royaume qui allait venir, mais non comme un 
 Element ndcessaire en soi de sa fonction 
 messianique ; il I'a envisagde comme un risque 
 a courir, un p^ril a affronter, non comme 
 I'acte salutaire par excellence auquel devait 
 tendre son ministere, et duquel d^pendait 
 essentiellement tout I'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. 108, 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 prdsentd la coutume 
 chr^tienne comme une institution fondle sur 
 une volontd que Jdsus aurait exprim^e et 
 figur^e 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. " ]6sus apparait comme juge et non 
 comme t^moin ; il ne prdsente pas les hommes 
 a son Pere ; il vient dans la gloire du Pere, et 
 accompagn^ des anges. Cette mise en scene 
 apocalyptique est aussi dans le golit et les 
 iddes 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 dominies par une 
 double preoccupation thdologique et apolo- 
 gdtique, a savoir, montrer que le Christ avait 
 prdvu sa fin " (ii. p. 16). He must be protected 
 against the carping of unbelievers ! "La 
 dignitd du Christ est sauv^e, dans le recit de 
 Gethsdmani, par un acte formel de resignation 
 a la volonte du Pere" (i. p. 181). Generally 
 with regard to His knowledge of the future, 
 " on ne se borna pas a gloser les paraboles 
 primitives, on en cr^a 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 Galilaean 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 confession^ (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 apolog^tique " 
 
 ' 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. 1 1 1). 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 usag-e 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 communaut^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 ddveloppements, ce n'est plus 
 seulement la foi qui domine le souci de 
 I'exactitude historique : il en a 6t6 ainsi des 
 le commencement ; c'est la devotion, n^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 Abb^ takes the most severely 
 critical view of their origin. They are 
 " pieuses fictions " ; " I'ensemble des anecdotes, 
 y compris celle de J^sus a douze ans, n'a rien 
 qui ddpasse les facult^s moyennes d'invention 
 des hagiographes populaires a toute dpoque 
 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 7" did not, indeed, create the belief in 
 the Virgin Birth, but it served as a valuable 
 proof thereof. In U Evangile et lEglise (p. 24) 
 the Abbd laid down the principle with regard 
 to the Old Testament that "il serait plus juste 
 de dire qu'elle colore la plupart des r^cits, 
 que d'affirmer qu'elle en a cr^6 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 41"; the flight of the young 
 man naked, by Am 2^". 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 2 2 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^solde re- 
 prdsente la fille de Sion, Jerusalem menac^e de 
 perdre Israel, son fils unique, et le perdant en 
 
SYMBOLISM 99 
 
 effet, pour le recouvrer miraculeusement par la 
 puissance de Jdsus"(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 rdcit flottant, 
 pour ainsi dire, et tres consciemment, entre le 
 symbole et la r^alit^ " (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 ; 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 reprdsente la judaisme incr^dule, la 
 foi du bon larron repr^sente la conversion du 
 monde" (p. 677). We hear of two sisters, 
 
100 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 donn^es symboliques, 
 dont il est maintenant difficile a I'historien de 
 ddgager le point de depart dans le rdalite des 
 faits" (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 rdcit 
 ou il avait mel^ sa propre doctrine ; le melange 
 s'est fait de lui-meme dans la region sub- 
 consciente de lame 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 loi 
 
 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 litt^raire," are continu- 
 ally applied to it. The raising of the widow's 
 son is "un rdcit sans originality" ; 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 l^gendaire qu'a I'histoire, et qui 
 ressembleraient plutot a un effet de theatre, 
 dans un melodrame ou une piece enfantine, 
 qu'a la r^alit6 " (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 ex^gese, 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 gotit litteraire " ; St. Matthew, 
 "une mediocre invention"; St. Luke's style 
 is " inegal, manidre, on oserait presque dire 
 truqud." The dedication to Theophilus is 
 "pompeuse et banale " (i. pp. 257 ff.). 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). Sccurus jndicat orbis 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 immddiat des apotres eut pr^- 
 sentd comme a fait Luc les t^moignages 
 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 
 wijnschen ! " 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 dcr 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 Tylor's 
 amusing exposure of its possibilities in 
 Primitive Ctdture. 
 
 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 viii. as 
 fictitious embodiments of Romanism and 
 Protestantism, because they happen to repre- 
 sent different elements in the English mind 
 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 invitds a rester pour le 
 plaisir des 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 Jdsus, arrivent on ne salt 
 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 de Jdsus n'etait en 
 ^tat de les prendre sur I'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 posterity 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-pensde 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 Redeii 
 Jesii, 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 
 
 LOISY'S VIEW OF THE RESURRECTION 
 
III. 
 
 M. LOISY'S VIEW OF THE 
 RESURRECTION.i 
 
 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"?^ 
 
 It also raises the historical and psychological 
 
 ^ This paper originally appeared independently of the pre- 
 ceding pages. 
 
 2 Browning, " A Death in the Desert.'' 
 8 
 
114 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 beHeved 
 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 will 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.^ 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 
 
 ' The chief relevant sections in his works are : L'^vangile et 
 r^glise, pp. 112 ff. ; L'Aniour (tun Petit Livre, pp. 120, 169 ff. ; 
 Le Qu"" Evangtle, esp. pp. 900 ff. ; Les Evangiles Synoptiques, 
 asp. i. pp. 177, 223 ff., ii. pp. 696 ff.; Simples Reflexions, pp. 
 79. 170 ; (2uelgues 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 aeon ; there was to be a great 
 ddnoucTnent 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 
 
ii6 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/ 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 Galilsean tradition, implying as they 
 
 ' 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. 
 
ii8 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.^ 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 closino- 
 chapters. It may, however, have left its 
 traces in the " fish " of Luke 24*^ and in the 
 tradition preserved by Origen that " Simon " 
 was the unnamed companion of Cleopas on the 
 
 1 Cf. 16'. 
 
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 
 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 chr^tienne, qui parle en 
 Jdsus glorifid" 
 
 Now it is not our intention to discuss directly 
 and in detail Loisy's critical treatment of the 
 Gospels.^ The purpose of this summary has 
 
 ^ 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 " " procMent d'un sentiment moral plutot que 
 
120 LOISY'S VIEW OF THE Rl'.STJRRECTION 
 
 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,^ 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. igi, 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 13^' 
 (" 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 6^ 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. 
 ' 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 I'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 ndanmoins se 
 manifeste sensiblement."^ 
 
 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 
 
 ' Quelgues Lettres, p. 1 89. 
 
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 vi^hich 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 
 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 I'Ancien Testament aient suggere aux 
 disciples de J^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 
 
 ' 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?^ 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, 
 
 ' In certain cases we have to reckon with the possibihty 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,' 
 a suggestion which is in itself a priori probable, 
 and which is " confirmed " by messages claiming 
 to come from him and Dr. Gurney,^ 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 
 
 ^ The Survival of Human Personality. 
 ^ S.P.R. Proceediiigs, 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 th^t 
 they are purely subjective. This seems to be 
 the view of M. Loisy. To the Apostles "le 
 travail int^rieur de leur ame enthousiaste 
 pouvait leur suggerer la vision de ce qu'ils 
 souhaitaient ; des incidents fortuits, interpretds 
 
128 LOISY'S VIEW OF THE RESURRECTION 
 
 et transfigures selon les preoccupations du 
 moment pouvaient avoir la meme port^e que 
 des visions, avec un caractere objectif qui les 
 rendaient moins discutables, si Ton avait 
 song^ a discuter." ^ And there are instructive 
 passages^ in which he speaks of "la region 
 sub-consciente de lame, ou se preparent les 
 visions et les songes. En I'dtat d'exaltation ou 
 vivaient les premiers croyants, tout ce travail, 
 qui deroute I'analyse par sa complexity, s'est 
 op^re, spontan^ment et rapidement, dans la 
 region subconsciente des dmes ou se preparent 
 les songes de tons 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 chr^tienne" 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 
 
 ^ Ev. Syn. i. p. 223. 
 
 ^ 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 passd les ressaisit, leurs 
 souvenirs s'enflammerent dans la solitude. lis 
 avaient 6t6 trop profond^ment remuds par 
 I'esp^rance pour que le coup de malheur qui les 
 avait d'abord accablds ne flit par suivi d'une 
 reaction puissante vers le grandiose avenir qui 
 les avait seduits."^ " L'on pergoit aussi que 
 ces deux facteurs " (i.e. the appearances and the 
 argument from prophecy) "ont puis^ originaire- 
 ment toute leur force dans la persuasion ou 
 ^taient les disciples que J^sus lui-meme dtait 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- 
 
 ^ Av. Syn. i. p. 223. ^ Ibid. ii. p. 782. 
 
 9 
 
130 LOISY'S VIEW OF THE RESURRECTION 
 
 tion of the Book of Wisdom, that " the souls of 
 the righteous are in the hand of God." They 
 beUeved that their Master was aUve 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 esp^rance quand ils virent que 
 le ciel n'avait pas secouru celui qu'ils avaient 
 salu6 comme le Messie."^ 
 
 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, 
 
 ' Et. 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 RESITRRECTION 
 
 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 
 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 resfarded as the real founder of 
 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 starding 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 LOISYS VIEW OF THE RESURRECTION 
 
 admit of proof or disproof. On tlie 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 ddclaraient vivant 
 et immortel le crucifie de Golgotha. Le chris- 
 tianisme etait n6. On allait essayer de le com- 
 battre. II fallait le discuter. Nul ne contestait 
 que J^sus fut mort sur la croix. Nulne pouvait 
 ddmontrcr qu'il 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, 
 
 ' E'd. Syii. i. 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 ^ has been followed by a further 
 volume, in which he examines the second 
 source common to St. Matthew and St. Luke.^ 
 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,"^ the 
 
 ^ In Lukas der Arzt. 
 
 ^ 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. 
 
 ^ The source is so called from the German Quelle ; the old 
 name Logia has been dropped as suggesting an identification 
 with the Matthasan 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 He behind 
 both. 
 
 He renews the protest which we find in 
 Lukas dcr 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 Q. 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 LVQUIRY 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 21'^ 
 and Lk y^^-^", 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. Rlatthew 
 10 
 
146 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 Mi. Variations in Lk. 
 
 Mt 13^^. Vfiav 8e fmKapioi Lk lo''^-'*. v/iMj/ 8e' Om. 
 
 01 6(l>da\fjLo\, ort ^XiiTOViTLVy Ka\ oi l3\e7rovT€s a jSXeneTi Koi 
 
 Tu 2iTa [yfia>v'\ on clkovovo'iv. ra bis aKovovcrtv om. 
 
 (^^) d^rjy yap Xe'yco v/ili', on ap.T]v om. Xeyo) yap 
 
 TToXAot IT po<\>riTai Ka\ diKatot [(cat jSaa-tXe'ls] for Ka\ Si<aiot 
 
 €Tredupj]G'av IdeXv a ^XcTrerf, TjdeXjja'av vp-eZs ^XeTrere 
 
 Kal ovK sidav' Ka\ cxKovcrat a [koi aK. bis iJKOvaav om.]. 
 OKOTjerf, KCLi OVK yJKovfjav. 
 
 "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}^, and if the last clause of v." were 
 Lukan it must have run u/ie?? aKovere (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 V"? is striking, as he 
 usually omits O's pleonastic personal pronouns. 
 In this case he had at the bemnnino- omitted 
 the vfjiojv, and where he inserts it, the u^uet? is 
 
TEXTUAL CRITICISM 147 
 
 not pleonastic, afji-nv may belong to the source, 
 but may also have been inserted by Matthew. 
 Koi ^a<TiKel<i 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 Q, and BUaiot in Mt. is a cor- 
 rection by Matthew, who had a special fond- 
 ness for hiKaioavvrj. ■^BiXrjaap for eireOvfirjaav is 
 
 an obvious improvement in style (iiridvfietv only 
 occurs once elsewhere in Mt). In Q the 
 saying will have run just as in Mt., except 
 for the SUaioi (and perhaps the a/tufi'). 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 iexi, 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 10^* is three old Latin MSS). Similarly, 
 
148 HARNACK, FIRST AND THIRD GOSPELS 
 
 he omits the close of Lk II^^ as interpolated 
 from Mt 2 3^^ the third (or second) Beatitude 
 from Mt 5^ 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 TertuUian, 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 
 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 8^", 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 
 
 ^ 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 ignored. 
 
 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 Q ; 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 6'^ and our 
 illustrative passage (13"). More significant 
 are the additions of -Trpurov in 6^^ (limiting and 
 explaining a hard saying), and of "this is the 
 law," etc., to the Golden Rule in 7^^ (emphasis- 
 ing the editor's respect for the Jewish law), and 
 
ISO HARNACK, FIRST AND THIRD GOSPELS 
 
 the expansion of the Jonah passage in 12*" 
 (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 
 lo^^ where " Heavenly Father" takes the place 
 of " the angels "), and on " righteousness " (5"- ^ 
 2229-36. ^f T-ixeto?, 5*^); favourite expressions 
 such as the closing formulas in 8^^"", vTra/ye in 
 ^10 gi3 jgi5^ ^^poy a^nd (ppovifioi; in y^^-^e ; besides 
 more trivial variations in particles, etc. His 
 interest in the Old Testament is illustrated by 
 the continuation of the quotation in 4* ; his 
 Palestinian and Judaic standpoint, by the men- 
 tion of Jerusalem as "the Holy City" in 4^, by 
 the "Pharisees and Lawyers" (or Sadducees) 
 of 3' 23^^*^^, by the first three petitions of the 
 Lord's Prayer, and by the addition in 23^^ [see 
 above for the questionable treatment of the 
 text in these two cases]. Hard sayings are 
 softened in 5'^ ("except for fornication"), and 
 in 5^ ("poor in spirit"^; the strange and un- 
 recognised reference to the " Wisdom of God " 
 is omitted in 23'''.^ 
 
 ' On the "son of Barachiah" in 23"^, 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 
 
 (d) Changes in St. Luke. In both groups 
 these are more numerous, 150 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 KhaUiv (6^^ 7^^ ; 11 times 
 in the third Gospel, twice in the first, once in 
 a quotation from LXX), evw^'yekii^eadai (16^"). 
 %a/069 (6^^'^^ ; 25 times in third Gospel and Acts, 
 never in Mt. or Mk.) vTro<TTpe(peiv (4^; 22 times 
 in third Gospel, 1 1 times in Acts, never in 
 Mt. or Mk.); (2) constructions such as the 
 genitive absolute, or ^v 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 Q passages. More important 
 variations are the "egg and scorpion " in 11^^ 
 
 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./. 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 6S a.d. On the 
 other side, see Burkitt, ne Gospel History and its Transmission, 
 P- 343- 
 
152 HARNACK, FIRST AND THIRD GOSPELS 
 
 (cf. Mt f), the rewriting of the obscure Mt 1 1^^ 
 in 16^", and the additions in 9"° and 12" (cf. 
 Mt 8^^ 24"). A new version is given of the 
 parable of the Two Builders (6*°) ; the disciples 
 are to heal as well as to preach (9^ ; cf. Mt 10') ; 
 in 1 1*^ " love of God " is substituted for " mercy," 
 in 11^^ "apostles" for "wise men and scribes," 
 in 1 1'*^ " knowledge " for the " kingdom " (cf. Mt 
 2^23.34.14^ The idea of repentance is added to 
 the parable of the Lost Sheep (15^), and the 
 doctrine of the Holy Spirit is emphasised in 4^ 
 11^^ and the Lord's Prayer [?].^ 
 
 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 forus to reconstruct xh&ipsissima 
 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 4'^ (" 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 " ; 14'* (" salt ") is nearer to Mk <f than Mt 5'', 
 and 16'" ("divorce") rests on Mk 10^' as much as on Mt 5^^ (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.' 
 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 
 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 {fianibridge 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 ff., 496). 
 
154 HARNACK, FIRST AND THIRD GOSPELS 
 
 harmonisitifr 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. IVIatthew 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 O^ and a Ql 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 
 "sg'g ^^"^ 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 6*^"*^ 7"° 
 
156 HARNACK, FIRST AND THIRD GOSPELS 
 
 JJ41.44 j^26^" ^p gQ^ . g^j^j ^itj^ 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. 88ff.) ; 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 include 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 allf 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 
 O. In particular, Clemens Romanus and Poly- 
 carp have been supposed to quote from a 
 definite collection o{ Abr^oi tov Kvplov (cf. Ac 20^''), 
 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. 135)/ 
 
 So much with regard to the contents of Q ; 
 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- 
 
 ' It is of interest to compare Hamack'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. Hamack'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 O 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 O, as we 
 
i6o HARNACK, FIRST AND THIRD GOSPELS 
 
 find it in St. Matthew, and that it was de- 
 Hberately 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 i6i 
 
 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 ;^ i.e. " O 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. 1 03-1 15). 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 Hamack 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. 
 
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. ii8). 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 
 
 ^ The facts are these. In Mt 23''' the lament over Jerusalem 
 follows immediately on the saying about the blood of the 
 prophets. In Lk 11*" 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 13^*- 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 
 QuaMhne Evatigile, 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. 160).^ 
 
 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 
 
 ^ 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 O 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 i\ "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 Vernehiens 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.^ " 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- 
 ' Op. cit. 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 1^^ Lk 10". 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 O, and probably also in St. Luke. 
 E^ojJboXo'yovfiai, croi, -rrdrep, Kvpie tov ovpavov Koi tt}? 
 yrj'i, oTi eKpvy]ra<; raina cnro cTO(po)p Koi avverSiv, Koi 
 dTreKaXvyjra'i aina vt^ttLok' val, o narijp, on ovtoj? 
 eyevero evhoKia efinrpoadiv aov. irdvTa fioi irapehoOrj 
 inrb TOV TraTjOO?, Kal ovBel<; eyvco tov jruTepa (or Tt? 
 eaTiv o iraTijpj el fiij o i;to9, Kal u) av 6 vlo<; diroKoKir^ri 
 
Q'S CHRISTOLOGY 169 
 
 (p. 206)/ 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 13^^ 
 (10^^ on p. 152 is an obvious misprint), and 
 Harnack suggests that i Co i^**-^^ 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 10^ 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 knovveth 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 age in which 
 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). 
 
 Q, 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 
 
\T2 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 O 
 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. 
 
 ' op. lil. p. 317. 
 
V 
 
 "SHOULD THE MAGNIFICAT BE ASCRIBED 
 TO ELISABETH?" 
 
V. 
 
 "SHOULD THE MAGNIFICAT BE 
 ASCRIBED TO ELISABETH?" 
 
 It has always been known to textual critics 
 that there is a remarkable variant in Lk i*'', 
 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. Litke, 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 Encyclopcedia Biblica i^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 
 
176 MAGNIFICAT ASCRIBED TO ELISABETH 
 
 (p. 72, cf. p. 140), and the whole question is 
 treated fully by Loisy in Les Evangiles 
 SynoptiqiLcs (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).^ 
 
 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 i*" all 
 our MSS, Greek and Latin, read kcu d-n-ev 
 Mapidfi {" and Mary said"), except three Old 
 Latin MSS {a, b, and /^), 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. 
 ^ Sometimes quoted as r/ie. 
 
TEXTUAL EVIDENCE 177 
 
 reading, as have the Fathers, except Ireneeus, 
 Origen, and Niceta. Some doubt, however, 
 attaches to the evidence of the first two. 
 In the passage in question from Irenseus 
 [Hcer. iv. 7. i), Elisabeth is read by two 
 MSS, while a third has Maria, and in iii. 10. 2 
 Irenseus 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,^ 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 
 reeard 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 b" (one of the MSS which has the 
 variant), and therefore "does not add very 
 
 ' /// Luc. horn. vii. : " Invenitur beata Maria, sicut in 
 aliquantis exemplaribus reperimus, prophetare. Non enim 
 ignoramus quod secundum alios codices ethjec verba Elisabeth 
 vaticinetur. Spiritu itaque sancto tunc repleta est Maria." 
 
178 MAGNIFICAT ASCRIBED TO ELISABETH 
 
 much to the weight of evidence for the 
 ascription to EHsabeth, 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 hturgiologist (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 
 " 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 sud judicc, 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 
 
 ' 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 subject.^ 
 
 {b) In the case before us the nature of the 
 variant forbids our rejecting it at once. It 
 seems to be too widejy spread to be ascribed 
 to a slip of the pen,^ and it is obviously im- 
 probable that Elisabeth should ever have been 
 substituted for Mary, whilst the reverse is 
 possible enough.^ On the other hand, the 
 
 ^ Mt 1^^ 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. 
 
 ' 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 vtight 
 be due to a desire to depreciate the position of Mary. 
 Similarly in Mk 6' breads "son of the Carpenter" instead of 
 "Carpenter" (cf. Mt 13'^^ and Lk 4") ; in Lk 2-' it has " wife " 
 instead of "fiancee," and in Mt i^" an apparently intermediate 
 reading with genuit, whilst in vv.^''-^"-^* it does not share 
 the variations of Syr'^"', which emphasise the Virgin Birth. 
 
i8o MAGNIFICAT ASCRIBED TO ELISABETH 
 
 evidence for Mary is far too strong (including, 
 e.g., Tertullian), and that {or 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 koX ehr^v ("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 KciX eljrev 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 i'* it stands alone in substituting for 
 " How shall this be ? " etc., the words of v.^s, " 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 2^^- *^ it substitutes " Joseph" 
 for "father" or " parent," and in particular in Jn i'^ it is the 
 only MS which has preserved the reading "qui . . natus 
 est," a reading which, ^ace Loisy {Qu"" 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 i8i 
 
 figure, and usage is not decisive as to whether 
 the phrase may or may not be used when 
 the speaker changes. Wordsworth ^ 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. 
 
 (d) 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 cer:;ain, 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.^^ " Now 
 Elisabeth's full time came that she should 
 be delivered," and this has decided the form 
 of the preceding sentence. It would have 
 
 ^ In Burn's Niceta, p. clvi. 
 
(82 MAGNIFICAT ASCRIBED TO ELISABETH 
 
 been awkward to say, efieivev 8e aiiv 'EXei- 
 ffd/Ser . . . ("she remained with E.") t§ 
 8e 'EXeiaaSer eTr\rj(T0rj ("and E.'s full time 
 came "), while eVXjjo-^T? 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.^. 
 
 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 HannaKs song which 
 are really appropriate to Elisabeth are entirely 
 unrepfesented in the Magnificat. These are 
 y 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.*^ The opening words (" For He 
 hath regarded the lowliness of His hand- 
 maiden "), though true of Elisabeth, TaTretVwo-i? 
 being used of the reproach of childlessness 
 
1 84 MAGNIFICAT ASCRIBED TO ELISABETH 
 
 (cf. I S i"), recall Mary's "Behold the hand- 
 maid of the Lord ; be it unto me according 
 to thy word" (v.^). 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 Elisabeth^ (cf. Leah in Gn 30"). 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/^), and 
 " Blessed is she that believed " (v.*^). 
 
 (c) 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.'^^ cf. v."). 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.*®-*^ 
 is quite out of keeping with the subordinate 
 
 ' Les Evangiles Synoptiques, i. p. 305. 
 
THE TRADITIONAL ASCRIPTION 185 
 
 position which she assumes in vv.*^~*^. 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 " ^1070? cnro aijrj'i -TrpoekBaiv 
 more corresponds to the fitness of things 
 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 ical elwev, 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 
 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 ^ 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. 
 
 ' 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 
 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 11. 
 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 
 13 
 
194 CtALATIANS— 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"^ at Antioch (Ac ii'°). Barnabas 
 is at once despatched by the Jerusalem Church 
 
 ^ There is, of course, the important variant 'EXXTji/iarof, 
 ("Grecians"), which is adopted by WH. and RVm. Ramsay 
 (5/. 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. '&CKr\vas is adopted by 
 Tisch., Treg., Blass, Hamack, 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 2^ ; in consequence of the prophecy of 
 Agabus, Ac 1 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 II, as compared with Gal 2, raises no special difficulty. 
 
196 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 12^-13, 
 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 16* is decisive on the point.^ And after all, 
 
 ' "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 doinof 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 AngHcan Church has at 
 length been aboHshed. 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 /^r 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 15^ There is no difficulty 
 in finding a place for it. It obviously belongs 
 to the period covered by Ac 15^'^ Judaisers 
 claiming the sanction of James (I5^^ Gal 2^^) 
 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.^ 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 2"") 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 
 ■ 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.^^ ; 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. 16^). 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- 
 
20 2 G AL ATI ANS— 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^^-^ 
 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.^^) was probably quite inevitable, and 
 the expressions used in vv.^"^-^" do not imply any 
 long delay, but are intentionally vague, after 
 St. Luke's manner.^ 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 16* 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 
 
 ' On these, see Harnack, ApostelgescliicJite, 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 which 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/ 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 ii, 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 
 
 ' 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 Headlatn, Romans, p. xxiii. 
 
2o6 GALATIANS— EARLIEST EPISTI>E 
 
 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/ 
 
 (2) A further difficulty is found in the two 
 visits, implied in the to -irpoTepov of Gal 4^^ To 
 this it may be replied that we have the high 
 authority of Blass for the view that to -rrpoTepov 
 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 
 afifected by the view we take of the text of 
 the Decree in Ac 15? Harnack^ has lately 
 
 ^ I am very glad at the last moment to be able to refer to 
 a remarkable article by Professor Lake in the Expositor (Dec. 
 1 9 10), 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 tJic same time 
 as Galatians, and very possibly before the Council. This 
 hypothesis would, of course, completely dispose of the objection 
 discussed above. 
 
 ^ Apostelgeschichte, pp. i88-ig8. 
 
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 22^^. 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,^ 
 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 
 
 ^ 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 1 910), and Dr. Sanday {Theo- 
 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. 
 
 H 
 
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 
 light of modern critical methods. Of these the 
 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' 
 
2 14 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 ; ^ 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 
 
 ^ Its presence is becoming increasingly recognised in certain 
 passages of other prophetical bool<s, 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 
 
2i6 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,^ 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 (2", cf. 22"). 
 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 
 
 ^ 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 20^) 
 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 90^^ speaks of a New House greater 
 and loftier than the first, "and the Lord of 
 the sheep was in it"; 4 Es f^, "The bride 
 shall appear, even the city coming forth." 
 
21 8 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. 
 
 (d) 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.£-. in 2" the conqueror is pro- 
 mised his share of " ^ke hidden manna"; in 
 11^^ 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 2^ "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" (i*), the seven angels of 
 the presence of 8^ are paralleled by the "seven 
 first white ones " of Enoch, by the seven angels 
 of the presence of Tob 12^'^, 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 4^^ " 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 
 
2 20 THE PROBLEM OF THE Al'OCALYPSE 
 
 a great sea between the first and second 
 heavens (cf. Rev 4") ; of horses walking to the 
 breast in the blood of sinners (Rev 14^"). 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.^ 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 
 
 ' 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 g^ 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 
 formuLc, 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 I sis 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. 1 1 (" The Two 
 Witnesses ") and in ch. 1 3 (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 
 
22 2 THE PROBLEM OF THE APOCALYl'SE 
 
 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 Cssar 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 
 
2 24 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 
 
2 26 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 
 
2 28 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 parley ? 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 
 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 17^ 
 which just gives the two sides : " He carried 
 me away in the spirit into the wilderness" (z.e. 
 to see the vision of the Great Harlot). The 
 note is, " The movement took place iv ■jrvev/j.aTi,, 
 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- 
 
2 30 THE PROBLEM OF THE AI'OCALYPSE 
 
 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.] 
 
 Aceldama, ii6. 
 Acts of the Apostles, Harnack 
 on, 103, 192. 
 relation to Galatians, 192 ff., 
 200 ff. 
 Advent, the Second, see 
 
 Parousia. 
 Agape, 96. 
 Agrapha, 157. 
 
 Allegorising, 99 ; see Sym- 
 bolism. 
 Allen, Archdeacon, 145, 158, 
 
 165, 171. 
 Angelology of Apocalypse, 
 
 219 f. 
 Antichrist, 221. 
 Antioch, Judaisers in, 200. 
 St. Paul's visits to, 194 ff., 
 202. 
 Apocalypse of St. John, 213- 
 230. 
 date, 223. 
 
 influenced by Old Testa- 
 ment and Apocalyptic, 
 214 ff. 
 inspiration, 226 ff. 
 mythological elements, 220. 
 purpose and value, 224 ff. 
 recent literature on, 213. 
 relation to contemporary 
 history, 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, 
 
 lOI. 
 
 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. 1. 
 Baptism, 31, 35fiF., 96. 
 
 of Christ, 96, 160. 
 Baptist, John the, identified 
 
 with Elias, 24, 26. 
 preaching of, 13, 35, 83. 
 Barabbas, 95. 
 
 Barachiah, the son of, 1 50 «. i . 
 Barnabas, 194 f. 
 Barn&shd, 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. 
 
 Caesarea Philippi, 20, 22 f., 31, 
 
 105. 
 Calvin, ig6. 
 
 Charles, Dr., 7, 213, 216. 
 Christ, see Jesus Christ. 
 
 influence of, 69!?., 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, 
 
 ■n- 
 
 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, II, 32. 
 Corinthians, the ist Epistle to, 
 and the Apostolic 
 Decree, 207. 
 Council, the Apostolic — 
 decisions, nature of, 196 ff., 
 207 ff. 
 scope of, 201. 
 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, 2i4ff. 
 Dobschiitz, Prof, von, 6, 54, 58. 
 
 Elect, the, 15, 219 ; see Pre- 
 
 destinarianism. 
 Elijah, the coming of, 24 f., 26. 
 Elisabeth and the Magnificat, 
 
 175-187. 
 Enoch, Book of, 20, 214, 217, 
 219. 
 Secrets of, 214, 219. 
 Eschatological Question in 
 the Gospels, 3-77, 84 f., 
 115. 
 Messiah, 19, 42 ff. 
 portrait of Christ, 34, 71-77. 
 sacraments, 37 f. 
 Eschatology, 3, 24. 
 
 and ethics, 60 ff. ; see Inter- 
 
 imsethik. 
 of Jesus, 50-65. 
 passing of, 60 ff. 
 Esdras, Fourth Book of, 20, 
 
 214, 217, 219. 
 Eucharist, see Lord's Supper. 
 Ezekiel, Book of, 2i4f. 
 
 Five thousand, feeding of the, 
 
 see Miracles. 
 "Flight to the North, the," 
 
 i8f, 32f., 87. 
 Folklore, 90, 117, 220. 
 Fourth Gospel, see John, 
 
 Gospel.of. 
 
GENERAL INDEX 
 
 '■33 
 
 Galatia, St. Paul's visits to, 
 
 206. 
 " Galatian, South, theory," 
 
 191, 201. 
 Galatians, Epistle to, 191-209. 
 circumstances, 200 fF. 
 relation to Acts, 192 ff., 
 
 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, loi. 
 Loisy on the, 81-109. 
 Messianic hope in the, 44- 
 
 48. 
 relation of Q to the, 161, 
 
 i64f. 
 reliabihty of, 30 ff., 83-88, 
 
 107 f., 152, 167, 172. 
 Schweitzer's treatment of, 
 
 30 ff 
 Gunkel, 220. 
 
 Hague, Prof, 43 «. i. 
 Hannah's song, 182 f. 
 Harnack, on the Apostolic 
 Decree, 206 ff. 
 
 on the Gospels, 107. 
 
 on the Magnificat, 175. 
 
 on miracles, 103. 
 
 on Q, 143. 
 
 position of, vi, 77. 
 Hastings' Dictionaries, 57, 
 
 175 f, 213, 229. 
 Hermas, 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. 
 Irengsus, 177. 
 Isaiah, influence on the 
 
 Apocalypse, 214 «. 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, 
 loi, 106, 179 n. 3, 220. 
 death, 19, 23-27, 66, 88 f., 
 
 92, 99- 
 how far anticipated, 41, 
 87, 92f., 114, 123, 130. 
 life according to Loisy, 
 
 83 ff. 
 Schweitzer, 13 ff., 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 ofArimathea, 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, 55 f, 
 
 58,82,215. 
 
 Lake, Prof. K., 120, 206 n. i. 
 Last Supper, see Lord's 
 
 Supper. 
 Latin version of Gospels, the 
 
 old, 147, 178 ff. 
 Lietzmann, H., 21 n.n. 
 Lightfoot, Bishop, 192. 
 Logia, 143, 157, 160, 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 «. I. 
 Lord's Supper, the, 37 f., 92, 
 
 96, 100. 
 Luke, Gospel of St., canticles 
 in, 98, 186. 
 characteristics of, 58, loi f., 
 
 151, 162. 
 date, 82. 
 
 ignored by Schweitzer, 31, 
 
 order of sections in, I59f. 
 
 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, 2i8. 
 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, loi f. 
 relation to Q, 163 ff. 
 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, I02. 
 order of sections in, 159 f. 
 relation to Q, 143-154. 
 Messiah, " birth-pangs " of the, 
 19,41. 
 Christ as the, 10 ff., I9ff.,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, g8, loi. 
 Missionary journey, St. Paul's 
 first, 196. 
 second, 202 f. 
 " Modernising," 39, 33 f., 54, 58. 
 Moses, Assumption of, 214. 
 Moulton, Dr. J. H., i53«. i. 
 
GENERAL INDEX 
 
 23 S 
 
 Myers, F. W. H., 126. 
 
 Pauhnism, supposed influence 
 
 Mythology, 97, 221. 
 
 of, on the Gospels, 91 ff., 
 
 
 94, 165, 169 f. 
 
 Nero, return of, 223. 
 
 Tieipaa-fios, 6, 19, 36. 
 
 Nestle, 179. 
 
 Persecutions in the Apoca- 
 
 Niceta of Remesiana, 175 ff. 
 
 lypse, 224. 
 
 Numbers, symbolism of, 99, 
 
 Christ's predictions of, 17 f.. 
 
 219. 
 
 31, 41, 170. 
 
 
 Personality of Jesus, 126, 130 ; 
 
 " Objective and subjective," 
 
 see Christ. 
 
 127, 132. 
 
 Peter, Gospel of, 119, 136. 
 
 Oesterley and Box, 43;?. i. 
 
 Peter, St., at Antioch, 200. 
 
 Old Testament, apocalyptic 
 
 denial, 95. 
 
 elements in, 214 ff. 
 
 at Cjesarea Philippi, 23 f.. 
 
 influence on the Apocalypse, 
 
 26, 72, 94 f., 105. 
 
 215 ff. 
 
 visions of the risen Christ, 
 
 Gospels, 90 f., 97, 117, 
 
 89, ii8f., 134. 
 
 124, 150, 182. 
 
 Pharisees and Christ, 25, 
 
 the Messianic hope in the, 
 
 94. 
 
 42 f. 
 
 Pilate, trial before, 95, loi. 
 
 Oral tradition, i54f. 
 
 Porter, Dr., 213, 229. 
 
 Origen, 118, 177- 
 
 Predestinarianism, 14 f., 35 f.. 
 
 
 6if., 71. 
 
 Papias on the Logia, 171. 
 
 Prophecy, Is the Apocalypse 
 
 Papyri, 153 w. i. 
 
 a? 223 f., 227. 
 
 Parables, interpretation of. 
 
 Psychical Research, 108, 
 
 1 5 f, 76, 85. 
 
 124 f. 
 
 the Marriage Feast, 15. 
 
 " Psychologising," 29, 33. 
 
 of sowing, 17. 
 
 Psychology of Inspiration, 
 
 Parousia, the, 17 f., 27, 32, 
 
 228 f. 
 
 50 ff., 66 ff., 74,93, II5- 
 
 of the Resurrection faith. 
 
 Passion, see Jesus Christ, death 
 of, . 
 narrative, did Q contain a ? 
 
 ii8f., 128 ff 
 
 Q (the second common source 
 
 157- 
 
 of St. Matthew and St. 
 
 Paul, St., attitude towards 
 
 Luke), 143-172. 
 
 eschatology, 56, 59. 
 
 Allen's view of, 158^. I. 
 
 on Baptism, 35. 
 
 character and style, 161 ff. 
 
 development of thought in. 
 
 contents of, 145, I56ff. 
 
 204 ff. 
 
 how arranged, i59ff. 
 
 and Galatians, 191-209. 
 
 origin and date, 171. 
 
 Missionary journeys of, 196, 
 
 relation to St. Mark, 163 ff. 
 
 202 ff. 
 
 treatment by St. Matthew 
 
 originator of the Eucharist ? 
 
 and St. Luke, 145- 
 
 92. 
 
 156. 
 
 and the Resurrection, n6f. 
 
 varying forms of? 155. 
 
236 
 
 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 Ramsay, Sir W., 172, 191, 193, 
 
 213. 
 "Ransom for many," 15, 19, 
 
 92. 
 Reimarus, 8. 
 Resurrection of Christ, the, 31, 
 
 71, 89 f, 108 f., 113- 
 
 139- 
 predictions of, 41, 114, 
 
 123. 
 the spiritual view of, 113, 
 
 121, 135, 139. 
 uniqueness of, 109, 125, 130- 
 
 133- 
 
 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, 72,, 
 77, 91, 172, 186, 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, 34fif., 220. 
 
 Sermon on the Mount, 14, 55, 
 5o, 159, 170. 
 
 Servant, the Suffering, 19. 
 
 SibyUine Oracles, 214. 
 
 Solomon, Psalms of, 35, 43 f, 
 214. 
 
 Son of David, 11, 26. 
 
 Son of Man, 19 ff., 47, 73 f., 85, 
 168. 
 
 " Son, the Father and the," 
 
 168 f. 
 Sources of Apocalypse, 221 ff. 
 
 of Gospels, see Q. 
 "Spiritualising," 45, 50, 54, 
 
 56, 58, 104. 
 Stars and angels, 220 n. 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. 1, 160. 
 Testaments of the Twelve 
 
 Patriarchs, 214, 217. 
 Textual Criticism, 147, i76ff., 
 
 ig^n. I, 207 f. 
 Thessalonians, Epistles to the, 
 
 203 f. 
 Thieves, the two, 99, 104. 
 " Third day, the," 90, 117. 
 Titus, 195 n. I. 
 Tomb, the empty, 89, 1 16, 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., 94ff., 
 
 loi, 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, 
 
 iiSf., I27ff., I33ff- 
 
GENERAL INDEX 
 
 237 
 
 Weiss, J., 4, 51, 60, 64, 85 ;^. i. 
 Wellhausen, J., 21 «. 2, 58, 
 
 147, 163. 
 Westcott and Hort, 147, 178, 
 
 207. 
 "Wisdom of God, the," 150. 
 Wordsworth, Bishop, 175. 
 
 Wrede, W., 8, i2f. 
 
 Zachariah, see Barachiah, son 
 
 of. 
 Zebedee, prayer of the sons of, 
 
 16, 94. 
 Zechariah, Book of, 214 fF. 
 
INDEX OF CHIEF BIBLICAL 
 REFERENCES 
 
 41' 
 
 62 
 
 I Samuel. 
 
 
 St 
 
 . Matthew. 
 
 . 
 
 .l82f. 
 
 jlG. 19. 20 _ 
 
 
 .I79«. 1,3 
 
 Psalms. 
 
 
 4<-" 
 
 
 150 
 . 148, 150 
 
 
 • 98 
 . 98 
 
 63' . 
 
 712. 
 721 . 
 
 
 149 
 
 • 149 
 
 58 
 
 Isaiah. 
 
 97 
 
 8^'> . 
 
 qS7. 38 
 I023 
 
 
 21 
 
 17 
 
 17, 20, 33, 58 
 
 EZEKIEL. 
 
 
 ,032 
 I1I2 
 
 
 . 150 
 14 n. 2, 150 
 
 • 
 
 • 35 
 
 II'" 
 11" 
 
 
 24 
 21 
 
 HOSEA. 
 
 90, 120 
 
 J J 25- 30 
 
 12'"' 
 I3I6.I7 
 
 
 .i68f. 
 
 . 150 
 
 . 146 f., 149 
 
 Amos. 
 
 
 1 613 
 
 i62s 
 
 
 21 
 • 58 
 
 
 98 
 
 22'-' 
 
 
 15 
 
 2 (4) ESDRAS. 
 
 
 -,,S4. 35 
 
 
 150, 162 «. I 
 20 
 
 
 . 219 
 217 
 
 
 St. M 
 
 ARk. 
 
 
 217 
 
 -,10. L>y 
 
 
 21 
 
 
 217 
 
 4 • 
 
 
 16 f. 
 
 2 Maccabees 
 
 
 6'' . 
 8" 
 
 
 • 179"- 3 
 
 • . 21 
 
 
 218 
 
 834 
 
 
 31 
 
 "38 
 
INDEX OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES 239 
 
 St. 
 
 Mar K — continued. 
 
 I 
 
 Corinthians. 
 
 
 9^ • 
 
 
 
 58,86 
 
 ,in.2, 
 
 
 169 
 
 13 • 
 
 
 
 31,58 
 
 jol9fF. 
 
 
 207 
 
 ,332 
 
 
 
 . 169 
 
 2 
 
 Corinthians. 
 
 
 
 St. 
 
 Luke. 
 
 
 l22 
 
 
 35 
 
 i" . 
 
 
 
 I79«. I 
 
 4i». 
 
 
 35 
 
 j4G-5? 
 
 
 
 175 ff. 
 
 loi. 
 
 
 169 
 
 o5. 33. 41 
 
 
 
 179 ». I 
 
 
 
 
 5I-II 
 
 
 
 . 118 
 
 
 Galatians. 
 
 
 e*" . 
 
 
 
 58, 152 
 
 2^^- . 
 
 
 191 ff. 
 200 f. 
 
 I021f. 
 
 
 
 .i68f. 
 
 Tllff.' 
 
 
 I023. 24 
 
 
 
 .I46f. 
 
 41=. 
 
 
 206 
 
 11'^ 
 
 
 
 ■ 151 
 
 6^7 . 
 
 
 35 
 
 „42 
 
 
 
 . 148 
 
 
 
 
 1,40 
 
 
 
 162 n. I 
 
 
 Ephesians. 
 
 
 ,334 
 
 
 
 162 n. I 
 
 
 
 
 34- 
 
 St. 
 
 John. 
 
 . 118 
 
 J 13. 14 
 
 Revelation. 
 
 35 
 35 
 
 l" . 
 
 
 
 179 n. I 
 
 
 
 
 21 . 
 
 
 
 . 118 
 
 I^ . 
 
 219, 220 n. I 
 
 
 
 
 
 0'' 
 
 
 210 
 
 
 Acts. 
 
 
 2" 
 
 
 218 
 
 
 
 
 
 4=' . 
 82 
 
 
 220 
 
 1 120-2'' 
 
 
 
 ■ 194 f- 
 
 
 219 
 
 IjSO 
 
 
 
 192 ff. 
 
 11-13 
 
 
 221 
 
 lf'-> 
 
 
 
 1 19 «. I 
 
 1119 
 
 
 218 
 
 15 • 
 
 
 
 191 ff. 
 
 12 . 
 
 
 
 220 f. 
 
 ,r20. 29 
 
 
 
 206 fif. 
 
 142" 
 15*- 
 
 
 
 220 
 
 J r 33-30 
 
 
 
 . 202 
 
 
 
 220 
 
 i6<. 
 
 
 
 197, 201 
 
 17^ 
 20' . 
 
 
 
 229 
 217 
 
 
 Romans. 
 
 
 22I* 
 
 
 
 216 
 
 61 . 
 
 
 . 
 
 • 35 
 
 22" 
 
 
 
 207 
 
 Priiiicd by Morrison & Gibb Limited, Edbiburgh 
 
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