ise eet as at ore itty > s 2 Sapte oe a ar ne sity : Pe TY Les ee : ae Nee ; Oe. : ; eat eee ¥. eaday? : Pre ae!” Se al Sys As wat 3 Wee rt AN ety Rn QO 5 \ ai fy we en ae bit e' gore a A a aes } aie 1 Panty Si mt A ad 1) PNY Ss Ps TAG y« La) Vey Is Hi Pape ty: 1) +i. ue) ae re oy on ‘ ae Te ay, i) Lee VaR Phas THE SELF-DISCLOSURE OF JESUS GEERHARDUS VOS, Pu.D., D.D. THE SELF-DISCLOSURE OF JESUS THE MODERN DEBATE ABOUT -—_____ THE MESSIANIC CONSCIOUSNESS Qh OF PRINCE Vv Byeny GEERHARDUS'VOS, pu.p., D.v. PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY IN PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY NEW (a0 YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY @D THE SELF-DISCLOSURE OF JESUS jal Eee PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PREFACE The time is not so long past when for the appraisal of what was of permanent value in Christianity the alterna- tive was formed: Not Paul but Jesus. At present this for- mula is beginning to lose its dividing force. The alterna- tive has been shifted back into the mind of Jesus Himself; the question, Whether Paul or Jesus? has become the ques- tion, Which Jesus? In the consciousness and teaching of our Lord, a solid preformation of the Pauline Christ has been discovered, and the offense taken at the latter has had to be extended to the former. It is the Messianic character of Jesus over which the anti-Pauline interpretation of Chris- tianity now finds itself stumbling. What the cross was in the days of the Apostle, the Messiahship is to the modern advanced “Christian” mind, the great rock of offense. But it is a rock not easy to remove, and moreover one from which there is no further retreat backward except into plain liberal Judaism. The attitude towards it determines in the profoundest way the character of the subjective piety that would feed upon the New Testament. Let no one delude himself with the soothing comfort that the contro- versy is all about scraps of external belief and does not touch the core of practical devotion. With its decision the Christian religion stands or falls. Tua res, pia anima, agitur! For the purpose of helping to make this somewhat clearer the following book was written. The author acknowledges indebtedness to the Biblical Magazine for permission given to incorporate certain ma- terial previously published in that journal. GEERHARDUS VOS. Princeton, September, 1926. a ai (ee Wiis i: ‘Y 4 Mi k CHAPTER I II CONTENTS STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF THE MEssIANIC Con- SCIOUSNESS THe DENIAL OF THE MEssIANIC CONSCIOUSNESS THE DENIAL OF THE MEsstanic CONSCIOUSNESS (Continued ) Tue Acnostic Posrrion: WREDE THE THEORY OF PROSPECTIVE MESSIAHSHIP . ‘THE THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT OF JESUs INTO THE Messianic CoNsCIOUSNESS THE THEORY OF PurRELY FORMAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MEssIANIC CONSCIOUSNESS “THE CHRIST’ se Lltie. LORD’ THE Son oF Gop THE Son oF Gop (Continued): AsCRIPTION OF THE TITLE To JEsus By OTHERs Tue Son oF Gop (Continued): THE SONSHIP OF JEsUs IN THE FourtTH GosPEL . THE Son oF MAn ‘THE SAVIOR Tue Messtranic DEATH f y m PAGE 104 Et? 140 171 196 228 257 275 etd THE SELF-DISCLOSURE OF JESUS “His visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men.” Ismah III, 14. THE SELF-DISCLOSURE OF JESUS CHAPTER I STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF THE MESSIANIC CONSCIOUSNESS One of the most significant developments in modern dis- cussion of the life and teaching of Jesus is the growing dis- favor into which the Messianic element in the Gospels has fallen with a certain class of writers. We do not refer to scepticism or denial in regard to the reality of Jesus’ Messiah- ship, objectively considered. The question whether or not Jesus was the Messiah has meaning only within the limits of a strict Biblical supernaturalism. It presupposes the recognition of the supernatural provenience of both prophecy and the ful- filment of prophecy, and therefore finds its proper place in the controversy between Jesus and his opponents in the Gos- pel narrative, as also it has been the dividing issue ever since between the Christian Church and Judaism. With the modern Jew, on the other hand, who has lost his belief in the super- natural, it were foolish to argue about the fact of Jesus’ Mes- siahship. On his premises the unreality of this fact is a priori included in the impossibility of all supernatural phenomena. The question about the Messianic consciousness belongs to a totally different situation. It deals exclusively with the prob- lem, whether Jesus believed and claimed to be the Messiah. Those who incline to answer it in the negative do not, as a rule, occupy the standpoint of supernaturalism. They are like the modern Jew in this respect, that for them the Messianic reality is an impossible thing, and in so far void of practical interest. From a religious point of view Jesus is not valuable il 12 THE SELF-DISCLOSURE OF JESUS to them in the capacity of Messiah, but under some other as- pect, variously defined, be it as a religious genius, or an ethical teacher, or a social reformer. One might expect from this theological detachment that such writers would be peculiarly fitted to discuss the question of the Messianic consciousness on a purely historical and psychological basis, after the most calm and disinterested fashion, since, whichever way the balance of evidence may incline, the result should not affect nor disturb them in their inner religious conviction. The expectation is not verified. Toa careful observer of the trend of discussion it soon becomes apparent that something warmer and more exciting than an average academic interest is animating those who take part in it. Although the arguments plied to and fro are of a strictly exegetical and historical character, it is un- deniable that the heart “which makes the theologian” is not so wholly absent from the debate as some would have us believe. How is this controversial atmosphere which colors the dis- cussion to be explained? The explanation is not far to seek. Absolute disinterestedness in regard to Jesus is possible only where one has lost all religious touch with Him and denies to Him all significance in the sphere of his own spiritual life. So long as any personal religious attachment to Jesus, of how- ever attenuated a kind, is retained, the questions and problems centering around his Person can not wholly lose their signifi- cance. No one who prizes the name of Christian can dismiss Jesus absolutely from his field of religious vision, ‘There is always some category of preeminence or leadership under which He ts classified. Hence the live theological issues are bound to assume Christological form, and that a form which at no point is purely theoretical without practical bearings. But, if this be true in general with reference to all the elements and phases of the Christological question, it becomes far more pointedly true when the self-consciousness of Jesus is brought into the debate. Here all these objective issues mirror them- selves, as it were, in the mind of Jesus. And, that being the case, they acquire an intensified practicalness for the religious life. Here lies the focal point in which all rays of religious contemplation of Jesus and communion with Jesus have to STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE 13 meet, and whence they derive their reflection. The controversy ceases to be a controversy about Jesus. It becomes a testing- out of the practical experiment of getting into the presence of Jesus at all and having religious converse with Him face to face. We confess to not altogether liking the word “‘conscious- ness’ in connection with Christology. Not seldom it is ex- ponential of the view, that Jesus possesses his importance and wields his power by thought and teaching rather than by nature and action. Asa piece of the movement towards the interiority of Jesus, it is dangerously akin to the large modern trend to- wards placing all essentials and values of religion in the sub- jective sphere, detaching them from outward norms and forces. But this is an abuse and not a legitimate use of the conception. Jesus most assuredly had a vocational consciousness of self. Provided we can ascertain its content, and this we believe to be feasible, this consciousness becomes of eminently strategic im- portance. For if it be once seen in the sign of Messiahship, no long argument is required to show why this must be so. The Messianic consciousness is of a peculiarly unifying and com- prehensive character. It might in this respect be compared to a single-track mind. All.else entering into it is inevitably held in subordination and subservience to its one regnant purpose. It straightway assumes dominance in the mental world wherein it has once found lodgement. The Messianic concept has a long history behind it, and has in the course of time become subject to variations in content, but at no time has it allowed of relegation to a subordinate place in the mind of one regard- ing himself as fulfilling it. Now, looked at from this stand- point, the Messianic consciousness proves a most delicate sub- ject to handle for all desiring to crystallize their religion in various attitudes towards Jesus. Can religious communion exist with a mind thus Messianically synthetized, if the Mes- sianic synthesis proves uncongenial or even objectionable to the mind seeking such communion? Difference in theoretical scientific outlook, we are often told, need not preclude the sympathy and oneness in feeling and aspiration which many de- sire to continue cultivating with Jesus. Let this for the mo- ment be granted. The core of the question is: Can this be 14 THE SELF-DISCLOSURE OF JESUS carried to the extent of emancipation from what was in Jesus the center of his self-consciousness? If we may judge from the analogy of interhuman fellowship in such forms as love and friendship, it must seem impossible to answer in the affirma- tive. For, though differences of opinion can exist with refer- ence to outside matters, yet, even apart from religion, com- munion finds it hard to survive, so soon as the difference of opinion begins to touch the inner life, and particularly that point of the inner life where the self-estimate sits upon the throne. As soon as this happens, the very basis of spiritual fellowship becomes endangered. The central point upon which it is exercised loses transparency and accessibleness; there is created a dark area where the love or friendship finds its limit. But to a far stronger degree it must be so with every religious attitude towards Jesus. In the religious sphere all spiritual powers acquire a heightened sensitiveness and develop a desire for absolute possession and interpenetration. How halting and inwardly disrupted a religious approach to Jesus must be which feels bound to stop short of accepting and receiving Him at the face-value of his central self-estimate! In the same proportion that one hesitates so to receive Him, a prin- ciple of reserve enters into the spiritual converse; the circles of the subject and the object intersect and no longer perfectly coincide. No one can take a Savior to his heart in that abso- lute unqualified sense which constitutes the glory of religious trust, if there persists in the background of his mind the thought that this Savior failed to understand Himself. If once it be established that He meant to be that very definite kind of spiritual helper which by historical right we designate as “‘the Messiah,” then how shall one refuse his help in that very capacity, and force upon Him a role of religious helpful- ness which He was not conscious of sustaining. The inherent perverseness of such a situation in a field where everything ought to be straightforward lies on the surface. How so many modern minds can habituate themselves to it is one of the strangest riddles in the pathology of religion. We believe that the doubt cast upon the Messianic conscious- ness springs not seldom from an inner dislike of it, and that STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE 15 the dislike springs largely from an instinctive perception of its unsuitableness and unmanageableness as a correlate to those other forms of approach in which the “liberal” religion delights. We do not mean that there is anything intentional about this process, nor that the critical treatment of this element in the Gospel-tradition evinces a conscious desire to manipulate the facts in the interest of a foregone conclusion. Instances of such a procedure are fortunately rare in the history of Gospel criticism. But what does not work consciously may yet be controlled by unconscious tendencies and predilections. One can not help feeling that there is a certain uneasiness perceptible in the treatment afforded this particular subject. Two consid- erations incline to this. In the first place the objective argu- ments of a historico-critical nature adduced against the reality of this consciousness are of themselves so inadequate as to suggest that theological proclivities make their weight appear greater to those who handle them than it actually is. So much more and so much of a more cogent character can be urged in favor of the opposite view that one involuntarily looks for something back of the arguments per contra to account for the confidence placed in their sufficiency. And, in the second place, the actual content of the Messianic consciousness is such as to be exceptionally calculated to provoke reaction of protest from the “modern” or “liberal” religious mind. It would be difficult to find a case where two ways of thinking and feeling appear so pointedly at variance, and have so little in common as the Messianic way of thinking, on the one hand, and the thought- form of “liberal”? Christianity on the other. A brief analysis of the Messianic concept, we trust, will suffice to show this. In making this analysis we are not thinking of accessory elements or accidental shadings and colorings, but only of what is essential to the thing itself, that without which it could not have existed in any mind, and not, therefore, in the mind of Jesus. Among these ingredients stands foremost the regal, authoritative note. The religious mentality centering in the Messiahship is necessarily one of absolute submission to a rule imposed from above. We do not, of course, mean by this “legalism’’ in the technical sense of that term. Legalism is a 16 THE SELF-DISCLOSURE OF JESUS peculiar kind of submission to law, something that no longer feels the personal divine touch in the rule it submits to. Balden- sperger has placed over against each other Nomism and Apocalyptic as the two contrasting and contending forces in the mind of Judaism.* It has been rightly pointed out that such a distinction cannot be carried through cleanly. ‘There was an amount of legalistic leaven mixed up with Apocalyptic, and the Nomism representing the opposite pole was not altogether un-eschatological in its outlook. Nor was its reverence for the divine rule in every respect and in every quarter identifiable with “‘legalism.’’ Hence no reason can be given why the Mes- sianism of Jesus should, with all its apocalyptic affinities, not have harbored in itself the strong, acute sense of that responsi- bility to the divine will which was the noblest fruit of the Old Testament religion. Precisely in the Messianic concept this element finds supreme expression. The Messiah is the incarnate representation of that divine authoritativeness which is so char- acteristic of Biblical religion. It is not a later misdirected de- velopment that has made Christianity coherent under the formula of a “rule of faith and practice.” The normal start- ing-point for this is given in the Messianic function itself. Even the intense anti-legalism of Paul has by no means oblit- erated the normal validity of this principle. Nor was it by the Apostle intended to do so. The idea of intensification of divine authority is present in the oldest Messianic prophecies. The “Shiloh” of Gen. XLIX, Io is the One to whom the obedience of the peoples shall be given in a unique degree. And the figure arising out of Israel in the oracle of Balaam, Num. XXIV, 17, is that of One symbolized by sceptre and ruler’s staff. It is true the Messianic reference of both these prophecies has for a long time been under eclipse, but the trend of recent scholarship is towards its rehabilitation. Later on, when Messianism, of the family-circle of eschatology, becomes wedded to the Davidic house, there can no longer be any question as to the predomi- nance of the idea. Henceforward the Messiah is the King par excellence. King and Judge are in the prophetic delineation of 1 Baldensperger, Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu im Lichte der Messianischen Hoffnungen seiner Zeit, 1888. ~ STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE 17 his figure practically synonymous. Nor does it need profound study of the life of Jesus to discover the vigorous exercise of this function in all his intercourse with his followers. The very conception of “following” can be understood from this background only. The solemn manner in which He puts his “T say unto you” by the side of, or apparently even over against, the commandment of God, goes far beyond the highest conceiv- able in the line of prophetic authority, Matt. V, 20-43. The verses 17-20 in this same chapter are by no means a Jewish- Christian accretion to the original Gospel, but in perfect con- sonance with the Messianic attitude of the speaker.* While distinguishing his precepts from those of Judaism as “light” and “easy,” Jesus still retains for them the figure of “burden” and “yoke,” and this is especially significant in view of the current phrase, “taking the yoke of the law upon one’s self,” which designated the passing of the young man under the full régime of the law. It is nothing but the deep-seated Messian- ism of Paul that makes him speak of “being under law to Christ,” I Cor. IX, 21. The Christless Gospel is perhaps some- times simply a product of the desire for a Gospel that shall have less of subordination in it. The overemphasis on the autonomy and spontaneity of Christian life may have contributed towards bringing the Messianic idea into disfavor. As in so many other instances, this would be a case of a principially irreligious tendency presuming to take to task and endeavoring to correct what is deeply religious. Such a sentiment, at any rate, is in line with the conception of the modern Jesus, from whom much of the spirit of authority has evaporated. But it would hardly be congenial to the mind of Him, who in the plerophory of his Messianic exousia spake the words of Matt. VII, 24-27. It does not lead toward, but away from the Christ. Less self-understood, but none the less important, is a second ingredient. The Messianic is at bottom a species of the eschatological. Although the name Messiah does not express 2 It may now be considered as settled that the words, “not to destroy either the law or the prophets,” speak not of an idealizing perfection, but of an actual realization of the law in conduct. The context allows of no other exegesis. But even the function of “perfecting” the law or the prophets would postulate no less of Messianic authority. 18 THE SELF-DISCLOSURE OF JESUS this, marking Him only as the Anointed King, yet He is to all intents the great final King, who stands at the close of the present world-order and ushers in the coming world. When we say that the Biblical religion is an eschatological religion, we mean that it ascribes to the world-process a definite goal such as can not be attained by it in the natural course of events, but will be brought about catastrophically through a divine in- terposition, and which, when once attained, bears the stamp of eternity. In the center of this eschatology-complex stands the Messiah. Ina system of developments going on indefinitely within the limits of the present state of things there is for Him no place. That we do not more clearly realize this is due to the fact that for us the Messiah has come and accomplished a part of his task, and yet what we call the “eschatological” crisis is still outstanding. But from the beginning it was not so. To the Old Testament point of view and the point of view of Jesus Himself, the coming of the Messiah signified consum- mation. Owing to the apocalyptic development through which the Messianic idea had passed, this identification of it with eschatological values had, if possible, become even more thor- ough than before. There may be a couple of Jewish Apocalyp- ses which confine the Messiah’s activity to the temporal scenes of the closing-up period, thus debarring Him from the world of eternity. But even here He derives his entire significance from the final things to follow; his activity belongs to the eschatological as the vestibule belongs to the house. And in the Christian representation no analogy for even this is to be found. Everywhere in the New Testament the Christ is, even as to his humanity, an eternalized figure whose redemptive significance is not subject to eclipse. Only the Pauline passage, I Cor. XV, 20-28, might seem to point in the opposite direction, © in so far as it sets a terminus for Christ’s kingdom of con- quest, and identifies the eternal state with the kingship of God, the Father. Yet it is precisely Paul, who most emphatically affirms the eternity-value and eternity-function of Christ through all the coming zons. Rom. V, 17; VIII, 29, 38, 39; XV, 49; Col. I, 13-16; III, 4. Nor would premillenarianism, though assuming a preliminary reign of Christ, think of this in STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE 19 uneschatological terms, or conceive of the eternal state as a de-Messianized state. The intensely eschatological atmosphere pervading the early Church is explainable on no other basis than that, with the appearance of the Messiah, the first act of the great drama of the end was believed to have been staged. That this was also a stable element in the consciousness of Jesus, modern research has made ever increasingly apparent. It is beginning to be recognized now in circles where the traditional liberal construction of Jesus had closed the eyes to it. Jesus being consciously the Messiah, his whole manner of thinking and feeling could not be otherwise than steeped in this atmosphere. It was an atmosphere in which the currents of air from this world and from the world to come constantly intermingled, with the stronger breeze steadily blowing towards the future. Only for those to whom this state of mind is a religiously congenial state can there be more than passing, superficial acquaintance with Jesus. ‘There is a very important corollary of the eschatological complexion of Messianism, and of a religion determined by it, as early Christianity undoubtedly was. This concerns the “factual” structure of the N. T. religion, and of the O. T. religion too, for that matter. By “factualness’ we mean that the religious states of mind have in their subjective aspect no separate existence of their own, but entwine themselves around the outward acts of God, to which they are a response and by which they are cultivated in continuance. The subjective is nowhere lacking. On the contrary, it enters into the fabric of practical Christianity with exceptional richness such as no pagan form of piety can rival. But it always keeps in the closest touch with what God has done outside the subjectivity of the believer. The most instructive example of this is found in the cultivation of Abraham’s faith through the objective 3 Jt remains the merit of the hyper-eschatologists to have created a new sense of the unique importance and pervasive significance of the eschatolog- ical strand in the consciousness and teaching of Jesus. Unfortunately this was done after a one-sided fashion. Jesus became a person obsessed by the eschatological complex, an eschatologist for the sake of eschatology, instead of what He really was, an eschatologist for the sake of God. Our _Lord’s interest in eschatology was religiously oriented in the deepest and most ideal sense of the word. 20 THE SELF-DISCLOSURE OF JESUS promises and their objective fulfilment on the part of Jehovah. Now the consummate expression of this principle is seen in the eschatological outlook both backward and forward accom- panying Christianity from its very birth, and derived by it from its oldest ancestry. It is that which holds the religion of the Prophets and the religion of Jesus and the religion of Paul together, despite all apparent variations in particulars. And it is the one supreme criterion of what constitutes, histori- cally speaking, a Christian. It is the mother-soil out of which the tree of the whole redemptive organism has sprung. - Inseparable from the eschatological, however, there enters into the Messianic consciousness the further element of super- naturalism, The Messiahship is the most pronouncedly super- naturalistic conception in the whole range of Biblical religion, In virtue of its eschatological parentage it means not, and can not mean, the gradual evolving of higher conditions out of previously given potencies. On the contrary it means the creation of a new system of things. The oldest and most strik- ing formula for this is the distinction between the two ages or worlds. It is not one age or one world blossoming into an other, but an age or world of one nature being succeeded, nay, superseded, by an age or a world of a different nature. The second world or nature is, consequently, in relation to the one preceding it, supernatural, because other-natural. This bisection of all history is not, in explicit form at least, found as yet in the Old Testament, although as to substantial import it is there. The Messiah may appear in the line of succession of the Davidic dynasty, but it were a mistake to think that his accession to the realm will be after the ordinary quiet fashion of the average Judean King. The shoot out of the stock of Jesse and the branch out of his roots not only procures justice for the poor and the meek of the earth, and slays the wicked, but in his day returns the paradise-state that existed at the beginning: the wild devouring animals become tame; henceforth there is no more hurting nor destroying on the mountain of God, Isa. XT, 1-9;L_LXV, 17-25. It needs no pointing out that such a restora- tion of the primordial harmonies does not come about without a tremendous world-shaking upheaval. That the Spirit appears STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE } 21 as the agent producing this, can not in the least detract from the supernaturalism of the crisis, nor from that of the ensuing new state. It rather emphatically confirms this feature, for the Spirit is preéminently in such connections the source of the supernatural: when the Spirit is poured out upon the people from on high, the result is nothing short of a total reversal of existing conditions: the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field a forest, Isa. XXXII, 15. And from the crisis at the end this is inevitably carried back into the whole process culminating in the crisis. The idea of a prolonged un- supernaturalistic world history with a termination thoroughly supernaturalized would be a monstrous conception in which the body did not correspond to the head. The only normal thing here is the abnormal: the consummation must be preceded by an extended work full of equally supernatural transactions. - The supernatural is the “liebstes Kind” of eschatology. That such things are in the Old Testament expressed in figurative language justifies no one in de-supernaturalizing them. One lacking the sensorium for the supernatural can not but walk through them as the rationalist would walk through the scenes of a wonder-land. The Messiah is simply a nucleus, a focus of the supernatural. He carries it with Himself and eradiates it wheresoever He goes. And, if all this be true of the idea and of its Old Testament projection, how could we expect it otherwise in Jesus Himself? Asa matter of obvious fact He has fully absorbed this into his own consciousness. He knows the distinction between this world and the world to come.* And He knows it not only theoretically, but practically as well. Doubt in regard to the resurrection is to Him doubt in regard to the supernatural exercise of the power of God. Those worthy to attain unto “that age” are thereby put on an equal footing with the angels, their bodily nature being entirely changed. The miracles of the Gospels likewise come under consideration here. They are the appropriate supernatural con- comitants of the supernatural Christ, signs of the times He is introducing, and prophecies of the more radical, comprehensive change still to follow. Every scheme for bringing Jesus down 4Cp., however, Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, I, pp. 120-125. 22 THE SELF-DISCLOSURE OF JESUS to the level of a man feeling at home in and drawing his in- spiration from the purely natural is bound to be, not merely a theological, but likewise a psychological failure, so long as the Messianic setting of the life is retained. A superficial reference to the parables of the mustard-seed and the leaven is surely not sufficient to outweigh the overwhelming impression every simple reader of the Gospels receives of the supernaturalism envelop- ing the story as a whole. So well is this felt that sometimes, by way of a desperate last resort, appeal is had to the Fourth Gospel, and passages quoted from it are adduced as evidence for the existence of an evolutionistic strain in the mind of Jesus. It is possible to do this because the Fourth Gospel has such a vivid conception of the present, immanent operation of the Christ-life and the Christ-power. But what is of present existence, and working within, is not thereby made subject to the law of natural evolution. Instead of things being nat- uralized and made less other-worldly here, it would be more accurate to say that the eschatological-supernatural appears in John in its highest potency, inasmuch as, turned backward, it draws the entire ante-mortem life of the believer into the sphere of its transforming influence. Sometimes a text like Jno. X, 10 is quoted with evolutionistic intent, but how mis- leading this is a simple comparison with the principial state- ment of VIII, 23 will show. Than the latter there is no more anti-evolutionistic representation of Jesus and his provenience conceivable. The life is indeed in the world and in the be- liever, but it is being sunk into them from above. It came to- gether with Him who is the supernaturalism of heaven in- carnate. And what is true of the Messianic concept of the Gospels is true in an even more pronounced sense of the Christ- figure of Paul, and for that matter, of the remainder of the New Testament. To Paul Jesus is the One from heaven, the Second Adam, the prototype of the heavenly image be- lievers are to receive in the resurrection. The robe of the supernatural with its folds of splendor envelops Him, and it is everywhere presupposed that He was conscious of wearing it while on earth, and continues to wear it in heaven. Every attempt to penetrate back of this to an unsupernaturalistic core STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE 23 of Jesus’ personality must prove from the nature of the case religiously futile. To desupernaturalize the consciousness of Messiahship in Jesus means to unfit Him for being the re- cipient of any truly religious approach from man. Jesus was not a Person, the center of whose thought lay in the natural relation of man to God, with a little fringe remaining upon Him from the outworn garment of apocalyptic. He lived and moved and had his being in the world of the supernatural. The thought of the world to come was to Him the life-breath of religion. Such a mind will not fit into the humanitarian ideal- ism of which the “liberal” theology would make Jesus the ex- ponent. It would amount to his having to divest Himself of his own religion first in order to become the field for another religion to play upon. What underlies the aversion to the idea of Messiahship in this respect is simply the desire to get rid of the large bulk of supernaturalism the Messiah trails in his wake. It is interesting to observe how this motive has asserted itself and put in its work along closely parallel lines in both Old Testament and New Testament criticism. There are not a few Old Testament critics, who believe that the Messianic hope can not have formed part of the teaching of the great ethical prophets of Israel, and this on the ground of its being inherently bound up with magical, miraculous, we would say supernatural, processes, whereas the interest of these prophets is supposed to have centered in moral movements dependent on an appeal to and a response from the free will of man. It is in both cases the naturalism of the modern way of thinking that seeks to expel the supernaturalism of the old and, historically consid- ered, only possible view. And in both cases the strategic posi- tion of the latter is reconnoitred and attacked in the idea of Messiahship. The next component element in the Messiahship is what for convenience’ sake may be called the “‘soteric’” element. The Messiah stands for salvation, indeed “Savior” is the most popu- lar name by which the Christ has come to be known among his followers. This saving aspect of the Messiah’s work is in- separable from his vocation. Nor is this a later idea, grafted upon the ancient stock through the Hellenistic custom of giving 24 THE SELF-DISCLOSURE OF JESUS the “Soter’’-name to living or dead deified rulers. It is in- digenous in the Old Testament stock itself. Without the hope of salvation to be wrought through Him the greater part of the Messiah’s reason of existence would fall away. In the great prophecies, Isa. IX; X1; Mic. V; Zec. IX, this feature stands in the foreground. It might be said, perhaps, that on account of its martial associations such a note could not possibly have found an echo in the mind of Jesus. His mind was a mind of peace, not a mind of war. But the objection overlooks that the martial element is, not even in the Old Testament, of the com- plexion frequently ascribed to it. There is a perceptible differ- ence between the character it bears in later Judaism and its character in the older prophecy. To be sure, the martial set- ting could not be entirely absent from the latter, for that belongs to the ancient traditional form of the conception, cp. Gen. XLIX and Num. XXIV. But, even though the setting be retained, the emphasis is increasingly shifted from the mili- tary exploits of the Messiah’s followers to the miraculous, almost silent, operation of the Messiah Himself. According to Isa. IX, on his great day, as in the day of Midian, yoke and staff and rod of the oppressor are broken, but it is Jehovah who breaks them, and the battle-scene remains in the dim back- ground. Still clearer is the elimination of the war-like aspect in Isa. XI. Here the earth is smitten with the rod of the Mes- siah’s mouth and the wicked are slain with the breath of his lips. In Mic. V, He stands and feeds his flock in the majesty of the name of Jehovah, his God, and is great unto the ends of the earth, but when the Assyrian invasion is to be repulsed, this task, perhaps in order to detach it from the military apparatus, is devolved upon “‘the seven shepherds and eight principal men.” Zechariah depicts the King as “just and having salvation: lowly and riding upon an ass”; chariot and horse and battle-bow are cut off, and the Messiah speaks peace to the nations. It would almost seem as though the martial features of the delineation had been relegated back to Jehovah so far at least as they have not been spiritualized out of existence. It would be a very wrong inference, however, that with the gradual changing of the form the substance of the saving character of the Messiah STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE 25 had been eliminated. Side by side with the supernatural execu- tion by rod of mouth and breath of lips stands in Isa. XI the judging of the poor and meek of the earth. And the rider upon the animal of peace in Zechariah comes with salvation. Per- haps the Old Testament picture was not so unfit for assimilation by Jesus as is alleged to be the case. It ought to be noticed that Jesus by no means discards the imagery and vocabulary of conquest in connection with the Messianic program. Only He lifts it to a higher plane. The powers to be conquered are not political; they belong to the world of spirits. In connection with Satan and the demons the consciousness of bringing de- liverance is retained without the least impairment.° The ex- orcism of demons and the healing miracles are liberating acts, and as such form part of the general Messianic deliverance. Jesus claims to have been sent for the purpose of performing them, Matt. XI, 2-6; Lk. IV, 18, 19. It can be hardly subject to doubt any longer that Jesus looked upon this world of miracu- lous deliverance, which, wherever He went, He carried with Himself, as in the strictest sense objective. It did not consist of acts that anybody apart from Him could perform. Wherever it is delegated to others, it is delegated in virtue of Messianic authority, Mk. XVI, 17, 18. The gospel of this, that is the good tidings of the realisation of these things prom- ised in prophecy, He must bring to every city, Lk. IV, 43. To Him the thought of his Messiahship would have been un- thinkable without this. The benevolent aspect of these works is not, of course, absent, but from a mere humanitarian desire to do good they can not be explained. John the Baptist is sup- posed to be able to draw from them the sure conclusion that Jesus is “the One to Come,” and that no one else need be waited for, Matt. XI, 3. We find, therefore, that Jesus placed upon the Messianic consciousness, which without a residue filled his mind, a solid soteric interpretation of the most realistic kind. It did not bear the modern, diluted sense of being a source of helpfulness to men by example or sympathy alone, __5 This is something totally different from the “spiritualisation” which the idea has been made to undergo in the “liberal” interpretations of the con- sciousness of Jesus. There the essence of the idea is sacrificed. 26 THE SELF-DISCLOSURE OF JESUS or in some other similar way. He was a Savior as no one else could be, and into this flowed all the powers of his Messianic life. According to uniform usage of the New Testament, Gospels no less than Epistles, “to save’’ means, when applied in a spiritual sense, to rescue from the judgment and to intro- duce into the blessedness of the world to come.® But this old solid idea of salvation, the basis of all “evangelical” religion, has become an offense to the modern mind in many quarters. Whilst the terms “Savior” and “‘salvation’’ are not discarded, the substance of the transaction is entirely abandoned. In every possible way it is attempted to free the Jesus of the Gos- pels of this antiquated, “magical” idea of salvation, and make Him the exponent of the new Pelagian evangel of “uplift.” There is but one radical way of doing this, and that is by strip- ping Jesus of his Messianic character. The moment this falls from off Him, the distasteful soteric notions of atonement, re- generation, and whatever belongs to this circle of ideas, disap- pear with it one and all. They are enucleated in their Mes- sianic root. And here also the Old Testament parallel is inter- esting. Among the motives that have led to the denial of the genuineness of some of the greatest eschatological prophecies has been the feeling that the ideas of free grace and super- natural transformation, so prominent in them, are out of keep- ing with the intensely ethical spirit of the prophets. It is noth- ing else but the Pelagian view of religion seeking to dislodge the Augustinian view from its double stronghold in prophecy and Gospel. But practically all this anti-soteric effort can have but one result. It is bound to raise an unsurmountable barrier between the historical Jesus and the refusers of his supreme gift. As He is entirely and every moment intent upon thus imparting Himself, every communion assumed to be operating on an other, unsoteric, basis is a pseudo-communion, impossible on psychological grounds alone. | Lastly the Messianic consciousness is most intimately inter- woven with the specifically religious position the Messiah oc- cupies between God and man. It includes at bottom his right to receive worship and his identification with God. These 6 Wagner in Z. f. N. T. W., 1905. STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE 27 highest of claims are inseparable from it. To be sure, it must be acknowledged that at this point the conjunction of the one with the other is of a somewhat different nature than in the case of the ingredients previously examined. There the con- ception of Messiahship, analytically considered, of itself yielded the elements in question. The title to deity and consequent worship are not given with the Messiahship as such. In the abstract a type of Messiahship is conceivable that could dis- pense with them. In the Messiah construed after the Jewish pattern, a royal leader and conqueror in the conflict with the pagan power, and subsequently the peace-bringing regent over the people of ‘God, there is nothing postulating deity or recep- tion of worship from those over whom He is appointed. His position would be close to God, but it would at every point in his career, even the highest, remain distinctly marked off from the prerogatives of the Godhead as such. But we are not dealing with Messiahship in the abstract. Our concern is with that specific type of the office which is present in the con- sciousness of Jesus. Here the indispensableness of strictly divine prerogatives in order to the adequate exercise of its functions springs into view. This is due to the thorough spiritualizing the idea has undergone in the mind of Jesus. So long as the Messiah’s task is conceived as lying in the sphere of external, national, earthly kingship and salvation it re- mains possible to regard Him as the representative of God without investing Him with divine attributes. But when his function comes to lie in the sphere of spiritual relationship to God, in those high regions where God touches the soul and the soul touches God, then his calling immediately places Him in the center of the field where the forces of religion play. The directness and immediacy pertaining to every true exer- cise of religion in the ethereal Christian sense render it im- perative that He shall Himself belong to the category of the divine. Otherwise our communion with God would be inter- cepted and diverted by Him to the impairment or nullification of it as a religious act. It will perhaps be said that the propo- ' sition just laid down: no Messiahship without deity, no con- sciousness of Messiahship without consciousness of deity, can 28 THE SELF-DISCLOSURE OF JESUS not be reversed. In the abstract this is true. It is logically quite possible to affirm the deity of our Lord, and his con- sciousness thereof, and yet to deny his Messianic character and his consciousness in regard to it. But practically this is a negligible concession. The cases will be rare, if any exist, where men are believers in the true deity of our Lord, and yet draw back from affirming his Messianic office and state of mind. Such cases are oddities in the world of doctrinal thinking and of religious experience. Their place is in mu- seums, not in the out-doors of living faith, When faith has taken the infinitely greater leap of affirming the deity of Jesus, it can only by a queer perversity of mind hesitate to take the smaller one of affirming his Messianic character. ‘The best confirmation of this lies in the fact that the deniers of the Messianic consciousness do not assume this position, because they have to offer something higher and more inclusive, which would render the Messiahship superfluous as an item of faith. They do so because they wish to substitute something lower and less difficult to believe. We are not asked to cease calling Him the Christ, because after calling Him Lord and God we could not possibly do more. What we are asked to do is this, to drop the name Christ, because He shall suffice us as an ex- ample, a teacher, a leader, a point of departure in religion. And, because it is awkward to receive Him at this lower value with the historical fact staring one in the face that He Him- self thought it necessary to offer Himself at an infinitely higher value, therefore it is inconceivable that the Messianic conscious- ness should be allowed its place in Jesus’ life without molesta- tion. The whole innate trend of modern religious thinking is against its recognition. It has become, though for different reasons, what it was to the Jews of our Lord’s lifetime, the great skandalon, which produces, not the rejection of his Mes- siahship only, but ultimately the rejection of Jesus Himself. By the foregoing process of reasoning the impression may have been created as if the conjunction of the divine and the Messianic elements is a purely logical one. Nothing could be farther from the truth. It appears in the record as approached from an eminently practical point of view. From the intensi- STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE 29 fied experience of the Messianic at its highest spiritualized moments the conviction of the divine forces itself upon the disciples. The pathway of theological inference here coincides exactly with the pathway of religious experience. It is through the Messianic majesty of Jesus that the glimpses are caught of that even more transcendent glory we have learned to rec- ognize and worship as his deity. This is not denying, of course, that there were occasions when the divine nature re- vealed itself directly without the intermediary vehicle of the Messianic function. But these are, as we shall see, rather the exceptions than the rule. That is precisely the reason why the divine in Jesus plants itself squarely in our pathway, when the moment for dealing with Him religiously is upon us. As a matter of logical deduction one might perhaps presume to brush it aside. When it comes in the form of a religious conde- scension by Jesus in his saving function brought to bear upon us, then to refuse utilizing it is more than unbelief, it is an impertinence offered to Jesus at the moment when He can lay highest claim to our reverence and gratitude. The contrasting viewpoints above outlined have only grad- ually become clarified through a long history of discussion. In the womb of the modern biographical and historical occupa- tion with the life of Jesus lay from the beginning, like twin- embryos, a principle of humanitarian idealism and a principle of eschatological realism. These two were incompatibles, but for forcing this fact upon the modern mind two things were necessary. On the one hand the liberalizing transformation of the character of Jesus had to have time for development up to a certain point of maturity, enabling it to provoke reaction from the opposite side. On the other hand, the figure of the eschatological-Messianic Jesus had to be sculptured out with a degree of realism that would compel recognition of its pres- ence as a potent, in fact as the dominating, factor in the Gospel- drama. So long as either of the two processes were uncom- pleted, the antagonism of the two principles remained latent. It was, however, the realistic-eschatological element that suf- fered its eclipse in the earlier period. The Messianic was sup- posed to have lain more or less on the periphery of Jesus’ 30 THE SELF-DISCLOSURE OF JESUS mind; no sufficient vitality was ascribed to it to endanger the other ideals in his consciousness which the liberals had par- ticularly at heart. This attitude proved all the more easy and natural, because the humanitarian idealism had laid hold upon the eschatological-Messianic ingredients in the Gospel record themselves and fashioned them to its own liking. Inwardly denaturalized, “the other Jesus” lacked the strength to reveal and assert his true nature. Thus the open conflict was for a long time averted, since of the two portraits the one that was favored had in a measure assimilated the other to itself. There had been produced a quasi-Messiah, whose specific conscious- ness was limited to feeling Himself perfect in the ethico- religious sphere and to the sense of vocation for imparting the same character to others. Even so robust a figure as that of the Messianic Son-of-Man retained under this treatment only a minimum of Messianic appearance. But, while this was retarding the open outbreak of the conflict, the antagonistic forces were in the meanwhile silently gathering strength. In — due time attempts began to be made to render the eschatolog- ical safely innocuous through its resolute removal from the authentic record. Colani (1864) and Weiffenbach (1873) distinguished in “the great eschatological discourse,” towards the close of the Gospels, a hortatory address uttered by Jesus in view of the foreseen judgment to be visited upon Jerusalem and what they called “the Jewish-Christian Apocalypse”; with the latter Jesus had nothing to do.” With Volkmar (1882), in every respect the most acute and farsighted of the liberal school of critics, anticipating by his reasoning, sometimes even as to startling details, the later epoch-making skepsis of Wrede, we are at last face to face with the comprehensive denial of the historicity of the eschatological-Messianic strand of thought in the mind of Jesus.*. The whole thing, not excluding the Messianic Son-of-Man figure arose according to him under 7 Colani, Jésus-Christ et les Croyances Messianiques de son temps. Weif- fenbach, Der Wiederkunftsgedanke Jesu. Here the idea of the return of Jesus is equated to the idea of the resurrection. Strangely enough, it is not perceived how ill the thought of the resurrection fits into an uneschatol- ogized frame of mind, such as the writer ascribes to Jesus. 8 Volkmar, Jesus Nazarenus und die erste Christliche Zeit, mit den beiden ersten Erzahlern. STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE 31 the influence of the later Christian dogma, from which source it then invaded the thought-world of Judaism. What remained for the historical Jesus (for in this respect Volkmar stays behind the subsequent position of Wrede, that he still believes in a historical Jesus with determinable features) is this, that Jesus desired to be a mere reformer, the spiritual deliverer of the people of God, to realise upon earth the King- dom of God which all were seeking in the beyond, and to ex- tend the reign of God over all nations. This note of universal- ism is, of course, out of place in a deéschatologized construc- tion, for, historically speaking, universalism belongs to the circle of Messianic ideas. But, apart from that, a state of mind more remote from the Messianic state of mind is scarcely conceivable. In Volkmar’s case the preferential treatment given by most critics to the Gospel of Mark, as more faithfully reflecting than the others the true character and course of de- velopment of Jesus’ life, had something to do with his repudi- ation of the elements in question, as it has in general smoothed the way for minimizing or expelling the Messianic idea, for in Mark there is comparatively little of discourse, and it is precisely in the Matthzan and Lucan discourse that the Mes- sianic obtrudes itself. And Volkmar was an enthusiastic cham- pion of the precedence and superiority of Mark. Still in the consequences drawn he continued to stand more or less iso- lated. Now, however, something more influential and de- cisive was approaching. As early as 1851 Dillmann, and in 1864 Hilgenfeld had opened the door to the house of Jewish Apocalyptic.® At that juncture, to be sure, this did not seem to have any perceptible effect. When, however, Baldensperger on the basis of a comprehensive survey of the literature con- strued the Messianic consciousness of Jesus with the Son-of- Man title as its center, the situation was suddenly changed. Liberal idealism had so far been in the offensive, keeping back, or more and more forcing back, the eschatological-Messianic factor; the roles were now reversed. It was the merit of this writer to have compelled attention to the Messiahship of Jesus. That the proper reaction leading to a correction of the liberal ®Dillmann, Henoch, Hilgenfeld, Jiidische Apokalyptik. 32 THE SELF-DISCLOSURE OF JESUS position did not follow even now was due to a twofold cause. The first reason was that Baldensperger himself had not al- lowed his “rediscovery” of the Messianic Jesus to have its natural effect upon his own delineation of the latter. He still stood himself to such an extent under the influence of the liberalizing tradition as to modify after an unhistorical fash- ion the Son-of-Man concept, imparting to it an ethico-religious coloring strongly reminiscent of the school in which he had re- ceived his training and to which he did not venture to become disloyal. The second reason was that the liberal school at precisely this point made a desperate effort to retain the un- disputed ascendancy it had so far enjoyed, and which now threatened to slip from its grasp. This was done in the elabo- ration of the linguistic argument against the historical possi- bility of the title Son-of-Man. Lietzmann in a way neutral- ized the impact of Baldensperger’s views, even more than the latter’s own irresoluteness in carrying them through had done.*” After the flood of this linguistic discussion had receded, and through the work of Dalman and others the first flush of vic- tory given way to a feeling that after all nothing certain had been established and the battle proven a draw, the field was cleared for a renewed and this time more consistent offensive from the eschatological-Messianic side. This countermove is identified with the two names of Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer.** Both broke thoroughly with the tradition that the center of Jesus’ self-consciousness had lain in the present time and in this present world. They boldly shifted it to the future and gave it the complexion of other-worldliness. This was done by both with impartial application to the idea of the Kingdom of God and to the idea of the Messiahship. Each of these lay for Jesus in the future and He had little of occupa- tion with the present in them. Weiss, however, proceeds more cautiously in his methods. Schweitzer, notwithstanding all his brilliancy and acumen, outdoes himself in a ruthless eschatolo- gizing of the life and consciousness of Jesus such as leaves no 10 Lietzmann, Der Menschensohn, 1806. 11 Johannes Weiss, Die Predigt Jesu, vom Reiche Gottes, 1892, 2d ed. 1900, Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus (Engl.), 1910. STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE 33 room for undertones and shadings in the account. It goes without saying that such a procedure severs all connection be- tween the historical Jesus and the modern religious mind, which is so intensely engrossed by the present world. Schweitzer himself is too thoroughly modern not to acknowledge this openly, but at the same time too much of a “historicist” not to insist upon it uncompromisingly. So far as religion is con- cerned it was inevitable for a mind like his, after having run the entire gamut of eschatology to its very last note, to break with it as something that had figured in the mind of Jesus as a hopeless cause from the beginning and of necessity proven an utter disillusion to Himself at the close. The following sen- tences from his book reflect with a striking, but pathetic, clear- ness the conclusion into which for him the whole problem resolves itself: “The Messianic consciousness of the uniquely great Man of Nazareth sets up a struggle between the present and the beyond, and introduces that resolute absorption of the beyond by the present, which in looking back we recognize as the history of Christianity . . . Protestantism marked a step in that acceptance of the world, which was constantly develop- ing itself from within. . . . But it will be a mightier revolu- tion still when the last remaining ruins of the supersensuous other-worldly system of thought are swept away in order to clear the site for a new spiritual, purely real and present world. All the inconsistent compromises and constructions of modern theology are merely an attempt to stave off the final expulsion of eschatology from religion. . . . At that last cry upon the cross the whole eschatological supersensuous world fell in upon itself in ruins. . . . The Son of Man was buried in the ruins . . . there remained alive only Jesus the man.” Surely never a more desperate disavowal was made by a man of a con- ception he had pursued for its mystic loveliness all his life! If mankind must arrive at this, the judgment passed not only upon modern or liberal religion but upon all religion as such is nothing short of annihilating. Of what value is the service of a God, who, Himself eternal, confines his occupation with us to the little span of this pitiable life? This stands at the opposite pole of the conviction of Jesus, who protested to 34 THE SELF-DISCLOSURE OF JESUS the Sadducees of his time, that it would be unworthy of God not to reclaim from death Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, even as to their bodies, for the simple reason of his having declared Himself their God. But Jesus was a consistent eschatologist in the very core of his religion; He had grasped the thing as a thing without which religion ceases to exist. And still fur- ther, not merely religion as a business of eternal moment be- tween God and ourselves is at stake; only one degree less mo- mentous is the question what on such premises becomes of the business between Jesus and the “Christian.” Let Schweitzer himself again give us the answer: “The study of the Life of Jesus has had a curious history. It set out in quest of the his- torical Jesus, believing that when it had found Him it could bring Him straight back into our time as a Teacher and Savior. . . . But He does not stay; He passes by our time and returns to his own. What surprised and dismayed the theology of the last forty years was that . . . it could not keep Him in our time, but had to let Him go.”” Which is to say that the prom- ised recovery of the historical Jesus has turned out to be an eternal separation! He went, but, contrary to his own prom- ise, has not returned to us. After this, does it not sound like a futile resurrection of the old discredited liberal formula when Schweitzer tells us that “a mighty spiritual force proceeds from Him,” and that therein lies “the solid foundation of Christian- ity’? How does this differ from the “liberal” phraseology on which Schweitzer from the beginning to the end of his book pours out such contempt? The issue of thoroughgoing escha- tology could not be otherwise, because from the beginning it failed to distinguish between eschatology as a theological ob- session, and eschatology as the finest flower of religion culti- vated for the glory of God. The latter, not the former, it surely was for Jesus. And it was in Him as deep as his re- ligion itself.*? 12 Cp., The Quest of the Historical Jesus, pp. 284, 307. Cuapter II THE DENIAL OF THE MESSIANIC CONSCIOUSNESS From the foregoing it will have become clear to us why the Messianic consciousness creates serious practical difficulties for what is usually called ‘modern liberal Christianity.” It gath- ers up in itself and brings to a head certain uncongenial, un- assimilable elements which trouble this type of religion in its employment of the figure of Jesus. And these elements bulk so large and are so omnipresent as to obstruct the pathway of approach at almost every point. The realisation of them tends to make the liberal movement of religion preferably a move- ment taking its departure from Christ and addressing itself to the world, rather than a movement seeking the Person of Christ in order to occupy itself with Him. A religion intended to be first of all centripetal has become alarmingly centrifugal. The discomfort artsing from this situation of having to attach one’s self to something which a change of position of the lense of religion has removed out of focus naturally drives to unusual critical measures of readjustment. Hence the con- certed action towards eliminating the Messianic consciousness. As might be expected in a subject so busily agitated there are many shadings of the suspicion entertained and of the denial registered. The following may be enumerated as entitled to separate, somewhat detailed, discussion. First, there is the position of outright denial of the historicity of the Messianic consciousness in Jesus. It not merely doubts its presence in his mind, but claims to be able to prove its absence therefrom. » Secondly, we have the agnostic position refusing self-commit- tal, and that not as a preliminary standpoint taken from mod- esty or in the interest of safety, but from the conviction of ab- solute unknowability. Its watchword might be said to be, “Tgnoramus et ignorabimus.” ‘The records are in such a state as to be useless for ascertaining the truth. Thirdly, a theory 35 36 THE SELF-DISCLOSURE OF JESUS _ of consciousness of prospective Messiahship has been formed: Jesus was conscious, perhaps intensely conscious, of his Mes- sianic vocation, but did not lay claim to the exercise of the function or to the enjoyment of its privileges during his life- time. These things were indeed in store for Him, but He had to await the pleasure of the Father for the moment of their bestowal. In the fourth place, a somewhat different compro- mise is offered in the hypothesis of a gradually developing con- sciousness of Messiahship in the mind of Jesus. He began his activity in an un-Messianic, simply-prophetic frame of mind. This He outgrew and received in the place of it the convic- tion of divine appointment to the Messianic office. This fourth view, it will be perceived, easily permits of combination with the third, because the self-interpretation Jesus grew into may well have been, though it need not have been, that of prospective Messiahship. It is conceivable that at first He only felt des- tined for the task, but equally conceivable that all at once He awoke to the sense of being in the midst of the discharge of it. Finally, as a fifth form, not to be sure of eliminating the Messianic consciousness from the mind of Jesus, but still as a means of minimizing its importance for Himself and us, the view is maintained that the Messiahship was for the religious life and work of Jesus no more than a formal thing, in no wise touching the essence of his permanent significance as the center of Christianity. Let us now proceed to examine these several views in order, both as to the arguments adduced in favor of them, and as to the criticism to be passed upon them. The theory of outright denial * appeals first of all to a cer- tain dualism alleged to exist in the Gospel tradition. There appear, we are told, in the tradition, side by side, two different strands, the one Messianic, the other un-Messianic, and that in the sense of the latter excluding every idea or consciousness of Messiahship. These two strands are, as we find them, closely interwoven, but critical skill and patience can disentangle them, without so injuring the texture of the un-Messianic strand as 1 As three representatives of this view may be named Volkmar, Martineau and Nathaniel Schmidt. DENIAL OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS 37 to rob it of its historical value. When criticism is brought to bear upon these two, the difference in point of historicity between them becomes immediately apparent. The Messianic material lies open to suspicion in many important respects. On the other hand the un-Messianic elements of the narrative evince themselves proof against all critical attacks. These must therefore be the original bedrock of the tradition, whilst the Messianic representation looks like a subsequently formed stratum. A second cause that has contributed to cast suspicion on the historicity of the Messianic element in the Gospels is con- nected with the title ““Son-of-Man.” This is the favorite self- designation of Jesus; indeed it is never put by the writers upon the lips of others concerning Jesus. Both by its frequency and manner of use this title seemed to belong to the very back- bone of the Messianic tradition. To this must still further be added that it is coupled in the Gospels with the highest and most unmistakably Messianic predicates. Hence to this name the revival of the appreciation of Jesus’ Messianic character, which took place during the latter part of the preceding cen- tury, largely attached itself. At first the intense occupation with the Apocalyptic literature by such a man as Balden- sperger looked towards the full recognition and evaluation of the Messianic character in the life of Jesus. It is one of the paradoxes in the history of modern New Testament science that the interest in the Messianic problem thus excited, and particularly the further study of the phrase ‘“Son-of-Man,” should have led to the opposite result of what the first stage of the movement seemed to. promise. ‘The investigation was soon shifted to the field of linguistics. The question was raised what could have corresponded in the vernacular of Jesus to the Greek phrase 0 vidg rod avSpanov, as found in the Gospels. Jesus spoke a dialect of the Aramaic language. And in the Aramaic idiom the phrase “‘son-of-man” was found to be a common, trite designation of the individual of the human species. It just means “a man,’ “somebody,” and there is nothing mysterious about it. Now, in view of this, the question arose, how a phrase of such general meaning as “man” 38 THE SELF-DISCLOSURE OF JESUS could have been employed by Jesus as a characteristic self- designation. The conclusion reached was that He could not, and therefore did not, so employ it. ‘The titulation is un- historical, because linguistically impossible, on the lips of the Aramaic-speaking Jesus. How the titular use of it, in the face of this, nevertheless entered into the tradition and the Gospels remained a question by itself to which varying an- swers were given that do not at this point concern us. Our sole object here is to point out that the suspicion cast on the authenticity of this title struck to the minds of many a serious blow at the actual presence and operation of the Messianic factor in the life of Jesus. For it should not be forgotten that the frequency of this phrase in the Gospel-text or the tra- dition back of it, constituted the most weighty piece of evi- dence in support of the Messianic interpretation of Jesus by Himself. So much falling away, the entire structure seemed in danger of collapse. 7 A third reason for the denial is found in the radical trans- formation the Messianic concept undergoes in the Gospels. The Messianic expectation and the national hope of Israel had previously been closely united. The Messiah was a national patriotic figure; to sever Him from Israel deprives Him of all significance. It is deemed historically inconceivable that Jesus should have entertained the idea of his Messiahship, and yet permitted the break between Himself and Israel to occur and develop after the manner described in the Gospels. Even if at the beginning of his career He had believed in his Mes- siahship, the progress of events, carrying Him and Israel fur- ther and further apart, must soon have disillusioned Him, and with his loss of every positive relation to his people the last remnant of faith in his Messianic vocation must have van- ished. This, however, is only an external incongruity be- tween the Messianic idea and the situation in which Jesus is placed by the Evangelists. A more fundamental impossibility is supposed to lie in this, that the Jesus of the Gospels makes out of the Messiahship something materially different from what it always had been. It appears transposed from the key of victory and power into the key of suffering and service. DENIAL OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS 39 Its symbol becomes the cross. It is especially after the episode of Czesarea-Philippi that this new type of Messiahship emerges most distinctly. In the section of Mk. VIII, 27—X, 45, which Wellhausen with one of his striking phrases has called “the nest of the gospel,” it is claimed that this Christianizing transmutation of the Messiahship becomes most obtrusive. Such a thing can not be historical. The later paradoxical inter- pretation of the cross, with the peculiar dogmatic ideas crys- tallizing around it, has here been carried back into the life- time of Jesus. In the actual history such a construction would have moved like a phantom, out of all touch with surrounding scenes and events. The persons to whom it is ostensibly pre- sented would have been utterly incapable of apprehending it. The phenomena, however, are not confined to this one section of the Gospel-narrative. The Messiahship of Jesus almost everywhere bears the marks of passivity. And it is believed that the whole difficulty can be most easily removed by assum- ing that such a paradox never issued from the womb of actual history, but was the product of the dogmatizing occupation of the early Church with the tragic ending of the life of Jesus, which, in order to provide it with a halfway reasonable ex- planation, was forced into the ill-fitting garment of the Mes- sianic concept. The deepest reason, however, for the suspicion under which the Messianic consciousness has fallen lies in its alleged incon- cinnity with the ethico-religious character of Jesus. The diffi- culty is a psychological one. It is found hard to believe that in one and the same mind two such divergent ideals can have lodged together. Holtzmann, while not rashly yielding to the impulse of removing one of the two, has given striking ex- pression to the sense of their disharmoniousness in the follow- ing words: “One is made to feel, as though upon the fair fields of a world of wholesome moral renewal, there suddenly burst forth out of regions far removed from all actuality a scorching withering wind of Oriental frenzy, and it is this feeling that has lent countenance to various efforts, deserving serious con- sideration, to cut out the Messianic idea, as a diseased foreign body, from the otherwise healthful organism of the life of 40 THE SELF-DISCLOSURE OF JESUS Jesus and from the make-up of his preaching.” * The Jesus in whom liberal Protestantism finds its supreme ideal is the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount, the sublime self-forgetful altruist, the man of delicate tender sensibilities, who puts all the intensity of his interest in the problems of the subjective spiritual life of man, and treats all questions lying outside of this one thing needful with neglect or disdain. The more ethereal and idealistic the complexion of Jesus’ mind, the less would it have been likely to harbor dreams and hopes of such extreme and bizarre character as to expose it to the charge of bigotry. There is altogether too much self-consciousness, too much sense of self-importance inherent in the Messianic aspiration, to agree with the atmosphere of the Sermon on the Mount. Professor Schmidt has well formulated this feeling. In commenting on Matt. XI, 27, he observes: “Such an utter- ance is out of harmony with the admittedly genuine sayings of Jesus, and casts an undeserved reflection upon his charac- ter... How can the gentle teacher . . . be supposed to have imagined himself possessed of all knowledge, and re- garded all other men as ignorant of God?”’* That is to say, it is in the last analysis the humility of Jesus which rules out the Messianic consciousness. Moreover a model of religious sobriety and moral sanity, as this school loves to depict the Saint of Nazareth, must live and move and have his being in the present, not brood on the future. If obsessed by the thought that the fashion of this world quickly passes away, his ethical counsels are apt to become interimistic and per- functory. But of such half-heartedness no trace is found in Jesus’ teaching. He speaks about divorce and covetousness as though the present world-order, with its fight against sin and evil, were to continue indefinitely. Therefore the Mes- sianic obsession, which would inevitably have interfered with this ethical single-mindedness, can not have existed. The diffi- culty of believing otherwise is made all the greater by the fact that what the Gospels ascribe to Jesus is not a mild, subdued eschatological interest, but a most intense passionate absorp- 2 Holtzmann, Neut. Theol. I, p 3 Nathaniel Schmidt, The Prophet . ‘Nazareth, p. 152. DENIAL OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS 41 tion in the thought of the end. If the two principles of ethical idealism and of eschatological preoccupation can not dwell to- gether in peace then the surmise is warranted that the Mes- sianic consciousness was never actually there, but represents an element of later introduction on the part of the early Church, which carried back the storm and stress of its own conflicting emotions into the tranquil mind of Jesus. To the above statement of the grounds for denial of the Messianic consciousness we immediately subjoin our critique of their validity. The weakness of the argument drawn from the dualism in the tradition about Jesus lies in the subjectiv- ity of the tests applied. If it were possible to show that the Gospels, judged by objective criteria, easily divide themselves into an earlier and a later stratum, and then could be further shown that the earlier stratum, though determined without re- gard to the problem of Messianism, turned out to be free of the Messianic idea, whereas the later stratum happened to contain all the Messianic material, then, to be sure, a plausible case for the later origin of the Messianic delineation of Jesus would seem to have been made out. But along such objective lines no argument against the Messianic consciousness has been, nor can be, constructed. The average conclusions of Synopti- cal criticism do not in the least invite to it. As a matter of fact, the advocates of the view under discussion do not appeal to these. They do not seek support from the two-document hy- pothesis. The latter would at least have furnished them with an objective basis for ascertaining the earliest accessible tradi- tion from Mark and the Logia. But Mark, as they well per- ceive, does not, when compared with Matthew and Luke, show any appreciable approach towards the conception of an un- Messianic Jesus. Nor does the so-called Logia-source, recon- structed from Matthew and Luke, point in that direction. And the same still holds true, when out of Mark a more primitive document, the so-called ‘“Ur-Marcus,” is distilled. This ‘“Ur- Marcus” would not be one whit less Messianic than the fin- ished Mark. But, say some critics, the Messianizing reéditing must have taken place at an earlier stage of the process of tradition, before the literary stage was reached. This how- 42 THE SELF-DISCLOSURE OF JESUS ever amounts to supporting by appeal to the unknowable what the knowledge of history is unable to verify. As a matter of fact the procedure of the critics in this matter is not an ob- jectively verifiable procedure at all. It depends on eliminating the Messianic indications in each case separately. ‘The critics operate from case to case, from passage to passage. ‘They seize upon one or the other detached phenomenon, rendering some incident or some saying suspected to their mind. ‘The phenomena thus seized upon vary in the individual cases. Such a procedure creates a strong presumption that the actual mo- tive determining the decisions springs from a preconceived antipathy to the Messianic evidence. In the last analysis not the Messianic element is ruled out because the passages criti- cized offer just ground for suspicion, but the passages are suspected, because the Messianic idea appears in them. The necessity of resorting to such various disconnected trains of reasoning tends to destroy confidence in the conclusion. Even © granting (what it is by no means necessary to grant) that in some instances considered by themselves a fairly plausible case has been made out, yet the number of instances it is necessary to get rid of, either by excision or by eliminative interpreta- tion, is so great as to weaken the argument as a whole most seriously. Besides, even with all this mass of material neu- tralized in one way or another, one can not help feeling that the Messianic spirit is still there in the Gospels, intangible perhaps, but none the less real. It is a spirit that will not be exorcized by tackling individual cases. His name is “Legio,”’ and he easily slips from one body into an other. The only method for effectually getting rid of him is by destroying the organism ‘2 which he dwells and which he pervades as the soul does the body. The second ground for denial is baleen from the linguistic impossibility that Jesus should in the Aramaic dialect which He spoke have called Himself “the Son-of-Man” in designa- tion of Messiahship, because the term “bar enash” in that and in the cognate dialects means nothing else but ‘‘a man,” and this does not lend itself for use as a title. We do not intend here to lose ourselves in a labyrinthine discussion as to what DENIAL OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS 43 the title could or could not have meant in the mouth of Jesus. To this question we shall have to revert afterwards. How be- wildering and literally covered by confusing trails this part of the field is may be seen from the learned article by Nathaniel Schmidt in Vol. IV of the Encyclopedia Biblica. All we can attempt at this point is to make some observations that would seem to weaken the force of the linguistic argument. At the outset it should be acknowledged that the passage Dan. VII, 13, to which undoubtedly the phrase in the Gospels goes back, at least in part, does not contain it as a title. It is here simply a description of the visionary figure seen coming with the clouds of heaven. This figure was like “a son of man,’’ that is, “like a man.” To grant, however, that it is descriptive is not quite equivalent to granting that it is purely sym- bolical of the Kingdom of God, just as the beasts of vss. 2-8 are claimed to be symbolic of the world-powers. Both contentions are inexact: neither the beasts nor the man-like figure symbolize the powers for which they stand directly. They do so only through symbolizing first of all the rulers of these several kingdoms. Hence it is said in the subsequent in- terpretation: “These great beasts, which are four, are four kings,’ vs. 17. The phrase “like a man” in like manner proxi- mately describes the King, although this does not, of course, exclude the possibility of the thus described King symbolizing the nature of the Kingdom He is to rule over. Wemay assume, then, that the Messiah is here actually introduced, that the phrase “like unto a man” is not a title, but a description of his appearance, and that through this description of his appearance He becomes collectively symbolical of the Kingdom of God. The collective symbolism is recognized; only it is not conceded to be an argument against the presence in the passage of a con- crete figure.* Nor can it be reasonably called in doubt that 4A special reason facilitating the transition from the purely symbolic into the concretely descriptive of a single person lies in this, that the kings of the world-kingdoms are a succession of rulers and as such incapable of being represented otherwise than symbolically, whereas the Ruler over the Kingdom of God is One, without successors, so that to depict Him sym- bolically must mean at the same time to describe Him personally. The Messiah is always One and undivided. The best statement of the argument in favor of the personal-concrete 44 THE SELF-DISCLOSURE OF JESUS this figure is the Messiah. The objection raised against this from vs. 18, where “‘the saints of the Most High” are said to receive the kingdom, is by no means conclusive. If it proved anything at all, it would prove that the author was not only un-Messianic, but that he was pointedly anti-Messianic in his eschatology. To allow kings for the world-powers and to leave the final rule of God kingless could hardly be interpreted on any other principle. And such an anti-Messianic program would have no analogy in the Old Testament. On the other hand, there are not a few prophecies which join together both Messianic and un-Messianic representations. In Isaiah escha- tological pictures of both types occur. The assumption by Grill, Schmidt, and others, that not the Messiah, but an Angel- Prince, the guardian of Israel, is meant, would be just as much subject to the objection mentioned, for he likewise receives no notice whatever in vs. 18. The important point for our purpose is that a concrete fig- ure is referred to. For, when the question is raised, how the transition came to be made from a descriptive phrase to a for- mal title, it makes some difference whether the descriptive phrase served the purpose of pure, collective symbolism or had back of it a concrete person. Obviously a descriptive phrase relating to a person would more easily change into a title than the mere symbol of a collective body. A point of departure for the change was furnished by the mysterious setting of the scene in Daniel itself. The feature of the figure resembling a man, if standing alone, might not have drawn attention to it- self. But when this figure like unto a man is seen coming with the clouds, i.e., in a theophany from heaven, the fact is striking enough to fasten the scene upon the memory, The man with such surroundings would easily become “the Man,” the peculiar man known from Daniel. At first the quotation- character would be consciously felt, but in course of time this might be lost sight of, and the abbreviated form, cut loose from character of the figure “like unto a son of man” in Daniel is found with Grill, Untersuchungen iiber die Entstehung des vierten Evangeliums, pp. 55 ff. Grill, himself, comes to the conclusion that the figure meant is that of the angel, Michael, Israel’s celestial patron; so likewise Schmidt, The Prophet of Nazareth, p. 50. DENIAL OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS 45 reminiscence of the circumstances of his first appearance, might become current. So, we say, it might have happened, but there is no reason to believe that the syncopating process reached its extreme point much before the time of Jesus. “The Man’ in the Gospels repeatedly appears in company with the clouds, which shows that the association with the Daniel-scene has not been obliterated. Then, with the Hellenizing of the phrase, introducing the double article, and thus adding mysteriousness and majesty by means of outward form, the process was com- pleted. But this last step was not necessary to produce the titular significance. In all probability the phrase meets us as a title earlier than the Gospel-history, viz., in the Parable- Discourses of the Book of Enoch, XXXVI-LXXI. Good critical authorities date these discourses from the last century before the Christian era. True, the hypothesis of Christian interpolations, striking at the very passages where the title “Son-of-Man” occurs, would rob the argument drawn from this quarter of all force. But, as Schtrer, a witness of weight on such subjects, has observed: ‘Nothing of a specifically Christian character is to be met with in this section.’’ In this document, Enoch is described as asking the interpreting Angel concerning “that son of man.” He receives the answer: This is “‘the son of man who has righteousness.’”’ The terms fur- ther applied to him leave no doubt about his being the Messiah. He is seated on the throne of the Lord of Spirits. He was hidden before, and the Most High preserved Him in the pres- ence of his might. The sum of the judgment is committed to Him, Chaps. XLVI; LXII; LXIX. Notwithstanding the difference that here “the Son-of-Man” functions as the judge, a feature lacking in Daniel, there can be no doubt as to the dependence of these various statements on the Daniel-passage, and we are consequently justified in the conclusion that to the author of these pieces in Enoch the figure in Daniel meant no one else but the Messiah.® 5 Cp., Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, p. 266: “Confronted with the Similitudes of Enoch, theologians fell back upon the expedient of assuming them to be spurious, or at least worked over in a Christian sense, just as the older History of Dogma got rid of the Ignatian letters, of which it could make nothing, by denying their genuineness.” 46 THE SELF-DISCLOSURE OF JESUS In these sections of Enoch the phrase occurs in a twofold form, with the article, “the Son-of-Man,” and with a demon- strative pronoun, “that Son-of-Man.” In XLVI, 1, we meet first the description ‘‘as the likeness of a man,’ and next the enquiry about “that son of man,”’. vs. 2. In vs. 3 the relative clause “who has righteousness’? works to the same effect of seeming to make “son of man’ a generic noun for “man,” subsequently determined so as to mean one particular man, and the titular meaning of the phrase thus disappears. In XLVIII, 2; LXIT, 5,9, 14; "LX crs LX eG es a the same pronoun “that’’ occurs. This has given rise to the view that perhaps the alleged development from descriptive phrase to title in Enoch rests on a misunderstanding. It has been suggested that in all the passages after XLVI, 1 there is nothing more than a backward reference to the first introduc- tion of the figure as “in the likeness of a man.” The transla- tion then ought to read “that man,” viz., that man previously shown. If this were correct, Enoch would not go beyond Dan- iel. In neither book would the phrase be a title of the Messiah, but simply a description of the figure seen, which may or may be not the Messiah in Daniel, and undoubtedly is the Messiah in Enoch. Of course, the joining of the demonstrative pro- noun to “son of man’ disqualifies it for forming a title. It is possible to say “that man,” but not possible to speak of “that Messiah.” So simple, however, the matter is by no means. For, side by side with “that son of man’ there are two in- stances of “‘the Son-of-Man.” Thus, even if it were to be granted that all the other references containing the pronoun were simply retrospective, and carried no further than a de- scriptive “like a man,” the problem of the exchange of this by “the son-of-man” in these two instances, LXII, 7 and LXIX, 27, would still remain unsolved. And it would not be an im- plausible theory that here in Enoch we have before our eyes the very transmutation that made out of the description a title. Asa matter of fact the case for recognizing a title throughout, always with the exception of XLVI, 1, 2, stands better than might be inferred from the foregoing. The pieces dealt with exist in the A